Note: for a list of arguments and responses (one per post) and more background on why I'm doing this, see this index page.
Note 2: I'd like to focus this series of posts on liberal arguments against intervention, but this argument in particular is very prevalent so I decided to treat it although it's more in the realist tradition.
Note 3: I'd like to thank Ayman Mhanna for the Daniel Pipes reference.
According to popular opinion (and The Economist, sadly) the Syrian civil war pits Iran-backed Hezbollah and the Syrian regime on one side and Syrian rebels who are supposedly mostly al-Qa’ida or al-Qa’ida backed jihadists - response to this last notion coming soon - on the other.
According to that view, Syria is a black whole evil people and evil money are getting sucked into and consumed in. The argument I'm looking at here is that if that's the case, from a U.S. perspective, there's no point in doing anything to make this war shorter - let the bad guys kill each other. For example, Daniel Pipes writes: "Also, as Sunni Islamists fight Shiite Islamists, both sides are weakened and their lethal rivalry lessens their capabilities to trouble the outside world."
This point is reminiscent of an Arabic saying: "بطيخ يكسر بعضه;" "let the watermelons break each other." (thanks Yamli!). Although there are a gazillion moral and factual problems with this argument, I am going to put them aside and attack it from within its own framework and assumptions.
The problem with this argument is the same one with the realist argument in favor of drone strikes (i.e., more drone strikes = more terrorists killed = less terrorists overall = more national security): it's incredibly myopic when it comes to the dynamics of terrorism. As the great Farea al-Muslimi explains in his testimony to Congress, AQAP actually uses drone strikes as a tool to recruit militants!
The violence in Syria today is coupled with - at least before August 21st - a failure of the U.S. and its allies to react to the violence and support the opposition properly. This has contributed greatly to the material and psychological conditions for jihadi factions to be able to fight in Syria and recruit there and elsewhere. Eventually, if left to its own devices, the war in Syria - like the drone strikes if they continue - will end up creating more jihadists and threaten U.S. national security more in the long run.
Note 2: I'd like to focus this series of posts on liberal arguments against intervention, but this argument in particular is very prevalent so I decided to treat it although it's more in the realist tradition.
Note 3: I'd like to thank Ayman Mhanna for the Daniel Pipes reference.
According to popular opinion (and The Economist, sadly) the Syrian civil war pits Iran-backed Hezbollah and the Syrian regime on one side and Syrian rebels who are supposedly mostly al-Qa’ida or al-Qa’ida backed jihadists - response to this last notion coming soon - on the other.
According to that view, Syria is a black whole evil people and evil money are getting sucked into and consumed in. The argument I'm looking at here is that if that's the case, from a U.S. perspective, there's no point in doing anything to make this war shorter - let the bad guys kill each other. For example, Daniel Pipes writes: "Also, as Sunni Islamists fight Shiite Islamists, both sides are weakened and their lethal rivalry lessens their capabilities to trouble the outside world."
This point is reminiscent of an Arabic saying: "بطيخ يكسر بعضه;" "let the watermelons break each other." (thanks Yamli!). Although there are a gazillion moral and factual problems with this argument, I am going to put them aside and attack it from within its own framework and assumptions.
The problem with this argument is the same one with the realist argument in favor of drone strikes (i.e., more drone strikes = more terrorists killed = less terrorists overall = more national security): it's incredibly myopic when it comes to the dynamics of terrorism. As the great Farea al-Muslimi explains in his testimony to Congress, AQAP actually uses drone strikes as a tool to recruit militants!
The violence in Syria today is coupled with - at least before August 21st - a failure of the U.S. and its allies to react to the violence and support the opposition properly. This has contributed greatly to the material and psychological conditions for jihadi factions to be able to fight in Syria and recruit there and elsewhere. Eventually, if left to its own devices, the war in Syria - like the drone strikes if they continue - will end up creating more jihadists and threaten U.S. national security more in the long run.
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