Syria: Exiling Hope

So now, it appears, Russia is shipping more than anti-aircraft missiles to their Syrian allies.  Some reports have the Putin government sending in anti-ship missiles, as well, a move which could neutralize the use of American carrier-based aircraft to impose a no-fly zone - or knock out Syria's air assets in advance of a boots-on-the-ground intervention.

The prospect that America could be militarily checkmated by a has-been superpower is hardly surprising.  The Russians have always been chess-masters, and President Obama's strategic instincts seem to stop at the water's edge.

If a Russian gambit proves the beginning of the end for Mr. Obama's dithering approach to the latest Middle Eastern crisis, it might actually be for the best. The President has never understood the opportunities presented by the Arab Spring.  Perhaps it's time he just stopped trying.  Dealing with obstructionist Congressional Republicans is challenge enough for a President rapidly molting into a fairly lame duck.

But we shouldn't allow the collapse of Mr. Obama's wishful Syrian moment to pass without noting the core weakness of his strategic analysis - one which he shares with his predecessor and most of official Washington.

Among America's élites - political, intelligence, military, academic, media, etc. - it is a point of pride to know the names and résumes of the key players in some troubled part of the world.  These data are common currency among the people who are supposed to count inside the Beltway, on campus, and in think tanks scattered across the land.

In other words, the people who regard themselves as key players here in the United States are distinguished, in large part, by their ability to throw around the names of supposed key players in other parts of the world.

It's their version of sports-talk radio, Hollywood celebrity gossip, or the non-stop stock tips of CNBC.

It should be kept in mind, however, that America's élites govern through the acquiescence of millions of citizens who prefer to leave politics alone - but who have, periodically throughout our history, roused themselves to reform our institutions when the arrogant classes get them sufficiently screwed up.

The power to reform our political, social and economic institutions - while potential - always resides with the citizenry - and particularly with the anonymous, well-educated productive middle class.  This truth lies at the heart of all modern, developed societies.

Increasingly, across the planet, it is becoming clear that the people who really count - in almost every society - are the educated, industrious professionals, small businessmen, and entrepreneurs.

This trend has been developing since the Europe's late Middle Ages.  The very development of the modern nation-state has depended less upon kings, lords and generals than upon a slow, steady progress toward competent internal administration, the rule of law, economic development, the decline of hereditary and corporate privilege,  and the moderation of religious fanaticism.

And this progress, in turn, has rested with the  anonymous men and women who have worked, year by year, for the slow accumulation of those institutions which characterize modernity.

In the past century, this trend has become globalized.  Yet, for all that, our own arrogant classes - fascinated with their opposite numbers in other societies - invariably fail to grasp the transformational nature of this shift.

They prefer to trade on the celebrity gossip of key players.

Like calls to like.

But a picture of the world in which key players are truly "key" is no longer accurate.

Allow me to elaborate.

For some centuries now - at least since the invention of the printing press - the world has been gradually becoming more democratic.  Now, by "democratic", I don't mean to suggest something in the ideal, Athenian sense - but democratic in the sense that ultimate power no longer resides with the relative handful of people we identify as key players.

It resides, rather, with a larger number of middle-class people about whom we know far too little.

And this is not news.  Imagine that, around 1765 - as the unpleasantness over new taxes was breaking out in the colonies of British North America - someone at Whitehall had though to conduct an inquiry into the names and politics of the key players in the thirteen colonies.  Would that inquiry have discovered the leaders of the revolutionary effort which would erupt ten years later?

Impossible.  Among the names of loyal key players  - colonial governors, judges, functionaries, and aristocratic landowners - Ben Franklin's name would certainly have come up.  George Washington, the wealthy commander of Virginia's colonial militia, might have rated a mention. 

But most of the future leaders of our Revolution were barely out of school.  In 1763, Thomas Jefferson - soon to write what has been called the greatest mission statement in world history - was but twenty-two years old. 

Since 1776, despite most of human history's greatest butcheries, human progress has generally come through the discoveries of scientists and engineers - and through the mostly non-violent demands of an aroused, educated middle-class.  This has been especially true when that middle-class took the trouble to rally the support of the working class.

Gandhi proved the potential of non-violent action - as did Dr. King.  Peaceful demand for reform, led by the educated, industrious middle-classes, has transformed nation after nation.

Just two decades ago, the Soviet Union and its satellites imploded suddenly, and mostly without violence.  In east Asia, the change has been more gradual - but steady.

Similar changes have since taken place in many parts of the developing world.

Now comes the Arab spring.

A regime as repressive as North Korea's may deprive its people of modern technology, delaying the process of change.  But elsewhere, change has become the defining quality of our times.

And it is only reasonable to suppose that - In Syria, Iraq, even Iran - progress, when it comes, will come through educated, globally-minded professionals and business leaders who seek to transcend tribalism and religious fanaticism in favor of a modern, pluralistic society.

We forget this at our peril. 

President Bush ignored it in Iraq.  America's occupation of Iraq resulted in a civil war which empowered the worst elements of sectarian bigotry and overall medievalism - and caused the mass emigration of exactly the people Iraq needed in order to transform itself into a modern society.

By trying to avoid the risks of intervening in Syria, President Obama is making the same mistake his predecessor made.  He is ignoring the needs of the middle class.

President Obama, of all people, should recognize the power of these anonymous, productive classes.  In 2008, the key players of Democratic politics expected Senator Clinton to be their nominee.  If Senator Obama had built his strategy on key players, he would still be a Senator.

But since his election, the President has forgotten where his power lies.  He can blame most of his domestic frustrations on his failure to trust, educate, and mobilize middle-class Americans who are thoroughly sick of the key players of both political parties.

The same can be said of his policy in the Middle East.

In the long term, the process of rebuilding Syria as a modern, pluralistic - perhaps, someday, democratic - nation depends upon Syria's aspiring, upwardly-mobile middle and working classes.

Which is to say, it depends less upon who wins the present civil war than it does upon ending the destructive chaos which is driving those classes into exile.

The people who really count in Syria are not the key players known to our military, intelligence, diplomatic, academic and media elites.  They are the nameless bankers, doctors, lawyers, professors, and entrepreneurs who - given stability and half a chance - would slowly move their society toward modernity.

We should have had their backs two years ago.

Let's hope it's not too late.