What Should We Do In Syria ?

Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at National Review today about the situation in Syria. It is entitled, “The Bad-Good Idea of Removing Assad.” That pretty much says it all.

The Bashar Assad dictatorship murders its own people, aids and arms Hezbollah, and targets Israel. This is not a dictator that America can do business with. However, what happens if he is ousted?

The article states:

But intervention, even if by air or through stealthy military assistance, requires some sort of strategy, and right now the United States does not seem to have any coherent one. We expected that post-Qaddafi Libya, and an Egypt without Hosni Mubarak, would be far better. They might be some day. But right now, emerging Islamic republics are hardly democratic. Some seem every bit as anti-American as were the dictatorships they replaced — and they could be even more intolerant of women, tribal minorities, and Christians. 

The point is not that we should support only idealists who promise an Arab version of Santa Monica, but that we do not oust one monster whom we are not responsible for only to empower one just as bad whom we would be responsible for. 

Our success in overthrowing tyrants in the Middle East is not matched by any success in what the dictatorships were replaced with. Sharia Law is enshrined in the constitutions of both Iraq and Afghanistan and will be in the Egyptian constitution. All we have done is replace one bad ruler with another bad ruler. That is not what America has done in the past, nor should it be what America does in the present.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Mr. Hanson brings remarkable insight into the question of what we should be doing about the slaughter that is currently going on in Syria.

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