As the Syrian Revolution rages on between President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the opposition materializing, no ceasefire seems on the horizon. Syria’s future appears desolate, ruthlessly bloody and utterly hopeless.
Cities like Aleppo and Homs have been partially destroyed by numerous episodes of endless fighting. Organizations such as Shiite-led Hezbollah, which the State Department has deemed a terrorist group, are now actively assisting the Syrian Army to thwart future repulsive attacks from rebel forces. Syria contains a majority Sunni population and a small Shiite minority to which President Assad belongs. Assad’s tyrannical government espouses dictatorial rule in a virtual one-party system that remains vehemently opposed to few, if any, democratic reforms. More than 80,000 people have perished since the conflict began more than two years ago.
President Obama and the American public remain staunchly critical of any humanitarian military intervention in Syria, which is home to roughly 20 million inhabitants. Previous lessons from the 2003 invasion of Iraq have caused the U.S. government to eschew any involvement beyond supplying nonlethal aid and reportedly providing CIA-directed covert intelligence. When it comes to Syria, there are certainly very few hawks compared to doves in Washington today, but that is clearly a serious mistake. It is important to realize a few critical reasons why the U.S. should begin to intervene further on behalf of the opposition.
The primary reason the U.S. must do more in Syria is to break the existing Shiite Iraq-Iran-Assad regime and Hezbollah axis. Altogether, these Shiite elements seek to maintain a balance of power against their Sunni rivals, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan. Moreover, Iran’s nuclear ambitions continue to confound the U.S. If the U.S. wants to increase its already faltering legitimacy in the Middle East, it should immediately aim to shift the balance of power against Iran by giving lethal aid to the rebels, which will gradually lead to Assad’s ouster.
According to U.S. intelligence reports, Iran is currently using Iraq as a channel to transport weapons, intelligence and other forms of physical support to Assad, allowing the group to remain firmly in power. With Hezbollah now sending units to fight alongside the Syrian Army, Israel—America’s primary ally in the Middle East—is susceptible to Hezbollah’s belligerence. The chaos in Syria might very possibly spill over into Lebanon, which would put Israel’s security further at risk.
Secondly, additional radicalization of the rebels and several factions operating within the state itself has exacerbated sectarian tensions in the Middle East. The al-Nusra Front, a Sunni militant group currently fighting the Assad regime, has also been deemed a terrorist organization. Other groups, such as the Syrian Islamic Front and al Qaeda in Iraq, both of whom are Sunni, are seeking to topple the current regime and replace it with an Islamic state. The U.S., in this case, must flex its political muscles and institute a cohesive foreign policy that is committed to a thriving democratic culture for the Syrian people.
Thirdly, American policy in the Middle East must be cognizant that Syrians today exercise their right to self-determination, something that was not fully realized after Syria’s independence in 1946. The U.S. will have to deal with the resulting implications of the Arab Spring by remaining committed to the Arab world.
For decades, Arabs in Egypt, Libya and Iraq were deprived of fundamental rights in their own countries. Syria, more importantly, has been under the Baath Party system since the late 1960s—a government averse to political pluralism and the advancement of democracy. President Assad has been known for committing human rights abuses and hindering the political process to advance his own demagogic reputation. As we have learned from the events of the Arab Spring, ordinary Arab citizens have successfully toppled numerous dictatorships. Syrian citizens are now illustrating this point by seeking to implement a system that is compatible with their own ideologies and traditions.
Now may be the time to change how we deal with this political and humanitarian crisis. By not actively assisting the rebels, the U.S. is acting contrarily to its own national interest, which would be defending its own security and its allies’ security. The United States, in order to increase its legitimacy and credibility in the region, should begin to weigh the options that may potentially change the outcomes of the conflict.
By keeping its cost-benefit calculation as part of the overall strategy, the U.S. should witness how much change can be realistic if it carefully assesses the facts and important lessons from the Arab Spring. If it tests its options assiduously, we can fulfill our national objectives in the Middle East, one step at a time.
Zubair Akram is a Trinity sophomore. His second summer column will run on June 30. You can follow Zubair on Twitter @ZubairAkram11.
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