Yes, Syria is supposedly a republic, but it is a republic under an authoritarian regime. This worked well if it was, say Egypt which was the same kind of government under Hosni Mubarak, sure there were a few blips, but the country was economically viable, the religious zealots were kept to a bare minimum, and the country was a “friend” of the United States. Now look at Egypt, it is a freaking mess, half run by the muslim brotherhood, half run by the military and they are going to kill the shit out of each other until one emerges victorious. If we had backed Mubarak when it all started none of this would have happened. But we didn’t so let us learn from that mistake and let Syria burn.
Syria is surely under the thumb of an authoritarian government that is a republic in name only. If we assist the rebels in that country, something which we have already pledged to do, then what are we accomplishing? The rebels largely belong to the muslim brotherhood, surprise surprise. What is so bad about them you ask, aren’t they just freedom fighters? Well no, the Brotherhood’s stated goal is to instill the Qur’an and Sunnah as the “sole reference point for …ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community … and state.” So we would be helping to overthrow a largely secular regime and helping to install a theocracy by assisting the rebels.
Theocracies are bad. If you recall, democratic protesters overthrew an authoritarian monarchy in Iran in 1979. They were quickly swallowed up by a theocracy that has plagued the United States for the last 30+ years, and now we want to help Syria. The government of Syria hasn’t been a great friend, or even a compliant acquaintance over the years, but helping to install a hostile government, willing to violate human rights at the drop of a hat, using Sharia law as their basis of justice goes against everything we believe in.
When we hear our talking heads lecture us on the importance of letting the people participate in the democratic process I want to cringe. The democratic process only results in democracies, republics, etc. When the democratic process results in an Oligarchy, Autocracy, Dictatorship, Theocracy, etc, it is not the democratic process, it is just the people reaching out and sticking the thumb to their own backs. If that is what Syria wants then who are we to stop them, why should we help them administer their own poison, which brings me to my last point.
It is abundantly clear that someone in Syria used chemical weapons to kill a number of people. What is not clear is what kind of weapons were used and who used them. But surely the government used them to shut people down? Or did the rebels use them to make the government look guilty and help gain financial support? What we really need to figure out is where the chemical weapons came from rather than who used them. These are probably, most likely, all those missing chemical weapons from Iraq that disappeared. We know Saddam killed over 300,000 Kurds with them in the late 80’s but they had been off the radar since the invasion of Iraq, guess they ended up in Syria. That is all I care about, if authoritarians used them to kill dissenters, not my problem, not a U.S. problem; if the muslim brotherhood use them to kill other muslims to curry favor in the non-muslim world, not my problem, not a U.S. problem. It is as simple as that. If the U.N. wants to make a stink about it, let them. If they want to do something about it, hell there are like 200 U.N. countries, surely they can throw some troops and funding at the problem…I don’t see why we have to fix everything they see as a problem.
Syria is just another toilet in the mass of countries that are the middle east. We want nothing to do with them, we shouldn’t give a crap about their country, their people, their supposed human rights violations, or anything else. We should let them kill each other and let allah sort it all out if he feels like it at the end of the day. This is not an enemy of my enemy kind of deal, this is a sit back and watch the country implode then give a warning to the winning faction to keep to itself. We want none of their shenanigans here, or anywhere else outside their own little hell hole.
Related Content:
How the Muslim Brotherhood Hijacked Syria’s Revolution – By Hassan Hassan | Foreign Policy.