Dear Mr. President: Stay out of Syria!

Dear President Trump: On behalf of many Americans, I am passing along my hope that you make America’s economy great again – really quickly. Otherwise, the Treasury will have to print trillions more in “funny money” to fund your surprising new interventionism – a “quantitative easing” for foreign policy.

After all, it appears that you, in direct contradiction of your crystal-clear campaign promise, are hell-bent on playing policeman to the world.

Given what Secretary of State Rex Tillerson just said – “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world” – that’s going to be an expensive proposition, and an unprecedented political quagmire.

But before America’s global gun-slinging commences, I respectfully ask that you consider the following:

1) Where will you start? So you aren’t accused of “continent-bias,” I suggest simultaneously tackling Venezuela, Myanmar, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Chad, Nigeria, Qatar, and Libya. France, too – just because it’s France. And that’s just on Day One. Given that around, oh ... 80 percent of the world’s nations have people committing crimes against innocents – including not-so-insignificant China and Russia – the initial engagements against those abusers should be wrapped up by June. That’s the “easy” part. It’s American troops being stationed indefinitely “incountry” for nation-building and regime change where things get really complicated.

Caveat: I often implore people to “look in the mirror.” So, in truth, that list of offenders also applies to us. One look at our cities – Chicago, Philadelphia, even your hometowns of New York and Washington – shows the staggering number of innocents slaughtered daily in what are, without question, war zones.

The atrocities, including the murder of babies and young children, continue unabated, leading to unimaginable suffering.

2) We’ll have to build a lot more Tomahawk cruise missiles. But at nearly $2 million a pop, they get very expensive.

Here’s something to consider: The Syrian attack was more than 1 percent of the cost to build your border wall, so your funding dilemma on that initiative will likely get even dicier.

But when the bombs don’t achieve the objective – actually, what is the objective? – we’ll send military “advisers” into Syria. And of course, troops to defend them. But it won’t end there, because it never does.

Never. That’s not speculation, but hard fact. Then come bases, deployed troops, and air wings. (Even more concerning, what happens when we engage the Ruskies in a firefight, shoot down one of their aircraft, or vice versa?)

3) After we further destabilize Syria, culminating in regime change by toppling President Bashar Assad (as some in your administration are advocating), is that when we “declare victory?” And what will that mean? If it’s anything like Iraq and Libya, when America deposed two secular dictators, only to see massive instability and new governments comprised of even worse people, there will be a lot of scratching our derrieres. Being clueless about next steps after creating a dangerous power vacuum is not the path to the presidential Hall of Fame. Just ask W.

4) When will we learn that interventionism and regime change, especially in the Middle East, always produces catastrophic results?

Saddam Hussein was no angel, but an iron-fisted secular leader. He kept extremists at bay; maintained a regional balance of power; was an American ally during the Iran-Iraq war; and, most noteworthy, was a bitter enemy of Osama bin Laden. But we took him out anyway.

Americans don’t want another war. Sure, chemical weapons killing 70 are horrifying, but is that worse than conventional bombs killing thousands?

Are we, already perceived as “crusaders,” really engaging yet another Middle Eastern country?

And after the fact, just as in Iraq and Afghanistan, will we build state-of-the-art infrastructure for another country, while Americans continue to see their bridges collapse, roads crumble and water mains break?

Mr. President, it would be wise to heed the words of Sir Edmund Burke in formulating an exit strategy for Syria before ever entering it: “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”