The Providence Journal (R.I.), Oct. 1:
It would be nice if a weakened and disengaged America were in the interest of peace and comity around the world, as some seem to believe. Unfortunately, there are few signs that, absent U.S. leadership, the other good guys – countries that embrace human rights and basic freedoms – are prepared to step in and do the costly and difficult job America has long done.
America cannot completely control or police the world, beating back every potential threat. On the other hand, a policy of disengagement and flowery words, however much we might wish it would work, only invites deadly enemies to step through the door and expand their power.
Thus, autocratic Russia, emboldened by having worked its will in seizing parts of Ukraine, has decided to flex its military and diplomatic muscle in the Middle East. It has moved bombers into Syria and created an intelligence-sharing alliance with Iran and Iraq in trying to defeat ISIS – and to prop up the bloodthirsty regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (Meanwhile, the Taliban appears to be gaining in Afghanistan.) This cannot fail to alarm American allies throughout that region, and heighten the risk of a catastrophe. Russia and Iran are not conspiring for peace and justice; the goal of these cruel regimes is greater power to damage America and its allies, notably Israel.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking before the United Nations Monday, called it “an enormous mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed forces.” Iran President Hassan Rouhan, with whom the United States has just cut a nuclear deal (endorsed by the entire Rhode Island congressional delegation), lectured America from the U.N. podium, saying it “should end its dangerous policies and its support of allies that fuel extremism and sectarianism.”
And what is America to do? That’s not clear. Having abandoned Iraq prematurely, permitting the savage ISIS (which President Obama initially dismissed as “a jayvee team”) to fill a power vacuum, and having failed to support moderate contenders for power in Syria, the president could do little more at the United Nations Monday than protest. As he put it (quite accurately), “dangerous currents risk pushing us back into a darker, more disordered world.”
The collapse of civil order in Syria – which many initially hailed as the sign of a promising “Arab Spring” – has led to the deaths of 220,000 people and fueled a massive refugee crisis. The president made it clear that propping up Mr. Assad – who has been dropping barrel bombs on women and children – is simply unacceptable. “There cannot be, after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a return to the prewar status quo” in Syria, he insisted. There needs to be a “managed transition away from Assad.”
That would be great. But just who is going to do that?
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