Strategic and moral concerns sometimes collide in international politics. Today, the United States stands at such a crossroad.
The case against aligning with Assad might seem obvious. This is a man who responded to the Arab Awakening by imprisoning, starving, bombing and gassing his own population. If you want to see moral depravity, Twitter is teaming with photos of fresh atrocities against Syrian civilians.
But from a national security perspective, Washington has a greater obligation to defend American civilians, even if that means working alongside the Alawite dictator. The nature of this cooperation could vary from uncoordinated airstrikes to joint operations. But its time for the Obama administration to pick its poison by prioritizing the safety of American civilians over the moral objection of helping out a leader who massacres his own.
Make no mistake, Assad and ISIS are both evil. But only one of these evil actors is going to strike the homeland. Until this summer, many analysts could claim that ISIS is mainly a regional threat. After all, it was establishing a perverted caliphate in Syria and Iraq, but had never attacked the United States itself.
Today, however, only a fool would argue against that scenario. An important watershed happened on Aug.8, when the United States ramped up its military involvement in Iraq. Since then, ISIS has issued a series of statements indicating its intent to kill Americans anywhere in the world. The savage beheading of the journalist James Foley makes the threat even more credible. Although citizens of the world are overwhelmingly repulsed by such atrocities, they have the opposite effect on already radicalized members of rival terrorist groups, who are quickly defecting to ISIS.
Most of these defections are occurring in Syria, not Iraq. In fact, most ISIS members are fighting in Syria, not inside its neighbor. And yet, because of our moral inhibitions over siding with Assad, U.S. military efforts against ISIS are limited to Iraq.
This strategy makes no sense if our goal is to degrade ISIS, as President Obama has expressed. On Thursday, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged, can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no." Our national security ultimately depends on crushing ISIS not only in Iraq, but also in Syria.
In the past, Assads forces were reluctant to engage ISIS directly. But the gloves have come off in the last couple of weeks. If Assad perceives ISIS as an existential threat, he will tolerate even secretly welcome U.S. military assistance. This is an opportunity Washington should seize not for him, but for us.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...uld-help-assad-to-fight-isis-the-greater-evil
The case against aligning with Assad might seem obvious. This is a man who responded to the Arab Awakening by imprisoning, starving, bombing and gassing his own population. If you want to see moral depravity, Twitter is teaming with photos of fresh atrocities against Syrian civilians.
But from a national security perspective, Washington has a greater obligation to defend American civilians, even if that means working alongside the Alawite dictator. The nature of this cooperation could vary from uncoordinated airstrikes to joint operations. But its time for the Obama administration to pick its poison by prioritizing the safety of American civilians over the moral objection of helping out a leader who massacres his own.
The Syrian dictator poses no threat to American citizens, but ISIS clearly does.
Make no mistake, Assad and ISIS are both evil. But only one of these evil actors is going to strike the homeland. Until this summer, many analysts could claim that ISIS is mainly a regional threat. After all, it was establishing a perverted caliphate in Syria and Iraq, but had never attacked the United States itself.
Today, however, only a fool would argue against that scenario. An important watershed happened on Aug.8, when the United States ramped up its military involvement in Iraq. Since then, ISIS has issued a series of statements indicating its intent to kill Americans anywhere in the world. The savage beheading of the journalist James Foley makes the threat even more credible. Although citizens of the world are overwhelmingly repulsed by such atrocities, they have the opposite effect on already radicalized members of rival terrorist groups, who are quickly defecting to ISIS.
Most of these defections are occurring in Syria, not Iraq. In fact, most ISIS members are fighting in Syria, not inside its neighbor. And yet, because of our moral inhibitions over siding with Assad, U.S. military efforts against ISIS are limited to Iraq.
This strategy makes no sense if our goal is to degrade ISIS, as President Obama has expressed. On Thursday, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged, can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no." Our national security ultimately depends on crushing ISIS not only in Iraq, but also in Syria.
In the past, Assads forces were reluctant to engage ISIS directly. But the gloves have come off in the last couple of weeks. If Assad perceives ISIS as an existential threat, he will tolerate even secretly welcome U.S. military assistance. This is an opportunity Washington should seize not for him, but for us.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...uld-help-assad-to-fight-isis-the-greater-evil