Over the course of April 5th through the 7th, the Trump
administration achieved one of the strangest turnabouts in modern political
history, doing a complete reversal with its policy towards Syria. Not too long
ago, Press Secretary Sean Spicer promised that the United States would accept
the “political
reality” in Syria, meaning that we would not seek to remove Bashar al-Assad
from power. And on April 7, the U.S. Navy fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at
targets controlled by the Syrian government, as Secretary of State Rex
Tillersonpromised
to forge an international coalition to
remove Syrian president Assad from power. If the Trump administration does not
wish to sacrifice its principles any further, it should halt any new
involvement in Syria. There are several reasons why Trump’s intervention in the
region would be a huge mistake.
What
supposedly prompted this rapid change in position by the Trump administration
was the horrendous murder of civilians by chemical weapons, allegedly
perpetrated by the Assad regime. While these actions must of course be
condemned, we must not rush to judgment and allow rampant emotionalism to cloud
our rational judgment. Some key questions must be asked before we proceed with
another policy of failed regime change in the Middle East.
The
first question that must be addressed is what will happen to these chemical
weapons once we remove Assad from power? Judging from our pastinterventions
in Libya, it does not seem too out of the question that radical Islamic
jihadists could get their hands on these weapons; a prospect far worse than
their being in the hands of the Assad regime. There is already evidence that ISIS has used chemical weapons in
Syria and Iraq, and would not hesitate to use them again. Once the Assad regime
is removed from power, can we be sure that these chemical weapons would not
fall into the wrong hands? Chemical weaponscannot
be disposed of by bombing
them out of existence; they need to be dismantled under supervision. Are we
going to trust the Syrian rebels, alsoaccused
by the UN of using chemical
weapons, of disposing of these weapons? There would need to be some monitors in
place to make sure these weapons are properly decommissioned or destroyed.
There was already a deal
in place, orchestrated under former Secretary of State John Kerry, for
Syria to have disposed of these odious weapons. The possibility of these horrific
weapons falling into unknown hands is perhaps the gravest threat of Trump’s
intervention in Syria. It seems unlikely that a UN delegation would able to
supervise the destruction of the chemical weapons in the middle of a war
zone.
A
second question that most be considered is who will control Syria once the
Assad government falls? From our experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya,
you would think we would have learned by now that removing these regimes
creates power vacuums that invite civil war and terrorism. Already within the
opposition there are splinter groups vying for control of the rebellion, with some
factions having links to terrorist groups such as al-Qaida. Does the
administration think that the removal of Assad is worth the risk of Syria
falling into the hands of terrorists? This president campaigned on obliterating
ISIS, yet his very actions in Syria stand to potentially strengthen Islamic
terrorist groups in the region. We have seen how radical Islamic groups have
filled the voids left behind by American military intervention in these
nations. We cannot be certain which group, or if any group, will emerge from
the ashes of the civil war to lead a united Syria, if a united Syria is even
possible.
Thirdly,
we must look at how our intervention will affect our relationship with other
international actors, such as Russia. We have a real chance for a rapprochement
with the Russian Federation, and the civil war in Syria should not stand
between this easing of tensions. Assad is a Russian ally and Russia would not
tolerate the fall of the Assad government. Within twenty-four hours of the
start of U.S. operations in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin had already
described the American military action as a “significant
blow” to U.S.-Russia relations and Russian
warships then moved into the vicinity of
the U.S. Naval vessels that launched the attack on the Syrian government. Is
the destruction of the Assad government worth the price of escalating
hostilities between the United States and Russia? It seems totally
incomprehensible to me why we should provoke the Russian Federation when we
have a real chance of repairing relations with that nation. I hope that in
these wider diplomatic crises that cooler heads will prevail, but I do not
understand why we need provoke the Russians in the first place.
And
finally, with the escalation of right-wing populism across Europe and an
increasing hostility to Muslim immigration at home, does the administration
want to take actions that will only exacerbate the refugee crisis? Removing
Assad will only make the civil war much worse and will only lead to more civilians
seeking to leave Syria. Assimilating
Syrians into European life is already difficult enough, and removing Assad
will only open the floodgates for more refugees to enter Europe and other
Western nations. Western nations play the humanitarian intervention card
selectively. While Assad gasses his people, the United States has directly
aided the Saudi government in its brutal war in Yemen, yet that conflict hardly
receives the same amount of media attention as the civil war in Syria. Whenever
the premier of China, itself a brutal
totalitarian regime, comes for a state visit we do
not chastise him with the
same fervor as we do Assad.
This
article is not to be read as an apology for the Assad government’s actions; any
civilized person must now recognize that decisions made by his government
before and during the Syrian civil war are barbaric. He will go down as one of
the 21th century’s most brutal dictators. Yet this does not mean that the
United States has to imprudently rush into the conflict; reflexively acting
without thinking about the consequences of its actions.
This
president ran
on promises of limiting United States military intervention in foreign nations, and this action is
a serious breach of trust with those who cast their ballots for President
Trump. Many supporters
of the President are, rightfully, shocked at
how quick the president was to renege on his promises. Past experience has
shown that these interventions are rarely limited in scope andthis
time seems to be no different. The people of this country are tired of
seeing our blood and tax dollars lost on foreign wars with less-than-fruitful
outcomes. I would strongly urge the President to reconsider his approach and to
seek new counsel.
Tim Colvin is a political science/ classical civilization double major
with a minor in philosophy. He is from Kings Park on Long Island.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/04/trumps_incomprehensible_strategy_in_syria.html