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Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) said Sunday that the collapse of the Syrian government is a “potential win” for the US, but noted that the dynamic is more complicated since rebel forces are still “pretty bad guys.”
“Overall, this is a potential victory for the United States and its allies, but it’s not an easy victory,” Auchincloss, who served in the region as a U.S. Marine, said on “The Hill Sunday with Chris Stirewalt” by NewsNation.
“Because that old saying that ‘the enemy of your enemy is your friend’ is not true here,” Auchincloss continued. “The enemy of our enemy, this Syrian rebel force, they’re some pretty bad guys.”
“Also, they are a branch of al-Qaeda, and they are Sunni Islamists, which could mean harm to Israel and the United States,” he added.
The Syrian government fell early Sunday after rebels stormed the capital Damascus, ending 50 years of rule by the Assad family in the war-torn country.
The rebel victory concluded a 10-day offensive in which fighters swept across the country and seized much of what had been government-held, including the cities of Aleppo and Hama, and the previous night, the central city of Homs.
president Bashar Assad was overthrown, according to a statement read by a group of men on Syrian state television, and all those held in prisons were released.
Auchincloss pointed to the wider implications of the political unrest, saying it serves as a blow to Russia and Iran, which have used Syria’s civil war as a proxy war and “as a playground for geopolitics”.
“Russia practiced its tactics that it is using in Ukraine first in Syria, and Iran trained Hezbollah in Syria, before unleashing it on Israel,” Auchincloss said.
“So what happens in Syria is important to the world at large, and it’s a fulcrum for this axis of authoritarianism between Russia, China, North Korea and Iran as they seek to compete and undermine the U.S. and their allies.”
NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.
