Shining a light on Syria 

Since February 2022, Americans have been rightfully horrified by Russian butchery in the illegal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Photos of dead bodies in the streets of Bucha and bombed-out schools and hospitals are etched in our minds. 

Vladimir Putin’s carnage has know no limits since he ascended to power in 1999.. Ask the Chechens, the Georgians or the 15,000 Ukrainians killed in the Donbas and Crimea long before last February. And Putin certainly has not relented since he illegally initiated a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

Really nothing in Putin’s attempt to exceed even Joseph Stalin’s butchery compares with the systematic, targeted slaughter in Syria. Together with Iran, Putin props up Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, a second-generation dictator and murderer.   

After 12 years of war in Syria that has resulted in over 300,000 people killed, 14 million displaced, and tens of thousands more imprisoned, I wanted to see the horrifying death and destruction of Assad’s partnership with Russia and Iran for myself. In August, I traveled with Reps. Ben Cline (R-Va.) and Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) to southwest Turkey to meet with the interim government of a free Syria, and as a part of our consultation, we crossed into Syria. 

We entered Syria at the Bab al-Salama crossing in northern Aleppo province and visited with physicians caring for the maimed and ill at the Dr. Muhammad Wassim Maaz Hospital. Additionally, we visited the residents and physicians at the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF)’s House of Healing in Gaziantep, Turkey, and looked into the faces of the orphans of SETF’s Wisdom House in Syria. 

As I got out of the car to see the children of this orphanage and meet their teachers and principal, I was overwhelmed by their love and affection. Standing there with their beautiful faces and their modest, but proud uniforms, each child handed me a plastic rose while offering a peck on each cheek or a handshake. These precious little six-year-olds held up pictures of their fathers who were murdered by Assad, Putin and the Iranian stormtroopers.  

It was an emotional moment. Twelve years have gone by and much of global news has been transfixed by the Ukrainian trench line built by the Russians that far exceeds the horrors of France’s Western Front in World War I.  

In the week after we left Syria, the White Helmets reported that Assad’s regime, along with Russia and their loyal militias, conducted over 140 air sorties over Syria, killing nine including six children — children that might have been these young pretty faces of the Wisdom House.  

More resolute leadership in Washington and in European capital cities 12 years ago might have prevented this ugly outcome and, in turn, prevented Donbas, Crimea, and now full-scale war in Europe. Sadly, instead, appeasement and unenforced “red lines” had us there staring into the faces of six-year-old orphans. 

Today, the bulk of the sensible world community rejects Putin in Ukraine. That same diverse coalition of the willing must unite and also reject the Arab League’s fledgling attempt to bring Assad back into the norms of international order and diplomacy. Our visit to Syria came on the heels of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) persuading their Arab League members to readmit Assad. 

The argument in favor of this Assad victory is to compel Assad to: Bring peace to Syria; return the millions of refugees in Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan back to their home villages; reduce Iranian influence in Syria by kicking out the tens of thousands of warriors they have imported to do Assad’s killing; and finally — perhaps most important to the Gulf countries — end the Assad crime family’s massive manufacture, distribution and poisoning of the region with his captagon drug. 

I am skeptical that readmission of Assad to the Arab League will in any way move these worthy goals forward. Instead, I call on our parliamentary colleagues in democratic countries and all peace-loving countries alike to maintain an economic and military presence, reject normalization of Assad and come together with a global plan to bring a political settlement to Syria that facilitates security in the country, peaceful governance across its lands, and an end to transnational criminal drug manufacturing distribution.   

Only then can critically needed rebuilding assistance for those who have been so severely upended by Russian bombs, Shia militia brigades, and the devastating earthquakes of this past February be effectively carried out.   

French Hill represents the 2nd District of Arkansas and is a member of House Foreign Affairs Committee.