By Michael Myllek

Over the weekend, yet another chemical attack was carried out in Syria over the southern part of Douma. This is the second chemical attack in Syria in as many years, both suspected to have been carried out by the Assad regime. The estimated death toll for the attack is anywhere from 40-80 people including children, according to the White Helmets, a humanitarian group in Syria.

The U.S. and its allies responded immediately, with President Trump, British Prime Minister Theresa May condemn the attacks and their “barbaric” nature, as May so appropriately phrased it. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis was careful in not ruling any course of action out when it came to a response to the attack.

According to PBS, shortly after the attacks, Israel bombed a base in Syria known as T-4. The attack reportedly that killed 14 people, including three Iranians. As attacks such as these grow more frequent and deadly, the best option for the U.S. in both the short and long term is to slightly increase its military presence in dangerous areas without overreacting.

Some call for diplomacy, encouraging Trump to sit down with Assad in an effort to compromise and prevent further attacks and the government to place further sanctions on Syria.

Although this diplomacy is a desirable option for many Americans and the tactic that President Obama utilized during his own Syrian crisis, Trump would be making a grave mistake in repeating this method. Obama drew “a red line” on chemical attacks by Syria. Yet, after Syria once again used chemical weapons a year later, he walked away from his statements of a “red line.”

Later that year, the U.S. and Russia worked together to remove all chemical weapons from Syria; this move was repeatedly toted by Obama as a rousing success achiecve it through diplomacy.

However, less than a year later, the UN Security Council conducted an investigation on Syria, confirming Syria’s use of chlorine gas on its own people. Even the man who negotiated the deal with Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry, admitted in his exit memo that undocumented chemical weapons were used by Syria on its own people. This example, as well as others occurring in the Middle East, shows us that President Trump would be truly foolish to follow suit with similar diplomatic relations for this issue.

A diplomatic approach to solving conflict is always the preferred option because the method does not jeopardize American assets or lives nearly as much as physical intervention. However, a general rule of diplomacy is that there must be a certain level of trust and faith in the opposing party, and both sides must be willing to actually carry out what is agreed upon.

The Assad regime has shown a blatant unwillingness to do just that, and it is not fit to earn America’s trust based on its despicable history. Furthermore, several reports are now claiming that Russia has vetoed the U.S. Resolution at the U.N. Security Council that called for an investigation into Syrian chemical weapons. This instance further shows that not only is the U.N. useless in their attempts to quarantine Syria’s tyrannical behavior, but also that a diplomatic stance is unrealistic due to Russia’s unwavering alliance with Syria.

Another popular response that many Americans will support is the idea of doing nothing and ignoring the matter altogether. Although these attacks are horrific violations of human rights and should be dealt with, it is fair to say that this issue is none of our business. As saddening as these events are, the U.S. should not utilize our military assets in foreign nation’s affairs. This approach may seems callous and uncaring, but is a legitimate view of foreign policy in politics and political science. Politicians such as Rand Paul don’t want us getting involved in most conflict outside of the U.S. unless directly provoked.

There is also no clear-cut evidence that this attack was carried out by the Assad regime. This instance could be a classic case of the teacher picking on the student who always causes trouble, even if the student was loosely or not at all involved with the predicament.

Yes, the Assad regime has done despicable things that violate statutes among statutes of human rights code.

But where does this suspicion come from? Mainly, the dark past of the Assad regime. Other than that, there is very little tying the regime to these attacks. Does this mean Assad could not be blamed for the attacks?

Of course not. However, there is a point to be made that it is hard to carry out a large-scale military act that is predicated on a suspicion. As the Syrian government pointed out, they are winning the war, why would they do this when they don’t need to? This is a fair question that should put some doubt in the minds of those who want a full-blown bombing campaign.

Although the attacks did not happen on U.S. soil, and Assad is only suspected to have committed these atrocities, it is in the best interest of the U.S. and the world to suppress all violent groups from harming others before they grow to be too powerful to overtake and become even more problematic in future encounters.
Something that Mattis may propose (likely with little success in the approval stages) is a full military assault by the U.S. with boots on the ground against Syria. The point of this approach would be to overthrow Assad and eliminate Russian and Iranian influence in the nation, allowing for a new Syria to rebuild and Russian-American talks to no longer center on Syria.

This option will be attractive for many “neo-cons” who are fans of nation-building and want to see Assad gone. This option seems appealing at first glance, but less so after further consideration of the possible consequences. One possible consequence is losing more American lives. Once we commit to Syria, we may be looking at Iraq 2.0, in which U.S. troops are there for years on end in an apparent stalemate because of the support Assad will have from Russia and Iran.

Also, this idea can be an expensive one, potentially increasing an already huge deficit that is currently ballooning from the recent tax reform. Executing this option is also a lot more difficult than it seems.

Very often there are multiple groups in a war and it is hard to discern who is who, and who we’re fighting against. There is also no guarantee that the rebels will be more skilled and better trained than the Assad members. Last time the U.S. trained a group of rebels, they eventually branched off and became ISIS, so there is always a risk when training rebel groups. President Trump has also made clear that he doesn’t approve of nation-building, so a full-fledged military operation is highly unlikely.
The best option is continued limited military involvement in the region. While this sounds vague, ideally it wouldn’t look too different from Syria as it is right now. We already have a limited presence there, but the troops are just focused on ISIS instead of Syria as a government. A decent model for this involvement would be what President Trump carried out after the last Syrian chemical attack, only more frequent. Constant and precise bombings would do a few things.

One, this approach would send a strong message that the U.S. does not accept the use of chemical weapons. Second, the bombings would deplete Syrian military forces and limit their ability to continue to harm their own people.

There are, of course, possible issues with this. For one, if the response is too small, the US will look weak and show Syria that the use of chemical weapons isn’t that serious.

This option is the best because it allows the U.S. to keep the majority of our soldiers out of danger while also showing the world that we will not stand for such atrocities.

A final addition would be to conduct an investigation into Syria’s chemical weapons despite Russia’s U.N. veto. Let the organization try and stop us, if their recent track record is any indication, they’ll vote on it and do nothing anyway.

President Trump, do not listen to the U.N., do not listen to former-President Obama and do not listen to Rand Paul. This decision will hold huge implications for the Middle East going forward. Do not make this decision lightly.

Michael Myllek, FCRH ’19, is an economics and political science major from White Plains, New York