- (Update 2/25/12 - Daniel Pipes, Middle East expert, expresses a similar take in his short commentary, "Syria: Arguing for U.S. Inaction."
- (Original post) - Why? Because of the liklihood of the "unintended consequence" of a horrific civil war. Colson writes:
While it may be good politics to want to go after the bad guy, but folks are acting as if the past decade never happened. Set aside the fact that arming the rebels will only prolong the killing. Once again, our leaders and opinion elites are urging the use of military force without thinking about what happens after the “bad guy” is gone.
Syria is a divided nation. The Alawites, who rule the country, are a minority. The majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims. There are also substantial Christian and Kurdish minorities.
Sound familiar? Actually, there are differences between Syria and Iraq: Many Sunnis don’t consider the Alawites to be Muslims at all, and they resent them for the way the Assad regime has treated Sunnis. Because of this, one human-rights activist predicts that a Syrian civil war would be “more destructive in terms of human lives, losses and regional instability” than the Iraqi civil war. [more..]