Should the west get further involved with the Syrian civil war?

Image Credit: Wikimedia
Image Credit: Wikimedia

By: Samuel Oliver Martinez,
True Activist.

Since April 2011, the Syrian civil war has been raging between Bashar al-Assad’s military forces, and the opposition. However, lately, the use of chemical weapons, have made a crucial turn on the U.S’s standpoint on the overall conflict. The self-proclaimed ‘world-police’ is ready for war.

When considering the unbearable consequences the Syrian civil war has brought onto the Syrian people, one might be able to understand why the Obama administration is so eager to meddle with the conflict. The death toll is, speculated, to have reached and surpassed the 100.000’s, and the number of people that had have to flee to other countries reaches a staggering amount of 1.8 million people, while 4 million has been displaced within the country.

So yes, one could easily conclude that intervention is, needed. Nevertheless, many questions surrounding the recent events in Syria and the U.S’s current foreign policy towards it, still stands unanswered. Why is it just now that the West urges to intervene in the conflict, why not when 40, 50, 60, 70 or 80.000 people had died? Another theme of questions that has arisen is; should the West get involved with the Syrian conflict in the first place? What are the grounds for intervening, based on the knowledge that chemical weapons has been used, but no clear evidence stands to whether it was used by the side that you support, or by Assad’s regime? What will happen afterwards? What if for example one of the Al-Qaeda cells amongst the rebels, which the U.S is currently supporting, grabs a hold of power when military intervention is over? And Last, but not least, what could the global consequences be? How will the already tense relationship between the two nuclear powers, the U.S and Russia, react to western military intervention in Syria?

Now, the questions above are just a few amongst the hundreds of other questions asked when it comes to the Syrian conflict. However, they might be some of the most crucial questions to ask, if you want to understand the situation and what the consequences could be.

However, to answer the aforementioned questions, you have to start by looking at the hypocrisy found within the U.S’s standpoint on the current matter. It is ironic how the past a 12-year-old war on terror, led by the U.S, is forgotten when it comes to Syria. On one hand, the Obama administration expresses that they stand strongly against the use of chemical weapons and WMD’s, but on the other, they have been willing to support the exact same terrorist organization, which allegedly was the cause of the tragedy that started the whole war on terror in the first place. This goes to show that the U.S is only willing to intervene when it is pleases their national interest. In addition, it raises the question if President Assad is just another one of the countless dictators that the U.S does not see fit to be in power. Therefore, it is plausible that the U.S might not even care about which dictator will come next in Syria, as long as he is compatible with U.S foreign policy. In conclusion, one might speculate if, the preferred western idea of fighting bombs with more bombs might not actually help the Syrian people, but instead benefit the extremist groups found amongst the Syrian opposition, as well as benefiting the U.S’s interests.

The million-dollar question remains however, what will the global consequences look like and how will western military intervention in Syria affect, the U.S and vassal states, like France, the U.K and Denmark? When taking in to consideration that an already extremely tense relationship exists between the U.S and Russia, it is highly plausible that the tension could increase between the two super powers, since Russia is currently supporting the regime of President Assad. And since that, the consequences of two super power colliding, with or without nuclear weapons, will be unfathomable, the global consequences of military intervention in Syria, looks gloomy to say the least. Only time will tell.

A few final questions on might ask himself, is, what happened to the alleged point of all these Middle Eastern wars? What happened to democracy? What happened to the idea that even the most complicated of conflicts, could be solved, with civilized diplomacy, debates and discussion?

It seems, that the U.S has forgotten most of the values, which they themselves have been preaching.

Sources:

–        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war

–        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/syria-chemical-attack-un_n_3828073.html

–        http://rt.com/news/syria-russia-gatilov-regret-strike-042/

–        http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/10/opinion/bergen-al-qaeda-syria

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