The violence in Syria has been devastating for years. New military actions in the country by the Turkish government threaten to escalate the situation into a much larger war.
Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Executive Director Daniel McAdams wrote about the most recent developments in the RPI Weekly Update sent out via email early this morning. Because of the great importance of sharing McAdams’ Syria comments with the largest audience possible, those comments from this morning’s email are posted below as well.
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Here is what McAdams wrote in the portion of the RPI Weekly Update concerning Syria:
Dr. Paul and I started the week with a Liberty Report episode noting that Saudi Arabia had announced that it was putting together a force of 150,000 to invade Syria and “fight ISIS.” In the program we noted that it seemed odd for Saudi Arabia to be suddenly so interested in fighting Islamist extremists considering they had been funding and exporting them into Syria for the past five years. In fact, we pointed out, the Saudi invasion plan (troublingly encouraged by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter) was more likely a response to major gains against ISIS and particularly al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front by the Russia and Iran backed Syrian army around Syria’s second city, Aleppo. Aleppo had been occupied for at least three years by largely foreign imported al-Qaeda fighters, but dramatic gains by the Syrian government in the past weeks – with Russian help in the skies and Iranian and Lebanese help on the ground – had that last major rebel-occupied city in west Syria teetering on the edge of liberation. So the idea that Saudi Arabia would invade Syria to fight the very groups it had supported against the Syrian government was a bit much to swallow. Nevertheless, as this update goes to press, Saudi warplanes and personnel are amassing in Turkey poised to invade Syria.