Let’s suppose every single allegation against Assad is true. The fact of the matter is that the world is experiencing the worst refugee crisis since World War II, and it’s causing major division and conflict across our societies.
Few are willing to say it, but if the ultimate aim of our policies is to put an end to the refugee crisis, then the war in Syria must come to an immediate end. The U.S. and its allies must pull out of Syria immediately and discontinue all financial and military support for the various groups attempting to overthrow the Syrian government.
After these areas have been liberated, the Syrian people will return home again. It doesn’t matter what you think you know about Assad and his government.
After witnessing what happened in Iraq and Libya after the U.S. decided to forcibly remove the dictators of the aforementioned nations, the West will have to make a cold, hard choice. They must either continue these disastrous regime-change operations, including their violent and indiscriminate war against ISIS — which is burying civilians under the rubble and showering them with white phosphorus — and accept the millions of resulting refugees without complaint.
Or, Western countries can remove themselves and their… policies from Syria and allow the Syrian people to stabilise themselves, as they are trying so hard to do. If thousands of Syrians want to return to their hometowns, as they are doing now, America’s decision to confront Assad’s military numerous times over the past month or so makes no sense at all in terms of providing the Syrian state with any stability.
Clearly, Syria would be doing quite alright by itself had the U.S. never interfered in its country. It would by no means be perfect, and Assad would be responsible for many egregious human rights abuses, as is often the case with Middle Eastern dictatorships (including our close allies).
Singling Assad out makes little sense in that context.
This should be all that matters in this conversation. All future threats of war must be taken completely off the table, and the rest of the world should assist the Syrian people in taking back their territory and re-establishing themselves as the middle-income, relatively peaceful country they once were before a foreign-backed insurgency plagued the country in 2011.
Source: The AntiMedia