Should intervene syria

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Research and Cultural collections. See all schools, departments, research and professional services Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences. Libraries Guild of students Facilities search. This wanton killing and maiming should be stopped and those responsible held accountable.

Intervention is also strategically sound. One outcome that needs to be prevented is a victory for Mr Assad. This is a possibility with only too clear consequences for Syria and the region. Intervention can prevent that outcome. One inimical to American, Western, and other regional states' interests, and a constant threat to regional stability.

Aggressive, threatening, and possessing large and growing military capabilities, this alliance needs to be broken. Bringing Mr Assad down can accomplish that. Also important strategically is limiting the influence of extremist elements during the armed struggle against the regime and in the post-Assad situation.

Intervention can weaken the extremists relative to more moderate elements both in the conflict against Mr Assad and during the political struggle that will occur after he is gone. Then, too, intervention can lead to influence in the post-Assad political struggle. Groups that have benefited from military assistance are more likely to be willing to work with those that helped than those that did not. This does not mean that those that provided assistance will control the situation, but the opportunity for influence will likely be there.

There are some things that intervention cannot do. It cannot "fix" Syria. Ultimately the Syrian people have to do that. In World War II, the United States supported the French Resistance knowing full well that resources injected into France would, to some degree, end up in the hands of the occupiers, common criminals, and communists. Failure to support civil society and local governance because some portion of the funding involved might be diverted into undeserving hands would be an error of disproportionate dimensions, given the high stakes and modest funding.

At present, US combat air assets are denied access to the air space over Idlib province. The US administration should work with Russia and Turkey to remove this restriction so that terrorist elements may be effectively targeted and neutralized. Ideally, a non-Assad Idlib province along with other non-regime areas in northern Syria might be linked to the liberated northeast to present a governance alternative to the regime in Damascus.

For Iran, the establishment of Hezbollah in Lebanon is a major foreign policy achievement. Iran seeks to strengthen and protect its position in Lebanon by using Syria as a a supply route for weapons, equipment, and personnel to Hezbollah, 39 David Adesnik, LTG.

McMaster, and Behnam Ben Taleblu. Iran seeks to transfer the bulk of its anti-Israel harassment campaign from Lebanon to Syria. Israel uses military force to interdict the transfer of sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah and to counter violent harassment from Syrian territory.

It reportedly has an understanding with Russia on these matters. Beyond that, it is important to remain open to and supportive of Syrian peace diplomacy. Russia and Iran have differing interests and priorities in Syria. What they share, however, is a determination to preserve the Assad regime indefinitely. As long as Moscow and Tehran remain dedicated to regime preservation, the prospects for genuine peace talks are nil. Assad believes his allies have carried him to victory.

He intends to dictate terms of peace; not arrive at them through compromise and conciliation. Unless his allies force him to the table and require him to yield significant power, genuine peace talks will not be possible. Dialogue with Russia should be maintained.

Future Syria-related discussions with Iran should not be ruled out. Support for UN efforts in Geneva should continue. There should, however, be no expectation that positive diplomatic results can be obtained without leverage. Leverage can, for the most part, be obtained a from stabilizing northeastern Syria and encouraging the growth of governance alternative to Assad, and b by adopting a policy of limited, but lethal military strikes in response to Assad regime mass casualty operations.

Without the support of American voters and their representatives in Congress the long march toward political transition in Syria cannot begin, much less reach the objective. The objective and accompanying elements of strategy outlined above would require sustained, disciplined heavy lifting—diplomatic and military—for what must be assumed to be a multi-year effort.

Success is not guaranteed. Disengagement is an option, but one not immune to negative, unintended consequences. The failure, for example, of the United States to protect Syrian civilians from mass homicide contributed to the rise of Islamist extremism, 42 Petter Nesser.

The principal responsibility for making the case that the effort serves the security interests of Americans at home and abroad rests with the president. US President Donald Trump has, to date, made clear his disdain for a Syrian dictator who murders civilians and inspires Islamist extremism and terrorism.

By responding militarily to regime chemical attacks, 44 Larry Kaplow. Yet he has also signaled his desire to quit Syria entirely. For the president, there can be no comfortable, split-the-difference middle ground: either all-in by sealing the victory over ISIS with a stabilization program that could produce an alternative to Assad; or all-out, making the regime and its allies the beneficiaries of a five-year anti-ISIS coalition effort and placing American partners in dire straits.

Even if President Trump opts for the heavy lift, a strategy aimed at promoting Syrian political transition will not implement itself. Full weight must be given to several points for the effort to have a reasonable chance of success. A long-term effort of this nature cannot be sustained without congressional buy-in. Frequent voluntary consultations on the Hill are essential supplements to formal testimony.

Congress, Sept. An interagency task force large enough and with the requisite expertise and designated leadership would be required to implement a complex, multiyear strategy.

Stabilizing northeastern Syria and key facets of that effort—military, diplomatic, developmental—will not be inexpensive. Neither should they be the exclusive, or even the primary responsibility of the American taxpayer. A presidential commitment to the heavy lift in Syria would be empty without adequate resourcing of the effort. For states in the region and in Western Europe, the open-ended continuation of Assad regime misrule presents the looming threat of transnational terrorism and population flows.

Although North America is far from immune to these threats, countries bordering Syria and those to the northwest are the first to feel the negative effects of regime state terror and Syrian state failure. We use cookies to improve our service for you. You can find more information in our data protection declaration.

The story of Western intervention in the seven-year Syrian civil war is one of missed opportunities. In responding to such conflicts, the West must learn from its past mistakes, says DW's Kersten Knipp. The war in Syria poses plenty of "What if? There is one that is particularly relevant to Western countries, and how they have responded to the conflict. How would this war have turned out if the West had intervened in a different way?

From today's perspective, the story of Western involvement in the Syrian civil war is, above all, one of missed opportunities. The best-known of these was in , when it became apparent that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad could deploy chemical weapons against Syria's civilian population. Then-US President Barack Obama warned of the "red line" that would be crossed if this were to happen, vowing that there would be consequences.

But chemical weapons were actually used, and Obama did nothing. He ignored the poison gas, or his previous warning, or perhaps both. This, it seems, may have been the last chance to set some limits for the Assad regime. Back then it was not yet under the protection of Iran and Russia, at least not as much as it is now. There was still, to some extent at least, a balance of power that would have made any intervention by the US and its partners seem conceivable.

Obama let this opportunity pass. He may have good reasons for this. The US intervention in Iraq had taken place a decade previously, and had long since turned out to be a political, moral and propagandistic disaster. The headless invasion, prepared on the basis of deliberate lies, made the US appear like an arrogant, neoimperialist power — an image problem from which it still has not recovered.

For this reason alone, another intervention in the Middle East 10 years later — this time in Syria — would have been risky. Depending on how it turned out, it had the potential to further destroy the US' reputation. However, it was equally difficult to weigh up the strategic risk. Ultimately, it was completely unforeseeable how such an intervention would end.