The American Spectator

For a variety of reasons I was happy to see Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) begin a push for rational immigration reform, even if aspects of the situation struck me as too John McCain-like for comfort. It seemed like good policy (if the key principles of the framework with enforcement first were followed) and good politics.

But today, Senator Rubio is channeling McCain in a way I find much more distressing, and which is neither good policy nor good politics: calling for the US to help arm the rebels in Syria. Specifically, Rubio is calling on the US to send ammunition to Syrian opposition forces to help them topple the Assad regime.

The problem is that if we thought we didn’t know who the opposition was in Libya, we really don’t know in Syria. And whoever they are, they are even more likely to be radical Islamists who hate America and the West at least as much as they hate the Assad family.

Look at the results of toppling dictators in Egypt and Tunisia. When people hope for the demise of Assad, they should be careful what they wish for.

Not every problem, even a big problem like the massacre of civilians in Syria, has an answer which can be provided by the United States. In this case, even theoretically, the only answer that would come close to making sense would involve an occupation that would be far too similar to Iraq for the American public to tolerate.

In fact, the best thing for the United States is for the Syrian army and the Islamofascist opposition to keep killing each other. I realize that innocents will be caught, often intentionally, in the crossfire. But I see no acceptable way to stop that, given Russian opposition to UN involvement to stop the bloodshed.

In the meantime, the United States government should stop buying ammunition so the rest of us can afford to buy some for ourselves…