The moral burdens of leaving Syria. (And why we should leave anyway.)

 Daniel Larison:

Andrew Bacevich recently commented on our government’s senseless policy in Syria: “So instead of a realistic policy defined by clear national interests, the United States drifts toward a confrontation with Russia in a place that virtually no American believes is worth dying for.” This “drift” is what happens when U.S. foreign policy operates as if on autopilot. Instead of deploying troops somewhere to achieve a specific end to advance an American interest, our policymakers come to see the deployments as ends in themselves. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the deployment serves a clear purpose or whether it is a wise use of resources. It evidently doesn’t matter whether it’s legal. Once the U.S. sends troops somewhere, it usually takes extraordinary effort to extract them later, and that has no effect on subsequent decisions to deploy them in new countries.

Correct. I'd add that deploying to countries like Syria creates a moral element to this flytrap effect: Once our troops are in a country and affecting the political landscape, we become morally responsible both for what happens while we are there -- and what happens as a result of our leaving. I think we should get out of Afghanistan, but I am distressed by what might happen to women in that country as a result. I think the U.S. has no business being in Syria, but it's also true that getting out screws the Kurds over. Those are lives lost and destroyed because we walked away. (I lost a friend, in fact, because I thought it correct to leave Syria -- he felt that doing so was a moral abomination because of the Kurds.)

The answer, as Larison suggests, is not to go to war in countries where American interests aren't all that clear in the first place. And I still think we should get out of Syria and Afghanistan. The advocates of a more humble foreign policy often find themselves having to justify the moral burden of non-interventionism in a way that hawks don't. But drifting toward a confrontation with Russia for no good reason could end up creating a higher moral cost -- in terms of shattered lives -- than leaving. Sometimes, when there are no good answers, the best answer is restraint.