President Obama’s proposed U.S. military intervention in Syria, based off of Bashar al-Assad’s usage of chemical weapons, would be equivalent to meekly swatting a hornet’s nest then climbing the tree in which it hangs. This comes as no surprise, as lately the president has been so busy trying to land on the right side of diplomatic history that he has done nothing but cha-cha across the line between reason and weakness while doling out monetary and military aid to unstable regimes.
The Obama approach to “address” the Syrian problem entails giving arms to our pet Syrian faction so they may fend off the bloodthirsty extremists who are their opposition. In return they will naturally push a representative government that will pander to the U.S. and Israel’s agenda for the region.
All that needs to be done is to find the pro-American, pro-democracy faction within Syria, and hand them a bushel of RPGs and a few M16s for the road. Then the U.S. can wash its hands of pesky al-Assad for the next few years until the dirty work is completed, and we can swoop in with ballot boxes and equal rights to finish the job.
So which side of the Syrian civil war should we support: al-Assad and his current regime, or the rebels? Therein lies the problem.
It has already been made very clear that al-Assad is up to his elbows in weapons shipments and passive-aggressive diplomatic support from Russia, all with an anti-U.S. agenda. Meanwhile, Iran-run, Lebanon-based Hezbollah is patrolling the streets of Syria in the name of upholding the Assad regime, and threatening a strike on Israel should Obama find the gumption to take action against him.
Cross that group off the U.S. weapons handout list, let’s move on to the rebels.
A Syrian rebel killed a Hezbollah insurgent and proceeded to make a home movie out of cutting the fallen fighters’ heart out and taking a bite out of it. There is also the fact that rebels burn down and massacre villages of innocent Christians whenever they happen to come across them, but details like that have fallen to the wayside since Obama painted himself into a corner via a red line banning chemical weapon usage.
As promising as the rebel faction sounds to hand some high-powered rifles to going off of their many genocidal actions alone, they are also unabashedly made up of the Muslim Brotherhood. You know, the same one that just got dethroned in Egypt once their thin veneer of self-claimed “moderate” ideology wore off. What’s more, the rebels do not even need U.S. funding if reports of al-Qaida supplying them jihadists, weapons and other aid are true.
It is clear that there is simply no good side to intervene on behalf of in the Syrian civil war, which is the actuality behind Congress, Britain, the United Nations and the American people not boarding the “invade Syria” train Obama is currently riding around the bend.
In its essence, the Syrian civil war is a battle between Shia and Sunni Islam, an age-old conflict that no American military support can nullify. U.S. involvement would give Iran an excuse to attack Israel, and al-Qaida a foothold on the path toward reaching political legitimacy long term.
Most notably, a military strike toward Syria is an action that would incite a bloody power struggle throughout the entirety of the Middle East in one fell swoop and so should be nothing less than vehemently avoided by the Obama administration.
Whitney Greer is a sophomore English major from Medford, Ore.
