America’s civil war provides lessons for Syria

The civil war in Syria weighs on the American conscience. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham press for military intervention in the hope that one good shove will topple President Bashar Al-Assad. The ghost of Abraham Lincoln might disagree.

The Egyptian and Libyan governments fell quickly during the Arab Spring. In Libya, NATO jets provided air cover for rebels. Proponents of intervention argue that similar results might be achieved in Syria, too, and we have a duty to try.

But the chemistry of civil war in one country typically cannot be replicated in another. Foreign intervention is an unstable compound when added to the volatile mix. Meddling in domestic disputes has been taboo since the Peace of Westphalia ended the wars of the Reformation, for good reason. Outsiders rarely understand the complexities as participants do, and can make matters worse.

Two 19th-century cases illustrate the point. In 1860 and 1861, Europeans looked aghast upon two miserable brawls, unsure if they had a moral obligation to get involved. In the first instance, they sent troops to tamp down the killing that produced 10,000 deaths. When foreign soldiers eventually withdrew, internal factions were more embittered than ever.

In the second, bloodier case, ambivalent Europeans debated intervention, yet abstained. The fractured nation achieved lasting peace when the government suppressed the rebellion, following 700,000 battlefield deaths.

How Europe responded to the humanitarian crises presented by the Syrian Civil War of 1860 and the American Civil War of 1861 offers important lessons. As compelling as arguments may be for taking sides, history shows that – like with forest fires – onlookers sometimes help best by allowing local blazes to burn themselves out.

Maronite Christians initiated the Syrian violence of 1860, which had religious, political and economic roots. Druzes hit back hard. France announced a duty to protect civilians, and led an intervention by five foreign powers. Britain pressed for withdrawal within six months. As foreign minister John Russell cautioned, “If Syria is not tranquilized in that time, it will be clear that no period, however long, will suffice.”

European intervention prompted the Ottoman Empire to police its Syrian province more effectively. But no solution was found to the larger problem of how to share power and land in the Levant.

Those rivalries are still visible. Syria today is comprised of Sunni Arabs, Alawi Arabs, Sunni Kurds, Maronite Christians, Druzes, and Salafi Islamists. The Free Syrian Army is an amorphous coalition with no central command or political platform. Only a common enemy unites it.

Bashar Al-Assad announced limited democratic reforms early on, but the opposition claimed he offered too little, too late. Meanwhile, Assad continues to brutally suppress an uprising that has claimed 70,000 lives. The violence is clearly terrible, but how it might end and what kind of regime would replace Assad is not clear at all.

The American Civil War caused more deaths than any other internecine conflict in the 19th century, outside China’s Taiping Rebellion. Critics in Europe condemned Abraham Lincoln’s “invasion” of the South, and many clamored for intervention.


