Over the weekend, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was overthrown by a coalition of rebel groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Islamist terrorist organization that has sought to present itself as less extreme now than it formerly was.
The rapid end to the Assad regime — after the start a decade ago of a long and brutal civil war that in recent years seemed to quiet down in Assad’s favor —is on the one hand a positive development. It might give the many Syrian refugees who had to flee the chaos of a civil war, ISIS and Assad’s vengeful hand a chance at returning home.
But as we sadly saw with the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, there’s also always the risk of the alternative being worse than what preceded it.
In both the Libyan and Syrian conflicts, the United States got involved with the ostensible aim of promoting democracy. The uprisings in both countries both started in early 2011 as part of the broader Arab Spring.
Then-President Barack Obama unconstitutionally began “kinetic military action” in Libya and supported “moderate rebels,” many of whom later turned out to be not so moderate, in Syria.
While the rebels prevailed in Libya in 2011 — giving way to Islamic extremists, slavery and other horrors — the violence got even worse in Syria. The brutal civil war that broke out amid different factions — from Assad loyalists to the Kurds to ISIS to others — saw the use of chemical weapons, Russian and Iranian intervention and American beheadings.
Over time in Syria, the focus changed to fighting off ISIS rather than overthrowing Assad, and so he managed to remain in power.
Much of this was thanks in large part to the support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Russia. But now, with Hezbollah severely weakened in its clashes with Israel and Russia busy waging war in Ukraine, Assad fell rapidly.
President-elect Donald Trump in his own way,expressed a preference for restraint in how the United States should respond to what has happened in Syria.
“Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT,” he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”
This non-interventionist approach is often mischaracterized as “isolationism” by those who wish to see the United States continually meddling around the world. But after so many decades of perpetual war, the United States ought to intervene only when it is actually in the national security interests of the country to do so and with the formal approval by Congress.
For too long, we played the global policeman and got it wrong by doing so. We squandered blood and treasure, often creating an even bigger mess than we ostensibly sought to fix.
In the meantime, we hope for the best for the Syrian people. We hope they can secure for themselves a better future. But for now, Trump is right, it’s their business to figure out.