Uncle Sam had better get wise fast in Syria

It is time for United States to own the mess it has made in Syria.

For more than five years a bloody battle has raged for control of Syria. Almost daily, we receive heartbreaking news of the bloodshed spilling across borders, destabilizing the region and claiming lives. Thousands have died, millions more made refugees.

Unfortunately, much of the trouble is due to the actions of our own United States government. With news of increasing violence in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, we can no longer ignore the fact that our nation's military activities have not brought peace and stability, but in fact the opposite.

Afghanistan and Iraq are clear examples of missions gone wrong. Now, I fear, Syria, the current global hot spot, has  become one more example of the grave consequences of dubious action and calamitous indecision on the part of the U.S.

[JOHN HAVELOCK: 'Leak' of diplomats' memo on Syria was no leak at all.]

Like Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban have taken hold, Syria – according to the Obama Administration and news reports – has become a haven for the homegrown terrorist group the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS.

The United States and Syria began their turbulent relationship in 1835, when the U.S. sent a consul to Aleppo, then part of the Ottoman Empire. After World War II, in 1946, the U.S. officially recognized an independent Syria. In 1967, in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War, Syria severed diplomatic relations with the United States. Relations were reestablished in 1974. Five years later, the U.S. put Syria on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Between 1990 and 2001, the U.S. and Syria agreed to cooperate on a number of regional issues, but tensions between the two nations worsened. In 2004, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions against Syria for human rights abuses. In 2011, additional sanctions were declared against the Assad regime.

As of this date, the on-again-off-again relationship seems irrevocably off. The U.S. and Syria have had no official government-to-government ties, except perhaps as antagonists.

Although not a close friend of the U.S, Syria was a relatively stable country until 2011. Then the "Arab Spring," a wave of uprisings that began with a revolution in Tunisia, washed over Syria.

Peaceful protesters and armed rebels alike demanded the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime. Assad had been elected three times, first in 2000 and again in 2007 and 2014. An international delegation from more than 30 countries reviewed the 2014 vote and concluded the election was "free, fair and transparent."

To be sure, Assad is far from an ideal leader. His path to the presidency was made possible by loyalists in Syria's security forces, ruling Baath party and dominant Alawite sect who helped engineer a constitutional amendment allowing him to serve a third term. Assad has a profoundly rotten human rights record. He is also rather too cozy with Russia, China and Iran for U.S. interests.

Still, I was amazed when the U.S. and its coalition partners, apparently taking a page from the Libyan playbook, quickly waded into the Syrian conflict to back the rebels.

What was the strategy behind U.S. support of the rebels? As we are coming to find out, there wasn't one. Nor, it seems, is there one even now.

The U.S. has responded to the ever-worsening situation in Syria with confused, half-measures. Further, conflict among U.S.-backed rebel forces in Syria escalates almost daily, complicating the fight against ISIL.

By throwing support to the Syrian rebels, U.S. leaders made all Americans party to the attempted overthrow of a legal, freely elected, sitting government.

For what? A war of alarmingly vague objectives, including the overthrow of an established, secular government with whom the U.S. shares a common enemy in ISIL, in favor of splintered forces whose long-term intentions we have yet to truly identify.

Despite all this, key U.S. military leaders, political officials and diplomats in and out of the Obama administration are now telling us Syria is being treated as a "strategy free zone."

Strategy free zone? That, I take it, means we have no strategy. Really?

The term Arab Spring was first used in 2005 by media commentators to suggest that one benefit of the U.S. invasion of Iraq would be a "flowering" of Western-friendly Middle East democracies.

Too late. Such grand-scale, positive change has yet to blossom in the Middle East and there's little reason to think things will be different with Syria.

"Whoever wants a serious negotiation with the (Assad) regime must be stronger than the regime," wrote Yassin al Haj Saleh, a prominent opposition voice, in an email to SyriaDeeply.org as reported in an online article for the The WorldPost.

If the current cease-fire talks fail in Syria, the United States must take responsibility for what it has and hasn't done. Continuing to treat Syria as a "strategy free zone" should not be an option.

Meaningful action will be costly. But Washington has already funneled $200 million in aid to Syria, with no real plan for how that money would relieve the widespread suffering or end the fighting.

Inevitably, the United States will almost certainly end up owning Syria – much as it owns Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thank you, Washington.

Retired Maj. Gen. Jake Lestenkof is a former adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard and Marine combat veteran.  He has also held several positions in federal and state government including commissioner of the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.