Syria I Believe That the United States

Syria

I believe that the United States should not get involved militarily in Syria. There are too many risks involved, and no real reward for the U.S. Involvement in that country's civil war would endanger U.S. interests in the region significantly, put U.S. lives on the line and would accomplish nothing with respect to the country's strategic objectives in the region.

For the past several years, Syria has been embroiled in a civil war that pits the established government of Bashar al-Assad against an inchoate group of rebels, each with its own interests in the conflict. It is with this opposition that much of the decision to avoid intervention lies. What started as a conflict similar to many other Arab Spring uprisings against the country's brutal totalitarian regime has become a flashpoint for sectarian conflict. Today's rebels are not revolutionaries so much as they are mercenaries. If the U.S. were to become involved, it would be siding with either these mercenaries or Assad, neither of which are worth siding with.

Today, the Syria conflict has become co-opted by fighters from outside the country. The more moderate Syrian fighters, who were always disorganized, have been effectively run out of the conflict by external rebel groups. These groups include the "Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS)," an al-Qaeda affiliated group. These groups have quickly taken control of the conflict from the Syrian rebels. They are installing totalitarian terrorist regimes that have replaced the Assad regimes in some Syrian provinces, to the detriment of the Syrian people. Locals describe these groups as "mostly foreigners coming to impose their ideologies upon us" (Sinjab, 2013).

There is belief among the Syrian people that the outsider groups are working with the Syrian government to undermine the government. For example, the government is targeting schools, not ISIS bases, indicating that it might be working with the group (Sinjab, 2013). In addition to al-Qaeda, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is also known to be present in Syria, and Iran is believed to be financing Assad, as is Hezbollah. Both groups, and outside Sunni groups like al-Qaeda, are financed with outside money, outside fighters, and are using the Syrian conflict as a training ground (George, 2013).

For the U.S. To enter such a volatile situation, where Syria is becoming an open conflict between competing violent Islamist ideologies, is simply a terrible idea. If the Sunnis and Shiites and whoever else wants to kill each because they can't agree on the finer points of Islam, that is simply not a fight that the U.S. should have any involvement in. In essence, it cannot win. It would become a lightning rod for both sides, and U.S. involvement would be appreciated by nobody. Plus, if the U.S. was successful in ridding Syria of Assad, that would create an even bigger power void, one that risks leaving the entire country under the rule of some sort of radical Islamist groups. The situation could turn into an ungovernable conflict-ridden mess like Afghanistan or a disastrous failed state run by warlords like Somalia. There is simply no positive outcome for the United States right now in Syria.

The U.S. must also take consideration of what its interests are in the region. Syria is strategic because it is an ally of Iran and Russia, so in a sense it might be valuable for the U.S. To get rid of Assad, in order to weaken those two countries. The U.S. is always going to welcome a change to put Iran in its place, but Russia is a key prize here. Russia's navy has a presence in Syria, important because its fleet in the Black Sea must pass through NATO Turkey to reach the Mediterranean. America's interest in delivering a blow to Russia, however, is not nearly compelling enough for it to suffer the blame for destabilizing an already messy situation further.

The primary interest in the Middle East for the U.S. is to have a relatively peaceful region, by whatever means. Peace allows for oil to flow out of the region, and a strong Middle East acts as a check on Iran, considered to be one of the world's rogue nations. The problem is that invading Syria does not achieve the objective of peace. It would only make a bad situation worse by implicating the West in what is essentially a pan-Muslim proxy war. U.S. involvement will invariable result in people looking to put the blame on them or Israel, instead of where the blame genuinely belongs. So for the U.S., intervention does not achieve any meaningful strategic objectives. It is unlikely to control the country and transition to a peaceful, friendly government and the U.S. must accept that such a best-case scenario is highly unlikely given the status of Syria today.