War & Peace Quote by Bill Kristol

Kristol’s line is less a lament than a trap: if you claim you’re waging a global “war on terror,” then nonintervention isn’t prudence, it’s hypocrisy. The adverb “Surely” does a lot of work. It pretends consensus, pre-loading disagreement as unreasonable, and nudges the listener into a narrow set of acceptable conclusions: act, or admit your whole posture is performative.

The key phrase is “poor precedent.” Kristol isn’t arguing Syria on humanitarian grounds so much as on reputational and deterrent logic: what you don’t do today becomes permission for adversaries tomorrow. It’s an appeal to the foreign-policy class’s favorite anxiety, credibility. The word “precedent” quietly shifts the discussion from Syria’s messy specifics to a broader doctrine of American resolve, where restraint reads as weakness and every crisis becomes a test case for the next one.

Context matters because “Syria” is shorthand for an era of televised atrocity, fragmented rebel factions, and post-Iraq fatigue. In that landscape, “inaction” isn’t just policy choice; it’s a moral indictment aimed at leaders who promised toughness against terrorism but balked at another Middle Eastern entanglement. The subtext is partisan and strategic: if the administration won’t enforce red lines or confront state violence that fuels radicalization, then its counterterror narrative collapses.

It works rhetorically because it weaponizes the listener’s desire for coherence. If you want to call it a war, Kristol implies, you don’t get to pick and choose the battles without paying the price.