What Will Be
Accomplished By the New Military Action in Syria?
By Alex Abbruscato
After the beheading of two American journalists, James Foley and Steven
Sotloff, President Barack Obama released a speech declaring that these threats
against the USA would not go unpunished. His current campaign includes an
increased number of airstrikes against ISIS compounds as well as the deployment
of an additional 475 ground troops in Iraq. Obama’s stated objective for this
is to “Degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL”, but my question is, what will
truly be accomplished by this new military action being taken? With so many
unanswered problems and loose ends I find it very futile to be jumping into
action so abruptly. To date there is still no clear group in the Syrian Civil
War in which we may align ourselves with indefinitely. ISIS is a clear enemy of
the United States but their primary rival, the government of Bashar al-Assad,
is also an enemy of the US so what is the game plan if and when we succeed in
taking down ISIS? Do we then go after the government of Assad as well, or just
leave Syria in a state of turmoil to work it out for themselves?
Along with the problems with what side to back in Syria there is also
the very prevalent issue of how exactly we plan to make this act of
counterterrorism successful. Looking into the past our track record on counterterrorist
movements have never been all too prosperous. We’ve fought Al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan for 13 years and they’ve still managed to survive. Not to mention
our efforts against the AQAP in Yemen and the Al-Shabaab in Somalia, which
although have helped to depreciate their numbers still remain standing today.
In conclusion I would like to point out that it’s not to say military
action isn’t necessary or meaningful, but that we should look deeper into the
situation at hand before making and rash decisions and potentially throwing us
into another perpetual anti-terrorist war in the Middle East – despite Obama’s
promises against it.
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