The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) released the following statement today condemning Russian airstrikes on Syria:

“News of the first publicly announced Russian airstrikes on Syria marks a turning point in the region: Russia’s proxy war against Syrian civilians is no longer covert and is no longer only vis-à-vis Assad. As the global community, and most tragically our own U.S. administration, have failed to support Syrian civilians against the Assad regime, and have allowed ISIS to expand, Russia has now brazenly announced that it is carrying out missions in Syria.

Bashar al-Assad’s alliance with Russian leadership is no secret. In the three plus years since the start of the Syrian uprising, Russia and Iran have together been not fighting radical Islamists, but supporting the regime of Bashar al-Assad as it tortures and murders Syrian civilians systematically snuffing out in genocidal fashion what started as a heroic and moral revolution for freedom from the tyranny of Assad’s Ba’athist military regime. Instead Assad’s vicious military approach has been to empower the militants overtaking the region as a convenient excuse to justify the extermination and ethnic cleansing of the majority of Syrian Sunni Muslims—either by genocide or by evacuation.

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, son of Syrian immigrants and founder of AIFD, said the following:

“Reports that Russia is targeting ISIS are absurd at best – reports are coming in that Russia is merely continuing Assad’s carpet bombing and military operations against innocent Syrian civilians.

When President Obama claimed that the use of chemical weapons would represent a ‘red line’ inspiring swift and effective action to support Syrians against Assad, the Syrian regime responded by using them.

When President Obama spoke before the United Nations, condemning Assad’s brutality, the Russo-Syrian alliance responded with this week’s actions: continuing the bombing of Syrian civilians while proudly demonstrating that the United States has ceased to have any real influence in the region.

Thanks to the failure of the Obama administration and the broader global community to support Syrians against both the murderous dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad and the bloodthirsty theocrats of ISIS, America’s reputation and legacy in the region is already tarnished. However, this should not stop us from doing the right thing now. We at AIFD call on the Obama administration and all in America’s leadership to condemn Russia’s latest belligerent demonstration, and to establish this as a red line we actually respond to with meaningful, swift, and unfaltering action against the genocidal regime of Bashar al-Assad. Mark my words: failure to do so will only encourage Russia, Syria and Iran to continue their imperialist grabs in the region, and will empower groups like ISIS to multiply and expand, something the world will surely regret. As Europe and the world is finally realizing with the mass exodus of millions of Syrian refugees, the Assadist cancer inside Syria and its killing machine that festered ISIS is now spreading across the region and across the world. The free world led by President Obama must just again decide whether they will do something now or wait until we have no choice and far less options.

History will not look kindly upon the apathy, negligence, and absence of any American decisive actions against both the Assad military and ISIS. This has paved the way for the overt Russian belligerence we see today. The people of Syria woke up with the courage to try and take control of their own destiny in March 2011, but sadly the forces of evil in the alliance of Assad, Khamanei, and Putin have fueled and executed genocide in order to prevent that awakening.”