Crisis in Syria

Crisis in Syria

Our current actions in Syria have been the most appropriate actions to take. The United States upheld international norms by getting rid of the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons while ultimately letting the Syrian people decide their own destiny. A stronger response to arm the rebels would have only strengthened Islamic State in Iraq and Syria while no response at all would have weakened the international communities’ commitment to ban the use of chemical weapons.  

Many voices in Congress are criticizing President Obama for arming the Syrian rebels to defeat Assad, they claim the conflict would have already been over if we had intervened. Under the guise of humanitarian intervention they say we must act. The problem with this logic is that we would have ultimately been harming the international community more than we would have helping, by arming ISIS. If we look at the current rebel groups in Syria the most powerful by far is ISIS. At the time when we were considering arming the rebels we did not even know how powerful ISIS was. We had no clue who the moderate rebels truly were and we would have armed any group that said they were against Assad. While claims have been made to the contrary that we could have discerned who the moderate rebels were I find this very implausible and still harmful even if it was true. So let’s say we could magically discern who the moderates were there would still be so many terrible consequences. If they were successful in toppling Assad regime ISIS would have an easy power vacuum to take control of most of Syria, if they were unsuccessful these groups would eventually turn to ISIS for help and share the arms we gave them. The only action the U.S could and did take was to stop the Syrian regime’s’ use of chemical weapons.

International norms are only as strong as our ability to enforce them. If we would have let Assad continue to use chemical weapons without repercussions, it would incentives other countries to use chemical weapons because they would know that they would not be punished.. A clear bright line was presented to Assad, if the Syrian military used any chemical weapons the U.S would have to intervene in the conflict. When Assad did not head our warning we enforced our threat and made sure that U.N inspection and dismantling teams could enter Syria and dispose of the chemical weapons. To date Assad’s entire chemical weapons stockpile have been or is on schedule to be dismantled. We have proven that there are consequences to using chemical weapons and that they will not be tolerated.

The U.S was in a tricky position in regards to its policy in Syria. We were/are a war weary country and did not want to start another war but could not allow the human rights abuses that occurred in Syria. We ultimately made the right decision by only dismantling Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons, as any other decision would have led to horrible consequences in the future. We could not know what would happen if we would have armed the Syrian rebels though most likely we would have only made ISIS stronger. While Obama would be criticized for whatever decision he made, in the end he did not collapse to pressure and made the correct call on U.S policy towards Syria.