Assad Must Go, But Regime Change is Not the Answer

Photo by: Christiaan Triebert

With another cease-fire in tatters and the siege of Aleppo looking more like a modern-day Stalingrad, it may seem tempting to just go ahead and cut a deal with Assad, abandoning the larger goal of his departure from office in order to quell the violence and, perhaps, ease the suffering.

Yet it is a fantasy to think we can uproot the Islamic State in Syria with Assad in power; he remains the essential driver of the conflict. With its military might, the United States can — and has — disrupted and degraded the Islamic State, whether measured by territory lost, fighters killed or recruits turning away. But defeating the terrorist group requires bringing an end to the Syrian civil war. And that will not happen until Assad is gone.

Throughout the Syria conflict, the challenge for the United States has been less about the goal itself — Assad’s departure — than the policy tools it should use to achieve it. Although rarely advertised this way, the Obama administration’s approach toward Assad has been one of “managed transition” — it wants him to go, but rather than escalate our involvement in the conflict by decapitating the regime with military power (as the United States did in Iraq and helped to do in Libya), it has aimed to bring about a transition with government institutions intact and able to provide basic services and secure basic order.