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Global security fellow: Syria 'not a job for U.S. boots on the ground'

"They're happy that there's action, but they understand as well as anyone, and the Syrians that I know that are in Jordan and in Turkey, they also understand this is not a job for American boots on the ground."

Knoxville — After the U.S. and allies sent 105 missiles to three Syrian sites that the Pentagon says were used to research, develop and store chemical weapons, one East Tennessean says the attacks are welcome by many Syrians, but that U.S. forces are not the key to peace in the Syria.

Previous: Pentagon: U.S. allied strike set back Syrian chemical weapons program 'for years'

The U.S. government says Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's regime has deployed chemical weapons around 50 times since the conflict started in 2011. The United Nations estimates around 400,000 Syrians have died during the war and more around 11 million people have been displaced.

"Wherever there's political opposition pockets, he is very methodically, with the assistance of the Iranians, Hezbollah and Russia, targeting those civilian populations," Dean Rice said. Rice is a Global Security Fellow at the University of Tennessee's Institute for Nuclear Security.

Saturday's attack came just over a year after another U.S. missile attack in response to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons. The attack that prompted the U.S. to respond last April killed 86 Syrian civilians.

"The question is going to be going forward, how do we define chemical weapons?" Rice said. "What they did was fire missiles on the three chemical plants that produces sarin and other chemical weapons. Chlorine is a whole different ballgame."

Rice has visited the Middle East multiple times, including trips to refugee camps along the Syrian border.

"They're happy that there's action, but they understand as well as anyone, and the Syrians that I know that are in Jordan and in Turkey, they also understand this is not a job for American boots on the ground. This is not our place to go and rebuild Syria, this is not our burden alone to go in and make things right," Rice said. "What it is though, is the burden is on the world to stop genocide. The burden is on the world community to say no, we don't do this."

Of the approximately 11 million people displaced, the UN says 5.6 million of them have fled the country. The refugee crisis has caused Syria's civil war to stress other nations across the world.

"The refugee crisis as a crisis for Europe and America, as it is, if you want to solve that crisis, it begins in Damascus," Rice said. "Until that's solved politically, not necessarily militarily, but politically, this crisis is not going to go away."

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