“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”
The world is on standby. This past week, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad allegedly once more used illegal chemical weapons against his own people in the town of Douma, where eyewitness reports, horrifying photos and videos of civilians, including children, are shown struggling to breathe and in grave despair. Humanitarian organizations are calling for the world to act, and indeed it has.
A coalition force led by the United States, with France and Britain accompanying, launched a precise coordinated strike on three targets involved in the research, manufacturing, and production of Syrian chemical weapons. The targets were hit with approximately 100 missiles launched from both the Mediterranean, where allied ships lie, and manned aircraft. While some rejoice at the West’s intervention, others scream at Western imperialism.
Syria’s regime, and its apologist world power, Russia, have denied all allegations linking the attack to Assad, and have repeatedly asserted that this is a staged event, put in motion either by the West or by rebels still fighting against the regime in order to discredit it on the international stage and to incite Western response.
Now, inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have arrived in Syria and are scheduled to begin collecting samples in Douma, where the death toll now stands at more than 70. The inspectors, however, are not there to determine who is responsible for the attack but rather if illegal chemical weapons were in fact used, and if so, which ones.
The international response prior to the attack was varied and colorful. Apart from Russia and Syria strongly denying any wrongdoing and hinting at conspiracy theories, President Trump, in typical teenage fashion, tweeted out that American missiles were on their way, “…Either very soon or not soon at all…” (it proved to be quite soon, after all), and put Russia on warning about its staunch defense of the barbarous autocratic regime, that no more chemical attacks shall be tolerated, and that Putin “shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it.” Russia has since been quick to call out Western aggression in escalation of tensions.
It would be in the interest of both ourselves and our Russian friends to remind them that when a mass murderer is sentenced to life in prison, it is not the judicial system nor the police that are guilty of cruelty or violence.
In the U.K., Prime Minister Theresa May called an emergency Cabinet meeting immediately after the attack to discuss Britain’s possible responses, and allegedly described the attack as “shocking and barbaric” before involving the Royal Air Force in the allied strikes. The prime minister, known for her methodical approach to building consensus among a divided party and leading a minority government was always likely to leave the ‘”tip of the spear” leadership position of the response up to the United States, and rightfully so.
She has, however, refused to play deaf to the evidence presented of Assad’s culpability, claiming:
French President Emmanuel Macron has shown similar outrage at the savagery of the Assad regime, if France’s participation in the strikes are not testament enough, proclaiming that his government has irrefutable proof of the regime’s liability. That’s a leap few have made thus far, although one now becoming morally unavoidable.
Israel has, on the other hand, shown no desire to wait for international approval or supervision to mount a strike on its own, as they have been routinely doing since 2012, firing 8 missiles killing 14 people on a Syrian Air Force base before the American and European response. The steadfastness of the Israeli strike has led a few to think it was executed by direct order of the United States, henceforth degrading Israeli strike capability to America’s pet proxy, but both governments have since repudiated this interpretation.
The United Nations has called an emergency Security Council meeting for Monday to discuss this issue. It is unlikely anything of value will be decided, as Russia has veto power on any resolution the U.N. wishes to pass.
To further demonstrate the U.N.’s uselessness in this realm, Syria is officially about to chair the U.N. disarmament forum on chemical and nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, that is not a joke.
Is anything more to be done? This situation, in all its horror, is by now all too familiar. Similarities are already being drawn with Iraq and Libya, claiming that the disastrous way the West handled these past cases of Middle Eastern regimes and their autocratic tendencies is already reason enough not to intervene.
The far :eft, and its newly found allies on the isolationist Right, both claim that it is neither the duty nor the interest of the U.S. to get involved in humanitarian crises not directly affecting its own national security. They scoff at the wish for an “American world police” and are quick to draw on the past examples of western inaction and the moral condemnation that follows to justify their position. Their argument is essentially saying, “if you can’t do everything, why do anything at all?”
This anti-interventionist argument, essentially unchanged for the past 40 years, is once again misplaced and immoral. The last time the Assad regime used illegal chemical weapons in April 2017, Trump responded by firing 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Mediterranean into the Syrian-held Shayrat airbase. The message was, by all accounts, heard loud and clear by the Syrian regime, which waited until Trump announced his wish to completely pull out of Syria last month to use chemical weapons against its citizens again. Time will tell if this year’s strike will be enough to completely deter the autocratic ruler, although it is unlikely. Syria and Russia have been known to answer to force and determination, and not to feebleness or timidity.
It is undeniable that the world is a safer place for all when the United States military is strong, feared, and believed ready to intervene. In the past century, there have been four great threats to peace, democracy and freedom: Imperialist Germany in World War I, Nazi Germany in World War II, Communism, and radical Islam in the form of terrorism and autocratic regimes. In all four of these instances, the United States military has played a key role in eradicating these dangers. You could in fact say, that “in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might,” did in fact step forth “to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
If the United States is ever to give up the role of world police, as the British empire once did, and with a shaky European Union, it will be left to the other great powers, China and Russia, to fill in the vacuum. And considering the grave infringement on freedom and human dignity those powers already commit on their own people, one can only imagine the degradations of freedom they would commit under the banner of world “security.”
In Syria, the U.S. needs to affirm its role once more, but certainly not alone. A grand and tightly knit coalition, even greater than the three-eyed menace responsible for this week’s strike, must be led by the United States with the addition of Israel, Germany, and all other nations wishing to avoid appeasement and stand up for human dignity.
Further strikes must be led by this coalition, in an attempt to seek out and destroy as much of the Syrian Air Force as possible, as well as their anti-air defenses, with precision-guided missile or bombing runs. Safe havens should be formed in Syria and near its borders by the coalition forces to ensure medical and humanitarian aid as well as to avoid an escalation of the refugee crisis. The Russians have proved ineffective and untrustworthy to run the show in Syria, and their bluff must be called if we are to avoid continuous escalation of cruelty and unnecessary violence.
The West must stand up to the constant intimidation and bullying by Syria and her unofficial god-ruler, Vladimir Putin.
The free world is stronger in every way than the barbaric regimes involved in these atrocities and must reassert itself as the staunch defender of human dignity and freedom. Although a full-scale land war is to be avoided, we as humanists can no longer allow these events to go unpunished, nor is it in our long-term interest to do so. In the words of President Ronald Reagan:
Louis Sarkozy is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a student in philosophy and religion at New York University. He is the youngest son of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
