On September 22, 2014, a coalition led by the United States launched airstrikes in Northern Syria in an attempt to target the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and other al-Qaeda linked factions. The United States has also officially announced it will train, arm, and equip the Free Syrian Rebels as well. After many years of speculation, the U.S. has finally intervened militarily in Syria.
There has been widespread criticism over whether we should have entered Syria. Dylan Camp ‘18 states, “Why should America intervene in Syria? It is not our problem, or our duty to fight in Syria. Intervention is too complicated. Let the Syrians work out the problems that they created.”
In contrast with this no-intervention position, other students have noted that limited intervention is the right action. Connor Edge ’18 states, “ISIS is a problem. We cannot ignore a problem that hurts and kills people. It is necessary to combat ISIS in Syria, or else we would be ignoring the problem.”
As a whole, the United States is not the country to stand idly by as civilians are slaughtered and persecuted. But this argument is not just about the United States’ obligation to be the world’s policemen; it is also about whether we should have intervened against Assad a long time ago when the situation was less dire, and when ISIS did not exist. In order to analyze this argument, we must look at the origins of ISIS.
In 2011, the Syrian people took to the streets to protest against the dictator Bashar-al Assad, and they were met with overwhelming force by the army. Over a short period of time, peaceful protests transitioned into standoffs with the government, and eventually destructive civil war followed. In the heart of the Syrian conflict, there exist 200,000 dead Syrians and millions of refugees. In the heart of the Syrian conflict, there exist chemical weapon attacks and ethnic cleansing. In the heart of the Syrian story, there lies a true human tragedy.
During the destruction and desperate times, moderate Syrians turned to different radical groups to protect them from Assad’s “government” because the United States and other countries did not answer Syria’s calls for help against the regime. Eventually, al-Qaeda recognized that Syria would be a prime location for their cesspools of terrorism. Al-Qaeda fighters began pouring in from Iraq and elsewhere; these fighters would later be part of ISIS.
Soon, Jabhat-al-Nusra, the official affiliate for al-Qaeda in Syria, was formed. Meanwhile, in February 2014, an Iraqi al-Qaeda official named Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi (the soon-to-be leader of ISIS), claimed that Jabhat al-Nusra was under the control of his new group: ISIS, or the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria. Al-Qaeda officials were furious when al-Baghdadi refused to back off of his claim; Al-Qaeda was also concerned with ISIS’ irrational killing of innocents and allies. Al-Qaeda disavowed ISIS shortly afterwards. ISIS became a separate terrorist group, brandishing its own “unique” label of terror and jihad.
The power struggle between al-Qaeda and ISIS reveals the true nature of what ISIS is: a monstrous terrorist group that even al-Qaeda labels as too extreme. Shortly after the February 2014 incident, ISIS made lightning-quick territorial gains in northern Iraq and eastern Syria.
When you look at the mess in Iraq and Syria, you can attribute it to the absence of military intervention earlier. By not intervening in Syria, civilians turned to extremists, a power vacuum began that led to the creation of ISIS, and Assad strengthened, leading to further instability. If we had conducted airstrikes on Assad’s regime just two years earlier, then ISIS would most likely not be as powerful a group as it is today. The moderate rebels would have recognized that there are other nations helping them, and then the war against Assad would have been more unified and stronger. Now, over a thousand different militias rule over small areas of land, and ISIS is being allowed to roam across eastern Syria.
President Obama has realized this. He has realized that he has made a grave mistake by choosing not to intervene earlier, and he realizes that he is paying for his mistake now by fighting ISIS.
When Obama gave his infamous “red line” dilemma to Assad when he used chemical weapons, Assad called his bluff. Obama shied away from intervention because he was being too cautious. As a result, Assad is untouchable, and the problems that arose became larger and larger.
Now here we are, intervening two years too late. It may be too late to equip the Free Syrian Army, because they may be too weak to fend off ISIS’ and Assad’s offensives. Now, Assad is probably laughing at America, which is now his air force, bombing ISIS for him. It’s great that we’ve finally done something in Syria—but if we had acted just 2 years ago against Assad’s forces, then we wouldn’t have such a huge mess.