Another Forever War in the Middle East? Congress Debates Syrian Intervention, See Who’s Standing Up For America and You Decide Who Is Right

Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) yesterday published an article in Newsweek arguing there was a need to reform American foreign policy and withdraw troops from Syria. This article came in the wake of a debate on a resolution proffered by Matt Gaetz (R-FL) that would direct the president to “remove the United States Armed Forces from Syria”. The resolution failed to pass by a vote of 321 against it and 103 in favor but was noteworthy in that both nays and yeas votes were of a bipartisan composition. 47 Republicans for instance voted in favor of it as did 56 Democrats.

Representative Luna’s article was an attempt to continue the discussion surrounding Gaetz’s failed resolution by arguing in her Twitter summary of the piece that “We need realism in our foreign policy. America’s job is not to police the streets of Aleppo. It is to focus on American borders, and law & order in American cities.”

🚨NEW🚨from me in @NewsweekOpinion:

We need realism in our foreign policy. America's job is not to police the streets of Aleppo. It is to focus on American borders, and law & order in American cities.

Read more here ⬇️ https://t.co/4Alx1eCSWH

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) March 13, 2023

Congress itself debated Gaetz’s war powers resolution for over an hour. Enclosed are some of the excerpts of the speeches given in favor and against it.  Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY) spoke against the resolution and argued that “we cannot withdraw our 900 troops [in Syria] now because what was said about ISIS [that the terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and Syria would re-emerge] but addition to that we are defending the Kurds against certain slaughter.”

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The 75-year-old Democrat then confusingly mused about how this slaughter would occur “at the hands of the Peshmerga [the Iraqi Kurdish militia that receives support from the United States] if we were to withdraw our troops. The Turks as we know are supporting the Peshmerga. In addition to which if we were to withdraw our troops that increases the worry that Israel has to have about Iran and increases the odds of a conflict between Israel and Iran.” He added that this conflict would be “the least thing the Middle East needs or the world needs.”

Matt Gaetz in his speech for the motion described how America came to intervene in Syria in 2015 and explained how various foreign factions found themselves in the civil war that engulfed Syria. He stated that “since we have been there [Syria] we have seen Americans die… [and] tens of billions of dollars wasted and what is hilarious about the 2001 AUMF [Authorization for Use of Military Force] that the neoconservatives wave around like some permission slip for every neoconservative fantasy of turning an Arabian desert into a Jeffersonian democracy is that every 2001 AUMF would justify attacking the people we are fighting against and the people we are funding because both have ties to al-Qaeda.”

Mr. Gaetz countered that for all the talk of ISIS emerging there was a report by the Inspector General “that indicates that ISIS is not a threat to the homeland and with the Turks conducting operations in Syria against ISIS, with Assad [of Syria] and Russia having every incentive to create pressure on ISIS I do not believe that what stands between a Caliphate and not-a-Caliphate are 900 Americans who have been sent to this hellscape with no clear objective.”

Ryan Zinke (R-MO) spoke against the motion by claiming that “Syria remains a center for radical Islamic forces and terrorism like ISIS [and] like PKK [a Kurdish militia that is against Turkey]. These are organizations that will never stop…they are committed to destroy this nation and our allies…The hard truth is this either we fight them in Syria or we’ll fight them here.”

As Representative Luna’s article counters, however, “[t]he argument that keeping Americans overseas is necessary for stopping terrorist attacks is absurd. Frankly, I’m tired of hearing, ‘if we don’t fight them there, they’ll come here.’ By that logic, the entire planet demands an American forward presence.”