No, It’s Still Not a Good Idea to Bomb Assad: New at Reason

The war drums keep getting beat.

Matt Purple writes:

Washington foreign policy gurus still can’t get over the idea that we ought to be bombing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Now, like clockwork, another piece has appeared in The New York Times urging aggression against the Syrian regime, this one by Dennis Ross and Andrew Tabler.

According to Ross and Tabler, if Assad doesn’t comply with a recent accord struck with Russia that restricts his actions, the United States should “punish the Syrian government for violating the truce by using drones and cruise missiles” to take out sensitive regime targets in areas without a Russian military presence. This, they assert, “should persuade [Russia] to make Mr. Assad behave.”

Let’s start with the speciousness of their incentive. Assad’s regime has been under endless international pressure. It’s been threatened militarily by the United States. By 2015, it had lost 83 percent of its former territory. And yet it kept on fighting without any indication it intends to “behave.” The one time Assad did comply with American demands was when Russia stepped in and brokered a deal over his chemical weapons, which is probably why Ross and Tabler think Moscow can bend him now. But Assad is in a much stronger position today and he knows the United States must prioritize fighting terrorism over toppling him. So why should he give in to even the most precisely calibrated of threats?

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