The lessons of those previous wars are particularly relevant here. Syria has, as Syria specialist Joshua Landis has argued, many parallels to Iraq. It is a nation rife with religious, sectarian and class divisions. A minority — Shiite in Syria — in alliance with urban Sunnis, Christians and other minorities, has used a dictatorship to rule over the Sunni majority. The uprising has quickly turned sectarian — in part because of the outside influences of Turkey and the Gulf monarchies who seek to weaken the Iranian-Shiite alliance.Despite U.S. efforts to cobble together a united and more secular opposition, the rebels are divided, with Islamists — many espousing open allegiance to al-Qaeda — providing the fiercest fighters. The violence will not end when the brutal regime falls. Already chaos, criminality, local militias and warlords beset “liberated”areas.
There is also that pesky consideration, international law:
Nor does the United States have any legal basis for waging war on Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad does not pose a terrorist or national security threat to the United States, nor a threat to international security. There is no United Nations resolution that can be stretched to provide even a transparent cover for intervention, as there was in Libya.
Finally, let's remember "taking out the bad guy" is the easy part:
The last thing the president should do is commit the United States militarily to the overthrow of the regime. As in Iraq, we can win that war, but we will surely lose in its violent aftermath — and we will bear responsibility for deepening the humanitarian disaster with our “humanitarian” intervention.
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
May 7, 2013 | Washington Post
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