The Interventionist

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has blasted the Trump Administration for not hard charging into Syria in the wake of the latest chemical weapons attacks.  According to McCain, Russia, Iran, ISIS, and Syrian Dictator Assad all need to pay a price for war crimes that rival those of Pol Pot or Nazi Germany.  He is particularly annoyed that Secretary Tillerson voiced a policy that sounds like disengagement, leaving Syria and the Syrians to fend for themselves.

 

First, Trump has exactly one appointee in the Pentagon, Secretary of State Mattis.  As far as the military is concerned, Trump has hardly even begun to take the reins.  In the wake of 9/11, it took a month before Bush acted militarily but McCain is seething that Trump isn't sending weapons to the Syrian rebels tonight.

 

Second, the window for acting in Syria has come and gone.  At this point, it is a disaster.  The competing interests are so numerous that any action will create more problems.  Do we side with the Kurds or the Turks?  The Turks have been US allies for decades and the Kurds were our best allies during the Iraq War but the two absolutely hate each other and are butting heads in Syria.  Who do we pick?  With the Russians already participating on the side of Assad, how can the Syrian rebels hope to unseat him without significant American support?  Air support will lead to an air war with Russia.  At best, this is like the Korean War where we dare not cross the Yalu River lest we expand the war.  Tackling ISIS on the Iraqi side of the border is relatively safe but will be inconclusive, just like the Korean War, and have little impact on the Assad Regime.

 

Third, what is the US national interest here?  US fracking has been so successful that Middle East oil holds far less importance in American foreign policy.  Where a sudden decrease in the oil output of the Middle East could once crash our economy, it would now serve to enrich us by making more fracking economically viable.  Humanitarian military actions (e.g. Somalia, Libya) have not gone well for us and are best avoided.

 

Whatever we do militarily, the outcome will be bad.  Better to engage the various players diplomatically and economically rather than risk military.  Russia and Iran are harmed by America's rising oil independence.  The more oil we drill, the further their economies sink.  Approving the XL Pipeline may be one of the best moves in bringing OPEC countries to heel.

 

Looking back, it may be that we dodged a bullet when McCain lost to Obama.  Yes, Obama was a catastrophe - we are enjoying his Syrian successes today - but McCain has rattled the saber at every conflict.  He would have been far more active against Russia than either Bush or Obama.  He made lots of noise when Russia pealed off part of Georgia, was feisty when Russia annexed the Crimea, and has called for more sanctions in the wake of the election hacking hoax.  Though I agree that the US should have done more, McCain sounds like he wants to restart the Cold War and then warm it up a bit.  You know, the good ole days when foreign policy was easy.