Deploying faux humanitarian claims to oust Liby’s Muammar Gadaffi left that land a wreck, violent and divided a decade later. Support for Saudi Arabi’s aggressive war against Yemen ravaged the region’s poorest nation, leaving hundreds of thousands of dead. And Americ’s botched attempt to oust Syri’s secular dictator led to a de facto alliance with brutal jihadists, including al-Qaed’s local affiliate. The Syrian people ultimately faced rule by either the despotic Assad regime or terrible variants of bloody Islamists.
Although this civil war is largely over and the Islamic State, an outgrowth of Washington’s Iraq invasion, has been defeated, the U.S. continues to occupy Syria. The country serves no American security interest. Damascus was long allied with Moscow but is of minimal strategic value. Although Syria is no friend of Israel, the latter is a nuclear-armed power more than capable of defending itself.
Washington articulates humanitarian concerns regarding Syria, but such claims are risible. For decades the U.S. has allied with brutal Middle Eastern dictatorships. In Syria, Americ’s authoritarian Gulf allies backed the worst jihadist factions. The ouster of Assad never was likely to produce a democratic renaissance. Today the Biden administration, pressed by Congress, is overtly starving the Syrian people.
Advocates of this policy are either cynics or fools. The former is most likely. For instance, James Jeffrey, who as the Trump administration’s special envoy for Syria explicitly misled the president and undermined American security, says current policy is intended to turn Syria into a “quagmire” to discomfit Moscow. Refreshingly, he eschewed unconvincing cant about hurting the Syrian people to help them. For Jeffrey, they are an expendable means to America’s policy ends, but Washington shouldn’t be destroying countries and impoverishing peoples simply because the ruling regime is friendly with Moscow.
Still, there are officials in Washington who claim that reducing to penury people who suffered through a decade-long civil war will force the victorious autocrat to welcome back exiles, implement a democratic revolution, and cede power. Thus, today Washington systematically immiserates the country, seeking to block reconstruction. Every failure is met with demands that Washington double down again, irrespective of the human cost. It is tragic that Assad remains in control, but punishing the victims of his rule for its continuance is bizarre on its face. Washington’s callous and ineffective approach brings to mind the late Madeleine Albright’s cold dismissal of the presumed deaths of a half million Iraqi children due to economic sanctions: “We think the price is worth it.”
Finally, officials offer a potpourri of other bizarre reasons to maintain an illegal military presence in another sovereign country. For instance, U.S. forces aid local Kurdish forces, interfere with Iranian cooperation with Damascus, and deny oil revenue to the Assad government. Yet America has no legal sanction to invade and occupy countries for these or other reasons.
Absent a permanent American military presence, which will never be accepted by Damascus or its neighbors, the Kurds need to reach an accord with the Syrian government, which would offer the best hope of ending Turkey’s abusive occupation. Restoring Syrian border control may be the only way to convince Ankara to withdraw its military.
Iran is a malign regional actor but was invited by Damascus to help defend the latter from attack, especially from U.S.-supported insurgents. Washington has no legal authority to occupy Syria out of dislike for the Tehran government. Nor does the desire to bring down Assad and impose a new government give the U.S. license to loot Syria’s natural resources. If Washington is entitled to steal other nations’ oil, it should target states with abundant reserves worth grabbing, such as the kleptocratic and repressive Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
If the occupation was costless, it would be easier to overlook the lawless nature of America’s military involvement. However, US personnel in Syria, along with those stationed in Iraq, have become prime military targets. Russia’s forces, welcomed by Damascus, have harassed and threatened American units which illegally occupy Syrian territory. Such incidents have triggered sanctimonious caterwauling in Washington.
More dangerous have been drone and missile attacks from militias aligned with Iran. There have been casualties but, thankfully, no fatalities—yet. Reported Voice of America on Monday: