We "Did Too Much"

Can you reasonably argue that Syria would have been a worse mess if Assad still ruled the whole country? I cannot. Seth Cantey cannot either, as he writes for USA Today.

The U.S. and its partners could have, and should have, let Assad win.

The main problem with U.S. policy toward Syria is not that the administration did too little early in the conflict. It is that the administration did too much. If the U.S. and its partners had not intervened, Assad would have stamped out the civil war before it began.

A brutal dictator would have retained control of his country, but the death toll would be lower, Syria would be more stable, the refugee crisis might not have happened, and ISIL might never have taken its current form.

When we look at Iraq and Libya, we see obvious examples of the unintended consequences of intervention. We should see that when we look at Syria, too.

The same applies to Saddam's Iraq and Gaddafi's Libya, but perhaps not to the Taliban's Afghanistan. Policy prescription: the only dictators who require toppling are those attacking Americans.