The American Blob is already oozing into Syria

Washington's foreign policy elite is pushing for a new war in the Middle East. Can it be stopped?

The next president will inherit much of the weight of this conflict.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh)

Syria is in absolute ruins. The ongoing civil war, a disorganized melee involving the Assad regime, various rebel groups, Russia, Iran, ISIS and other Islamists, Turkey, Kurdish forces, and the U.S., has been stuck in stalemate for month after month. Much of the country is in a state of utter collapse, hundreds of thousands have died, and refugees continue to pour into neighboring states and Europe.

With the election of a militarist-inclined Hillary Clinton looking all but certain, the Blob — White House aide Ben Rhodes' apt name for the permanent D.C. foreign policy establishment — is quickly coalescing around a new consensus that existing U.S. intervention should be dramatically scaled up, as Eric Levitz writes. The central policy for this effort is a no-fly zone to be enforced by American air power.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.