fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

The U.S. Isn’t Very “Invested” in Syria’s Conflict, and That’s a Good Thing

Michael Gerson overstates his case on Syria, but inadvertently says something true in the process: Syria has become a global proxy war, in which every other participant is more invested than the United States [bold mine-DL]. Gerson intends this as an accusation against the administration for its supposed “failure” to plunge even deeper into the […]

Michael Gerson overstates his case on Syria, but inadvertently says something true in the process:

Syria has become a global proxy war, in which every other participant is more invested than the United States [bold mine-DL].

Gerson intends this as an accusation against the administration for its supposed “failure” to plunge even deeper into the conflict, but taken by itself this is mostly a fair description. Every other participant in Syria’s conflict is far more invested than the U.S. because the conflict matters far more to every other participant than it does to America. That should tell us something about how truly foolish the pro-intervention argument here in the U.S. is. The U.S. has no business being “invested” in Syria’s conflict to the extent that it already is, and it certainly has no reason to be even more “invested.”

The U.S. isn’t more involved in the conflict because the conflict isn’t remotely as important to the U.S. or American security as it is to the interests of the other participants, and we should be pleased that our government can occasionally distinguish between conflicts that affect our vital interests and those that don’t. According to a certain sort of hegemonist, this is either intolerable or impossible. According to everyone else, this is normal and something that should be expected to happen most of the time.

The truth is that Syria is not a “global proxy war,” or at least it isn’t quite that yet. A global proxy war is what Gerson et al. have very much wanted it to be for some time now, and they are disappointed that the government has not yet fully obliged them in their desire. Even though the U.S. has nothing significant at stake in Syria’s conflict, the fact that other states may have something they want to protect or promote there somehow serves as an invitation for our meddling. Just because other states happen to be foolishly interfering in Syria’s conflict, that is no reason for the U.S. to copy them by doing the same thing. If the conflict truly becomes a “global proxy war,” neither Syria nor the U.S. will be better off than they are now.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here