As Syria begins to collapse into another civil war, western nations brace for the inevitable surge of Syrian refugees to their borders. Amid a national immigration crisis, America should consider how its own foreign policy perpetuates this problem.
Over 1,500 people have been killed since the clashes earlier in March, including 1,000 civilians. Many call it the worst violence we’ve seen since Bashar al-Assad’s fall in December, yet it’s nothing new for those monitoring the situation since the Arab Spring.
In America, immigration discussions among both political camps overlook how U.S. foreign policy contributes to the growing problem. Syria’s fourteen-year conflict demonstrates how American hard power intervention worsens conditions on the ground for civilians, prompts mass migration, and enables extremists to assume control. Since the beginning of the conflict in 2011, more than fourteen million Syrians have fled the country, with many now residing in neighboring Lebanon and European countries. Politicians refuse to acknowledge the policies that created this crisis, including military intervention, economic sanctions, and aid to extremist groups—all of which drove civilians to seek refuge.
The Syrian migrant crisis is only one example of how hawkish American foreign policy directly affects global migration. Regardless of intention, American intervention in Syria played a large role in producing economic collapse, civilian casualties, and unlivable conditions forcing Syrians to seek refuge abroad. To address the refugee crisis effectively, the United States should recognize the destabilizing impact of its foreign policy in other countries and reform of its hostile approach in the Middle East.
The Arab Spring spread to Syria in 2011, followed by Operation Timber Sycamore in 2013, an Obama-era CIA program launched to covertly arm and train extremist rebels against the Assad regime (fortified by British, Qatari, Saudi, and Jordanian intelligence). American troops arrived in late 2015 under the guise of countering ISIS alongside the trained Syrian Kurds and Arabs, who were later rebranded as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The United States dropped 12,192 bombs the following year, devastating critical infrastructure and erasing civilian livelihoods. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) declared over 230,000 civilian casualties as a direct result of this conflict between March 2011 and March 2024. American-led explosions in Syria continue today, mainly as precision airstrikes eliminating leaders of various terror groups left in the region.
Timber Sycamore featured a lack of regulation and accountability, resulting in American weapons ending up in the hands of FBI watchlist foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), which prolonged the war and fueled more violence. At this point, there were essentially four sides on the Syrian battleground, each with its own foreign backing: the Syrian Army, Kurds, Syrian rebels, and ISIS.
NATO members Turkey and the United States found themselves in their own proxy war due to the American-backed YPG, the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorist group that originated in Turkey in the 1980s. Russia’s involvement as a Syrian ally created further destruction and death, with direct attacks on American-backed rebels.
To make matters worse, rebels fought alongside members of Al Nusra Front (now Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham), then known as a Salafi-Jihadist organization and Al Qaeda affiliate. Al Nusra Front successfully recruited rebels, a critical miscalculated failure by the U.S. that caused a program shutdown in 2017. However, the cancerous spread of extremist factions continued, and Syrians are left facing the consequences of irresponsible intervention today. Though ISIS was territorially defeated in 2019 by the SDF, American presence remains questionably steady in northeast Syria, with the official reason being to prevent the return of ISIS.
If a wild west of extremists and complete demolition of neighborhoods wasn’t enough to make locals flee, American sanctions via the Caesar Act and its devastating consequences certainly were. Restricting foreign business operations in Syria quickly crippled its key industries of agriculture and manufacturing. This quickly depreciated the Syrian pound and increased prices of food and basic necessities, rendering life unaffordable.
My cousin summarized a recent visit to Damascus in 2024 with haunting images. “The once vibrant, pluralistic Syria we knew is a ghost town with no one in sight.” When asked about the state of the infrastructure, she added, “We sat in a dark living room while visiting family friends in the area, and they served us their most expensive meal, bread and tea.” Reduced oil imports as a result of the sanctions also directly affected electricity and transportation, likely the cause of most dark living rooms and food shortages across the entire country. 90% of Syrians are currently living below the poverty line and have no way out of these conditions.
Though originally intended for Assad, the impact of sanctions instead produced food insecurity, joblessness, and economic collapse that forced millions to seek refuge in Europe and the United States. After contributing to the decline of Syria by economic and militaristic means, the American government outright banned Syrian refugees in 2017, an infamous move that reinforced the following contradiction: The West-imposes policies abroad that ultimately create displacement, then resent the refugee’s cry for asylum.
What happens after American economic and hard power intervention destroys all infrastructure and economic sectors that keep an already struggling society running? A power vacuum created by these same actions allows an FTO like Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (HTS) to expand its control across the country. It’s no secret that American aid for so-called moderate rebels in Syria empowered jihadism, and essentially primed it to expand. Though proclaimed as a more “pragmatic” group by The New York Times, the history of HTS in Idlib tells a different story. The Sunni Islamist insurgent group rooted from Al Nusra Front and backed by Turkey is now seeking international recognition of its interim government in Syria from neighboring countries and the West alike. So far, it seems to be working.
Economic sanctions from the United States didn’t only disable and depreciate daily lives in Syria, but also inadvertently propped up terrorist groups. HTS exploited the ongoing conflict by first seizing control of Idlib, its aid distribution, and trade routes. The group’s legacy in northern Syria is ridden with public executions, forced taxes, and Sharia law—all causes for concern regarding the country’s future. Many civilians in Idlib also faced religious extremism and forced conscription, forcing them to flee the area and continue to seek refuge abroad. In an interview with Al Jazeera in 2015, leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani declared he’d “impose Sharia law” over Syria once he assumed control, now unfolding before our eyes.
HTS’s change in branding was partly manufactured by CNN in an interview al-Jolani in December 2024. The discussion advertised al-Jolani’s baseless claims of forming a government “based on institutions and a ‘council chosen by the people.’” Amidst the gradual global legitimization of its power, we’ve observed everything but that, despite calls for “regional peace.” This prompted sanctions relief from the U.S. Treasury, stating it would continue supporting “responsible governance in Syria.” However, recent fighting in Latakia invalidates HTS’s “responsible” rule and instead reminds us of its FTO classification. In just the last two days, Syrian security forces executed 148 Alawite civilians with helicopter gunships and drones; attempting justification by dubbing the dead “Assad loyalists.” Over seven hundred additional civilians were killed in the crossfire of the clash between said loyalists and al-Jolani’s Islamist fighters, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). This weekend, after criticism surrounding the recent killings and a lack of diversity in his original cabinet, Jolani revealed his transitional government. The new government includes Druze and Alawite representatives, and a female Minister of Social Affairs and Labour, though the lack of a prime minister implies Jolani as self-appointed president.
Additional tensions stem from the unofficial division of Syria into three major factions since 2011. Central Syria was governed by Turkish-backed HTS, in their capture of major cities of Aleppo and Damascus. Northeast Syria, also known as Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), is led by American-backed SDF and its counterparts, which include Kurdish fighters who Turkish President Recep Erdogan hoped to dissolve. After demands for SDF dissolution and expulsion of Turkish leaders from the PKK back to Turkey for sentencing, HTS managed to strike a deal to dissolve AANES into the new Syrian state democratic forces. However, Druze have resisted HTS consolidation of power in southern provinces and are generally considered “infidels” by extremists for not accepting the five pillars of Islam, elevating risk of further persecution considering al-Jolani and HTS ties to Al-Qaeda. Israel has since declared the area a demilitarized zone and promised protection for the group that has not yet been deployed.
American intervention in Syria demonstrates how an aggressive foreign policy marked by military intervention, harsh economic sanctions, and aid to proxy groups fuels unlivable conditions, needless casualties, and forced displacement. Unfortunately, a post-Assad Syria demonstrates the lingering consequences of these questionable policies. Acknowledging the link between an intrusive foreign policy and migration is the first step to crafting better solutions. It’s time to replace hard power responses with diplomacy in the Middle East, by reducing military intervention and rethinking the need for economic sanctions that disproportionately worsen conditions for civilians rather than their intended targets. A pragmatic approach in future conflicts could prevent similar destruction, humanitarian crises, and extremism we’ve seen in Syria.
If the United States wants to address immigration at its source, it must consider its own policies abroad that create and contribute to mass displacement.
