Syria, here we come

It sounds like we’re about to get involved in the Syrian Civil War.

This is going to be a tough sell to taxpayers who still face a bill for the last two wars. And then there’s the other problem – figuring out who the good guys are.
We’ve been told who the bad guy is – that would be Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who stopped the Arab Spring in its tracks in 2011 by ordering troops to open fire on demonstrators.

That’s when all this started.

But if we join the effort to overthrow him, our allies would include – Hezbollah, sworn enemy of Israel; and a jihadist group called the al-Nusra front, which specializes in suicide bombings and is an al-Qaeda affiliate. So this would be the kind of war where, after you defeat the bad guy, you’d then have to defeat two of your allies.

Or as Representative Mike Rogers put it, “We’re going to have to play for the best worst option at this point.”

So then why play at all? Rogers’ answer on Face The Nation, was the first time I heard a politician say that we have to get involved war to protect the Suez Canal.

“Why this is important – eight percent of the trade goes through the Suez Canal. If this spills out of control, and that’s worldwide trade, imagine what impact that has on prices here at home on the economic development here at home.”

Representative Rogers also said we can win the war without U.S. boots on the ground, or even U.S. planes in the air. “You can do a no-fly zone through better technology. You don’t have to have planes flying over the sky. You need to knock out a few of those jet fighters. We have ways to do that without exposing our planes.”

Do you hear the same message I hear? We’re getting the economic argument that our prosperity depends on getting involved in the Syrian civil war, and we’re getting the “clean war” argument, that we can win without actually fighting.