Aris Roussinos writes a thought-provoking essay in UnHerd arguing that the Ukraine conflict was prefigured in Syria, where American delusions about history moving the world inevitably in our direction were upended by direct and decisive Russian intervention:
In Syria, Putin’s gamble turned out to be correct: Assad’s victory was indeed a historic turning point, marking Russia’s return to the world stage as an actor able to direct the course of history. While American officials insisted there was no military solution to the Syrian war, Russia promptly delivered one. The Russian intervention in 2015 made Assad’s victory inevitable, allowing America to turn with some relief to the campaign against Isis, then ravaging European capitals, and to quietly divide the country into two spheres of influence separated by the river Euphrates. As Putin foresaw, even America’s final chosen proxies in Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Defence Force, would find themselves abandoned over time as the White House’s revolving door upended any coherent long-term planning. In a hasty rewriting of recent history, the fractious rebel alliance which took part in Turkey’s invasion of north-eastern Syria, which included factions previously armed by the US, was now denounced by Washington as renegade war criminals. In Russia’s eyes, the uncertainties inherent in America’s increasingly chaotic democratic system were the greatest vulnerability for Washington’s allies. Rather than the arc of history leaning towards liberal democracy, the abrupt policy shifts inherent to its system meant that liberal democracy itself was its own greatest strategic weakness.
Now, this is an interesting argument, but I tend to think that it strangely reinforces the maximalism about Syria in retrospect. Back in 2015, one plan floated was that America would send 40,000 troops to Syria to help rebel groups hold on to the slivers of land they still controlled in Syria — and then we would just wait until further developments or outrages moved public opinion in a way that would license the regime change desired by hawks in Syria.
I still find this crazy, in that the best-case result would have extended and exacerbated the refugee crisis hitting Europe for years as our radical Sunni allies butchered and cleansed their nation of Alawites who benefit from the Assad regime.