I don’t have a great deal to add about Syria:
- Punitive strikes, like President Trump’s missile attack on Syria, are justifiable.
- Military action without just authority is not.
- Just authority requires Security Council or Congressional authorization.
- Assad isn’t the only problem in Syria.
- The Alawite Assad regime remains the only viable alternative for a secular, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional Syria.
- The Middle East is a mess. It would take an Alexander, Attila, or Genghis Khan and an enormous amount of ethnic cleansing and forced resettlement to untangle it.
- We aren’t that and shouldn’t want to be.
There are no good courses of action for us in the Middle East. Our best alternative is to reduce our interests in the Middle East, not increase them. We should also stop putting our military might behind the regimes there.
