The misunderstanding here is that you are making a separation I am not making.
In the wisdom of the Founders; the Military is under civilian control and is an important arm of American Policy…not a separate, independent entity. History has shown this to probably be one of the most important relationships the Founders clearly defined…and a damn wise one (among many they made).
I’ve said it before…one Carrier Group…even one fully-armed Ohio Class Sub could lay waste to the whole Middle East if we chose to unleash the “Dogs of War” to it’s fullest.
But where would that get us?
So…TO ME…when someone says “we” are doing nothing in the Middle East…it’s a slight to everyone, including the Military…perhaps to you and others its just a slight to the Politicians…
I am just saying it’s difficult to be fighting a war on terror while arming the terrorists against some others you hate worse while giving the second group billions of dollars to be used to attack you.
Such is the insane foreign policy of the current administration.
Iran/Contra pales in comparison!
The Russians have a better plan. Strengthen their ally and destroy the rebels. Period.
Edit- (do we still have to write edit?) I never suggested exterminating the entire Sunni group from the Middle East, just something more inline with what the Russians are doing…putting down the rebellion and the terrorists & propping up the Assad regime.
For once in my life I actually think the Russians have a better foreign policy in regards to the Middle East and elsewhere…never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine such a thing would be possible!
I think indecisiveness as well as poor decision making was the problem in Iraq. Our goal wasn’t clear. “Get rid of Saddam” turned into dismantling the entire infrastructure of Iraq, where dismantling the entire infrastructure was not needed and obviously caused a mess. A clear goal of removing Saddam and ‘Deba’athing’ the government would have been prudent without dismantling the military, economy, energy production, right down to running water.
If we defeated Saddam and ‘de-baathed’ the government without dismantling their entire infrastructure, it would have been a better, shorter, less costly war. Having to rebuild the damn place and leaving before we finished was the biggest disaster. We had to actually finish the massive job of rebuilding the country and we just left before we were done. Against the advise of pretty much every military advisor involved.
No, I think loppar was 100% correct in this statement. Being deliberate and decisive is not the same as being imprudent and injudicious in the use of military assets. The meaning is rather to define the terms, set boundaries and when the decision to act is prudent, you apply the power in force with a firm goal in mind rather than applying a peice meal plan while trying to figure out what to do.
There are consequences to every action but there are consequences to in action. The indecisiveness with regards to Syria for instance has been and is still a nightmare scenario… Possibly the worst case scenario. Just look at it.
Would it have been better if we took decisive action against Assad at the beginnings of the civil unrest? I think it’s possible that a lot of things would have been better dealing with Assad with a strong hand, before the whole country fractured. And it would have kept the Russians out of it.
If we acted on the now famous ‘Red line’ rather than punting, for instance we could have gotten his stock pile out of thereby force and might and perhaps kept the country from disintegrating and kept the Russians from planting their flag, I mean their actual flag on Syrian ground. With the Russians there our predicament has gotten ten times worse.
I know, we are worried about killing people. How many have died the way we have handled it? The Syrian Centre for Policy Research indicates 470,000 people killed. And Assad is still using chemical weapons on his people.
How many would have died from decisive, well planned military action? It’s hard to say, but my guess is way less.
The ripple effects from an unstable Syria is something destabilizing the entire world. From terrorism to the refugee crisis, to the Russian military support for Assad, it’s a mess. And we’re not even done with the mess so we’re very far from trying to clean it up. And that’s just Syria.
Meanwhile, we bolster and support one of the most awful and oppressive regimes on Earth in Saudi Arabia. I don’t know how we determined Assad is a bad guy, but the the House of Saud is a-ok…
And WW3? I am not so sure that is not already underway. It doesn’t take much for a piecemeal-war to become full scale. If it’s not war it’s the most uneasy peace I have ever seen. Makes me long for the stability of the Cold War.
Correct just one addition - you’re thinking in terms of countries, not tribes. Syria is a 100 year old invention, based on literally arbitrary lines drawn on a map by Sykes and Picot, foreign ministers of Britain and France respectively. Same in Iraq.
It function on the principle that the coastal Alawite minority kept the poor religious sunnis under an iron grip, killing a couple of thousand every ten, twenty years - or 30k in Homs 1982/83 for example.
And that’s the only “equilibrium” Syria knew. Now that Syria exploded, you cannot restore the old order. That’s why all those buzzwords about “nation building” in Iraq or Syria are BS.
You cannot force Syrian sunnis to live under Alawites anymore, so it means “Syria” is impossible. Same thing with the Kurds and shias in Iraq.
These are artificial countries that survived under special circumstances - brutal dictators or dictatorial dynasties exploiting geopolitical opportunities. And now their time has passed.
And the Russian involvement changed everything - Assad is off limits to the US and now that Russian bombers are flying sorties from Iranian airfields Iran is off limits as well.
Notice how Israel is surprisingly quiet about Russian propping up of Assad? Just some meek comments, very uncharacteristic.
No more threats feom Netanyahu about bombing Iran alone, now that the Russians are involved.
It may possibly be the only equilibrium the middle east is capable of knowing. Peace by means of brutal dictatorship.
You know the culture better than I. Are these a people who can actually live together in peace, or is their tribalism so deeply run that logic, reason, and positive political discourse is impossible amongst them? I don’t know that these people can live together and that the middle east shouldn’t be a thousand nation state. Left to their own devices it seems that a stable misery is most preferable to the peoples and I don’t know that a democracy is attainable, sustainable, or better than perhaps a benevolent dictator that will use force to keep the peace when he must.
As for Syria being over, with Russia and Iran’s help, I am not so sure.
Obama and Kerry were sooooo certain that Russia was going to get bogged down in Syria but that does not appear to be the case at all. The sustained action of Russian intervention has certainly turned the tide in Assad’s favor. And Assad’s ass belongs to Russia forever more. They are his daddy and he will never make a move without their blessings ever again. But with Russia, I think Syria will live on. Whether or not it will regain the land mass losses remains to be seen, but there will be a state called Syria, and Assad will be the dictator for the foreseeable future.
If Assad can stop gassing his own people, in the end, that might not be a bad thing.
Not only Israel’s response, but our own calls for Assad ouster seems to have been made meek. I do not see us demanding Assad step down. It’s more like a suggestion now. Our time to intervene beyond and before ISIS is long gone.
In effect, Syria may be our own ‘Falkland Islands’ moment. Where we realize, we can no longer dictate our will even in regions where are interests are at grave risk.
It imagery of Syria reminds me of 'Pink Floyd’s album, “The Final Cut”, the imagery of seeing the atomic bomb in your rear view as you bravely run away, knowing you have been eclipsed and nothing will ever be the same.
That’s another misconception -that they’re not rational. They’re perfectly logical and rational, just according to their logic which may seem shocking to Western eyes.
Alawite hearland is around Latakia - fertile hills near the coast, which the French during colonial times correctly called “useful Syria”. If they lose this war, they’re all dead. Literally dead. They are hoping to carve a statelet here, with the help of their (newly found) big brothers in Iran and the Russians, leveraging the Russian warm water harbor to their advantage. Dreams of Syria-wide domination are probably dead.
Sunnis live in the not-useful Syria and are poor and religious having been opressed by the Alawites for decades. They want the fertile hills and the coast belonging to Alawites, shias and the rapidly dwindling Christians as they’re sick of the desert and poverty.
They feel this is their moment as sunnis haven’t been this strong for a long time - no Baathist Arab socialism BS and Saudis and the Emirates are awash with cash, and more importantly politically favored by Washington.
So you see, their respective moves make sense, it isn’t just irrational tribes warring.
Yeah, I don’t mean their logic as in a made up rational to keep doing what their doing or letting thier hate run deep, or whatever reason they can come up for as a means of self victimization impervious to actual reason.
I mean logic and reason, the stuff that is amenable to scrutiny and based on truth not contrived truth. I am supposing that your response is ‘no’, then. That their beefs are not up for discussion, rational discourse or any such matter that may prove it false, faulty, or in any way drive the value of said beliefs into non-relevance.
Yes, the same old motives that have driven wars over centuries.
But at the same time, it seems that achieving a political discourse where the peoples needs and grievances are fairly heard and addressed even in the absence of foreign powers. As long as somebody has something, somebody else wants, the chance for a self made peace is next to impossible.
Illuminating as it is, to understand what their grievances are, it also brings along with it a bleak outlook for the probability of a peaceful solution. And the turbulence has the force to drag with it, the entire world because, those who know it best, understand it best will not lift a finger to help.
It does in fantasy land where there are rainbows and children play in lakes of unicorn piss. Where people are generally good and are more interested in helping their neighbor than themselves and if everybody just understood each other a little better, it would all be fine…
Yes, this is why Obama has been so hesitant to employ military force and has failed to uphold the pillars of the American world order that has served America and world so well for seventy years. He’s no adherent of realism, idealism, constructivism, or the English school (whatever those funny things mean): he’s a naive and feckless weakling. How do I know this, you ask? I feel it in my gut.
It may be why he’s been so determined to fuck it up royally. He’s either determined to fuck it up, or he’s unbelievably stupid. Take your pick, but those are your only choices. Deliberate fuck up, or epic stupidity.
What would president Pat have done entering office with a global economic crisis and two wars on his hands (the foreign policy equivalent of runners on base and no outs)?
