Yesterday was a day of cognitive dissonance.

President Biden, one month into his term, greenlighted the first military action of his administration. The airstrikes in Syria, the administration claims, required no congressional vote because they were deployed in “self-defense,” even though the action was a response to the targeting of US occupying forces in Iraq and Syria.

The airstrikes themselves should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed Biden’s long career as a foreign policy hawk, albeit a hawk acting under the cover of “liberal interventionism.” Syria is a perfect case in point: using the legitimate outrage against Bashar al-Assad’s genocidal policies to justify an intervention that only leads to more human suffering and a bigger geopolitical footprint for the US military.