Source:TOI
Over the past few weeks, some Syrian opposition leaders have requested foreign military intervention to oust President Bashar al-Assad and his regime from power. Count the US out in any such endeavour. While an intervention involving the American military may, if successful, bring an end to the humanitarian crisis in Syria and deliver a blow to Assad’s principal sponsor and ally, Iran, Barack Obama is unlikely to get involved due to the policy challenges and political pitfalls that would accompany such an operation.
This despite the fact that Obama adopted an interventionist approach towards Libya in 2011 on the grounds of preventing a humanitarian disaster in which a Middle Eastern dictator was threatening to slaughter his own people. Why the hesitancy towards Syria on the part of the White House? Here’s why.
For starters, the president is running for re-election. Inserting the US into another conflict in a Muslim country would be politically perilous when courting the vote of a war-weary American electorate that is concerned about a stubbornly high unemployment rate, an ever-growing national debt, a fragile economy and a decade of wars in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.
Categories: Americas, Iran, Middle East, Syria