Should The United States Intervene In The Syrian Civil War?

In his primetime televised speech on Tuesday night, President Obama addressed the nation on the supposed threat of Syria’s chemical weapons. He tried to make a convincing case for why the U.S should intervene in the Syrian civil war. He argued that the U.S should respond to Syrian president Bashar al Assad’s use of chemical weapons as this a was a crime against humanity. He also argued that by responding to this attack that it would send a message to the “tyrants” who might use such weapons again in the future. However his case wasn’t strong enough. He failed to convince Americans citizens that intervening in Syria’s civil war was a good decision. He was not able to provide a strong enough argument why the Syrian regime should be punished for their actions as majority of the points he made were weak, and there were multiple contradictions presented in his case. Before he even stepped onto the podium we Americans already believed that Assad had used chemical weapons against his people, so the “shocking” stories that the president told- for example, a father holding his dying 5 year old son- were not going to change anyone’s mind, because we know that if the military are going to intervene with a cruise missile strike that it won’t bring any of these people back from the dead. In fact a missile strike would only worsen the situation for
What credibility? Arabs think that we intervene too much not too little and almost every conspiracy theory blames the US for the problems in their country. The problem isn’t with lack of American will to get involved but rather with the lack of trust in American aims. If we intervene with the Syrian civil war that will only increase this suspicion. In any case it is not enough to go to war over “US credibility”. It’s this kind of thinking that has gotten us into wars in the past; we do not need a repeat of Korea or