[Old Teufel Hunden]

"sent us in there with no American interests at stake"

No American interests? See my post 19 for the American interests at stake. There are a lot of other reasons such as how the whole middle east was destabilized as they established a caliphate across parts of Syria and Iraq. They were creating a nation state of pyschopaths. Once they had consolidated their power, they would have been coming for all of us next, making 9/11 look like kids stuff.

[Pollster1]

No American interests?

To the extent we were fighting ISIS, that served an American interest, but that was not the central thrust of the efforts I'm familiar with. Helping anti-Assad forces mainly destabilized Syria and divided Assad's efforts. We had two logical choices: overthrow Assad and pray that turns out better than the Arab Spring did anywhere, or allow Assad free reign to retake his country. The world would have been much better off if we had stayed out of the way and Assad had won quickly.