President Obama’s recent decision to use force in Syria has been met with attacks from both ends of the political spectrum. The liberal left claims military action will lead to more bloodshed, while the far right rejects the notion that force can be used without an imminent threat, and though these arguments may seem sound from within the partisan chambers they inhabit, they’re wrong.
I’ve been a conservative Republican my whole life. I know better than most how Republicans feel about President Obama, because I feel that way, too. We think he’s a weak executive, a hypocrite who campaigns according to one set of principles and governs by another. In fact, there’s little that Barack Obama and I agree on, except for the Syrian crisis.
For months, Republicans have been calling for a harder stance against the crimes in Syria and the problematic regime officials. We believe Obama’s administration has avoided necessary involvement in the Syrian crisis for far too long. Now he is ready to act. Republicans aren’t looking for a second Iraq War or a regime change with new Syrian policy, and neither is Obama. Republicans don’t want to just put boots on the ground or for America to police the world, and neither does Obama.
Instead, on a world stage crowded with children too weak or too beholden to the Syrian regime to act, we expect the United States to be an adult force and take action against Assad. After indiscriminately killing 1,429 Syrians with chemical weapons, including 426 children, Syrian President Bashar Assad must be held accountable for his crimes. These mass killings are war crimes. Since the end of World War I, international norms have dictated that chemical weapons never be used in war. To allow a dictator to use weapons of mass destruction, or WMDs, without facing repercussions will only lead to further proliferation of chemical weapons.
There are a number of actions against Assad taken by the Obama administration that Republicans should start supporting. First, they should commend the careful approach President Obama has taken regarding WMD intelligence gathering in the post-Iraq world. His strategy has allowed for the time and resources needed to confirm with a high level of confidence that Sarin gas was used by the regime in the attacks on Aug. 21.
Republicans should also support President Obama’s decision to proceed unilaterally against Syria. Any efforts to pursue a vote to authorize force through the UN Security Council would lead nowhere. The lack of UN approval does not make President Obama’s decision any less right, it only reinforces the notion that the United States is the only country capable of taking a stance against the crimes of the Syrian regime.
Finally, Republicans should support Obama’s decision to seek Congressional authorization before using force in Syria. Though the War Powers Act does not demand the President do so, he should get his military plans approved by Congressional representatives as a matter of conscience. Though it is a politically risky move for the president, it is the right one.
Republicans in Congress will soon face a dilemma. They must decide whether to make the right decision and authorize the president to use force, or to make the politically expedient decision and vote against military intervention. Of course, before acting, we should recognize that military action alone cannot solve Syria’s problems. But the point of intervention in Syria is not regime change or to end centuries-old sectarian differences. The point is to punish a man who, after over 100,000 of his countrymen died fighting a bloody civil war, saw fit to use weapons of mass destruction against his own people.
There will be time to argue politics again soon. It won’t be long until we’ll be arguing about healthcare and taxes again, but saving innocent Syrian lives is an issue that should unite us all, conservatives and liberals alike. Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—understand war fatigue. But that is no excuse to not act. Some of the darkest stains on Western foreign policy have been the result of us closing our eyes and trying to ignore the world. We look back at the Rwandan Genocide and the Munich Agreement not with pride, but with shame.
President Obama is taking steps to avoid making a similar tragic error. The international community has proven too weak or too misaligned to retaliate against Bashar Assad. And now, Assad’s crimes have shocked President Obama into doing something that many Republicans have long argued for. The United States has been left alone to shoulder this massive burden. Republicans, then, should stand side-by-side with President Obama and help him carry the weight of war.
The one question our press never seems to get around to ask:
“President Obama: what are you doing to protect Christians in the Middle East?”