By Collin Bonnell

On April 10, President Donald Trump vowed to overwhelm the Syrian Government with missiles in retaliation for an alleged gas attack and to enforce the arbitrary “red line” he has drawn. Additionally, the president called upon the leaders of France and the United Kingdom to support American military action against Assad’s regime.

In response to the prospect of an American attack, Assad’s Russian allies pledged to intercept any missiles launched into Syria and implied that the Russian military would launch its own strikes at the sources of American missiles. Despite this threat by a nuclear-armed power, Trump went forward with the strikes three days later, leveling three sites connected to the manufacturing of chemical weapons outside of the Syrian cities of Homs and Damascus.

Just a few minutes spent consulting online media outlets can give you a general idea of how our involvement in Syria could rapidly escalate. Fox News ran a story about members of the Syrian opposition who spread “we love you” Trump memes, concluding the article with the implication that Trump may one day fulfill the Syrian people’s “hope for U.S. intervention.” Bloomberg, usually a reliable source, ran an article explaining how the American military has learned the “wrong lessons” from the Iraq War and needs to launch further interventions abroad in order to maintain global order.

The Bloomberg article goes as far as to hail the American military as a stabilizing force in Iraq, and claims that our military adventure in the country was justified. Furthermore, the article repeatedly condemns those who spread the “foolish” notion that military adventurism is detrimental to the stability of the Middle East and concludes that, if the American military does not intervene in Syria, a regional conflict between Israel and Syria will break out.

While these articles are diverse in their viewpoints, most share the claim that American involvement in a shooting war is necessary in order to uphold our diplomatic integrity; yet, many do not acknowledge the far-reaching implications that further American military action in Syria could have. A major complication could occur as a result of Russia’s presence in the region. Russia has an unknown number of troops stationed throughout Syria. If a single Russian is killed by future American military action, then a shooting war between two great powers becomes possible. Furthermore, if we consider that Russia may very well act upon its pledge to use deadly force against the sources of American missiles after a future strike, it is easy to imagine a day when American troops will be killed by Russian hands. Which action would be the proper one to uphold America’s “integrity” then?

In the eyes of American politicians, the answer could be the filling of Russian caskets to match those filled by Americans. When we look back on history, we find that some wars were unavoidable. The Second World War, for example, would have been delayed if Britain had allowed Poland to fall, but the armies of Hitler’s Germany and the Western Powers were destined to clash eventually. We deem these unavoidable wards “just” and reconcile with their ramifications. Thousands of lives are lost, yet we ultimately admit that there was nothing we could have done to prevent the clash and go on with our lives as if nothing had happened.

If this war occurs, our children will question our motives and will enter the hall of shame, a space in which only the conflicts in Vietnam and Iraq currently occupy.
While American intervention can enhance our prestige globally, the cost will be thousands of American lives. Yet, even if this cost is deemed worth it, we should anticipate the day when we wake up to find that much of the world will have been slowly reduced to rubble. And dominion over that rubble necessitates constant conflict.

Wars of prestige are wars of eternity. One day, we must concede that we have done too much in the Middle East and make a serious change in the way in which we uphold global order. We need to figure out how we can exit the Middle East without causing its collapse, rather than focus on augmenting our involvement.
I believe that after seventeen years of American crusade in the Middle East, that day may be upon us.

Collin Bonnell, FCRH ’21, is a history and political science major from Hingham, Massachusetts.