A12 • OCTOBER 6, 2015
The Chronicle
EDITORIAL
The Party Line President Obama’s War of Inconvenience By Johannes Sorto SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
For over four years now, Syria has been in a civil war that shows no sign of ending – and over the course of those four years, the Obama administration has been trying to do something about it. We have witnessed President Obama’s struggle in dealing with Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, after he used chemical weapons last year to oppress his citizens. Instead of the U.S. taking action, it was Russian President Vladimir Putin who stepped up to remove those weapons from Syria. Then came the rise of ISIS, which left the Obama administration scrambling for a solution. It has been over a year,
and to this day ISIS still has control of parts of Syria and Iraq. Recently, we have seen new involvement taking shape between Russia, Syria and Iran. Russia has already begun launching airstrikes in Syria to defend their ally, while Iran has sent their own soldiers into Syria to capitalize on the airstrikes from Russia. Both Iran and Russia have no interest in helping the people of Syria, and President Obama is foolish to think that inaction will result in a better Syria. Through President Obama’s inaction he has empowered
Russia to not only get involved in Syria militarily, but also to invade Ukraine and annex all of Crimea. It has led to the creation of ISIS, which now threatens to further destabilize the Middle East, and a refugee crisis that has pushed Europe further into economic
nations’ affairs. Since the beginning, President Obama has only been trying to get away from the situation in Syria. Every time he thinks he has heard the last of it, a gamechanger appears. The most recent one was the rise of ISIS, which President Obama tried to quell by just sending a drone every now and then. Now, the game-changer is Russia and Iran. Once again, President Obama will look for ways to pacify the situation, while claiming it will gradually put an end to the war. It seems that the war in Syria has become nothing more than
an inconvenience to him – one that he knows can only be fixed if he drops his passive principles and takes a more assertive role. But the odds of President Obama correcting his mistakes are doubtful and we will likely see the war drag out while Russia obtains a higher standing in the world and our allies in Europe struggle to deal with a growing refugee crisis. All of this seems to be a direct result of President Obama insisting to sit on the sidelines.
“Since the beginning, President Obama has only been trying to get away from the situation in Syria.” strain. All of this has forced the Obama administration to scramble for a solution – one it will not find because of its fundamental belief that America should not be involved in other
Johannes Sorto is the President of the Hofstra University College Republicans.
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Recognize that ISIL is the real enemy By Robert Bielunas SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
The crisis in Syria encompasses more than just the fighting within Syria’s borders. It includes the refugee crisis that is now impacting Europe and the rise of the Islamic State. It has grown from another regional civil war into an international crisis with the threat of becoming a proxy war between Russia, which is backing the Assad regime, and the U.S. and its NATO allies, which are backing the Free Syrian Army. However, we need to be careful not to be dragged into another conflict within the Middle East. Supporters of a more hawkish interventionist policy need to remember that we have tried intervention in the past and all we succeeded in doing was
destabilizing the whole region. U.S. boots in Syria will result in another war like Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam. The U.S. is already spending around $9 million a day fighting ISIL, according to the Department of Defense. This money is largely going towards U.S. airstrikes, but it also is spent on other U.S. military assets in the region. Russia has been making waves lately with their efforts to supply the Assad regime with weapons, advisers and air support, but Putin will stop short of committing Russian ground forces to an active combat role. If Russia commits ground forces in Syria, they will be
repeating the same mistake as they did in Afghanistan in 1989. We should not let the hawks in the Senate and the House scare us into another costly intervention in the Middle East. Just because Russia is supporting the Assad regime does not mean we need to turn this conflict into a Cold-
or not, Russia is involved in Syria and we need to make sure that their involvement is productive in fighting ISIL. Realistically, Assad is not going to be going away anytime soon and the best thing we can do as a country is to support the groups in Syria that want to move the country towards a government that represents and is elected by its people. At this point in time the real enemy is not the Assad regime, but ISIL and the other radical groups operating in the ISIL controlled areas. The biggest threat to the region is these groups, which use a twisted version of the Quran to
“Radical ideals cannot be defeated with bullets and bombs; they can only be defeated by the people who are most affected by them .” War-era proxy war. If the U.S. truly wants to fight ISIL, we should continue to use air superiority to attack ISIL positions within Syria and Iraq and continue to support moderate rebel groups within Syria. Like it
justify their brutal and inhuman behavior. Although in the short term military force might be able to beat back ISIL, in order to destroy them we need to change the hearts and minds of the Syrian people. The Syrian people are the only ones who can defeat ISIL. If they do not reject them, ISIL will continue to return in different forms and continue to spread pain and destruction throughout the world. Radical ideals cannot be defeated with bullets and bombs; they can only be defeated by the people who are most affected by them.
Rob Bielunas is the President of the Democrats of Hofstra University.