Syria and the Red Line: The Numbers Don’t Matter

Destruction in Bab Amr, Homs, Syria. Photograph courtesy of Syria Freedom

On Wednesday, the world was forced to recognize the violence occurring in Syria as social media sites were flooded with pictures and videos purporting the aftermath of a chemical attack near the country’s capital of Damascus, which killed a reported 1,429 Syrians.

The event prompted many governments to consider whether or not military intervention was necessary. The citizens of Syria deserve more than a short-term solution to the civil war that has ravished the country. For the West though, the Syrian crisis is about maintaining the international image.

The two year long conflict has claimed well over 100,000 lives and resulted in roughly 2 million Syrians to flee their country. The death toll from the chemical attack was, shockingly, not an unusual incident. Even outside of Syria, there are other attacks on civilians that are killing comparable numbers each day. It is rare for these humanitarian crises to see much foreign intervention unless it is somehow beneficial to another country or the red line is crossed; a line that was crossed Wednesday with the use of chemical weapons.

The Syrian government, Assad, and those associated with the regime that has brutalized its own civilians, deserve punishment. The civilians of Syria need peace, and those who have fled have the right to return home.

However, if hundreds of drone missiles rained down on Syria each day until the regime was defeated, would the people of Syria be equipped to build a new government? Will peace come simply from removing the government? Is the international world committed to the long-term rebuilding of Syria? Do they even know how to rebuild a country?

As history has shown with Iraq, Egypt, and Libya, it is easy to tear a regime apart. Building the infrastructure and institutions necessary to create a capable and honest government takes a level of dedication and understanding that the world leaders have yet to discover.

The false idea that a regime can be toppled and a proper government will follow has resulted in drawn out conflicts and failed states, as seen recently with countries such as Iraq and Egypt. It should have resulted in the international community working to find a reasonable long-term solution to these types of conflicts so that they may be more properly and peacefully handled. Instead, governments seem to be infatuated by short-term fixes that worsens conflicts and leads to interventions as a result of their own failures.

The idea of military intervention in Syria is about us, not them. It is punishment for not abiding the red line and a means of protecting global authority. If this were truly a humanitarian cause, the world would have considered action on Syria when the first thousand of civilians were brutally and unrightfully killed.

In his speech Friday, U.S Secretary of State, John Kerry, stated that action in Syria would be limited and was solely to ensure “a despots brutal and flagrant use of chemical weapons is held accountable.”

It seems that to the U.S and other supporters, this isn’t about the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians that have been killed by the government in the past two years. Nor is it about the millions of Syrians that were forced to flee their homes and are now living in refugee camps. It isn’t about 426 children that were victims of the chemical attack either. Those numbers don’t seem to matter enough nor does the future of Syria. What does matter, is maintaining the international image.

When will the lives of innocent people matter?

Written by Megan Edmiston