The ongoing civil war in Syria is a mess, in which there is no obvious solution to. The Western consensus is that the intentional killing of innocent civilians by the Assad regime without impunity, is a state of affairs that cannot be allowed to continue. Assad has repeatedly denied his citizens basic human rights. The civil war started when he refused the popular outcry for democracy, preferring to shoot at unarmed protestors; the backlash led to the civil war we see today.  As a direct result of Assad’s actions, thousands of people have been killed and millions forced to seek refuge in foreign countries. The latest use of chemical weapons against civilians is but a small aspect of this tragic tale.

The immorality of the Assad regime, and Russia and Iran’s choice to support it, is indisputable. The only question is what the West ought to do about it. For Trump, as well as a broad range of figures from the internationalist left to the neoconservative right, the answer is direct military action, with the intention of reducing the number of civilians murdered by the Syrian army. Very few people would suggest overthrowing the Assad regime altogether, because that would be a prolonged and costly war, which would bring us into direct confrontation with Russia, a nuclear power. But the interventionists argue Syria is an instance where the international community has a Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Syrian civilians from slaughter. At the very least, humanitarian concerns ought to take precedence over traditional notions of state sovereignty or our national interests.

To an extent, the interventionists have a point. Assad’s deliberate killings of his own people certainly give NATO a right to intervene. State sovereignty can be violated to prevent genocide or human rights abuses on a large scale. The interventionists are right to be concerned about Russia and Iran extending their influence via the entrenchment of the Assad regime. They are also right that Russia and Assad are more concerned with defeating the rebels and the Kurds, than defeating ISIS. The priority for Russia and Assad is to wipe out any liberal opposition, thereby reducing the probability of a NATO intervention by making their only opponents the Al-Nusra Front (a terrorist group with Al-Qaeda origins) and ISIS. Most of the Russian bombings have been directed at the Free Syrian Army, not those normally deemed ‘terrorists.’ To complicate things even further, Turkey, a NATO member, continues its battle against the Kurds, who want to use some of what is currently Turkish land to create an independent Kurdish state. But the rest of NATO sees the Kurds as a key ally against both Assad and ISIS.

But despite the interventionists’ largely correct description of current events, they are mistaken in their policy prescriptions. For a start, Trump is merely acting on impulse. He has no proper understanding of the region, nor a long term vision of its future. At least with the Iraq War (an intervention Trump repeatedly criticises despite having supported it at the time), Bush wanted to create a democratic Iraq, because he believed Hussein was the biggest obstacle to democracy in the Middle East, and of course Hussein had committed human rights abuses on a similar scale to Assad. But Trump promised an ‘American First’ foreign policy, in which potential interventions would be considered based on the consequences for US interests. Now he has broken his campaign promise, instead justifying the bombing of the airfield on the basis that innocent children are being killed by Assad. This also breaks the promise to normalise relations with Russia (which was never workable given that Trump is opposed to the Iran deal, Iran being a key Russian ally.) To be fair to Trump, he isn’t the only president to have campaigned on a policy of non-intervention, only to have broken it upon entering office: Reagan, Clinton and Bush behaved likewise. But for interventionists to praise Trump for the bombings, when there is clearly no long term strategy, is the height of foolishness. Unless NATO fully commits to overthrowing Assad, intervention will only prolong the conflict, resulting in more civilian deaths and refugees.

There are two things NATO can do. The first is to develop a better refugee policy. Overall, its clear that Syria will remain a war-zone for the foreseeable future. So the question of refugees will not go away. Its also clear that Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey are already hosting more than their fair share of refugees, given how poor those countries are. As nice as it would be to make the wealthy Gulf States take in more people, we can’t force them, so Europe and North America must step up to the challenge. To ensure the wellbeing of both the host states and the refugees themselves, refugee policy must be increasingly made on a supranational basis, with the EU, the US and Canada co-operating for their mutual benefit. Refugees must be resettled according to where there is affordable housing, where local infrastructure can cope, and where the local economy can support them. Having each country decide for themselves how many refugees to take and where to put them, does not ensure this at all. Overall, the number of refugees living in the West ought to increase for the time being. But the important thing is to guarantee that every country takes their fair share so no locality is overburdened.  It goes without saying that refugees ought to be vetted, but they already are, contrary to Republican conventional wisdom. Humanitarian assistance to refugee camps in Syria and Jordan needs to be increased, given that not everyone can move to the West.

NATO must also come to terms with the fact that relations with Russia and Iran will not be normalised as long as they continue to support the Assad regime. Those like Trump that would like to ‘get on with everybody’ are simply living in an alternative reality. Although the Iran deal may be the best solution to a nuclear Iran in the short term, the idea suggested by paleoconservatives, of an alliance with the Islamic Republic, is simply preposterous. When Israel talks of Iranian funded terrorists, such as Hamas, Hezbollah or insurgencies in Iraq, we ought to listen. As for Russia, the EU and the US must continue sanctions as long as Russia continues to support Assad, and Russian-backed militias continue to undermine the Ukrainian government. As Margaret Thatcher used to say, ‘this is no time to go wobbly.’

I’m going to follow up this article tomorrow, with a piece on the implications of the civil war on British and American domestic politics. I have to confess, I’m not an expert on the Middle East, so feel free to correct on any factual errors I may have inadvertently made. I’m also going to start a new series next Monday, so look out for that.