By Madi Alexander
Many students and professors experience the Syrian conflict only through videos on the television. But for Imad Enchassi, chairman of Islamic studies, the realities of war hit much closer to home.
The Syrian conflict began in 2011 during the Arab Spring as an attempt to overthrow the government. The United Nations estimates that there have been more than 100,000 killed and millions displaced.
Enchassi spent the past three summers working with Islamic Relief near the Syrian border in Jordan and Lebanon, providing refugees with three months of shelter, food and clothing before the United Nations refugee program took effect.
A Palestinian refugee himself, Enchassi said part of his desire to help Syrian refugees stems from his own horrific experience.
“Seeing those images on TV, the images from the most recent chemical attack, these images haunt me,” he said. “They haunt me for many reasons because I am a survivor of a massacre and I know exactly the feelings. They give you flashbacks.”
Enchassi survived the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila—Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon, where about 2,000 refugees were murdered by members of a Christian Lebanese militia collaborating with the Israeli army.
Enchassi’s mother is Syrian and many family members, including his sister, remain in Syria today. Eleven immediate and distant family members have been killed since the civil war started, Enchassi said.
“Just recently (my sister) said she sold her wedding band to stockpile food, anticipating the bombing campaign of the U.S. military,” he said.
Enchassi said he last spoke to his sister four weeks ago.
As far as a military strike from the U.S. is concerned, Enchassi said he finds it difficult to justify any act of violence because he knows innocent civilians will always be injured or killed.
Whether or not a military strike from the U.S. will bring an end to the war remains unclear, he said.
Mohamed Daadaoui, political science professor and Middle East expert, shares Enchassi’s uncertainty about whether a military strike would put an end to the conflict.
The decision to strike Syria is much more difficult and convoluted than the decision to intervene in Libya because Libya had a different set of variables, he said.
“It was clear what we wanted to achieve, which was topple Qaddafi, and it was not backed by any one of the superpowers,” Daadaoui said.
Both Iran and Russia have promised their support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Launching a military strike on Syria does the United States no good in the long run and could inspire further retaliation against Israel and U.S. outposts in other Middle Eastern countries, he said
Toppling Assad’s regime might not be in the best interest of the United States, Daadaoui said.
Syrian rebels are not one unified force, he said, but rather more than 1,000 militias ranging from secular fighters to Islamist groups affiliated with al-Qaida. If Assad were to be removed from the presidency, the alternatives might not be in the best interest of the United States, Daadaoui said.
The biggest question remaining is how President Obama will respond if Congress does not approve of any military strikes in Syria, he said.
Air strikes might be effective as a deterrent to the use of more chemical weapons, Daadaoui said, but not as a means of overthrowing Assad.
Danielle Kutner, political science and philosophy senior, said sustained military action and troops on the ground in Syria provide no strategic geopolitical value to the United States.
“The United States looks weak by drawing the red line at chemical weapons and then not taking any action to punish Assad for the atrocities his military has committed,” she said.
Americans are weary of war after being promised a short military incursion in Iraq, she said, but it took 10 years to fight that battle.
“If Obama is going to do anything, he should temporarily weaken the Syrian military through air strikes and set an example to the international community that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated,” she said. “Any further action will be incredibly foolish since Obama lacks support from the international community.”
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