in Opinion

Why America Needs Boots on the Ground in Syria

by Andrew January 19, 2016, 10:57 pm 182 Comments

There’s been a long and ongoing debate in Washington about whether or not to put boots on the ground in Syria.

President Obama has made it explicitly clear on several occasions that boots on the ground are not an option. At every possible point in time where an intervention could have been justified, the Obama administration has held back and stuck to their guns – no boots on the ground in Syria, no matter what.

I for one agreed with this policy to begin with. After all, boots on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq didn’t work so well. Both countries are arguably worse off than they were before the US got involved, and chaos is spreading throughout the region largely as a result of such interference.

Yet it is for precisely this reason that the job needs to be finished. Chaos is spreading, and it is spreading fast. ISIS has taken large swathes of territory in both Iraq and Syria, Assad is hanging on by a thread, and Russian influence in the region is growing by the day.

It’s time for not just America, but the entire Western world to finish what it started. Boots on the ground are the only thing which is going to get the job done.

Barrack Obama has watched on as civilians have been gassed, people have been crucified, and a fundamentalist Jihadi group which can not be reasoned with have pillaged, wrecked and destroyed the region. They are growing, and while Russian air strikes are causing them temporary problems, they will stand and expand until we all come together and finish it.

Nobody said that war is easy. Nobody said the blood spilled by soldiers is something to be taken lightly. Nobody said America has got to do this alone.

But America has got to do it, with the help of her allies, and all willing parties.

As a great military General familiar with the subject of the Middle East once said:

“If you break it, you own it.”

That great General was Colin Powell, and he was right. The West broke it, and now it’s time to fix it. Boots on the ground will finish ISIS in months, rather than a long and drawn out battle that will last for years and see yet more civilians pay the price for someone else’s actions.

What do you think? Do you support boots on the ground to put the threat of ISIS to bed for good? Do you think the West has an obligation to end the chaos in a region it destabilized? Share your opinion below in the comments section.