yeah, I know it's not politically feasible. Obama has already said that Assad must go. and as far as Qaddafi, the uprising appeared to be a democratic movement at first, and once again, thoughtlessly, Obama threw his support behind the rebels without knowing much about who they were and what they wanted, or indeed, the likelihood of a chaotic situation resulting from the overthrow of a strongman in a country with no democratic tradition. same in Egypt. and of course, W made the same mistake in Iraq. supporting Assad wouldn't make much difference, but I hope that the whole Arab Spring debacle along with the Iraq war has caused US leaders to rethink their ME strategy.
Thats true, but the situation here is a little more embarrassing. US was determined to oust Assad. In that effort, ISIS was born. Now Jihadis are running too rampant, so ally with Assad against ISIS. All this in the span of three years. I maintain, it would be politically risky to embrace Assad. The way congress is and all.
Egypt is the only real Arab nation state with strong state institutions. I see a good chance for Egypt to become a democracy, but such changes take place over a long period of time. Libya is a tribal landmass and there is no future for that country. Ghadaffi was a gift to Libya. The unfortunate reality is that most places in MENA are tribal hellholes that are in the need of a strongmand to rule them with an iron-fist. An iron-fist that can quell Jihadis and lead ther people out of tribalism.
Its already a de facto alliance, even if they are not coordinating their efforts. Although I would not be suprised if there are some secret back channels for that purpose.
I think the facts of assads actions such as use of chemical weapons make it virtually impossible to support him in any way, shape or form right now. Not to mention his close ties with Russia and Iran.
Yes, because the best way to get rid of extreme Islamic terrorists is to support strong dictators that keep their people oppressed, it is working wonderfully in Egypt. Who needs democracy when you can be afraid of crazy people that follow a different superstition than you (plural you) do?
don't get me wrong, I think that by far the best strategy is to stay out of that hell-hole. but as long as we are in the region (for whatever reason), I think supporting secular dictators strong enough to keep the crazies at bay beats the hell out of a bunch of religious lunatics running about beheading people and destabilizing the region.
Yes. But what Im saying is that Assad is not very important in the grand scheme of things. If he were to leave office tomorrow, there is not going to be much change in Syrias strategic relations with Iran.
This is what happens when you get involved in the domestic-civil unrest/politics i.e civil war in a country you shouldn't had gotten into in the first place. Assad and his father as well as the Ba'ath party have always been secular in nature protecting religious minorities and giving therm positions of power (like Tariq Aziz a Christian in Saddam Iraq). When we all knew the opposition to their regimes were wild eyed fundamentalist fanatics or corrupt detached weak moderates (INC/Ahmed chalabi &FSA). It's so funny how the US is so easily trolled by ISIS. Cut off a few heads, cover your face and have a scary black flag in arabic writing and the US flips it's shit. You would think ISIS is the second coming of the 3rd reich according to the sensationalist media coverage smh.
I think we're beginning to see the beginning of the end of ISIS as a force that's actually coherent enough and strong enough to gain and hold territory. They've clearly bitten off more than they can chew. They're now stretched thin on too many fronts and it's only a matter of time before internal divisions begin to manifest themselves. This is always the downfall of zealots ... they're so extreme that they begin to punish their own members due to suspicions and paranoia. It also clearly doesn't help their image in the main stream Muslim street that every day the headline is "ISIS kills more Muslims that are not the right type of Muslim" . That may have some traction in the hardcore Wahhabi world, but in the long run killing innocent women and children is not a great recruitment call. Not nearly as good of a recruitment call as fighting Soviet invaders in Afghanistan or fighting American invaders in Iraq Does that mean that there's an opportunity to turn the tide against Islamist extremism in general? Probably not ... As we've seen before these groups have a knack to be reborn with different names and different leaders. Chances are there's always going to be some sort of terrorist bandwagon for people to jump on.
Was listening to Ahmet Davatoglu (sp?) on radio today putting forward Turkey's official position and rationale. To paraphrase him he basically said that the world needs to arm the Free Syrian Army and not the PKK terrorists (he used that exact term). He didn't differentiate between YPG and PKK and his tone suggested that arming Kurds in general is somehow more offensive than arming FSA. I couldn't believe that he would make such a statement with a straight face. FSA has been very problematic throughout this civil war and they certainly have committed their share of atrocities that are at least on par with anything the PKK has done in Turkey recently. FSA has been documented to torture prisoners, execute prisoners and be involved in military actions that have killed civilians. On the scale of things FSA is not quite as gruesome as some other actors in Syria but I can't imagine how Kurds could be considered a less worthy ally. Keep in mind that FSA has at times had truces and/or "agreements" with the more violent Islamists when it suited their interests. Anyways ... arming FSA for me should not even be on the table. The lines between them and the Islamists are too blurry for my comfort. They may fight each other periodically but it's not really a given since they share many of the same goals since they both view this conflict from their Sunni POV. The Kurds are a much more reliable group to arm ... if nothing else simply because the Kurds have not shown any offensive inclination in Syria or Iraq. Whatever fighting they've done has been to defend the areas they live in which is totally justifiable combat no matter what political agenda one may support.
Howabout a better idea. We (America) just stay out. Help the refugees but otherwise stay out of something that is not our business. e
Easier said than done. You'd have to hit the rewind button about 60 years before we committed ourselves. Now the US has a seat at the table ... the cards have been dealt ... the chips are laid out. Extracting ourselves overnight without all sorts of unintended collateral damage would be next to impossible. The US is wound so tight in the ME game that it's really astounding. Most of allies there don't like each other and some are allied with our enemies and some of our enemies are allied with our friends etc ... etc ... We're committed to funding Israel. We're committed to funding Egypt's army. Turkey is an old partner from the Cold War era which has its own unique dynamic. We're committed to these sanctions against Iran. We still have troops in Iraq which has an Iran friendly government. We have several layers of economic interests with the Gulf states despite our deep cultural and political incompatibility. And all this is happening with the threat of terror which is such an elusive and abstract threat that it can pop up anywhere at anytime even in our backyard and we have no idea how to deal with it. And on top of everything it seems that everything happening in the ME also has this other layer of geopolitical rivalry with Russia and/or China ...
I don't think he means we should completely withdraw from the ME but that we should remove ourselves from the mess of the Syrian Civil War and the ISIS "war/insurgency" in Iraq. All the actors to me in Syria are bad apples the real moderate oppostion to Assad was never the FSA. It was liberal/democratic opponents in the arena of civil society. These groups were never willingly to physically resist the regime or engage in violence. Paramilitary groups like the FSA are not moderate they just came to fill the vacuum. The FSA is only "moderate" in relation to Nursa Front and ISIS. But unfortunately we fell into ISIS trap we got trolled big time.
The civil war in Syria can't really be separated from our wide geopolitical involvement in the region as a whole since Syria has really become a proxy tug of war between KSA, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Israel and Russia ... All those nations have stakes in the game and our various relationships to those countries means we have stakes in the game too. Also this civil war is no longer just a Syria issue. It has pretty much at this point mutated into a joint Syria/Iraq civil war that has recently spilled over into Lebanon and Turkey too ... So it's basically impossible to just stay out of it unless we somehow extract ourselves from the entire region somehow ... I just don't know how that's possible. I wish it were possible ... To me it looks like Sunnis and Shiites are just destined for at least another generation or two of blood letting that will more or less play out all over the region where the two sects live in proximity to each other. Nothing the West does or doesn't do is going to help much I'm afraid
Agreed. But we rattled the hornet nest by invading Iraq and creating a mess this has only accelerated the chaos we see now in the region. Yes Saddam and Assad were SOBs but the alternatives to them and the aftermath has been much worst imo.
No doubt ... we have a long history of contributing to bad outcomes in the ME ... We helped create Saddam. We helped create the Ayatollah. We helped create Osama. No doubt that it's never intentional ... it's always an unintended and unforeseen consequence of some previous alliance that backfires for whatever reason. The original sin was the idea that we could make friends and allies in the Middle East. The opportunity was maybe there several decades ago but we missed that opportunity by making friends with bad people to satisfy our energy interests and our Cold War interests. We started our whole ME adventure by not advocating for the people and thus we've lost the confidence of the people there long ago on all sides. And our support for Israel is just the cherry on top of this whole mess.
Perhaps the best idea is to just isolate the region and let em fight it out, then see who the winner is and build from there. The area is such a cluster********.
Well, it would be hard for US not to accomodatee Turkey's position (at least a little). Its a key NATO ally, and the regions superpower. Turkey cant really afford to back down and lay down their cards in Syria.
I'd start by drastically scaling back our relationships with KSA, Qatar and UAE. Those countries don't share our core social values and they've too often cozied up to Islamist movements around the world. I would also scale back our support of the Egyptian military. I would freeze aid to Israel as long as they continue their settlement policy. All these countries need us more than we need them. Maybe if we're not there to answer the phone when they get their panties in a bunch it'll give them a wake up call.