US Meddling in Syria: The Creation of ISIL

In a recent CNN.com article, "Analysis: Syria's al-Assad regime in trouble" it speaks to recent gains by Islamist fighters against the current regime. Like it or not, dictators do add stability to these regions and installing fanatical theocratic leadership is not the answer, in my opinion. Our government's approach, whether covertly or overtly, is not solving a problem with another greater problem, of course they'd have us all believe that, wouldn't they (Iraq, 2003)? This calculus is wrong and will only add further instability to the region. Granted, men like Saddam and al-Assad are terrible human beings, err more akin to animals, but they did provide for regional stability. Although their means from a deontological point of view are warped to the greatest extent. In other words, they used brutality and totalitarian leadership as a means to keep power, or the end. The utilitarian side of me decries their methods as they violate the "harm principle", but the pragmatic side of that argues that you "have to crack a couple of eggs to make an omelet". I mean, yeah, they're terrible, but would we rather trade them in for the savagery we see in this region (Iraq/Syria) now via ISIL? I would say, without a doubt, no. The media, their pundits, talking heads and politicians would have you believe otherwise; however, they all have their agendas and their views are aligned with those, whatever they might be. There'll always be dissent in any system of governance, especially autocratic ones, but we've unleashed an ideology that will have lasting impacts, and terrible atrocities beyond the former dictators at that. I don't think we should further our agenda in this region any longer from this type of policy, it's abundantly clear that all policies of the last administration and the current have created a monstrosity that'll only continue to get worse and plague the poor peoples of those areas. In summation, we really just traded one Ba'athist for another as ISIL's bureaucratic leadership is made up of former high-ranking military officers of Saddam's previous regime. We then coupled that with extreme islamist militant ideology that's sweeping through the region like wildfire. The point is, we're not really doing anything good, especially for the poor souls whom have to suffer under this terrible acronym we've come to know as ISIL. In summary, our policy of meddling in this region should cease to stop as we're creating a war torn area that will eventually see ethnic cleansing when the radical Sunnis turn on the Shias, Christians and Jews of the region; however, the damage is done, but further adding to it will not help this situation out.

Reference

Walsh, N. (2015, May 3). Analysis: Syria's al-Assad regime in trouble - CNN.com. Retrieved May 3, 2015, from http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/03/world/analysis-assad-regime-possible-trouble/index.html

Rosenstand, N. (2013). The Moral of the Story (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.