Editorial Trump should heed his own advice and ‘stay the hell out of Syria’
No good could possibly come from deeper American involvement in Syria and the Middle East.
News of another chemical weapons attack in Syria this past weekend is certainly tragic, but it doesn’t justify further American intervention in Syria.
As Trump himself said just a week ago, the United States has spent trillions of dollars waging war in the Middle East and yet “we have nothing except death and destruction” to show for it.
American intervention in Syria, to date unauthorized by Congress, has done nothing but make the civil war there worse, empower ISIS and strengthen Iranian and Russian influence.
Trump himself saw this coming five years ago as our Nobel Peace Prize winning president was busy fumbling American intervention in Syria.
Trump is wrong about a lot of things — probably most things — but his occasional flashes of insight on American military intervention in the Middle East are often as spot on as one could be.
A diplomatic, peaceful solution to the Syria conflict is the only responsible way to deal with the problem at hand. War, regime change and nation-building efforts over the past two decades have consistently blown up in America’s face. America can’t afford perpetual war.
But while Trump is reflecting on what to do about the chemical weapons attack in Syria, he might want to also reflect on continued U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s atrocities in Yemen, which have included the use of cluster bombs and other U.S. and U.K.-made weapons against civilian sites like hospitals and schools.
Ideally, Congress would show some initiative and reassert their constitutional authority over America’s war-making, end or limit America’s military involvements abroad and actually come up with a coherent strategy in the Middle East. But Congress and President Trump alike have shown little interest in coherence or the Constitution, so we might be at the mercy of a John Bolton-advised Donald Trump, a terrifying thought.
Sal Rodriguez is an editorial writer and columnist for the Southern California News Group. He may be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com
No good could possibly come from deeper American involvement in Syria and the Middle East.