Why did we invade Iraq? More importantly, why haven’t we intervened in Syria?
Obviously, there are many differences between the two countries. They have two distinct cultures. It would be like comparing the United States to Great Britain – similar in many ways but also unique. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, we lacked many of the online luxuries we have today.
Twitter didn’t exist, and Facebook was in its infancy. Youtube wouldn’t be invented for another two years.
The influence social networking had on U.S. policy is massive. When we decided to invade Iraq and oust Saddam, we did so without live Twitter feeds, Facebook updates or Youtube videos of massacres.
We knew Saddam was committing genocide against the Kurds, we just didn’t have the “in your face” reality that is coming out of Syria today.
So, let’s review the alleged reasons the United States entered into the Iraqi conflict.
We accused Saddam Hussein of having weapons of mass destruction. Mass destruction is a broad term. A more narrowly-defined definition would be weapons with nuclear, chemical or biological capabilities.
We knew he had used chemical weapons against the Kurds – he did so in the ’80s at the end of the Iran-Iraq War. That being said, we never found any “weapons of mass destruction,” at least not the kinds we were hoping existed.
To summarize, Saddam was one bad mother. He ran an oppressive regime and committed atrocious acts against his own people. We don’t have live video of the incidents, but we knew they were happening.
Let’s compare Saddam to Bashar al-Assad, the current and controversial president of Syria.
Both Saddam and Assad belong to the same political party, the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party. We know that Assad and the Syrian government are regularly firing on and killing civilians and resistance fighters alike, much like Saddam did.
The only difference between 2003 and 2012 is the social media variable. Today, when a massacre happens in Syria, it’s on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter in a matter of hours.
The whole world saw what Assad did, practically in real time, yet nobody does anything.
The question is why?
The easy and perhaps most common answer is Iraq’s oil supply. Just because it’s the answer everyone has, doesn’t mean we can completely disregard it.
According to the CIA, the United States is the third-largest oil producing nation on Earth, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. Iraq comes in at number nine, producing about one fourth of U.S. oil production annually.
Syria is lonely, stuck between Thailand and Equatorial Guinea, sitting pretty at number 34. Syria’s annual oil production is one-twenty fifth of the United States’ output. Is this the main reason we haven’t intervened in Syria, despite overwhelming evidence to do so?
Probably not, but it’s still a factor. The economy is strained, some would say drained. Either way, nobody wants to commit troops, time and money to another foreign cause. Especially if we don’t get anything out of it – vis-a-vis, oil.
Despite popular belief, Americans are not the saviors of the world we portray ourselves to be. If we do not have a vested interest in the well-being of a nation, or the well-being of that nation’s natural resources, we won’t intervene.
So keep posting all the evidence of Assad’s violent regime. We hear you, we know what’s going on – but you’re on your own.
Parker Cramer is a 21-year-old political science senior from Houston. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_pcramer.