Syrian Civil War

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its 2020 Annual Report and recommended the US government include Turkey on the State Department’s “Special Watch List” for “engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom.”

Though Syria still struggles with violence and fighting, the Islamic State’s territorial holdings have been almost completely eradicated. But while ISIS may no longer have physical control in the country, it has left young militants and a dangerous, extremist ideology.

With the escalating tensions threatening to break out into active military hostilities between the US and Iran, it’s important to remember one crucial fact: Iran is the biggest problem in the Middle East.

In the ceaseless struggle between civilization and barbarism, America has tipped the scales toward civilization, toward freedom and justice. In many ways, it has organized its national life—its economic, military, and moral resources—toward this end. Are we still up to the task?

Recently, Robert Nicholson sat down with Ambassador Frederic C. Hof to discuss the tragedy of Syria and American foreign policy in regards to the ongoing crisis.

The problem is that Americans can’t see the world for what it is, and American policymakers aren’t explaining it to them. Very few, it seems, understand the concept of limited intervention. 

The United Nations has failed to do what it was created to do—“promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security.”

Some in the US government have suggested that we should make a grand bargain with Russia over Syria that would let Assad stay as Moscow curbed Iran’s power in the country. But such a deal would lead to the mass exile or massacre of civilians stuck in the international community’s failed de-escalation zone of Idlib and cement Iran’s control over Syria.

Despite tensions between Ankara and Washington, saving Turkey as an ally is worth it.