The civil war in Syria between loyalists to the Assad regime and rebels has caused a major political and ethical dilemma for President Barack Obama, who in August said that the use of chemical weapons would be a “red line” past which his administration would be bound to act.
The use of chemical and biological weapons is a war crime and has been since the end of the First World War. On Aug. 21, 2013, U.S. intelligence officials said, Assad green lit the release of sarin gas, a deadly nerve compound, on a suburban neighborhood near Damascus, the capital of Syria.
As President Obama pointed out, and as many media outlets have shown, the use of sarin has gruesome consequences. Most of the victims of the Aug. 21 attack were civilians, many were children. An estimated 1,400 people were killed in that attack.
But since 2011, the Assad regime has killed over 100,000 people and displaced millions as refugees. So why are the Obama administration and the international community seeking to act militarily now?
For the past two years, the civilized world has been shocked by Assad’s actions and has condemned them. But we’ve stopped short of declaring war on Assad and getting deeply involved in another Middle Eastern conflict, like Iraq.
I think most people react to such a situation with moral outrage, but many also ask, “Why is it my responsibility to deal with it?” – This is the political dimension.
Americans are tired of war, and many are receding into isolationist worldviews in which our status as the “world police” is seen as ridiculous and unnecessary. But America is still the world hegemon, and if we don’t act in international crises we may be forfeiting that status to other major players in world affairs – particularly, Russia and China.
That is why the president said on Sept. 4 that he “didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line.” Truly, the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a political justification to an ethical problem.
Now, however, after Secretary of State John Kerry’s sardonic comment that if Assad surrendered his chemical weapons to the international community, which Assad accepted, we’ve fallen into a situation of accidental diplomacy.
Without the political justification that the chemical weapons usage provided, we may be seen as imperialistic aggressors in the region if we were to act now.
I think that now we should endorse a moral and ethical justification for military action in Syria. As Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz alluded to, inaction on the part of the U.S. in the face of crimes against humanity has serious consequences.
Israel certainly remembers this lesson, and indeed has pleaded with the U.S. administration to act on the crisis in Syria many times. The security of this major ally in the Middle East alone should serve as political justification for action.
But, then again, we shouldn’t need a political justification to stop a horrendous genocide. If we condemn such evils in the world, we need to stand by our word and defend the defenseless.
When politics collide with morals, many inert compromises happen.
The U.S. should undoubtedly act on the crisis in Syria, or we should forfeit our claim to being a moral epicenter of the world.
Welch is a junior majoring in political science.
