The Syrian civil war began in 2011 but has only recently become relevant to the American media with President Obama’s announcement of his interest in launching a military attack against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime after recent suspicion of his use of chemical weapons against civilians.
The White House has been adamant in their intention to intervene, provided it has the approval of Congress, and has made clear the impending consequences of ignoring Assad’s aggressive tactics. Harried with concerns over whether intervening and entangling U. S. resources in a foreign conflict is the right step, Obama has characteristically fallen back on his integrity, stating, “the moral thing to do is not to stand by and do nothing.”
Obama’s intervention in Syria has nothing to do with the security of the Syrian people. It is purely a political move, an attempt to tame yet another unruly Middle Eastern regime that acts against Obama’s main objective — installing a government dedicated to furthering the interests of America and its European allies.
The intervention has nothing to do with ensuring the spread of American values throughout the Middle East — it has everything to do with ensuring the spread of Obama’s economic and political objectives.
In all fairness, Obama is right to worry about the potential risks of letting a rogue rebel faction take control if Assad is overthrown. The Al-Nusra Front, an extremist group with links to al-Qaeda, along with other terrorist organizations, is all but waiting for the power vacuum to open up to its forces. Secretary of State John Kerry even hinted at this possibility in his address to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Chemical weapons in the hands of terrorist groups would be both terrifying and dangerous, but not any more dangerous than the countless other weapons the Syrian government has used to murder over 100,000 of their own people — not to mention the six million that have been internally and externally displaced by the destruction these weapons have caused.
If Obama decides to launch a military attack, he places the burden of Syria’s future on his own shoulders. The 2011 strikes on Libya authorized by Obama created quite a stir across the country, and as American news sources slowly turned the nation’s attention to the so-called Benghazi scandal, Libyans have been struggling with the chaotic aftermath of foreign intervention. Obama speaks of a moral, global responsibility to help the civilians living under the Assad regime, but the long-term commitment necessary to achieve success in Libya, and which would be needed in Syria, is a major cause for reservations and concerns.
Knowing this, what exactly is Obama trying to achieve? The answer to this does not directly concern Syria at all.
Syria’s few allies in the international community are among some of the most important connections for the Obama administration — Russia, China and Iran. Iran sparks the White House’s interest in Syria — the two countries are closely tied, and Assad’s regime is the last pillar of support for the Iranian government in the Middle East. In bringing down Assad, he can weaken Iran’s network, while also assuring Iran’s leaders that the United States is committed to adhering to any red lines.
Obama is willing to kill innocent civilians in a strike on Syria to make a point to Iran, so his guise of morality should be stripped down to show the truth. The nations claiming to be most outraged by the use of chemical weapons in Syria have themselves been lax in condemning the use of chemical weapons in the past.
The United States facilitated the trade of chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War in the late 1980s, which Saddam Hussein used to kill Iranian civilians. In 2005, there were several reports of the U.S. Special Forces using white phosphorus in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. These accusations went largely uninvestigated, although independent efforts have been made to uncover the truth. Israel has repeatedly been accused of using white phosphorous against civilians in Gaza.
Certainly, the use of chemical weapons by any nation is an appalling show of corruption and disregard for human life, and Obama is right to point out these wrongs. If he wants to claim that chemical warfare is his breaking point and truly the reasoning behind his intentions to attack, and that Assad is an evil dictator who must be removed from power for his actions, then Obama should be equally as horrified by the actions of previous presidents and his current allies.
Nina Golshan is a columnist. Email her at [email protected].