Robert Spencer: Stay out of Syria!

Who used chemical weapons in Syria? Robert Spencer writes,

UN inspectors in Syria have no mandate to determine exactly who used the chemical weapons, but only the fact that they were used – despite the fact that the key question is who used them, and no one has a clear or definite answer, least of all Barack Obama.

Then again, Barack Obama has aided jihadists and Islamic supremacists before, in Libya and Egypt – and that is exactly what he is about to do again.

Given the fact that both the American and the British governments are dedicated to denying the reality of Islamic jihad and ignoring how Islamic jihadis use core texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism, it’s extraordinarily unlikely that U.S. or British forces will be able to tell the difference between Sharia supremacists and secularists, or act effectively in favor of the latter, if indeed there are any significant secularist forces left in Syria.

After all, the U.S. and Britain presided over the establishment of Sharia constitutions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why will Syria be different? Bashar Assad is unquestionably a bloody tyrant; so also are many other rulers around the world whom the U.S. and Britain have not yet determined to dislodge – and a general worldwide War on Tyranny would likely sap the remaining resources of both in short order. But his regime has been far more hospitable to Christians, Alawites (of which he is, of course, one) and other religious minorities in Syria than a Sharia state could or will ever be. Nor is there any reason to think that a Sharia state in Syria, even one established by the United States, will be any more grateful to the United States than are the current regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We can only hope that other forces in the world that are far more powerful and sinister than Bashar Assad will not take advantage of this new depletion of already-depleted U.S. forces to give our tottering economy and weakened military a final push over the edge. But Barack Obama and David Cameron will ultimately discover that they can’t tempt fate forever.