John McCain’s Syria Delusions

[Geee]

Front Page Magazine:

Following the president’s announcement that we will provide small arms and ammunition to the rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Senator John McCain has intensified his drumbeat for war and demanded even more extensive U.S. involvement, particularly a no-fly zone. But McCain has not indicated any awareness of the risks and complications of such an escalation.

McCain’s argument is the typical one made by “responsibility to protect” internationalists like Samantha Power, Obama’s new U.N. ambassador, whom McCain supported despite her record of anti-Israel animus and doubts about America’s worthiness. But we can’t stand by and watch Assad slaughter his people, the interventionists claim. Except we have stood by on numerous occasions, in Congo, Sudan, and Rwanda, to name just a few venues of slaughter. We are standing by right now as Christians in the Middle East are being murdered, assaulted, harassed, and cleansed from lands that have been Christian for two millennia. We are standing by as al-Qaeda in Iraq slaughters its political and sectarian rivals, and we will for sure be standing by in Afghanistan when the Taliban slaughter even more enemies after we depart in 2014.