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This is an adapted excerpt from the Dec. 15 episode of "Ayman."
More than a week after Syrian rebels toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad, U.S. officials are praising the Syrian people and talking about what the new regime could look like. But there’s also another layer to how they reacted to the news.
“The upshot for all this is, for the first time ever, neither Russia nor Iran nor Hezbollah could defend this abhorrent regime in Syria,” President Joe Biden said from the White House.
Officials should think twice before celebrating their own policies — especially when you look at the United States' role in Syria not only during the last few years, but also the last few decades.
“And this is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine [and] Israel have delivered upon their own self-defense with unflagging support of the United States. And over the past four years, my administration pursued a clear, principled policy towards Syria.”State Department spokesman Matt Miller also addressed the situation in Syria, telling reporters, “The Syria policy that was developed during the latter stages of the Obama administration … that has largely carried through to this day ultimately, I would say, has led to the situation we’re in today.”
By highlighting their approach to Syria and praising the actions of the Obama administration, it’s clear U.S. officials are trying to take some credit here. But they should think twice before celebrating their own policies — especially when you look at the United States’ role in Syria not only during the last few years, but also the last few decades.
Let’s start in 1949 when the U.S. allegedly backed a coup in Syria. That move eventually paved the way for Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, to take power in 1971. Fast forward to George W. Bush’s presidency. The U.S. imposed sanctions on Assad and kept relations tense, but also worked with him after 9/11. The Bush administration sent terrorism suspects to Assad’s prisons, the same brutal facilities we’ve been seeing all over the news.
Then came Barack Obama; while his administration talked tough on Assad and imposed sanctions, it often stopped short of action. Obama famously set a “red line,” promising to intervene if Assad used chemical weapons on his own people. But Assad crossed that line, and nothing happened.
The U.S. did fund some rebel groups but the effort barely made a dent. Obama eventually intervened in Syria, but not because of Assad’s chemical weapons. Instead, he launched strikes against ISIS, which killed many civilians in the process. Toward the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, he made a move that still affects Syria at this very moment. In 2019, Trump recognized Israel’s control of the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory Israel has illegally occupied and annexed for decades, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law. The U.S. is the only country that recognizes it as part of Israel, other than Israel itself.
The international community widely slammed this policy change but Democrats have not forcefully pushed back on it. When Biden took office, his administration mostly ignored Syria. They also never reversed Trump’s policy. In fact, in 2021, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “Leaving aside the legalities of that question, as a practical matter, the Golan [Heights] is very important to Israel’s security.”
“As long as Assad is in power in Syria, as long as Iran is present in Syria, militia groups backed by Iran, the Assad regime itself — all of these pose a significant security threat to Israel, and as a practical matter, the control of the Golan in that situation, I think, remains of real importance to Israel’s security,” Blinken told CNN.
“Legal questions are something else. And over time, if the situation were to change in Syria, that’s something we’d look at. But we are nowhere near that," he added.
Well, the Assad regime is gone. Iran and Hezbollah’s presence is weakened. So what has Israel exactly been doing? It has been pushing deeper into Syria, carrying out airstrikes and ignoring the Syrian de facto leader’s recent pledge they would not engage in conflict with Israel.
Biden has claimed his support of Israel helped bring down Assad, but the billions in weapons he gave Netanyahu may just fuel even more international law-breaking.
The Israeli government has been scrambling to justify these actions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military’s position inside the buffer zone was a “temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found.” Israel's representative also wrote a letter to the United Nations again defending its actions, calling them “limited and temporary.” On Sunday, Netanyahu doubled down on the plan to expand settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. “Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the State of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold onto it, cause it to blossom, and settle in it,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
To fulfill this goal, the Israeli government approved an $11 million plan to encourage more of these settlements, which are widely viewed as illegal, in the Golan Heights. All of that is very, very far from “limited and temporary measures.”
Biden has claimed his support of Israel helped bring down Assad, but the billions in weapons he gave Netanyahu may just fuel even more international law-breaking. By standing by, the U.S. is now complicit in Israel taking more land in Syria, bombing towns, expanding settlements and potentially displacing thousands.
U.S. politicians are claiming to want peace for Syrians but, in reality, they’re only making things worse by letting Netanyahu act with impunity once again.
Allison Detzel contributed.