When Bashar al-Assad began his war against his own subjects eleven years ago, Arab popular opinion swiftly turned against him, and Arab rulers shunned him—not only because of his brutality, but also because they felt threatened by the growing power of his Iranian patrons. The West, and even such international bodies as the World Health Organization (WHO), followed suit. Undeterred by sanctions and condemnations and with the assurance of support from Moscow and Tehran, Assad went about bombing his country into submission. That Arab leaders are now mending relations with Damascus demonstrates that his persistence has paid off, if not for the country he rules, then at least for himself. Marwan Safar Jalani, himself a refugee from Syria, comments:

In June, the World Health Organization appointed Syria to its executive board. Interpol readmitted Syria to its network in October. Algeria and Egypt have pushed to reinvite Syria to Arab League membership. . . . These international bodies and nations appear to have either forgiven, forgotten, or chosen to ignore the reasons Syria was cast out from their community. But in doing so, they normalize the atrocities committed by or on behalf of Assad’s regime and risk emboldening other leaders to act without fear of major censure or retribution.

A regime that has been known to bomb hospitals cannot be a member of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization. A regime that tortures and tracks its dissidents at home and abroad through intelligence services must not regain access to Interpol’s databases.

The United States, France, and Britain stress that they are against normalizing Assad, but shy away from urging allies and international organizations not to do so. This issue should be high on—if not at the top of—their foreign-policy agenda, because the rehabilitation of Assad poses a direct threat to the post-World War II order—which already faces challenges on other fronts, such as the current Russia-Ukraine tensions. This issue is an easy one to take a stand on. Syria is not a nuclear power or the regional power it once was. Nor is it a major energy supplier. Standing firm against his rehabilitation does not cost much.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.