Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) said on Sunday that the collapse of the Syrian government is a “potential win” for the U.S. but noted the dynamic is more complicated since the rebel forces are still “some pretty bad guys.”
“Overall, this is a potential win for the United States and its allies, but it’s not an uncomplicated win,” Auchincloss, who served in the region as a U.S. Marine, said on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday” with Chris Stirewalt.
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“Because that old saying that ‘the enemy of your enemy is your friend’ just is not true here,” Auchincloss continued. “The enemy of our enemy, this Syrian rebel force, are some pretty bad guys.”
“Also, they are an offshoot of al Qaeda, and they are Sunni Islamists, who could mean harm to Israel and to the United States,” he added.
The Syrian government fell early Sunday after rebels entered the capital of Damascus, ending the Assad family’s 50-year rule in the war-torn country.
The rebels’ victory concluded a 10-day offensive in which fighters sprinted across the country and seized much of what had been government-held land, including the cities of Aleppo and Hama, and the night before, the central city of Homs.
President Bashar Assad was overthrown, according to a statement read by a group of men on Syrian state television, and all people detained in jails were freed.
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Auchincloss noted the broader implications of the political unrest, saying it serves a blow to Russia and Iran, who have used the Syrian civil war as a proxy war and “as their playgrounds of geopolitics.”
“Russia practiced its tactics that it’s using in Ukraine first in Syria, and Iran trained Hezbollah in Syria, before then unleashing it on Israel,” Auchincloss said.
“So what happens in Syria matters to the wider world, and it’s a fulcrum for this axis of authoritarianism between Russia, China, North Korea and Iran as they seek to compete against and undermine the United States and its allies.”
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