No, we shouldn't intervene in another Muslim country

Taking sides and delivering power to one group does not always induce the winners to be magnanimous. Iraq is the perfect example of this. It’s sad to say, but civil wars have to be fought and won by locals — and it is generally only after experiencing the horrors of war that the participants learn to compromise…

It is foolhardy to support the Syrian rebels because they will win or because we will want to influence them in the future. It would be naive to think that any new leadership born from the carnage and chaos in Syria would necessarily care about U.S. preferences. No Arab Spring revolution, even where we were directly implicated in the participants’ success, has produced regimes that are necessarily pro-American. A new regime in Syria will first struggle mightily to accommodate all of the groups clamoring for roles and, just like any other government, will construct its policies based on its immediate needs and environment. Any U.S. role will be marginal.

The long-standing truth underlying this situation is that, for decades, Arabs have been exposed to, even under friendly regimes, daily diatribes of anti-Americanism by their governments, media and academics. This will neither end nor change because we decide to help the Syrian opposition. If anything, these same people will ascribe an insidious motive to U.S. involvement.