All of this should compel civilized nations to band together and stop these fiends. But America at this moment has a special responsibility. Despite the gains from Assad and his Russian and Iranian patrons in Syria in the last two years, the war is far from over. For example, the territory east of the Euphrates River that the U.S. and its mainly Kurdish allies have liberated from the Islamic State is not yet under Assad’s boot.

Here the U.S. has a chance to at least give these newly freed towns and cities a kind of safe haven. There is a precedent to do so. Like Trump, George H.W. Bush decided he wanted no part in trying to liberate Iraq after driving Saddam Hussein’s army out of Kuwait in 1991. After Saddam interpreted this policy as a green light to punish the Kurds in northern Iraq though, Bush changed course when Kurdish families were driven into the mountains. Bush established a no-fly zone and the U.S. began to protect this Iraqi minority in the period between the two gulf wars. While the Kurdistan Regional Government today is far from perfect, it is far better off because Bush changed his mind.