Why US Involvment in the Syrian Civil War is Foolish

The following is taken from a discussion of US Military and Diplomatic Policy on my personal Facebook Wall:

Without even considering the state of our (military) forces, getting involved in Syria is ill-advised for several diplomatic reasons. The first and foremost diplomatic consideration here is that the Jihadi's have already beaten us to the punch. The type of people who do not like us are well represented on the side of the rebels and will likely have a large influence on any post-Assad government. I mean, what are we supposed to do? Purge the rebels of people we don't like? You can't really do that and claim to believe in freedom. The second consideration is the fact that this will become a proxy conflict between US and Iran, or worse, US and Russia. I'd like to believe that the Russians wouldn't be dumb enough to start World War III over a civil war in a relatively small Middle Eastern country, but history warns that crazier shit has happened. Some guy named Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, starting some conflict that was known at the time as "The Great War." You may have heard of it. Sarcasm aside, It is diplomatically unwise to poke a Totalitarian-Ascendant Russia with a stick. We might not have had this concern with Pre-Putin Russia, but if wishes were poppy we'd all be dreaming.

So combine our war-weary army with a diplomatic powderkeg and you get a situation that is, understating it, really bad. If we lose, we lose. But if we win in our current situation, we are likely to paradoxically lose even more. I'm afraid that there is no moral and diplomatically expedient way for America to be an agent of good here. Afraid, too, I am that we would be better off leaving Syria alone just as we left Iran alone when it was in its own time of civil unrest. And then there's the civil unrest in Turkey right now. The Turks have been one of our biggest traditional allies in the Middle East. Erdogan is becoming a tyrant and his people are also starting to rebel, this is another situation we are best to let take its course. The imperialist excesses of the Bush years have made me somewhat of an isolationist.

There are times when it is morally correct for a nation that is capable to stand up for oppressed of another nation. But in the situation where one tyrant may just as easily be replaced with another, I fear the more honorable thing to do is to not get involved. It may be selfish to say, but I believe that before all other diplomatic considerations, we have a responsibility to our own. There are bigger fish to fry within our own borders before we start taking on the problems within the borders of others.