The Strategic Cost of Genocide

The Syrian Civil War that spawned ISIL, created a refugee crisis, and eliminated the border between Syria and Iraq is now five and a half years old. In addition to the undesirable outcomes listed above, there is a more horrifying one: the nearly 500,000 people who have been killed so far.

In the United States, the conversation about whether to intervene in Syria has been dominated by the specter of the Iraq Invasion. That costly misadventure has caused understandable skepticism about engagement in Syria, and it is wise that lawmakers and the public express caution and prudence. But Syria is not Iraq.

A February report from the Syrian Center for Policy Research puts the death toll at 470,000. In April a UN diplomat estimated the number was 400,000. Both numbers are now months old, and in the interim, more people have died. The current number of dead dwarfs the casualties during the Balkans Crisis in the early 1990’s. Roughly 800,000 Rwandans are estimated to have died during the genocide there in the late 1990’s, and about 1 million Armenians lost their lives during the Armenian genocide of WWI. As the number in Syria approaches 500,000, we have the luxury of debating whether this tragedy should qualify to be included in the conversation of past horrors.

At what point we decide the slaughter in Syria constitutes genocide is now irrelevant. Years of inaction mean we have ceded the moral high ground, and will necessarily have to commit to stopping the killing to reclaim it. The more pertinent questions are how much longer we will let the slaughter continue, and what consequences we will face for our failure to act.

Strategically, by refusing to intervene on moral grounds, the United States has sown the seeds for further confrontation with the region down the road. Unlike, Rwanda, where there was a moral imperative to act, but less strategic reason to do so, the Middle East is a region with which the United States has close, if fraught, economic, military, and political ties. It is a region in which we are already at war against jihadi propaganda, already battling for the hearts and minds of people from the Levant to Islamabad to show that America is not the enemy, that our way of life is not incompatible with Islam, and that we do not seek the eradication of individuals, their religion, or their way of life.

Moral inertia will have strategic consequences. Millions of refugees in camps will remember the help that never came. Small children will grow up with less access to education, healthcare, and opportunity; they will, however, be exposed to more bitterness, suffering, and contempt. It is an unpleasant thought, but some of America’s future enemies are Syrian children, currently trying to find bliss in a refugee camp, perhaps just a bit too young to understand that they could have, should have received assistance, not quite old enough to know that help was withheld. They will learn that lesson in a harmful manner, and as they grow older, others will feel that hurt.

Meanwhile, on the home front, where the military is unable to protect us from the type of lone wolf attacks such as the ones in San Bernardino and Orlando, we send disaffected potential threats a very clear message: Muslim lives, Arab lives, do not matter. 500,000 and counting, and yet they still do not matter.Through our inaction and our silence we reinforce the jihadi propaganda: 500,000 dead, millions on the run, but this is your problem, despite my ability to help. Your lives do not matter.

The short term perils of inaction are already very clear and very deadly. It remains to be seen what the long term strategic cost of allowing genocide will be. Even with the setbacks ISIL has suffered recently, there is no end to the conflict in sight. The Islamic State is only one of many entities vying for power. If and when they are defeated, something else, perhaps something worse will fill the void, and in the meantime the death toll will continue to rise along with the burden of shame history will cast upon us, and the potential for a conflict that our children will be forced to fight.

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