I honestly don’t know what the editors of the Washington Post want. While running an op-ed in support of an end to U. S. aid for Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war in Yemen, they publish an editorial lamenting the carnage in Syria where the Russians support the Assad government:
After months of hesiÂtaÂtion, the Trump administration recently outlined a policy for Syria that supports the U.N. process and calls for eliminating terrorist groups; officials say U.S. troops will remain in the country, which provides Washington with some diplomatic leverage. But Mr. Putin eschews cooperation with Washington. Instead, he is doing his best to bluff and intimidate President Trump into ordering a withdrawal. In the absence of a firm U.S. response to its latest outrages — and so far there is no sign of one — the Kremlin is unlikely to change course.
There was a way to bring the Syrian civil war to a quick conclusion: we could have joined the Russians and Iranians in supporting the Assad government and discouraged the Saudis from arming and otherwise supporting the Islamists in Syria in no uncertain terms. If we couldn’t stomach supporting someone as heinous as Assad, at least we could have avoided supporting Al Qaeda there.
There are no “good guys” in the Syrian civil war. Our intervention there is no less illegal than in Yemen. The best we can do is butt out. The Saudis are promoting a genocidal war in Syria, too, in Syria’s case with proxies rather than on their own and they need to have their ears pinned back.
