The Syrian civil war has sharpened national and international debate over when and when not to use military force to resolve armed conflicts. If Syria had committed or threatened an act of aggression against the United States or one of its allies, the question of whether "to strike or not to strike," to paraphrase Hamlet, would be easier to answer and would no doubt be answered in the affirmative.
It is far more difficult to answer in the absence of external aggression. The only recent similar instance was in the Balkans in the 1990s, when hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim civilians were being massacred in a brutal assault primarily orchestrated by the Serbian government. The consensus was that European nations would assume the role of halting it, using military methods if necessary.
But as the conflict worsened, neither our European or British allies intervened, possibly because of their concerns about ongoing Islamist terrorists and underlying resentment over the increasing number of Muslim refugees and immigrants entering the United Kingdom and Europe. Eventually, President Bill Clinton decided to act with military force to stop the slaughter.
When President George W. Bush announced "a pre-emptive strike" against Iraq based on the assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, there was an assumption that Iraq might use such weapons against us or our allies, particularly Israel. After it later became evident that Iraq did not possess such weapons, the unfortunate debacle of the U.S.-led invasion had already reached a point in which it was difficult to exit. More importantly, the use of the term "pre-emptive strike" had established a precedent that made military intervention in another country seem acceptable even when it had committed no outright aggression.
In Syria, however, we face a very different scenario. The majority of the Arab nations favored U.N. sanctions against Syria. Thus, the expectation was that they would intervene militarily to halt the bloodshed of Muslim civilians, but they did not. Their inaction, and the fact that the conflict is occurring in the Middle East and has not yet directly affected Israel, makes the situation particularly problematic. Although the Arab League has explicitly expressed opposition to the Assad regime, the Arab nations may eventually resent the use of American military force in their own region, and Islamic terrorists could try to use that to fuel anti-U.S. sentiment and provoke more attacks on our country.
Despite President Barack Obama's recent speech implying that a negotiated settlement to the conflict has been achieved, Syria's agreement to turn its chemical weapons arsenal over to the U.N. does not indicate that the massacre of civilians in the country will stop. If it continues, Turkey, a NATO ally, might be persuaded to intervene militarily in order to stop the flood of refugees from Syria into neighboring Arab nations, and NATO forces and U.N. peacekeepers could enforce the peace on the ground, as they did in the Balkans, providing a reprieve to the armed conflict that would allow peace negotiations to proceed.
To strike or not to strike? There are no easy answers from history that can be used with certainty and applied to the current situation or to those in the future. What is certain is that not only the United States but the nations of the region and the entire world will have to endure "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" no matter what decision is made.