Obama Commits to US Intervention in Syria

US Can't Be Bystander, President Insists

In a White House speech today, President Obama committed to continued US intervention in Syria, saying that the US would “beef up its role” and would not allow itself to be “bystanders during these extraordinary events.”

The “how” for US intervention remains an open question, but the administration seems to be doing anything and everything it can to make sure the US is insinuated into every conceivable part of the ongoing civil war.

Publicly, it has meant endorsing a UN invasion of Syria as well as joining the “Friends of Syria” group that is talking openly about the prospect of funneling arms to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) faction of defectors.

The much scarier question is the unanswerable one of what is going on behind the scenes. While the administration is continuing to reject the notion that there will be an overt US invasion, it has also shown more-than-usual interest in interfering in this particular Arab Spring uprising. It is difficult, when intervention is being endorsed so openly, to rule anything out.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.