The U.S. should side with Assad and Russia instead of rebels in the Syrian Civil War.

Thanks, Pro- Pro's argument is a bit simplistic and omits a number of essential considerations, the most important of which is establishing a benefit to the US. After all, Pro's argument is a proposal to change US foreign policy: => Siding with the strongest faction, Assad's govt., will bring peace to Syria; => Peace in Syria is of benefit to the US; => Therefore, US Foreign Policy should re-align to aid Assad Pro offers no evidence to support either premise but there are any number of presumptions which Pro needs to address to support the argument. Pro suggests a direct line between action and inevitable result but, as with all US intervention in the Middle East, Syria is an absurd web of political and religious interests complicated by an array of external international proxy interests. The one lesson US foreign policy should have learned from a century of mostly unproductive involvement in the Middle East is that every action creates a multiplicity of unintended consequences, increasing American complicity and the degree of diplomatic difficulty. The Middle East is a trap: history offers little evidence that any major US initiative in that region produces the desired result. The best course of action, therefore, is to try to do as little as possible while maintaining an illusion of authority and engagement. In other words, the US's current, mostly ineffectual, course of action is as likely to succeed as any and more likely to succeed than any more direct involvement. 1. Is Pro proposing unilateral action? At present, US intervention in Syria is performed in coordination with a variety of govts., with membership changing depending on context. For example, US aid to refugees is mostly coordinated with Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Kurds while airstrikes against ISIS include a coalition of 12 nations who consult with a wide array of other anti-ISIS actors including Russia, Iraq, Kurds, Israel, etc [1] 2. Wouldn't switching sides weaken our present alliances? Unilateral action in support of Assad would certainly offend membership in these networks, potentially endangering those projects but consultation would also create friction. The US might get the UK on board but France & Germany would object. Most of the US's Middle Eastern allies (Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia), the EU, in fact a majority of the UN voted to condemn Assad and delegitimize his govt. [2] Certainly, any support of Assad's regime would do major harm to our relationships with Turkey and the burgeoning Kurdish state and would be seen as a deep betrayal from the perspective of Sunni states, encouraging the radical anti-American factions in those states (including ISIS). 3. Would Assad even accept American support? Pro takes Assad's cooperation for granted but fails to consider Syrian contempt for the US. Remember that when Assad govt. buildings were bombed in 2011, Damascenes blamed al-Qaeda but chanted "Death to America." [3] In fact, a Gallup poll in 2015 found that 81% of Syrians believe that ISIS was manufactured by the US, that number rises to 91% in Assad-controlled regions. [4] Damascus is hardly more likely to accept support from the US than they would from ISIS: in Assad's mind and in the mind of most Syrians, the US is just as much an enemy. Furthermore, Assad's allies might welcome the discontinuation of support to the rebels but Russia, China, Iran, & North Korea would strongly object to any infringement or dilution of those States' influence in Damascus. 4. Can Pro prove that discontinuing aid to the Rebels and/or offering aid to Assad would result in easy victory? Information about the amount & effectiveness of aid to various rebel groups is extremely sketchy, but we know that the US has not been the rebels' primary benefactor at any point. US aid has consistently prioritized anti-ISIS and pro-Kurdish interests over exclusively anti-Assad forces. Anti-Assadists primarily rely on Turkey as a porous safe-haven for rebel supply, recruitment, and training and on Sunni oil states (Saudi Arabia & Qatar primarily) for cash. Cutting off US aid would hurt the rebels but whether such lack of support might prove decisive is essentially unknowable. 5. Doesn't Assad have the most difficult military objectives of any faction? Further, consider that Assad is the only faction who is strongly motivated to reabsorb all of the old Syrian territory- Kurds, Rebels, al-Nusra Front, etc would be more likely to content themselves with current territorial gains, more likely to combine in opposition to an ascendant Assad and more likely to just settle for the fall of Assad. Military victory for Assad means winning back most or all territorial loses, which likely means continued war with Kurdistan and a protracted, not lessened war. 6. How does Pro define peace and stability in Syria? A reconstituted Syria under Assad may signal disengagement for foreign interests but it is hardly likely to mean the end of violence within Syria. The last time Syria successfully suppressed a Sunni uprising in the city of Hama (1982) Assad's father followed up with a punishing ethnic cleansing of up to 40,000 civilians in that city. [5] Violent suppression of opposition groups after the war is virtually guaranteed should Assad succeed. If the US were to support Assad, our allies would certainly hold the US responsible for the massacres that followed. 7. What evidence can Pro offer to ensure that the number of refugees seeking asylum would be reduced? Assuming that there is a violent crackdown on Sunni factions in the wake of an Assad victory, wouldn't the number of refugees fleeing Syria increase, at least in the short term? Yes, some pro-Assad refugees would return but perhaps 10 million Syrians are currently residing in anti-Assad strongholds [6] and many of that number would see the return of Assad as a mortal threat. We should assume that any significant territorial shift, whichever faction benefits, will be followed by new waves of refugees. 8. What evidence can Pro offer to show that the threat of terrorism would be reduced? We can agree that an ascendant Assad would likely equate to the suppression of ISIS, but radical Wahhabists are a dime a dozen in the Arab world and ISIS will certainly be succeeded by some other group dreaming of a fundamentalist caliphate, just as al-Qaeda was eclipsed by ISIS. The US is no more likely to win the ephemeral War on Terrorism than it has the War on Drugs. Further, the US. has deemed Syria a state sponsor of terrorism since the inception of that designation in 1979. Secretaries of State under the previous 6 administrations have produced annual reports justifying that designation. [7] Compared to Syria, ISIS has been relative low-tech and ineffective in its short life. While ISIS fruitlessly shops around for enough spent radioactive material to build a dirty bomb, Israel has already been forced to destroy one Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 and indications are that a new plant is under construction now. [8] An Assad victory might reduce the terrorist threat against targets like Charlie Hebdo but would certainly increase the threat to Israeli cities. Besides, there are certain advantages to a continued Syrian War when it comes to fighting terrorism. The War has pitted any number of potential terrorists against one another- Shia vs Sunni, PKK vs. Shia, al-Qaeda vs. ISIS. Yes, some terrorists gained training and experience in that war but many more have been slaughtered. Yes, a few hundred have managed to sneak back into the West to export death but thousands more have exposed their radicalization & are denied any right of return. As cruel as the War is, every year it continues wastes the lives and resources of many more figures who would otherwise seek harm in the West. Peace may not be as universally advantageous to counterterrorism as we might first suppose. More to consider- but I look forward to Pro's reply to the above in R2.