The Really Thin Red Line

I haven’t had anything to say about Syria in a long time, mainly because it’s been too upsetting, and like many in the West, I just wanted to think about other things. But that is a luxury we may no longer be able to afford.

President Obama said a while ago that the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons would represent a “red line” that if crossed, would trigger a U.S. response, though it’s never been made quite clear what that is. It would seem, however, that there is much more evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria than there was for the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein, which triggered our launch of the Iraq war.

It’s almost impossible to count the number of horses that have left the barn here. Red lines are fine as far as they go – but what has already happened south of that line? The use of bombs and heavy artillery on civilian populations, Hundreds of thousands killed, atrocities too numerous and horrible to detail, and more than 1.5 million refugees fleeing to surrounding countries – a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions.

So the options that remain are bad ones. The Pentagon has a set of responses ready to be implemented, primarily for the securing of the chemical weapons – steps which may soon be necessary. And the talk of arming the rebels against the Assad regime continues. The European Union has the go-ahead to do so, but it’s a faint green light indeed: it’s simply a failure of European nations to agree on anything, so the current ban on such supplying of weapons will simply expire.

The West worries about the supplied weapons falling into the wrong hands. But it may be a challenge to find the right ones. Those who eventually come to power in Syria will probably not be our friends. The population will never forgive us for failing to come to their aid in their time of need – especially after watching what we did in Libya.

The bottom line is that we are going to be involved in Syria, whether we like it or not – sucked or dragged in kicking and screaming, choose your metaphor. Let us hope and pray that peace talks will eventually succeed and that somebody figures out what to do with the Assad family. But Syria is going to be our problem for a long time to come.

And I’m waiting for someone to talk me out of the idea that it didn’t have to be this way.