The New York Review of Books has published a lengthy piece by that noted foreign policy expert David Bromwich entitled "Stay Out Of Syria!" Not surprisingly, given the headline, the short version of the article says that Iraq was terrible, so we ought not go into Syria. Indeed, according to Bromwich, much of what is happening in Syria is the fault of the American actions in Iraq and Libya.
This sort of claptrap deserves a response. First let's just say a few words about Mr. Bromwich. He is a professor at Yale; he teaches English Literature. In other words, he is just another liberal academic who thinks that he has some knowledge and insight about foreign policy. He may, but so may the guy making sandwiches at my local deli.
The idea of blaming the Syrian civil war on the war in Iraq is ridiculous. The Syrian civil war is the direct result of decades of suppression of Syria's Sunni majority by the Assad-led Alawaites. Syria has been for four decades a country in which 12% of the people ruled over the other 88% with an iron hand. Eventually, that sort of situation breaks down. When the Sunnis (who are now 76% of all Syrians) began to protest, Assad decided to surpress them by using snipers, then companies of soldiers, then tanks, then artillery, then jets and finally chemical weapons. It has not worked, and Assad's days are numbered. Despite the inevitable end, there are still now about 85,000 dead in Syria from this fighting. More than two million have become refugees. It had nothing to do with the Iraq War in reality (and not even in literature, Professor Bromwich).
The current problem with for the West in the Syrian war is that the opposition forces are becoming more and more controlled by an al Qaeda affiliate. Why is that? It has nothing to do with the Iraq War. No, this result comes about because the USA and its allies decided to keep hands off the situation. I do not mean because America did not commit troops; there was no need for that. Two years ago when the war first began, America could have taken action that would have removed Assad, ended the Syrian alliance with Iran, cut off Hezbollah from its supply routes and moved towards the liberation of Lebanon from tyranny. What was required at that time was for the United States to provide assistance to the moderates fighting Assad. We could have given them weapons and helped them organize themselves into a fighting force. President Obama, however, chose to ignore the situation. (Maybe his staff kept all news of it from him so that he would not be seen as interfering.) Instead of America getting involved here, we got Saudi Arabia and Turkey instead. Those two, particularly Turkey, provided support to the groups affiliated with the Moslem Brotherhood which in turn opened the door to the al Qaeda fighters. In other words, the problem here is a lack of American resolve to do what would be most helpful in the long run for the USA. It seems that too many people like Professor Bromwich have been brought into the highest levels of the government under Obama; rather than looking at the facts, they let themselves be guided by anti-American ideology.
Right now, there is no point to America's getting heavily involved in the Syrian war. We cannot help Assad and his murderers, and we should not help al Qaeda and its murderers. What we should do, however, is try to get rid of the chemical weapons and missiles that the Syrians have in their possession. Suppose the air force were to begin to destroy every chemical weapons facility and missile storage location in Syria of which we are aware. This would not mean that the danger from these weapons would be gone, just that it would be greatly reduced. Still, it is delusional to think that if we do nothing to take out these weapons, they will not be used against Americans in the future. Let's get rid of what we can while we still can do it. Let's not wait for tens of thousands of casualties here at home before we act.
Would such a move hurt the Assad forces? The simple answer is yes. So what. Assad is going to fall one way or the other. If we can at least destroy most of his chemical weapons and missiles at least we can prevent the future use of those weapons against America and its allies.
Sadly, there seems to be no one left in our government who even considers this an important issue. They are all too caught up in the never ending scandals. I just hope we all don't look back in the future to realize that our present lack of action led to future disasters.
This sort of claptrap deserves a response. First let's just say a few words about Mr. Bromwich. He is a professor at Yale; he teaches English Literature. In other words, he is just another liberal academic who thinks that he has some knowledge and insight about foreign policy. He may, but so may the guy making sandwiches at my local deli.
The idea of blaming the Syrian civil war on the war in Iraq is ridiculous. The Syrian civil war is the direct result of decades of suppression of Syria's Sunni majority by the Assad-led Alawaites. Syria has been for four decades a country in which 12% of the people ruled over the other 88% with an iron hand. Eventually, that sort of situation breaks down. When the Sunnis (who are now 76% of all Syrians) began to protest, Assad decided to surpress them by using snipers, then companies of soldiers, then tanks, then artillery, then jets and finally chemical weapons. It has not worked, and Assad's days are numbered. Despite the inevitable end, there are still now about 85,000 dead in Syria from this fighting. More than two million have become refugees. It had nothing to do with the Iraq War in reality (and not even in literature, Professor Bromwich).
The current problem with for the West in the Syrian war is that the opposition forces are becoming more and more controlled by an al Qaeda affiliate. Why is that? It has nothing to do with the Iraq War. No, this result comes about because the USA and its allies decided to keep hands off the situation. I do not mean because America did not commit troops; there was no need for that. Two years ago when the war first began, America could have taken action that would have removed Assad, ended the Syrian alliance with Iran, cut off Hezbollah from its supply routes and moved towards the liberation of Lebanon from tyranny. What was required at that time was for the United States to provide assistance to the moderates fighting Assad. We could have given them weapons and helped them organize themselves into a fighting force. President Obama, however, chose to ignore the situation. (Maybe his staff kept all news of it from him so that he would not be seen as interfering.) Instead of America getting involved here, we got Saudi Arabia and Turkey instead. Those two, particularly Turkey, provided support to the groups affiliated with the Moslem Brotherhood which in turn opened the door to the al Qaeda fighters. In other words, the problem here is a lack of American resolve to do what would be most helpful in the long run for the USA. It seems that too many people like Professor Bromwich have been brought into the highest levels of the government under Obama; rather than looking at the facts, they let themselves be guided by anti-American ideology.
Right now, there is no point to America's getting heavily involved in the Syrian war. We cannot help Assad and his murderers, and we should not help al Qaeda and its murderers. What we should do, however, is try to get rid of the chemical weapons and missiles that the Syrians have in their possession. Suppose the air force were to begin to destroy every chemical weapons facility and missile storage location in Syria of which we are aware. This would not mean that the danger from these weapons would be gone, just that it would be greatly reduced. Still, it is delusional to think that if we do nothing to take out these weapons, they will not be used against Americans in the future. Let's get rid of what we can while we still can do it. Let's not wait for tens of thousands of casualties here at home before we act.
Would such a move hurt the Assad forces? The simple answer is yes. So what. Assad is going to fall one way or the other. If we can at least destroy most of his chemical weapons and missiles at least we can prevent the future use of those weapons against America and its allies.
Sadly, there seems to be no one left in our government who even considers this an important issue. They are all too caught up in the never ending scandals. I just hope we all don't look back in the future to realize that our present lack of action led to future disasters.
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