We're starting the "Alice in Rwandaland" phase, whereby a bad, poorly planned intervention that we tried to do on the cheap (ie THE NORMAL KIND) is removed to the "we did nothing!" column for future debate.
So just for the record: we carried out drone strikes. We bombed. We tried to bankroll a small group with little real chance of winning. We let our mates the Saudis bankroll Literal ISIS even though this brought the Russians in
Everyone, even the advocates (no, *particularly* the advocates) of intervention agreed that there would be no large-scale "boots on the ground" operation. (This was because the very suggestion was ridiculous, it was so far out of political possibility)
We then didn't take refugees because there was no political support either. Basically, we didn't know what we were doing, so we got what we got.
And what did we get? Hell on earth. BUT the war didn't spread into Turkey or Iraq. Iran stayed on the sidelines. Even a significant minority of Syria was left in a state where some semblance of normal life could continue. Anyone saying "it couldn't be worse" isn't thinking.
All the people today going "but the UN is useless because Russia"... where were you? Very early on it was obvious that one side in this civil war had wholehearted Great Power support. That meant either that ...
a) that side would win, b) another Great Power would have to be equally committed to another side or c) the tough work of diplomacy would need to be done to peel the Russians off their support for Assad.
This was totally obvious to me at the time; I didn't make a big noise about it because I didn't want a load of zoomers telling me I loved Assad and supported him as if he was Everton in the Cup Winners Cup.
But the people who could have steered said zoomers in a positive direction were doing what they always do; emoting that "we must do something" without ever saying what that was. Leave it to the military guys...
...and the military guys came up with a plan within the constraints placed on them, not saying that those constraints rendered the current disaster inevitable because it was more than their job's worth.
Yeah there are lessons to be learned here, but "listen yah, non intervention has consequences too, yeah" isn't one of them.
I frankly have more respect for the Henry Jackson Society types who go "we need to keep the peace vis military dominance everywhere, like the old British Empire and wear the fiscal consequences of that, PS I am not a crank". At least it's facing up to the problem.
Getting pushback from Very Expert Syria Writers who think that our drone strikes don't count because they were only aimed at ISIS, as if ISIS wasn't one side in this civil war.
