The US intervention in Syria can also be traced to decisions taken by the security establishment a quarter-century ago to overthrow Soviet-backed regimes in the Middle East. As then-Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz explained to General Wesley Clark in 1991: “We learned that we can intervene militarily in the region with impunity, and the Soviets won’t do a thing to stop us… [We’ve] got about five to ten years to take out these old Soviet ‘surrogate’ regimes – Iraq, Syria, and the rest – before the next superpower [China] comes along to challenge us in the region.”
美国对叙利亚的干预也可以追溯到其安全体系在四分之一个世纪前所做出的颠覆苏联支持的中东政权的决定。时任国防部副部长保罗·沃尔福威茨（Paul Wolfowitz）1991年向韦斯利·克拉克上将（General Wesley Clark）解释说：“我们发现我们可以对该地区进行惩罚性军事干预，苏联不会采取任何措施阻止我们……[我们已经]有五到十年时间在下一个超级大国[中国]开始在该地区挑战我们之前除去这些旧苏联的‘代理’政权——伊拉克、叙利亚及其他。”