Blog 3 Jared Rostkowski Why NAFTA is not "The worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever"

Yousuf Sander                        

Why Syrian Intervention is a Bad Play for the U.S.

Foreign intervention has become a staple policy choice if the United States since the early decades of the 20^th century. Time and time again, we have intervened in order to protect our interests, installing dictators in Latin America, toppling them in the middle east, all in order to protect our foreign interests. However, what is the right course of action when a crisis occurs that does not put our interests at stake? How, as the world’s foremost superpower, can we sit by and do nothing as the crisis evolves in Syria? Though intervention may seem like the obvious choice, we must weigh the costs, and our decision must be strategically based and thought out. For this reason, I don’t believe intervention is the right option due to the reactionary and impulsive nature of our new president and his administration. April’s attacks on Assad’s airfield accomplished little, and did more to harm our relations with the other nations at play in the conflict than anything else.

As a breach of a state’s sovereignty, intervention must be carefully planned and vetted. During the Cold War, we engaged in a number of operations to halt the spread of communism that many consider to be an unethical use of our power. However, we must take into account that this was our main foreign policy objective at the time. Likewise, we intervened in Iraq because nation defense was our first priority, and Saddam’s refusal to acknowledge whether he had nuclear weapons placed that in jeopardy. However, the Syrian Civil War is forcing us to take a stand on what we hold true as a nation. Do we value the human rights of the Syrian people enough to use our military might to stop them? Though this is definitely a valid question, I don’t think that intervention is the right move at this point. I agree with Stacey that the Trump administration has too many other motives going on to make the optics of a Syrian intervention palatable to most people. In addition to the problem with the optics, Trump’s brazen, off-the-cuff foreign policy approach could pose more risks than benefits to Syria. What would happen if he suddenly pulled us out of Syria in the middle of our intervention, leaving Syrians in the lurch as they have to deal with an already bleak situation now escalated by U.S. intervention. Unfortunately, unrealistic as it may have seemed just last year, this is a situation that we must consider when looking at whether to intervene in Syria.

Perhaps the most potent and pressing reason we shouldn’t intervene is the provocation of other states that would result from our intervention at this point in the conflict. We’ve already strained our relations with Russia, Iran, and other nations as a result of our rash actions in April. Our president is embroiled in a scandal regarding one of the major powers with interest in the conflict. We can’t afford to make more polarizing moves, or we risk further damaging delicate diplomatic relations with Russia and others. Though it might seem like the obvious choice to help the Syrian people, I don’t think this is the right time or the right administration to pull off another major Middle East military intervention.