Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) mentioned on Sunday that the collapse of the Syrian authorities is a “potential win” for the U.S. however famous the dynamic is extra difficult for the reason that insurgent forces are nonetheless “some pretty bad guys.”
“Overall, this is a potential win for the United States and its allies, but it’s not an uncomplicated win,” Auchincloss, who served within the area as a U.S. Marine, mentioned on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday” with Chris Stirewalt.
“Because that old saying that ‘the enemy of your enemy is your friend’ just is not true here,” Auchincloss continued. “The enemy of our enemy, this Syrian rebel force, are some pretty bad guys.”
“Also, they are an offshoot of al Qaeda, and they are Sunni Islamists, who could mean harm to Israel and to the United States,” he added.
The Syrian authorities fell early Sunday after rebels entered the capital of Damascus, ending the Assad household’s 50-year rule within the war-torn nation.
The rebels’ victory concluded a 10-day offensive during which fighters sprinted throughout the nation and seized a lot of what had been government-held land, together with the cities of Aleppo and Hama, and the night time earlier than, the central metropolis of Homs.
President Bashar Assad was overthrown, in keeping with a press release learn by a bunch of males on Syrian state tv, and all folks detained in jails had been freed.
Auchincloss famous the broader implications of the political unrest, saying it serves a blow to Russia and Iran, who’ve used the Syrian civil warfare as a proxy warfare and “as their playgrounds of geopolitics.”
“Russia practiced its tactics that it’s using in Ukraine first in Syria, and Iran trained Hezbollah in Syria, before then unleashing it on Israel,” Auchincloss mentioned.
“So what happens in Syria matters to the wider world, and it’s a fulcrum for this axis of authoritarianism between Russia, China, North Korea and Iran as they seek to compete against and undermine the United States and its allies.”
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