General David Petraeus recently told Congress that the United States is not doing enough in Syria. On the contrary, we have been doing too much.
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There is no such thing as an ideal foreign policy. An ideal world would have a universal government with no need to conduct foreign relations. Unfortunately, recent American foreign policy fails to achieve even the lesser evils allowed by an imperfect world.
Much of the problem results from Americans’ failure to understand that moral standards appropriate at the personal (or “micro”) level cannot be applied uncritically at the “macro” level in which governments operate.
America’s approach to Syria is a clear example of the problems caused by failure to understand this distinction. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad presides over a civil war which has killed hundreds of thousands and driven crowds to flee. American policy is that Assad is an evil man and has to go. Russian and Iranian support for his regime is considered outrageous.
We need to reconsider. Assad’s forces face several rebel groups and the Islamic State. Wholesale atrocities, committed by all sides, will end only when the civil war ends. If rebel forces destroy Assad, war will continue while the various groups fight to see who would rule. So the fastest way to end the war would be victory by Assad’s loyalists.
Whatever their reasons for supporting Assad, therefore, Russia and Iran are promoting more humane results than is the U.S. Our support for rebels prolongs the misery.
Assad, like Saddam Hussein, has done terrible things , so evaluated at the micro level he is indeed despicable. But remember the actual consequences of removing Hussein: chaos, large scale killings, the Islamic State. The average Iraqi would be better off today if Hussein remained in power.