Since the dawn of the 20th century, the United States of America’s global influence has been one that has settled wars, fed the hungry, aided the broken, and protected the freedoms and liberties that are granted in democracies all around the world. While the United States role has marginally changed, there now comes a time where traditional United States interventional policy meets a modern, dynamic, and volatile Middle Eastern front in 2012 that has yet to be tested. While the United States can look back upon their victories for guidance, policymakers need to look back upon their losses instead of successes, as this is a world that is not the same as it once was. Returning to a non-traditional period of American isolationism would allow the conflict in the Middle East to diffuse into a clearer path which the United States should be focusing their influence on, while avoiding all out nuclear war and reallocating the new federal budget in a way that promotes ‘America First’ as the United States awaits the long overdue and well deserved international aid from those who have formerly benefitted from the United States global power. 

The Middle East has been exposed to the perfect storm of war, religious and political oppression, the world’s largest oil fields, and a new generation in the 21st century where the influence of media is greater than ever before, in an area that has already been blown to pieces throughout the 20th century. In December 2010, protests broke out in Tunisia after facing years of political oppression. The angered citizens had sparked protests in the neighboring countries of Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen for all the same reasons – overthrowing their leader. These protests were given the name the Arab Spring, which after completed, resulted in extremely successful, peaceful protests. While people rejoiced in new governments rising from the ashes, Syria did not experience the same success. 

In 1970, Hafez al-Assad had taken the seat as Syria’s president. Hafez grew to power with a handful of aides whom had experienced life in less fortunate, rural regions. While Syria has never been a country with global political influence, this link between Syria’s leaders and it’s people had kept Hafez in power until his death in 2000. The next ruler in the Assad bloodline was not the man who was originally poised to take the seat. In 1996, Hafez’s son eldest son Bassel was killed in a car accident. This placed Hafez’s other son Bashar in charge. Bashar was expected to continue to carry out the policies that his father had put in place, but this story does not have a happy ending. Upon appointment, Bashar al-Assad began to seek his independence from his father by removing long-time aides and building his own cabinet. Assad’s cabinet “essentially comprises children of the elite – a generation raised in the city, with no other constituency other than their own concentric networks of influence” (Chatham House Organization). The vital link between the people and the Syrian government diminished as new leadership took place and lost track of their roots. Syrian stability was a ticking time bomb. 

The news about the Arab Spring protests were fueled through a new medium of communication that the world has yet to see on such an important scale - social media. The use of Facebook and Twitter during these times of protest were a way of congregating, spreading ideas, and keeping morale up. It united the masses and was the catalyst to the mayhem experienced throughout the Middle East. While the Arab Spring resulted in a lot of peaceful success, the protests in Syria turned from peaceful to violent as Syrian military reinforcements fired shots into crowds of protestors in January 2011. After reoccurring violence, the protestors begin to fight back two months later in March 2011. Syrian rebels came together and created the Free Syrian Army who intended to start a revolution and overthrow their authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad.  Bashar al-Assad carried out anti-protest procedures with an iron fist. Arresting thousands, wounding thousands, and killing hundreds while censoring media across as much land as possible to keep as much of the situation under the rug as possible. This widespread censorship set up the social media platform of communication to flourish. Truthful news, updates, and plans spread like wildfire throughout the Middle East and eventually throughout the entire world. Social media became first-hand documentation of the brutality of the Assad regime while on the front lines. As the continuous news of innocent people being slaughtered spread to across the region, support for the Free Syrian Army and the opposition of Bashar al-Assad grew exponentially. The resistance becomes a full on Syrian civil war. 

Amongst these migrating rebels, there are large numbers of jihadists and extremists. This is a key variable that throws off the course of the Syrian civil war. As the number of resistance fighters grew, the morality of the fighters continued to diluted through extremist support. In 2012, Assad began to release jihadist prisoners in a way for the rebels to further receive more troops, but these fighting jihadists deterred other countries from sending aid to the Free Syrian Army. In 2013, the activist group Human Rights Watch had documented Syrian chemical attacks on civilians which “resulted in deaths of nine civilians, including four children, and wounded roughly 200” (Tharoor). Along with the chemical attacks, there was a study done by a large activist group of 6 million people. Amnesty International released a detailed investigation proving that Assad’s regime had hanged roughly 13,000 people in between 2011 and 2015. As rebel groups continued to grow, Iran began sending daily supplies in the form of air drops to the Syrian government. Saudi Arabia begins sending money to the rebels through Turkey. As the situation becomes a proxy war, a war that is being fought indirectly by states through other countries, the President Obama sends a secret CIA order to begin training rebels in Syria to fight Assad. More chemical attacks occur and pictures of dead children littering the streets catch international news. 

After continued blatant chemical attacks reach international news, President Obama addresses the United States on September 10th, 2013. He says that the US will “respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike” (Vox) and Russia proposes a plan to have Syria dismantle their chemical weapons to avoid a US attack in Syria. With the United States fully engaged in this proxy war, Russia, a powerful ally of Iran, establishes themselves as Assad’s ally and becomes a major player in this war. The United States first wave of trained rebels then hits the front lines. In 2014 comes the major twist of this proxy war. A group of al-Qaeda extremists fighting Assad split from the group over disagreements. This group is called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and becomes an enemy of the rebellion. ISIS is not focused on fighting Assad, but a group called the Kurds who have successfully succeed from Assad, who claim land in northern Syria and Iraq. ISIS takes over this Syrian land and some bordering areas of Iraq. This creates more international buzz and adds a completely different dynamic to deal with in Syria because they are now dealing with terrorists. In 2014, the United States announces they are carrying out airstrikes against this newly formed ISIS terrorist organization in Iraq, as well as focusing on Syria. The Pentagon announces to the public (Obama’s previous order was not public) that they have created a program to train even more Syrian rebels, this time training the rebels to fight ISIS and not Assad. This shows that the United States had completely shifted from the very disclosed and underground fight against Assad to a more public fight against ISIS. This is very important because much of what was happening in Syria before the formation of ISIS was not in the public eye. ISIS became household knowledge and what was previously known about Assad took the back seat. The United States was now fighting a war against terror in 2014. 

Due to the rapid growth of ISIS, Assad had lost large amounts of land after putting up weak resistance and is an effect of ISIS growing so quickly across so much land in Syria, it just became ISIS declared land. The United States begins heavily bombing ISIS in mainly Iraq and this yet again is spread across the world as the United States is consistently under the global spotlight. This is crucial for gaining public support. If the United States is fighting a terrorist group, the rest of the free world would view that as a fight that their country is involved in as well. While ISIS remains to be ‘top priority’ for the United States, Russia comes to Assad’s aid yet again when there is less global attention on the Syrian government. Russia sends fighter jets to ‘bomb ISIS strongholds’ in Syria to regain lost land. However, the Syrian government does not have a major issue with ISIS. ISIS has taken all of the attention because of the United States’ actions against them and ISIS has been very careful to not cross the line with Assad. ISIS is creating lots of mayhem for the Rebel fighters who are trying to fight Assad and ISIS at the same time. Knowing this, Russia does not bomb ISIS like they say they do. Russia begins to bomb rebel strongholds and civilians that are living in rebel territory. Some of these attacks are on schools and hospitals. Yet, because ISIS is the United States number one priority, Assad and Russia slip under the radar and can get away with bombings on rebel territory, usually on civilians. 

Aleppo is the economic capital of Syria and the Free Syrian Army holds vital land in this ancient city. In September 2016, “the largest hospital in eastern Aleppo was damaged by powerful bombs overnight in airstrikes that killed a reported 30 people” (Vice News) by the Russian airstrikes. It was hit two times in two days. At this time, “UNICEF says Russian and Syrian forces have killed an estimated 320 people and 100 children” (Vice News) between September 19th and October 1st of 2016 during the Syrian siege of rebel held Aleppo. No aid and no civilians were allowed inside or out of Aleppo, forcing the rebels who couldn’t receive any foreign help to lose a huge amount of power and land which was a crushing blow to morale. All of this is happening while the United States is bombing ISIS, somewhat turning the other cheek to avoid war with Russia, Syria, and Iran. All while in this was occurring, one of the most controversial Presidential election in the history of the United States is currently in the process. 

The main objective of foreign policy is to “use diplomacy – or talking, meeting, and making arguments – to solve international problems” (US History). The idea is to peacefully solve international problems without escalating the issue. There are two main schools of thought when it comes to foreign policy. There is the Realism school of thought and there is the Liberalism school of thought. On the realism side of thought, also known as the Wilsonian school of thought, is based of Woodrow Wilson’s idea that revolves around actors who are pursuing power. Realism is said to follow alongside human nature and to feed to the hunger for power. This school of thought has been used extensively in the United States, especially during WWII. Internationalism, imperialism, expansionism, and interventionism all fit under this category. These ideas suggest that intervening to manipulate an aspect of society, whether that be defending a less powerful democracy against communism or sending aid to an ally overseas. The other main school of thought is Liberalism. Liberalism suggests that countries avoid conflict with other countries, especially in democracies, because the countries are dependent on each other because of the free global market. Liberalism is a broader turn for isolationism, which was used by the United States post-WWII and during the Cold War. In liberalism, power is defined as global economic influence. In realism, power is defined by militaristic power. At the turn of the 21st century, there was “one of the most significant and aggressive overhauls of American foreign policy in the nation’s history” (The Saylor Foundation), in response to the attacks on the World Trade Center, the most deadly terrorist attack in history, along with the continued widespread instability of the Middle East. This extensive change had switched the United States from a more liberal view on their foreign policy back to realism. It now became time for G. W. Bush to flex the United States military might while fighting a new type of enemy, terrorists. The United States is one of 28 countries apart of NATO which have signed a treaty to take action against any country that makes military advances upon a NATO country. There are dues to pay for NATO and the United States pays for 78% of those costs (On The Issues). The United States is pouring money into this pact, yet NATO does not focus on the new dynamic of terrorism the United States is fighting. G.W. Bush’s plans of United States intervention to help stabilize the Middle East had been continued through to the Obama administration. The United States foreign aid was plentiful in an attempt to continue to stabilize the Middle East post-9/11. However, the United States did not follow George Washington’s advice, “Avoid entangling alliances” (US History) which was stated in his 1789 farewell speech. Entangling alliances just skims the surface of the gridlocked conflict. The events in Syria have been regarded as “Syria: The worst humanitarianism crisis of our time” (Amnesty International). This is mainly due to the blurred lines between alliances and each party’s motivation for fighting the war. This is where majority of the criticism comes into play. The United States had fought a war against al-Qaeda after 9/11 in 2001. In 2012, the United States began training rebel troops who were fighting along side our former (some could argue current) enemy to overthrow Assad. As things had developed, the some of the current extremist ‘allies’ had split off to form a group called ISIS who in 2014 President Obama claimed was our number one threat to global security. After a few too many years with a very Realism school of thought approach towards foreign policy during the 2000s in the Middle East, the United States has completely violated George Washington’s advice about becoming entangled in alliances. All eyes are upon the United States as the newly elected President Donald J. Trump takes office and begins to formulate his policies in the winter of 2017. 

For the first time in eight years in the United States, there is a Republican commander-in-chief. Traditionally, conservatives have favored the use of interventionism and using their military strength when it comes to the betterment of the world. However, what President Trump along with the newly appointed Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson are suggesting are not what the United States needs right now on top of plethora of messes that are seemingly all interconnected on the global stage. Let’s start with a study done by the Pew Research Center in 2017 who investigated what American’s top priorities are with the new administration. The top three priorities were terrorism (76%), the economy (73%), and education (69%). The federal budget is the one of the first formulated and debated topics when a new administration moves in and it can be used as a great indicator for what is to come for the upcoming fiscal year. It is split into two sections: mandatory spending and discretionary spending. Mandatory spending is more or less a fixed cost that accounts for spending that is required by US law such as Social Security and Medicare. Mandatory spending will approximately cost $2.7 trillion in 2018 (Office of Management and Budget). Discretionary spending is where the administration begins to allocate money around to satisfy the goals, standards, and policies they’ve set. This is completely up to the administration if it passes through congress. Discretionary spending will approximately cost $1.05 trillion in 2018 (Office of Management and Budget). So, Donald Trump has some very ambitious and expensive plans that don’t seem to add up. Remember said that foreign policy is set in place to make peaceful agreements without the use of military force? Amidst the greatest humanitarianism crisis in a proxy war with our greatest enemy, Russia, the Trump wants to give the State Department (the dept. that deals with foreign policy) a 29% budget cut (approximately $11 billion). Ironically as they cut spending on peaceful foreign aid, the budget adds $54 billion reserved for military spending. This $54 billion price tag is larger than the next seven largest military budgets COMBINED (National Priorities Org). In order to make room for the major military spending increase, the 2018 fiscal budget plans to cut education by 14% ($9 billion), ignoring the fact that education was surveyed as a top three priority of Americans in 2017. Trump also plans to add a 7% increase to the Department of Homeland Security and an 11% increase in nuclear weapon funding. The allocation of American tax payers dollars sounds as if Donald Trump is preparing for another World War. With the current state of US influence in the Middle East, the last thing the world needs is Putin’s Russia pouring all of their money into military spending because the United States has added a 54% increase to their military spending, while making cuts to almost every domestic program counted in the United States discretionary spending – creating a second cold war scenario between two very untraditional and explosive characters, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Did I mention that the United States and Russia combine for more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapon inventory? (Arms Control Association)

With the United States increasing military spending by 54% and cutting the peaceful contributions from the State Department by 29%, here is what could be in store for the next year: The United States current top priority is ISIS. Mainstream media has gallivanted around the idea of flashing the United States power by fighting ISIS and spreading news of it everywhere. However, few are aware of the obstacles that come with fighting ISIS. First, ISIS is located in Syria. Syria is extremely unstable and is receiving military help from Russia and Iran who like mentioned earlier, are using ISIS as a scapegoat for unjustly bombing innocent children, women, hospitals, and schools just because they are located within rebel territory. The occasional bombing of an ISIS stronghold seems to satisfy headlines across the globe while continued attacks on innocent people fall by the way side. In a whistleblowing style article in the New York Times, “An ISIS fighter who identified himself only as Khaled said recently over Internet messaging, ‘Most of the (Russian) airstrikes have targeted civilians and not ISIS headquarters’ adding ‘Thank God’” (Barnard). A rational opinion could view this as a situation that is a lot more serious than the Syrian proxy war, why has United States not declared war against Russia and their allies? Why is all of this information not headlining news outlets across the globe? It can be reasonably assumed that widespread knowledge of this crisis would create mass hysteria throughout the world against Russia, similar to what the Arab Spring and foreigners joining the effort in the fight against Assad. This is possibly a reason for the United States shifting all their focus towards ISIS and away from Assad. Donald Trump has stated that he’d, “absolutely do safe zones in Syria” on National TV, making it very clear that this is a plan in the works. The safe-zone would be located in Syria and it is an area where refugees can flee their homes and seek the safety of that specified region. However, the Kremlin has urged Trump to be cautious when it comes to these areas. Specifications about what would be included in the safe zones are limited at this time. Furthermore, these safe zones have been criticized a war waiting to happen. Former Department of Defense employee Melissa Dalton, who had a focus in Syria says, “I do think that it (safe zones) presents escalation risks” (Engel). There will most likely be a no-fly-zone over the region and if any aircraft crosses over, it is the responsibility of the United States to shoot the aircraft down which would then escalate the risk of global conflict tenfold. Donald Trump has set a travel ban for 6 countries, one of them being Syria so the option of moving refugees from Syria to the US is not a current option under this administration. Another road bump is that Assad, Russia, and Iran have all been extremely lackadaisical with their action on ISIS. They are not worried about combating ISIS because the rest of the world is against them and could help if need be. ISIS gives Assad great leverage on what foreigners can and cannot do within their borders. On Friday March 17th, the Israeli air force carried out airstrikes targeting a Syrian military position. A Syrian governor responded saying, “definitely serve the terrorist organization because the Syrian army is countering terrorism. Any strike against the Syrian army serves terrorism” (Jones). It has been suggested that the United States should find a way to peacefully have Assad step down from power, but due to the new threat of ISIS and Syria’s allies being Russia and Iran, that is too much to ask for. At this point in time, this is such a charged region of the world, any action is going to a have a consequence. The United States ways of Realism and being the global superpower and the force for good in the free world have gone completely out the window. It is now time for the United States to bite the bullet, sit back, enter a period of isolationism, figure out what is going with the country’s domestic issues, and let the Middle East unravel before making any more decisions that could risk the fate of humanity.

In conclusion, the crisis in Syria can be summed up by the failure to follow George Washington’s advice, “avoid entangling alliances”. The plethora of issues between multiple countries in one condensed area that is being over watched by the world’s two most powerful and historically bitter countries, the United States and Russia has caused a far worse dynamic than ever imagined. The United States has done their time. The free world knows that when help is needed, the United States will be there. However, this is not the right time for American interventionism – the fate of humanity depends on it. 
