Issue Position: End the War in Syria

Issue Position

Tulsi is the leading voice in Congress calling for an end America's interventionist wars of regime change that have cost our nation trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. She has introduced a resolution that would end our illegal and counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad which is creating more devastation, human suffering, and refugees while strengthening terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda.

In 2012, the United States began a covert military campaign to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad in alliance with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Turkey.

As a result of that regime change war, more than 400,000 Syrians have been killed and millions have fled their homes as refugees. Furthermore, because of the chaos and weakening of Syrian government forces by the United States and our partners, ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations have been strengthened, presenting an even greater threat to the Middle East and the world.

Meanwhile, in 2014, the U.S. launched military operations with Kurdish and Syrian Arab forces to defeat ISIS in Syria.

As a result, the United States is now simultaneously involved in two contradictory wars in Syria.

The first is the war to defeat ISIS--a war we must take seriously and must win.

The second is the counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad--an illegal war that Congress has not authorized and which we must end.

Normally in war, the enemy of our enemy is our friend. But in these contradictory wars in Syria, the enemy of our enemy is our enemy. The absurdity is that the more we are successful in weakening Syrian government forces, the more our enemies like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other jihadists are strengthened. Every Syrian soldier we and our Saudi partners kill is one less soldier available to fight against ISIS.

There is no doubt that Assad is a brutal dictator, but common sense tells us that if we want to defeat ISIS and other Islamist extremist groups, we need to immediately end the illegal and counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad. We must focus our efforts one-pointedly on defeating ISIS, as well as al-Qaeda (al-Nusra) and other jihadist groups who have declared war on the United States.

If we were to end our war against the Syrian government of Assad, then and only then will it be possible for us to defeat ISIS and these other extremist groups.

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