The United States and Syria: What Can and Should Be Done

As the death toll in Syria rises to about 500,000, and millions of refugees attempt to flee to Europe, it becomes clear that the situation in Syria is beginning to resemble events in World War 2. Efforts to negotiate full ceasefires have failed and any potential of a ceasefire is not secure enough to allow progress to work towards a diplomatic solution, which is what Obama and some senior officials believe is the only way to intervene. The editorial board believes that this five-year civil war in Syria will not see peace with diplomacy alone. Diplomacy is more effective when it is backed by military strength.

It is possible that too much force could lead to the United States being pulled further into the conflict, and possibly pulled into a war. In that sense, Obama is right to be cautious about intervening in the Middle East; however, he has not been assertive enough to have any leverage in Syria. Obama’s belief that there is only a diplomatic solution, and no military solution, has been difficult for State Department diplomats to wrap their heads around. Recently, fifty-one of them signed a memo that criticized Obama’s policy in Syria, and called for military strikes and the removal of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator. Two years ago, Robert Ford, the U.S. Ambassador to Syria resigned because he claimed he couldn’t defend Obama’s policy in Syria any longer.

It’s clear that Obama has resisted the pressure of State Department officials, including pressure from John Kerry, the current Secretary of State. Kerry has pushed for stronger actions in Syria, in part to force a diplomatic solution. In the memo, State Department officials wrote that due to the Assad government’s continuous violations of the partial ceasefire, efforts to draw up a political settlement will be more difficult because Assad will feel no pressure to do so. Officials insisted that the memo was not advocating for outright military force that could lead to military confrontation, but rather a threat of military action to keep Assad in line and prevent further ceasefire violations. To our editorial board, that hardly seems unreasonable, especially since there has been speculation that Assad’s forces used Sarin gas against Islamic State fighters in April, when stockpiles of the gas were supposed to have been removed from Syria two years ago.

In 2012, Obama made a statement that any attempt by Syria to move or use its chemical weapons would evoke the possibility of more direct U.S. intervention in Syria. However, it is 2016, sources are claiming Assad’s forces are using chemical weapons, and Obama has not retaliated. It’s clear that speculations are not hard facts, however, Israeli sources recently told the Washington Post that the regime wouldn’t hesitate to use chemical weapons again, especially since it has already done so without any reaction.

The biggest thing that the administration has seemed to overlook is the rising death toll in Syria. There needs to be a creation of a safe zone, which would allow civilians to seek refuge, along with a no-fly zone to enforce it, which would allow American airplanes to patrol the region and take down any planes that fly into the zone. The establishment of a safe zone would decrease the flow of refugees into neighboring countries and Europe. However, creating a safe zone in the middle of a civil war has its challenges, such as the need to defend the zone and prevent it from overflowing with refugees. The United States has experience with safe zones, as it has previously established two safe zones in Iraq.

Due to the administration’s inactiveness toward the conflict in the past five years, it seems it has deemed that dealing with the situation in Syria is a priority; however, it’s not enough of a priority to actively try to protect civilians there. Economically, its ties to the United States are questionable, and however gut wrenching the footage of the war may be, the United States has little at stake in its outcome, unless the Islamic State takes over the region or Assad strikes the U.S. directly. America’s Responsibility to Protect has kept it from turning a blind eye completely, but now it’s time to face the conflict with a change of strategy that involves more than just diplomacy.