Serious Syrian Indecision: Saturday Political Soap Box 72

What should we do about Syria?

I don't know.

It's not like health care, or minimum wage, or tax reform. or a host of other issues where I have passionate feelings and definite expectations of improved outcomes by their adoption.

But you enter into the world of foreign policy, and what to do becomes a little bit fuzzy.  We don't have the information that our leaders have, and we certainly don't understand it in counterbalance with everything else.  But we also know that our country, as other countries have, have made some horrendously bad decisions in the past.

Part of it is the law of unintended consequences that happens in the realm of global politics.  Everything is so intricately wrapped up with everything else, that we can't always foresee how things will turn out.  And it's not like domestic policy, where imperfections and errors in judgement can be corrected by adjustments and refinements of the law and regulations.

If we do nothing, if we withdraw from the world and let things play their course, without intervention or involvement, you lose complete influence and connection to the world and the way events play out.  Evil unchallenged becomes evil triumphant.  Withdrawing both diplomatically and militarily is the worst thing the United States can do.

Those who wish us to eliminate all foreign aid are naive in both what kind of effect that think this will have, and to the extent it could save us money or solve the deficit.  All foreign aid combined is like a rounding error to some other programs we have.  And to think that the money would be better spent domestically - oh, if only that were true.  You think the reason that Rand Paul doesn't support programs for the poor is because that money is instead going to foreign aid?  Boy, are you in for a surprise!

If we do nothing in Syria, then their forces will think they can continue to use chemical weapons and slaughter their own people without any concerns or worries about international reaction.

If we intervene on the high level that John McCain and some of the hawks advocate, it could be Iraq and Afghanistan times three, making those awful conflicts look puny by comparison.  Yes, let's risk riling up the Arab World on the doorsteps of Israel.  No one in America has the stomach for seeing a larger number of Americans coming home in body bags or with life-crippling injuries, and for us to dwarf the number of civilians killed compared to what the Syrians are already doing.

So that leaves some mix of positions in between these extremes.  These would also create risk, and could hurt more than help, but the greater danger may be in thinking that the use of chemical weapons are A-OK.  I do hope that what we do is more diplomatic than military, that we could do surgical strikes that mostly degrade weaponry, and does not target civilians (their people have been through enough).  I hope we wait to hear the report of UN inspectors, which should be forthcoming very soon.  I hope that the President does we he can to win Congressional approval, and that opposition or support is not based on partisanship.  Although the UN Security council is out because of the veto power of Syria's allies, Russia and China, I do hope we do what we can to garner international support.  The Arab League, in particular, should be at the forefront of any decision.

If this is not a scholarly dissertation, I apologize.  I certainly do not claim to have any magic answers.  I would appreciate any one's insights who would care to comment.