There are repeated calls for the United States to arm rebel forces trying to unseat Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The most enthusiastic proponents of that course are hawks like the so-called Three Amigos — Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joseph Lieberman. But GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney also complains that President Barack Obama has not done enough to aid Syrian fighters who seek freedom for their country. And despite its continuing caution, the Obama administration has channeled at least nonlethal aid to the Free Syrian Army through that faction’s main sponsor, Turkey.
Although Americans are understandably disgusted by the Assad regime’s brutal military crackdown, there are good reasons to avoid deeper involvement in Syria’s turmoil. Among other factors, Washington has a dreadful track record of being manipulated by thugs and charlatans in other countries masquerading as committed democrats. The decision to aid the Afghan mujahideen during the 1980s ended up strengthening radical Islamic forces. Mujahideen alumni later turned up in extremist and terrorist movements throughout the Muslim world. Reagan administration officials even misconstrued the term “mujahideen” itself as “freedom fighters,” when it really meant “holy warriors” — a very different connotation that should have alerted U.S. policy makers.
The triumph of hope over logic and evidence also was evident in the administration’s support of insurgent forces in Nicaragua. President Ronald Reagan notoriously referred to the Nicaraguan Contras, that motley collection of democrats, opportunists, and diehard followers of former dictator Anastasio Somoza, as the moral equal of America’s own founding fathers.
Such gullibility was not confined to Republicans. Clinton administration officials forged a cooperative relationship with the Kosovo Liberation Army against the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Senator Lieberman even asserted that the United States and the Kosovo Liberation Army supported the same values of freedom, democracy, and human rights. Evidence has since emerged that the army committed numerous atrocities against Serbs and other non-Albanian populations. There are even indications that Washington’s clients murdered prisoners of war to harvest their organs and sell them on the global black market. Once in power in an independent Kosovo, Kosovo Liberation Army alumni helped make that country a major center of both drug trafficking and human trafficking.