Alwaght- Wave of popular uprisings that began in Tunisia in late 2010 quickly spread throughout the Arab world. Widespread popular protests began from Tunisia and spread to Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain and threatened the military dictatorships and authoritarian monarchies of the Arab world. The revolutionary wave posed an unexpected threat for the United States. Some of the close allies and friends of the United States were toppled. In other words, strategic partners of the security order that the United States had built were overthrown or destabilized. Syria was among the countries that was faced with domestic crisis. Several years after the initial days of the Syrian crisis, the Western countries are beginning to stand against Syria and Iran as the representatives of the East. On the one hand, the West Block is demanding an end to Assad�s government, and on the other hand, the East Block wishes to keep Assad�s government in power and let the Syrian people decide about their future through the ballot box.

In the meantime, the US stance towards the prolonged crisis in Syria has been quite noteworthy. We may wonder why the US decided not to get his troops directly involved in Syria. Why the US did not adopt a clear strategy or a plan in dealing with the ISIS terrorist group? In fact, the prolonged Syrian crisis was once to the advantage of the US, but as the terrorist groups such as al-Nusra Front and ISIS were strengthened, and the so-called moderate groups like the Free Syrian Army were undermined, the Salafist groups such as the Islamic Front and Ahrar ash-Sham assumed more significant role and posed another threat. On the other hand, the Syrian unrest also spread to Iraq and Lebanon, and created a split among the US allies and key players of the crisis namely Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, to the extent that anti-Syrian coalition was disintegrated. Instead, the US made some diplomatic efforts to find a way out of the political deadlock in the country through Geneva talks between the Syrian government and opposition; a solution that failed quickly.

In general, the US goals have been changing continuously during the crisis in Syria, and have not been stable enough. The US advocated the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, but not military intervention without international authorization, nor reckless armament of the Syrian opposition. Obama did not intend to unite and lead the countries which oppose the Syrian government, nor was he competent enough to make them united against a common enemy. In other words, Obama's Middle East strategy has been faced with major problems, as the inaction and appeasement of the US, and its occasional aids for the ISIS have seriously called into question the true intentions of the US in the fight against terrorism. On the other hand, as the Syrian crisis reached to the point where the European allies of the United States faced the flood of immigrants, the US-led coalition proved ineffective in countering the spread of ISIS, and this paved the way for the stronger role of the Russian.

Russia's involvement in the Syrian crisis as an international power, more than ever challenged the hegemonic power of the United States and revealed the ineffectiveness of the US policies in this crisis. The United States did not expect that Russia may react against them so strongly. Syria is a matter of great honor for Russia. In fact the Syrian crisis has reached to the point that can change Russia into a world power. However, there have been some reasons which made the United States and its allies suspect in the attack on Syria and their involvement in Syrian crisis, the most important of which are:

1. The war in Syria can possibly lead to an all-out sectarian chaos for destabilizing the whole region.


2. The supporters of Bashar al-Assad�s government, namely Iran and Russia would react in a coherent and strong way, to the extent that Russia would spare no effort to answer back the probable US attacks, and the United States did not know how Iran would respond to the US attack against Syria, even Iran was likely to fulfil its promises through Syria.


3. The people of the United States and Europe are bored with more than a decade long war and conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the losses arising from failure to achieve the goals of the participating countries, and the pressure from the public opinion were important enough that few governments were willing to collaborate with the United States in the war against Syria.

By AlWaght