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Prolonging Conflict in Syria Will Lead to Radicalization

Bob Wright considers the implications of evidence of abuses on the part of some Syrian rebels: If indeed the Syrian insurgency starts to strike westerners as darker and more menacing, I suspect that supporters of intervention will try to work with that. They’ll argue that Syria will be better off in the long run if […]

Bob Wright considers the implications of evidence of abuses on the part of some Syrian rebels:

If indeed the Syrian insurgency starts to strike westerners as darker and more menacing, I suspect that supporters of intervention will try to work with that. They’ll argue that Syria will be better off in the long run if it can skip, or at least shrink, the phase of the civil war that entails ongoing religious radicalization. And they’ll say that outside intervention could accomplish that.

Syria would be better off if it could avoid that phase of civil war, and interventionists claim that providing support to Syrian rebels will help do that, but they do this by pretending that the rebels’ arms suppliers will be able to dictate rebel character and conduct. What they fail to consider is that it is prolonged, intensified conflict that facilitates radicalization, and the most popular proposal of arming the Syrian opposition would have the effect of prolonging and intensifying the conflict. As Trombly explains:

A strategy of attrition, particularly one directed at Iran, as arguments about Syria often are, should rely on prolonging the war. Because prolonging the civil war is exactly the result creating armed proxies will get.

The interventionist remedy of arming rebels will lead to more of the abuses that are happening now. Indeed, it is to be expected.

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