As I was headed to the office today I was informed of some
rather concerning developments about Republican Senator from Arizona John
McCain. He made a surprise visit to Syrian rebels and is the first American
senator to do so since the civil war broke out in Syria. McCain crossed into
Syria, illegally, from Turkey and spend roughly two hours meeting with General
Salim Idris and several of his opposition fighters.
This was a terrible mistake by McCain who calls for military
intervention, assistance as well as arms sales to Syrian rebels. It is clear
that McCain belongs to the old brass that still believes the U.S. needs to
police the world and can combat every enemy it encounters. Afghanistan is just
one case that proves him wrong. Unfortunately McCain is a member of the Armed
Services and Foreign Relation committees and also backs the creation of a
no-fly zone in order to assist the rebels.
It is clear why the Assad regime is hated by the developed
world. Their financing of Hezbollah and close ties to Iran are
counter-productive for Syria and definitely a problem which needs to be
addressed. Having said that, an invasion of Syria is 100% the wrong step to
take and needs to be avoided at all costs. We do not need a repeat of Libya
where several European countries as well as the U.S. have invaded a sovereign country
because they were able to do so.
Colonel Gaddafi did not pose a threat regional security.
People may dislike what he did inside is country which is nobody’s business.
The rebels decided to fight the regime which is perfectly fine, but the
international community had no right to interfere. In essence the developed
world assisted criminals to overthrow a regime it did not favor and now Libya
is in much worse shape than before while the international community stands on the
side telling them to fix their problems.
Now with the Assad regime we face the same issues, rebels
decided to overthrow the regime and started a civil war hoping for assistance.
We send the wrong message to every country which faces issues. Rebels pick up
arms, cause chaos as they know they will receive international assistance as
long as the regime they battle is disliked by enough countries. McCain’s visit
was extremely counter-productive and sends the wrong message.
The rebels knew the dangers and decided to start a civil war
and now they need to either keep fighting until they win or are all eliminated
or put down arms and face executions before there is a chance for peace to
return and a long rebuilding process can be initiated. Arms sales to rebels
will not solve the problem and the same arms will be sued against U.S.
installation after the conflict is over.
We may not like the Assad regime for very good reasons, but
it does not give us the right to invade or sovereign country or assist rebels
to overthrow the regime there. In the long-term the impacts will be
counter-productive and cause an even more severe negative impact. McCain
fumbled the ball and there will be some fall-out over the next few weeks due to
that.
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