Country? no. Other groups that threaten the US? yes. Look at Bin Laden's rhetoric leading up to the war in Afghanistan, he was constantly claiming the United States was weak because of their lack of strong response for attacks such as the east embassy bombings and the bombing of the USS Cole. The invasion of Afghanistan marked the end of America's passiveness in response to terror attacks and definitely discredited Bin Laden's claims. The war certainly opened a can of worms, which did get much worse with the invasion of Iraq, however it did eventually seriously weaken Al Qaeda's ability to carry out more operations.
Unfortunately for the States they have given many Islamic groups reason to declare jihad on America due to their foreign policy concerning the middle east for the past 40-50 years. Even worse is the situation they've found themselves in since the end of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq; now there are even more muslims pissed of at America ripe for being recruited by extremist groups. What we have now is a situation that somewhat resembles the late 80's and 90's leading up to 9/11 in terms of recruiting potential for terrorist organizations.
So what should America do in a situation like this? It seems most people feel like America should stop being the "world police" and start ignoring issues outside of their country. Unfortunately America's foreign policy has dug them into a hole where it is very hard for them not to have a strong presence around the world, calling for America to start adopting some isolationist principles will certainly jeopardize security in multiple ways.
There are also a couple arguments against the legitimacy of an intervention that I feel are somewhat flawed.
The whole "were helping Al Qaeda" is blown out of proportion. The one group fighting with the rebels that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda is Jabhat al-Nusra, and it only makes 5% of the rebel group. Obviously there will be extremists spread throughout the other groups however they don't make up a big enough population for us to generalize all of the rebels as terrorists and AQ sympathizers.
There are also those who say that the chemical attacks could have been orchestrated by the rebels in an attempt to lure the United States into Syria. Here is an excerpt from an article written by a former officer in the American infantry stating why logistically, this is impossible for the rebels:
"For AQ/Islamists to have pulled this off, one must believe a complicated list of assumptions:
1. Assume there is undiscovered evidence that rebels used chem in this attack.
2. Assume that, for the first time, rebels launched up to 12 missiles in a tight cluster to impact over 3000 people. Examples of rebels ever launching a conventional artillery/rocket barrage with the same accuracy?
3. Assume rebels were able to procure/build, load and employ chemical munitions with no evidence they have ever done so before, have the technical expertise to do so and kept that capability secret from every intelligence agency in the world.
4. Assume the rebels coincidentally had chemical munitions in the exact place Assad forces were conducting an offensive, or that they have such an effective intelligence capability that they were able to penetrate Assad’s OPSEC, communicate that intel to the select rebels that had this very unique never-before demonstrated chem capability, and who also had the ability to move into place to employ it simultaneously with Assad rocket/artillery strikes."
I've gone back and forth on whether the rebels were capable of orchestrating the chemical attacks and although I don't understand what the motivations would be for Assad to use chemical weapons, I'm not going to subscribe to the "rebels did it" school of thought solely based on my lack of information.
It also seems like people are being led to believe that the motivation behind intervention is solely "the red line" that Assad crossed when he used chemical weapons. Personally it also seems like this is an opportunity for the States and other middle eastern allies of the States, such as Saudi Arabia, to wage a proxy war with Iran and her allies. Like my earlier articles said, America has put itself in a position in which it needs to stick its dick in other countries affairs in order to maintain it's own national interest. America can't wage an all out war with Iran so she must try to weaken her enemies in other ways. (sounds a bit like the cold war?)
Syria has been Iran and Russia's closest ally in the middle east, a regime change in Syria would seriously hurt Iran and Russia which would be beneficial to the United States. However it is clear that this won't happen due to the obvious degradation of relationships with those countries (mainly Russia).
So do I support American intervention in Syria? No. Obama is not a war time president, intervention in Syria will not be strong enough to yield any benefits for the United States, and any benifits that could be yielded will be overshadow by the severed ties with other superpowers. It will become a nice little drain to pour money down without any possible return along with a great way to piss of Countries we don't want to piss off. Am I saying that the US shouldn't because it needs to adopt isolationist policies? Not at all. Unfortunately right now America's security does rely on having a strong presence abroad, will that change it 20 years time? 50 years time? Possibly, however we do need to focus on the threats at hand right now, and work towards a time where a cleaner foreign policy will work.
Also as an end note, I'm tired as shit from my first week back at uni, if this seems convoluted or confusing I'll be happy to try to explain myself in a different way.
