A Strike Will Not Help the People of Syria
BY SONYA SCHOENBERGER
Over the past week, media outlets have been glutted with experts delivering cogent, informed, and completely divergent policy advice about the benefits and risks of a US strike on Syria. There seems to be a significant risk that the US is on the verge of entering into yet another long, messy war in the Middle East. Stakes are high and strategic considerations complex. And yet, while the current debate is fascinating from an intellectual perspective, I worry that it glosses over the human tragedy that has occurred over the past few years, which will persist regardless of the decision Congress makes a week from today.
A US strike will not end violence in Syria. If anything, it could escalate it, or give rise to a much larger regional conflagration. No matter what the US and international community do, many more people—civilians, militants, and soldiers—will die. Many people in Syria feel abandoned by the United States; they await US military action that will save them from a brutal and murderous regime. If and when the United States intervenes, it will not be to save the civilians praying for an American deus ex machina. It will be to protect the United States’ international reputation, to demonstrate that, on occasion, Obama can transform rhetoric into action, and to signal to Damascus, Pyongyang, and Tehran that crossing the United States’ and international community’s arbitrary ‘red lines’ will, after prolonged deliberation, warrant some sort of military response.
Though Assad’s regime is brutal, the last thing the United States wants is a political vacuum in its place that could serve as a breeding ground for anti-American terrorist groups. A Syria without Assad would almost certainly be more threatening to US interests than o ne engulfed in inward turmoil. By ignoring the first 100,000 deaths, the United States has made clear that it is not motivated by humanitarian concern. A limited military strike might save American face, but it will not save the Syrian people.
The alternative–a more involved military operation–is something that Obama, with good reason, seems keen to avoid. A land invasion is inadvisable and would involve a great deal of Syrian bloodshed no matter its noble aims and ends. For the time being, the debate in Washington seems restricted to whether or not to launch a limited military strike–but to set such decisions against a humanitarian backdrop, as the President Obama and Secretary Kerry have done, is misleading and insincere. A military strike is in the best interest of the United States, and if our government does decide to act, the interests of the Syrian people will be of only distant, secondary consideration.