The Moral High Ground on Syria Is Empty

More than 400,000 dead since 2011. Men, women and children. Dead from chemical-weapons attacks, but also dead from barrel bombings, gunshots, torture, starvation. Dead from routine illnesses and injuries untreated because more than half the country’s public hospitals are damaged or shuttered. Dead while trying to reach safety.

And of the living, some 6 million — half the population — forced to flee their homes.

The country, once a flourishing crossroads for commerce, is now the site of proxy wars between the U.S. and multiple jihadi groups. Between the U.S. and Iran, Israel and Hezbollah, Turkey and the Kurds, and even the U.S. and Russia.