Why the U.S. Shouldn’t Intervene in Syria
A case against Trump’s airstrikes
By Jackson Littlewood
The Progressive Teen Staff Writer
DONALD TRUMP WAS ANYTHING BUT CONSISTENT during his campaign when it comes to the issue of foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. On one day, he would talk about how he wanted nothing to do with the Syrian conflict, and on the next he would propose carpet bombing the Middle East. Regardless of his campaign rhetoric, he has now made clear where he stands by ordering 59 missile strikes on a Syrian airbase. It is likely that this one attack could lead to a full-scale U.S. intervention in Syria. For that reason, when I say I oppose these airstrikes, I oppose them on the assumption that these airstrikes weren’t the last, and that there will be a full-scale intervention.
Offensive interventions in the absence of genocide have seldom succeeded post-World War II. There are two key examples of this: for one, the Vietnam War. The United States was not attacked by Vietnam and did not intervene to stop a genocide. Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were killed, as were hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians. It wasn’t successful in terms of gains for the U.S., either. The U.S. gained no new territory, didn’t make itself any safer, and the North Vietnamese effectively won the war, as they were able to keep the country united.
Another conflict similar to the one the U.S. is facing today is the Iraq War. Like Vietnam, Iraq did not initally attack the U.S. After a suspicion that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 was debunked, the rationale for the war became that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — which was also debunked by the CIA in 2005 — and there was no evidence for weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. intervened in 2003. Another rationale for the war was the fact that Saddam Hussein had gassed his own people, which was true, and is strikingly similar to the rationale for the Syrian intervention today. Yet since we intervened, thousands of American troops have died,over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, and maybe most importantly, ISIS has begun to grow as a result of the vacuum that the U.S. created in that intervention. Clearly, offensive wars haven’t worked well for the U.S. as of late.
So, why do Middle Eastern interventions like the Iraq war seem to backfire on the United States?
The answer is that these interventions aimed at governments like Bashar al-Assad’s often succeed in taking out the leader. Now, while leaders like Assad are despicable human beings that should be tried for violations of international law, they do keep their countries more stable than radical Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS do. In other words, you can criticize Assad’s horrific actions all you want, and I’ll agree with you, but that doesn’t make going to war with him any less of a bad idea.
As it stands now, the goal for the U.S. in the war looks to be to take out Assad. If the U.S. succeeds in that endeavor, the group of people that would likely put in their own leader to replace him is the Syrian rebels, 60% of which are Islamists and/or jihadists according to the British think tank, The Centre on Religion and Geopolitics in 2015. In other words, if we do what we did in Iraq, we will get the exact same results as we got in Iraq because it’s likely that jihadist groups like ISIS will gain more territory and commit more atrocities.
The final reason that I oppose the Trump administration’s airstrikes in Syria is that it could lead to more escalation with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively allied himself with Assad in 2011 when the conflict began. Obviously, this has put the U.S. in a difficult position, because if the U.S. fights against ISIS and the rebels, it’s on the same side as Assad, who has gassed his own people. At the same time, if it decides to try and take out Assad, it’s fighting Russia’s ally. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump loved to get a cheer from his crowds by saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we got together with Russia and knocked the hell out of ISIS?”
Recently, there have been allegations and investigations both of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the ties that Trump’s cabinet members have with Russia. This has led a good number of people to believe that Trump is acting as Putin’s puppet. That argument took a hit when Trump decided to launch an airstrike on Putin’s ally.
It seems to me that we shouldn’t be having a discussion about whether or not Trump and Putin are colluding with one another; we should be having a discussion about what happens when Trump tries to prove to the American people that he isn’t colluding with Putin, meaning launching an attack on a Russian ally. The result of this airstrike is that we are one step closer to World War III. Obviously, I’m not saying that this one attack means that the U.S. is at war with Russia, but if the U.S. keeps bombing Syria and somehow destroys Russian planes or kills Russian forces in the process, then U.S.-Russia relations could take a sharp negative turn.
Of course, there is the possibility that I’m wrong and the U.S. airstrike against Syria was a one-time thing solely to respond to Assad’s chemical weapons attack. If that’s true, then it’s likely that the situation in Syria will continue on as it has been for years. But if I’m right, there are long-term consequences for all of us. For all of the reasons above, I stand firmly against the U.S. intervention in Syria, and I hope that opposition to this intervention will grow both in government and among the American people.
