(November 30, 2015 at 2:57 pm)Ramy Wrote:

(November 30, 2015 at 2:00 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Name me one country which simply rolls over to a group of rebels.  Replace Assad with some Sunni shithead and we'll have the Alawites fleeing the country in waves.

And the beat goes on.  And it will continue to go on until muslims learn that just because someone disagrees with you there is no need to kill them.

Tunisia. It's now a democratic and free country. 
AFAIK sunnis are already fleeing the country (95% of the refugees are sunnis).

I guess that you're talking about Assad when you say that. Are you aware that the people who were shot were just protesting in a civilized way? I think that every muslim should be given a chance to live in a democratic country. Extremism is just the consequence, not the cause of all this.

Every country except their own!
This way they can tell us how bad Australia is and why Islam is so much better.
Then again, they're just exercising their new found powers of free speech.

(November 26, 2015 at 8:31 pm)Beccs Wrote: Banned: Cleopatra

(November 30, 2015 at 9:36 pm)Minimalist Wrote: These people need to settle their own problems.

Funny, you sound like a Rand Paul foreign policy adviser. I suppose it's a good thing that the French didn't think the same in 1778.

(November 30, 2015 at 11:15 pm)Cato Wrote:

(November 30, 2015 at 9:36 pm)Minimalist Wrote: These people need to settle their own problems.

Funny, you sound like a Rand Paul foreign policy adviser. I suppose it's a good thing that the French didn't think the same in 1778.

Absent the ability to wage a decisive intervention, what mission would you assign any putative deployment?

(November 30, 2015 at 8:06 pm)Irrational Wrote: Not all people, OP. I personally think Assad regime is just as bad as ISIS. Hell, the civil war started in Syria because of Assad murdering his own people.

Had the FSA received adequate support way before ISIS and the others emerged, we'd have a different Syria now.

Uh, no. Assad murdered his own people during the civil war. That is drastically different from the civil war started because Assad murdered his own people. Prior to the civil war baby Assad had actually be one of the more enlightened, less blood thirsty, and less despotic of despots in the middleeast, vastly more enlightened, less bloody handed, in fact a down right saint of modernity and participatory governance, compare to our friends the Saudis.

The US was so entheusiatic about getting rid of Assad mainly because Assad was willing to hoste a Russian naval base in Syria, and because Syria still had a fairly formidable and well equipped army and air force, almost a noticeable fraction of the Israeli army and air force, which the US and Israel felt uneasy about.

(November 30, 2015 at 11:19 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(November 30, 2015 at 11:15 pm)Cato Wrote: Funny, you sound like a Rand Paul foreign policy adviser. I suppose it's a good thing that the French didn't think the same in 1778.

Absent the ability to wage a decisive intervention, what mission would you assign any putative deployment?

Glad you asked. The non-interventionist approach is a very sound strategy if the goal is to kick the problem to the next generation; a la Reagan and Mitterrand after the '83 Beirut barracks attack. That's right, the U.S. GOP messiah and a devout socialist both cutting bait. ISIS (some say ISIL or DAESH as if calling them something different changes reality) are the same assholes, although there's more of them now and they actually control a swath of geography. They've been around since 1740 and in case anybody was wondering their political ally is the house of Saud. Any ignorant bastard proclaiming that KSA doesn't have a dog in this fight and actually deserves their place on the U.N.'s Human Rights Council is a deluded fuckwit. 

Leveraging recent events we can develop a coalition that includes at least 4/5ths of the permanent U.N. security council or we can take a non-interventionist approach and let the next generation deal with it. Judging by the videos and pictures of the refugees and how many of those are men of fighting age suggests that the locals cannot be rallied around geography or idea. Let's be honest, would you put your ass on the line for an idea if you knew it was practiced by matter of law just a sojourn away?

If I were President, the commitment of American troops to the coalition would be contingent on toppling KSA and ending the state sponsor of Wahhabism.

We may be able to develope a coalition of 4/5 of permanent membership of US security council.

But 2 of the 4 really are small fry with small heft and almost no staying power. The 3rd so happen to be the very one whose existence, to say nothing of its interest in the area, is so obnoxious to us that our persistent attempts to irritate it, annoy it, encircle it, sting it, detach its satellites, and remove its influence from the region is precisely a main reason for the Isis mess there in the first place.

US sees Russia as a far bigger and more persistent impediment to the maintenance of its own hegemonic position in Euroasia than ISIS can ever be.

Russia sees the US as a far bigger and more persistent threat to its own existence as major power with freedom to act on the international stage in Euroasia than Isis can ever be.

So this coalition is clearly a natural coalition that is bound to stick together and end well.

(December 1, 2015 at 12:49 am)Cato Wrote: If I were President, the commitment of American troops to the coalition would be contingent on toppling KSA and ending the state sponsor of Wahhabism.

I don't see that as a realistic option. The oil companies, and other corporations dependent on cheap fossil energy, would scream bloody murder as introducing instability in such a large producer, and any politician who went along with that plan could kiss a large part of his campaign funding -- not to mention his career -- goodbye; and that would not be limited to just you as, let's say, a lame-duck President with nothing to lose. You'd have to carry Congress in the face of such opposition.

That's not to mention the domestic political distaste for massive deployments to the ME following on the Iraq quagmire.

I agree with you that until America addresses KSA's shadow role in fomenting terror and unrest via off-the-books financing, not much will change. But unless a lucky opportunity for a decisive victory arises, the mess will boil away merrily with or without international intervention, I think -- or until the populace there finally sickens of it all.

Chuck's point about the role of Russia in this affair is also pertinent. Syria hosts their only Mediterranean base. Thave a vested interest in keeping Assad in power, but we both know that so long as Assad is in power that after this bloody four-year war a significant proportion of the Syrian population will never again accept him as ruler, meaning that so long as Russia keeps a ladle in the pot, the stew will be kept simmering.

Russia's concern with Assad disappears the moment we promise the Cossacks the fucking warm water port they've been pining for going on 300 years. Tell Putin that Al Ladhiqiyah is instantaneously Russian.

Honestly, how hard to you think it would be to convince a majority of Americans (not me and you, a majority of Americans) that invading the ME again is the right move? I think it would be surprisingly easy regardless of political affiliation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INy4gaUrCL4

The economics of American owned energy companies has changed. Most are heavily invested in shale and other non-traditional extraction methods, which have a pinch point of $80/barrel. American oil companies would welcome any instability that would push oil over this pinch point. Not only that, but we out-produce KSA by almost 2 million barrels a day. The average citizen may bitch about consequences, but I guarantee that American oil companies won't bitch about the price per barrel going up if their closest competitor was suddenly to face production problems.

America is much more interested in denying Russia a port in the Mediterranean than it is in containing ISIS.  Russia is much more interested in retaining its warm wayer port in the mediteranean than in containing ISIS.

When America last invaded the Middle East, we got our geostrategic as well as regional strategic butt kicked even though no major power with any sort of significant native arms industry backed our enemies.  If we invade again, the world's second largest modern arms industry, shielded by the world's largest strategic nuclear Arsenal, would back our enemies to the hilt, even if just to prevent us from getting a foot hold next to their southern border and try another Ukraine on them in the Caucasus.

Given the likely support our enemies will get should we invade, and the causalties that might result for our forces, The unsubstantiated possibility that majority of Americans might be talked into backing a second American invasion of the ME would not seem to be enough to convince majority of the the Americans that the invasion was a bright idea 2-3 years later, well before the next presidential election following the decision to invade.  By now I am sure even a bulb as dim as Dubya would see that calculation written clearly on the wall.

(November 30, 2015 at 11:42 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(November 30, 2015 at 8:06 pm)Irrational Wrote: Not all people, OP. I personally think Assad regime is just as bad as ISIS. Hell, the civil war started in Syria because of Assad murdering his own people.

Had the FSA received adequate support way before ISIS and the others emerged, we'd have a different Syria now.

Uh, no.  Assad murdered his own people during the civil war.  That is drastically different from the civil war started because Assad murdered his own people.    Prior to the civil war baby Assad had actually be one of the more enlightened, less blood thirsty, and less despotic of despots in the middleeast, vastly more enlightened, less bloody handed, in fact a down right saint of modernity and participatory governance, compare to our friends the Saudis.

Syrians protested peacefully against Assad's regime, and the response was violence from the government. That's how it started specifically in Syria. Now, sure, the protests may have been enabled by other events that were going on outside of Syria, but the protests were initially peaceful until the army started firing at them.