The Road to Damascus
Michael Totten was recently at a meeting in Morocco where the “friends of the Syrian resistance” conferred at a truce in a posh resort. The girls were pretty, the scenery spectacular and the food excellent among participants dressed in Western fashion “hunched over laptops and iPads”:
Pre-packaged videos play during breaks in the main room. They’re professionally-made short documentaries about the atrocities being committed a few thousands miles to the east. You could dismiss them as propaganda, but they seem solid enough and not terribly different from what I’ve seen on Frontline, which aired an outstanding two-part program in the United States a few weeks ago.
An air of well-funded competence permeated the proceedings. “The meeting is taking place at a luxurious resort that’s well out of my price range. I’m down the road at a nice enough place, but this resort really is something…cops at the Friends of Syria gathering in Marrakech look perfectly capable of putting down a serious ground assault by terrorist forces. You can tell just by looking at them.”
Later in the proceedings representatives of the U.S. and British governments turned up to put a half-stamp on proceedings:
This time the United States is announcing policy changes. Washington now recognizes the Syrian opposition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people. And it considers the armed Islamist faction Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist organization. … Now Britain is speaking. The room is still quiet. The United Kingdom is expanding its assistance to the Syrian opposition and is doing so publicly, on the record.
They were late to the party. The leader of the Syrian opposition has now said it no longer needs foreign forces to topple Assad. But it’s really no party, as Totten observes, just the calm before the storm. “The Syrian opposition is only united temporarily. Secular and Islamist factions will battle it out in the aftermath. They know it. Believe me, they do. They’re united right now because they have to get rid of Assad. They’ll settle their own accounts later. Sunnis and Alawites are likely to slug it out, too. And there might even be fighting between Arabs and Kurds. When the next phase starts in earnest, there will be no sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people.”
The question, according to John Hannah writing in Foreign Policy, is what Obama will do when the fireworks start. He was standing around observing the fuses being lit. When it blows … Hannah writes: “watching the nightmare in Syria unfold, you have to ask yourself: Could the Obama administration have made a worse hash out of the situation if it had tried?”
Short of an outright Iranian victory that saw the Assad regime’s power fully restored, it’s hard to imagine a more dire set of circumstances for U.S. interests. The Syrian state is well on its way to imploding. A multiplicity of increasingly well-armed militias are rushing to fill the vacuum. At the forefront of the fight are a growing number of radical Islamist groups, including some affiliated with al Qaeda. The prospect that Assad’ s demise will be accompanied by the use (and/or proliferation) of chemical weapons and massive communal bloodletting gets higher by the day. Libya on steroids is what we’re looking at, only this time not on the distant periphery of the Middle East but in its heartland, a gaping strategic wound that is likely to threaten the stability and wellbeing of Syria’s five neighbors — critical American partners all — for years to come.
Does it require saying that it need not have been this way? That with sustained American leadership over the past 21 months the most threatening aspects of this crisis could not only have been seriously mitigated, but U.S. interests significantly advanced?
His wistful look back at lost opportunities would have required more competence than US foreign policy has demonstrated of late. It wasn’t as if nobody saw the cliff rising up before them. Hannah reminds readers that there was a whole chorus of foreign policy pundits who warned the administration about “leading from behind.”
But no one in the administration deigned to listen, probably because they thought they were so much smarter than everyone else. As Totten notes, they’ve belatedly awakened from their dream of superiority only to see the house on fire, the flames already flickering at the feet of the bed.
Too late for much now. At this late stage the only remaining question is probably: how bad will it be? Hannah hopes it’s not too late to run out with the baby in one hand, the wife in the other, and the ancestral family portrait between the teeth. But as for the house … well, it was nice while it lasted:
Belatedly, it seems to have dawned on the administration that simply sitting on the sidelines, allowing events to play out while hoping for the best might not accrue to U.S. interests, and could well prove catastrophic. But having waited so long to act, the window of opportunity that was once available for shaping an outcome consistent with U.S. concerns has narrowed considerably, if not closed. …
It was less than two years ago that the uprising in Syria presented the United States with a historic opportunity to weaken Iran and advance our own regional interests. Today, Syria looms as a potential strategic disaster, where America’s options for positively shaping outcomes have all but vanished, and frantic efforts at damage limitation are all that remain. In the arc of that transformation from hope to despair lies the tale of a colossal policy blunder, perhaps the Obama administration’s most serious to date, one whose consequences will almost surely haunt us long after the president leaves office.
If Assad had only been replaced by a stable, U.S.-friendly regime, events in Syria could have been an unambiguous victory for the Obama administration. He would have been sitting pretty. But, never missing a chance to miss a chance, Obama has bought into chaos that could lead to a Middle East greatly influenced by al-Qaeda and spreading instability in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey.
Disaster. But as the November elections showed, the administration’s voter base is perfectly capable of ignoring a nearby blaze and remaining blind to the lurid flames for so long as they can be distracted by the latest media-produced spectacular.
God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.
Or so we’d better hope.
If Goldman is right, even as the MB is consolidating absolute power–Egypt is headed to famine. Syria would be headed to communal slaughter and famine.
The worst that could happen to USA imho would be that the powers that be decided to take in refugees from Egypt and Syria. Please pray that the people in charge decide not to take any refugees from the moslem countries of the middle east –or Europe for that matter.
The rise of so-called “salafists” — which are simply Muslims who take their Islam a little more seriously than the next guy — has been inevitable all along. It’s mainly the responibility of Muslims, and their heinous hideous religion. But others have helped too. George Bush helped every time he walked in his socks in a mosque, or assured us that “Islam is a religion of peace(tm)” and that “the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful”. Others have helped too – the armies of craven intellectuals in academia who viciously find fault with every aspect of their culture of origin, while lauding the filth-stained culture of Islam to the rafters. Noah Feldman, a Jew no less, helped in his own way when he assisted US State and the Pentagon in drafting Shariah into the constitutions of both Iraq and Afghanistan – guaranteeing that Islam would form the inviolate basis of all future laws in both of those Islamic sewers…
The generals helped every time they chastised and scolded our troops for simply seeing with their eyes all the visiousness, pederasty, child rape, and blood-thirstiness of their Muslim interlocutors. Obama, with his stable of Israel-hating America-loathing traitor-advisors, helped to speed things along. And writers like the Michael Tottens helped too as they pulled their punches in order to continue currying favor to continue to gain access to the very Muslims they write about.
The rise of the lethal Muslim will not stop until we replace every damn one of the abettors in the West, and attack the Muslim enemy with righteous fury. Riyadh should be flattened. Tehran should be flattened. All the Jihad paymasters and Mosque subsidizers should be hunted. But none of it will happen any time soon. Instead, the Muslims will continue to coalesce, to gain power… Their threat grows exponentially, and until all the “experts” and fake journalists and “advisors” are called out for the traitors, charlatans, fools, and betrayers that they are, the evil of Islam will metasticize.
That with sustained American leadership over the past 21 months the most threatening aspects of this crisis could not only have been seriously mitigated, but U.S. interests significantly advanced?
wretchard I know that’s your position as well, but we can’t know that.
If we’d done better in either of Iraq or Afghanistan I might believe in such a story. But, who, exactly, is that American leadership? Dubya spent 150% of his political capital just getting the US into Iraq and Afghanistan, and had little enough domestic or global support, and not much better service from the JCS. And that cost a couple of trillion dollars.
Europe is weaker now, the US is weaker now, and the public has no particular interest in it. If the public doesn’t care, our leaders won’t care.
Is the future that dire for Syria? I dunno. Do they deserve it? Well, they (reputedly) supported a lot of logistics and actions against US troops in Iraq. But that was Assad and now there’s a chance to support the good guys? The good guys aren’t any more available to support now, than they were to stop Assad then. Why oppose unlimited welfare at home and support trillion-dollar generosity (and US blood) abroad? Suddenly I sound like Ron Paul, OMG, or Jesse Jackson, or something, but politically this is always a powerful point.
Have we not learned yet? What is needed is so much nation-building that it looks like neo-colonialism, and the population there DOESN’T EVEN WANT IT. I’d be happy to SUPPORT real neo-colonialism, but not if we have to step back from it just when it might actually work, out of PC sensibilities for the savages’ traditions and seething. How about we take over all of Syria and Lebanon, give it to the Kurds and Christians, impose western freedoms on it (just as we are losing them here at home), execute all jihadis after (or before) a ten-minute trial (which we also haven’t even managed at Gitmo), and call it a day?
Let the globalists mess it up, that’s what they’re there for. If nuclear war is coming soon to the middle east, let it come. We’re collapsing here at home just as fast as we can, it’s both cause and effect that we don’t do anything in Syria.
I regret that Obambus didn’t support the dissidents in Iraq in 2009, THAT was an opportunity. This – I dunno. Maybe we should still focus on Iran, if we have any chips left at all, if we’re not just passed out drunk at the table with the bums picking our pockets.
Eventually, of course, the truth about the war could no longer be denied in Tokyo.
But it was anyway. Never mind that the Akagi had not been seen in some time, that could be explained as wartime secrecy. When B-29′s appeared over the Japanese home islands the English language paper in Tokyo pointed out not the obvious implications of enormous American bombers, as fast as a Zero fighter, thousands of miles from home over the enemy cities, but instead said “Well, they are not hitting much of anything. Even America can’t aford to send bombers all this way to no great effect. They’ll just give up, quit their raids.”
Then one night the B-29′s burned down much of Tokyo, and that paper could only say, “Those devils! Those devils!”
What will the eventual headline be in the NYT? Probably some variation of “Those Devils!” And then they will blame Boehner. And the NRA.
Why are we working under the assumption that this Charlie Foxtrot in the Middle East is anything other than the exact result of a conscious decision by the National Command Authority?
That is the something which even the most distracted revelers on the USS Hope and Change are likely to notice
I wouldn’t bet good money on that. I venture a guess that as long as creatures like Lena Dunham have their base desires fulfilled, they would not take much notice of the world burning down, unless the fires started literally consuming her own neighborhood. I didn’t think I could get more cynical, but about 5 weeks ago I found I was wrong.
3 @Morton Doodslag
Don’t forget the latest guidance from the DoD telling our troops in Afghanistan not to do anything horrible like criticize wife beating, pedophilia, or the Taliban, lest they give the Afghans justified reasons for shooting them as a response to such outrageous positions.
Wow, wretchard. That was quite a video you had there of the ship. When I tried to play it, somehow my machine got BSOD’d right on the spot. But there’s something poetic about even that, considering that the entire MENA is going up in a cloud of radioactivity.
A couple of items:
“If Assad had only been replaced by a stable, US-friendly regime, events in Syria could have been an unambiguous victory for the Obama administration.”
and
“It was less than two years ago that the uprising in Syria presented the United States with a historic opportunity to weaken Iran and advance our own regional interests.”
Where is there even a shard of evidence that one of Obama’s goals has been or is to increase the influence or standing of the U.S.? Or does his seemly erratic and contradictory policies make sense if Obama’s goal is to reduce, or eliminate, U.S. influence in every sphere of contention.
And as for Obama’s followers, they do not give a damn about this country’s diplomatic and military people, influence, prestige, or standing in the world as long as it does not affect, or threaten to affect, their perks. If Syria blows up and takes a large portion of the ME with it, you can bet that it will be George Bush’s fault.
”..the U.S. would have no to blame but itself because the Obama administration’s current policy of not arming the rebels is providing Persian Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia…”
Obama did abandon Iraq, did isolate our army in Afghanistan, did block the Keystone pipeline, did bow to the Saudi king and sent Churchill’s bust back to Britain.
“Could the Obama administration have made a worse hash out of the situation if it had tried?”
Deserves a prize for literary engineering, as an almost infinitely reusable part that can be applied to any subject under discussion from soup to nuts.
Just remember the tag line of “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” “Worse things happen at sea.”
Just who is Obama working for? The standard tool is supposed to be cui bono? The problem is that while it is easy to rule out some whose interests clearly do not interest him, to whit the United Kingdom or the United States as it existed B.O. (Before Obama), it is harder to find a candidate whose interests are being advanced. Is Obama working for the Shi’a Iranians? Then why is he letting Assad go to the wall? Is Obama working for the Sunni Salafists? Then why is he letting Iran get the bomb? Is he working for Putin, the Chinese, Chavez, the ANC, or jungle Nazis tied to Soros? For years to come we will be afflicted by wilder and crazier conspiracy theories than anything seen before that will make anything about the Kennedys seem like a harmless undergraduate joke.
““Major General Aviv Kochavi, chief of Israeli military intelligence, told Israeli lawmakers in a closed-door session that he is concerned about an influx of global jihadists into the Golan Heights, as the Syrian regime moves its forces out of the border region and into the cities to fight unrest, according to a statement from the office of the Knesset committee’s spokesman.” Instability in Jordan would create threats to the Jewish state as well.”
Don’t worry. @ReginaldQuill says Al-Qaeda is run by Ayman al-Zawahiri and the Russians anyway. In fact there according to Reggie pro-war Cointelpro there are no real Al-Qaeda in Syria unless the Russians put them there.
“The question, according to John Hannah writing in Foreign Policy, is what Obama will do when the fireworks start. ”
Easy peasy. Obama will do what he always does. He will do jack or shit or a combination of the two.
“But barring the use of the Syrian chemical weapon arsenal probably the biggest effect of the Syrian catastrophe will the conjoining of Gulf States and Salafist fighters throughout the region.” What if that was the Plan all along?
Max Boot is ‘shocked, shocked’ that all these revolutions he thought would remove Iranian influence from the Mideast are instead making the region safe for the Muslim Brotherhood/Salafists and no one else.
@ Josh welcome to the club, brother. Let’s see if we hated Ronulans can turn the tables and lock out some old fart Republicans in 2016 when Rand’s on the ticket. Impossible you say? Why not, it already happened once with one political party — the guys getting tear gassed outside Chicago in 68′ where inside the Democratic National Convention with McGovern by 1972. The mainline Repubs have nothing but money and a Boehner’s tan left and soon they won’t have the money anymore.
“It is difficult to put any other construction on the Blackout On Benghazi other than as an attempt to conceal Obama’s part in what Hannah called “the Syrian nightmare’” I believe this is Wretchard’s polite way of alluding to the fact that Benghazi was at the epicenter of Fast and Furious po Arabski and now the CIA can’t say where all the MANPADs have gone. And those who thought the worst that could happen would be those missiles winding up in the Caucuses will instead be shocked to find them deployed in the West, while the darkest powers above them cackle that everything is going according to Plan.
Quote: “Could the Obama administration have made a worse hash out of the situation if it had tried?”
If we give him credit for having intelligence (an assumption that some people might dispute), and if we apply Occam’s Razor, seeking the simplest possible explanation with the least number of entities, then I will hazard this as the reason for all that is happening. I cannot think of anything simpler than this:
Obama viscerally, deep down inside, hates the United States and wants to see it defeated wherever and whenever possible.
Well, there never were good choices here, Wretchard. On the one hand, you had teh secular fascists of Assad and his followers, friends of Iran and supporters of terrorism and enemies of the USA in all but name. On the other hand you have the Islamic fascists of the Muslum brotherhood and their Salafist allies. It was always obvious that in such a conflict the best organized and most determined would win. Which is why I said from the beginning what I say now: If Assad is winning, help the brotherhood. If the Brotherhood is winning, help Assad. In that manner, keep the pot boiling and let them kill as many as possible. It worked for Cardinal Reichielieu and France in the 30 years war and it can work for the USA today.
If Syria Balkanizes into a dozen or more warring factions, as long as the chemical weapons can be located and destroyed, let it happen. Pick a side to back (perhaps the Kurds) and let the Saudis and Qataris fund the Muslum Brotherhood and let them fight it out – for the next 20 or 30 years, if they so wish. It is not a nice strategy, but the American people have made it clear they will not support nation-building in the Middle East. So be it.
As for Israel, well, if there is no government in Syria after Assad falls she can hardly be blamed for taking action to protect her own interests. Perhaps the USA should simply pass a map of know chemical depots to her, and let Israel solve that problem for everyone. Like the destruction of Iraqs nuclear reactor in 1981, the USA can blame Israel, keep her own hands clean and reap the rewards without lifting a finger – hopefully even Obama will see the logic in that.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-backed-free-syrian-army-has-crossed-the-line-threatens-to-kill-russians-and-ukrainians-in-syria/5315812
And to top it off, besides murdering Allawis, Christians and Sunnis who have nothing to do with the Syrian state in cold blood, the jihadis have kidnapped a Ukrainian national (presumably they’re either so stupid they can’t tell the difference between Russians or Ukrainians or they WANT to provoke Ukraine into desperately asking Russian spetsnaz to rescue the hostage so they can set an ambush and kill some Russians and this hostage to the cheers of the likes of bloodthirsty jihadi apologists like @ReginaldQuill).
But don’t worry, @ReginaldQuill will say this is all ‘agitprop’ the poor FSA jihadis would never hurt anyone…and even if they did, this only underscores that Obama and NATO need to attack Syria pronto, Congress Schmongress, the Big O don’t need no stinkin’ War Powers Act!
With almost four years under the belt — it should be clear that the Wan is anti-orthodox.
If any given line of orthodoxy is advanced — no matter what the flavor — he’s against it.
It’s as confusing as that.
” Road to Damascus ” If only the iconoclastic RMN who ended U S involvement in V N and played the China card had been alert, awake, and soberly fully participating in the U S decisions during the 1973 Mideast war when the IDF got within artillery range of Damascus….
How long after the June ’09 “Munich ” by the POTUS did the Saudis begin the process of acquiring atomic weapons ?
GBUSA
Anyone catch Obambus’ speech in Newtown just now? He went RIGHT UP to the edge of announcing then and there an executive fiat emergency outlawing of all guns, knives, and sharp spoons (no doubt to be collected by Eric Holder and shipped via third parties to Syria). I hung around and watched an extra five minutes, but he just droned on without getting there, and since it’s not up on Drudge already I’ll assume he never did get there, anyway I clicked him off and went for a hike.
Heck, Obambus doesn’t even recognize Boehner as the sole legitimate representative of the American people, who cares what Obambus claims to recognize in Syria.
Blast @ 10 – Who is Obama working for?
Ask Valerie Jarrett about the Tudeh Party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tudeh_Party_of_Iran
On another blog they were discussing parental options with respect to mentally ill children in the wake of the Lanza incident. One person observed there are situations where are no “solutions” to the problem, only a choice of lesser evils, as in when you have to plot the commitment of a child to a mental facility as an alternative to letting him or her kill you, the children of strangers and finally herself.
That struck me as good advice with respect to the Middle East. Ultimately nothing may work. But it is never good policy to just let disaster happen. It is even worse policy to arm up people who are fixing to go on a rampage. Thus, while “leading from the front” may have failed, it had the virtue of possibly working. Whereas simply watching the fire burn or pouring gasoline on it guarantees failure.
It’s true we can never know if things will work. But that goes for almost everything in life. The doc finds cancer and you take the best choices even if none of them are good.
This administration seems like a person who diagnosed with a bad disease passes up the best therapy in favor of quack nostrums. The expected result ensues and yet in a very fundamental way, it was not inevitable.
Syrians sounding alarm over growing food shortage
” With bread scarce in major cities and towns, infant formula in extremely short supply and fuel costs skyrocketing, civilians in war-ravaged Syria face an acute food crisis that might end in starvation for many, according to activists from around the country of 22 million.’
“We are at the very abyss now regarding a very severe shortage of food. We don’t have enough money to deliver flour, and if we do, we don’t have the fuel to operate the bakeries. Most of what we know is the tip of the iceberg, but it’s becoming clearer that this is a catastrophe.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/14/177482/syrians-sounding-alarm-over-growing.html
The real danger of Syria remains their big cache of chemical and may biological weapons. Unless some serious actions are taken there are all kinds of likelihoods that these will wind up in the hands of jihandists all around the middle east like Libyan weapons.
re #21 Wretch Ultimately nothing may work. But it is never good policy to just let disaster happen.
Dunno Wretch. Does one bet the rent money on a long shot in the hope of a big payoff or is it best to keep what one has? Or, to mix metaphors, does one descend into the viper’s to feed the asps knowing one could get bit or does one simply steer clear?
What is the strategic significance of Syria? Does it control the Dardenelles? No. The Suez? No. Gibraltar? Nope. I still don’t see a vital American interest here, though I admit to being feeble minded.
I just don’t see the upside of sending arms to Muslims. Who is to say they will never use them against Americans?
And whomever comes to power there is going to hate our guts and want to kill us.
Finally, what assurance do we have that an American friendly regime could even govern Syria effectively? Is it in our interest to end up backing an incompetent or repressive regime?
Let it burn.
J @ 4: I meant the dissidents in IraN.
“But it is never good policy to just let disaster happen.”
I don’t agree. Sometimes there are no effective policies for dealing with disaster. I am not convinced that the outcome of events in Syria will be a disaster for the United States. Unless we do something foolish, which may well bring disaster on ourselves. Sometimes the better part of wisdom is to recognize that not all problems have a workable solution. There is no policy fix. The situation in Syria is a crowning forest fire. We need to keep low until until all the combustible material is burned out.
Test
“Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R- UT) told Breitbart News on Wednesday that he has been “thwarted” by the State Department from seeing any Americans who survived the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi…“I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where they live. I don’t know what state they’re from. I don’t even know how many there are. It doesn’t seem right to me.”
Here’s a tip, Congressman: you’re a congressman! Maybe you could introduce legislation to threaten State’s budget or other, y’know, nasty measures if the Department doesn’t cooperate–stuff we mere citizens can’t do.
“But it is never good policy to just let disaster happen.”
Sometimes there are no effective policies for dealing with disaster. I am not convinced that the outcome of events in Syria will be a disaster for the United States–unless we do something foolish, in which case we may well bring disaster upon ourselves. Sometimes the better part of wisdom is to recognize that not all problems have workable solutions.
I’ve got to agree with Battleofthepyramids, and also with Wretchard when he says there were/are no good solutions to this problem.
But I think we’re ignoring some of the history of Syria – Syria has *always* been a bad actor in the region, at least in recent memory. They’re the ones who subjugated Lebanon and turned it over to Hezbollah. They’re the ones who set up an underground highway for jihadists to enter Iraq and murder American soldiers. They’re the ones who have been catspaws for Iran for years, and they helped Saddam evade sanctions before that. They’ve been part of every war against Israel since 1948, and they’ve been the greatest military threat to Israel (through the Golan Heights) for the last 30 years.
So why should we mourn the destruction of Syria? How could any group of successor states (or anarchy) be any worse than what they have been doing? It seems to me that the worst case is that Syria will continue to be just as bad as it has always been, but a lot more ineffectively because of the chaos.
Let Syria sink into the depths of hell – they’ve earned it. They’ve put all their energies into killing others – let them put all their energies into killing each other for a decade or two. Let them go until no one is left to fight.
Kind of a cosmic payback that their worst punishment as a nation may come about not because of our plans, but because of our total incompetence. Sounds like God’s Justice to me.
That Mayan apocalypse is looking better and better.
{ctrl-alt-delete}
“If Assad had only been replaced by a stable, U.S.-friendly regime, events in Syria could have been an unambiguous victory for the Obama administration.”
And just how would we have done this? Have some people learned absolutely nothing from the costly and unmitigated disaster of Afcrapistan? Is somebody smoking monkey weed?
Charles @ 23: “The real danger of Syria remains their big cache of chemical and may[be] biological weapons.”
Maybe not. Back before environmentalists became through-and-through Red Marxists, they used to talk about acute versus chronic pollution. The Gulf of Mexico can take an acute case of British oil spill, and bounce back after the catastrophe. But low level chronic pollution can destroy an environment, with no hope of recovery.
A Syrian chemical weapon going off in London or Paris would be acute — but life would go on. See southern Manhattan Island for an example. On the other hand, an untouchable unaccountable bureaucracy tieing a nation in knots, destroying jobs and revenue — that is a chronic problem, much more serious, much more likely to be fatal.
The media cry us a river about the tragedy of a group of children being killed. The classier part of the media worry about Syria. But in the meantime, the malAdministration continues to spend money it does not have enforcing regulations that destroy the basis of our economy. That is our real problem. Unless we deal with that chronic pollution, everything else will ultimately be irrelevant.
Morton Doodslag hits the bullseye. Josh is on targett. Richard Fernandez and camp follower Michael Totten are off by about 3,000 mils.
BTW, Max Boot is the dumbest f-ing guy on the planet, along with Doug Feith.
BTW, the U.S. Army is coming out with a 75 page manual that is all but an official declaration of total surrender to Islam as well as blaming American troops for their own deaths at the hands of what our insane generals call their “Partners in Peace” as they didn’t respect Muslim “values” enough in Afcrapistan. Lets not be totally stupid and get more involved in Syria too.
“But it is never good policy to just let disaster happen.”
Oh great. Let’s just get even more involved in every f-ing worthless Muslim country on the planet trying to save infidel hating Muslims from other infidel hating Muslims. What utter stupidity from those who can’t seem to learn anything ever.
So I looked at the closing video clip, and the whole time it was playing there was an ad-over for Carnival Cruise Lines. Yeah, great tie-in.
“Does it require saying that it need not have been this way? That with sustained American leadership over the past 21 months the most threatening aspects of this crisis could not only have been seriously mitigated, but U.S. interests significantly advanced?”
This is wishful thinking while wearing rose-tinted glasses. The current crisis could have evolved in dozens of ways, each of them bad to US interests.
Send weapons to the moderates? Surprise! The moderates turn out to be Jihadis who know how to shave.
Send American agents to train and supervise? Surprise! Iran sends two divisions to act as a counterweight.
Send NATO troops to protect innocent civilians? Surprise! The innocent civilians start attacking the infidel invaders.
Destroy Assad’s army from the air to protect innocent civilians? Surprise! Turns out they’re vengeful Sunnis who like digging mass graves for Alawites.
Sent US troops to take away their AK-47s? Surprise! Turns out massacres with machetes are still possible.
Send two marines for each civilian to hold his hands so he won’t kill his neighbor? Surprise! Marines start getting their ears bitten off by angry Jihadis.
A disintegrated Syria with no chemical weapons is probably the best possible outcome for the US and Israel. If they can be destroyed – a big IF – then Obama’s policy will have succeeded. There was never any magic policy to create a stable, friendly Sunni successor state risk-free.
15. BattleofthePyramids
Let me join the chorus of agreement. But for me the chemical weapons are a big IF, since I live in range of them.
21. wretchard
“But it is never good policy to just let disaster happen.”
Iran and Iraq were involved in an 8-year mutual disaster from 1980 to 1988. At the time, just letting it happen was the best policy for the rest of the world. Once they finished their little war, they went on to other projects – Iran in Syria and Lebanon, and Iraq in Kuwait.
i couldn’t get past the iphone hunchback imagery in the first bit.
/giggle off
one day it will be acceptable to grab a hunchbacks smart phone and throw it in the nearest river.
“…the U.S. would have no to blame but itself because the Obama administration’s current policy of not arming the rebels is providing Persian Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar with an opening to shape the uprising in their own twisted image.”
Uh, how exactly would arming the rebels have helped us? They would take the arms, and then when things come to a lull, they’ll happily turn them on us and our allies. It’s a no-win proposition. About the only productive thing we could (or could’ve done) would be to help Turkey and Jordan setup a few refugee hospitals and then say “Buh-bye.”
How could any group of successor states (or anarchy) be any worse than what they have been doing?
Does one really wish to find out? If so, then all one must do is wait. And see.
(Hint: It’s the difference between controlled malevolence and a forking free-for-all featuring psychopathic religion-backed killers.)
In other words, how do you turn off a vortex?
What Obama will do? He has already done it! (for now) After the Patriot missiles batteries were (or are to be) sent to Turkey, Obama gave already order to sail away. USS aircraft carrier Eisenhower and strike group, plus USS Iwo Jima Amphibious with 2000 marines on deck were ordered to leave the waters opposite Syria. Now sailing home. Since a long time has the US abandoned the Middle East; it is painfully obvious. ( A part sending another lot of 20 F-16 to Egypt, starting delivery on January 22-2013, the day of the next Israeli general election. Coincidence? I don’t think so. There’ll be a huge paradigm change in Europe, which will surprise everybody, the Europeans are already (behind close doors) organizing for it. The Germans in particular are much more involved in the Middle East than the US. As for Syria, the country will be divided again, as it was before, though in any case together or in pieces, Syria as we know it, is doomed.
How about the U.S. calls/demands a cease-fire on date certain, so a relatively small force of NATO engineers can collect/destroy the chem/bio weapons? After which muslims will be free to resume their killing spree.
Concurrent with a warning to all warring parties (gov’t & jihadis) that any interference with our efforts will cause immediate withdrawel of our forces and the total destruction of the sites in question by means of atomic weapons.
Interference will result in lots of dead for all parties and essentially there being nothing left to fight over.
This would send the right message to Iran also, no?
Who might object?
Interesting post on a dreadful problem, Wretchard.
Although Josh was joking : “How about we take over all of Syria and Lebanon, give it to the Kurds and Christians, impose western freedoms on it (just as we are losing them here at home), execute all jihadis after (or before) a ten-minute trial (which we also haven’t even managed at Gitmo), and call it a day?”
We can dream, can’t we? While the ME staggers into the abyss? Problem is, that as they descend into the Inferno, it is not as if we can severe / partition others from the resultant horrors. Hasn’t it been said, “it’s a small world, after all?” I fear for Israel. And I am sickened at the world our leaders are bequeathing my son, here in the US, and any family he should want to have.
Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East is a two-step process. Step One: encourage the displacement of secular autocrats, using covert action where necessary. Step Two: walk away from the resulting chaos and let affairs take their course. This process would have identical results whether a) The One doesn’t have any idea what to do next, or b) intends to step-father the recreation of a Muslim Caliphate in the Middle East. Given The One’s childhood in Indonesia, his abandonment by his American mother, and his subsequent ‘socialization’ by Frank Marshall, Billy Ayers and the Rev. Wright, how would you bet the odds?
“Thus, even though the SS Hope and Change has been holed below the waterline and may in fact be doomed…”
It seems to me that the “SS Hope and Change” is intact, undamaged, and steaming ahead at flank speed. There is no doubt that this country and the world itself has experienced and is experiencing dramatic Change over the last four years.
As to Hope, it all depends on what you were hoping for!!!!
If any American wishes to escape the Obama Administration and emigrate to Syria, we Syrians welcome them.
You assume the Obama regime is missing an opportunity. Wrong. They are playing this exactly the way any anti-american pro-islamist regime would play it.
BattleofthePyramids – “American people have made it clear they will not support nation-building in the Middle East.”
So have Afghans, Iraqis, and everyone else in the Middle East.
Why should American time, money, and (most importantly) lives be spent trying to help people who don’t want to be helped?
Obama is mid-wifing the Sunni Caliphate, PERIOD.
One look at him & the Saudi monarch together and you know who is king and who is subject. A blind hog finds an acorn once in a while. No acorn EVER means a different set of goals. Even obamas Dem buddies are freaked out when they get in office and try to “do the job correctly” and are shut down, they didn’t realize until THAT MOMENT that barak has NO intention of running things correctly. This is 100% by design, anyone who thinks barak is blowing it are fools. He is succeeding wildly.
If man-child Barack were suddenly put upon the Road to Damascus, he would Saul his pants.
The Road to Damascus or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Islamists
Deft Midway analogy.
“They stopped the news from being reported in Japan. Too bad they couldn’t keep the Fleet from advancing on Japan as well.”
Missed opportunity? How naiive can we be. Obama and his acolytes see American power and influence as a crime against humanity. Advancing our interests is bad because America is bad. Wake up. This is exactly what these morons want.
Events here in America make me really not give a rats derrier about the rest of the world, The Syrian’s can kill each other I don’t care, Hey Israel and palistine I’m sick of your crap, you guys throw down and kill each other also.
Matter of fact everyone in these toilet bowl countries can kill each other and as for American’s? Fat Dumb and Happy vote for slavery and full government control, get what you want and then get what you richly deserve.
Let it all burn.
Dang, I feel much better now!
whats wrong with letting Hezbollah and al Qaida fight to the death in Syria. Lets sell popcorn and watch
What’s being overestimated/overlooked/ignored seemingly everywhere is the hard fact of life that we newly arriving (comparatively) Americans simply aren’t able to effect lasting beneficial changes in that medieval tangle aka: the Middle East. Changes beneficial to our America.
It’s all about our cultural mind-sets-clashing-mind-sets-clashing-mind-sets-clashing.
Our overwhelming resources and fire-power/bomb-power/well trained man/woman power/surveillance and Naval/Marine/Merchant-Marine on-and-on-power……. cannot-will not change the primitive, barbaric tribal ethnic mind-sets of those butchering Muslim animals.
We’re spinning our wheels out there. The sooner we pull out and permit the inevitable chaotic vacuums in those artificially bordered “entities” the better.
C’mon guys/gals……..why do you think that the British and French and Italians (cf:North Africa) have been so relatively passive since their 18th-19th-20th Century adventures and involvements in that awful sandpit?
Fine, the Brits have several thousand very brave troops still out there, and the French have, I guess, a few via NATO….no one mentions the elusive French very much….I keep harping on “Sykes-Picot”, but remember that the Russians pulled out, just as we Americans pulled out of South Viet Nam.
Let’s get us out of there. Now. Vacuums be damned.
56. Charlie Griffith
You/make/your/points/so/much/more/effectively/with/all/them/slash/marks/
Must see video-
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4321181,00.html
Clioman:”Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East is a two-step process. Step One: encourage the displacement of secular autocrats, using covert action where necessary. Step Two: walk away from the resulting chaos and let affairs take their course. This process would have identical results whether a) The One doesn’t have any idea what to do next, or b) intends to step-father the recreation of a Muslim Caliphate in the Middle East”
Ding, Ding, Ding I think we have a winner.
Although I lean to Rivenburg ‘s “Obama is mid-wifing the Sunni Caliphate, PERIOD.”
Except for extreme Salafists which he cannot openly back politically , Obama has always bowed before the interests of Orthrodox Islam., in a fashion that he never has before Western or American Interests. Buraq seems to lean towards Sunni interests but he has never seriously confronted Shia interests either. Buraq is just a closeted Salafist at heart.
The idea is that we have no good choices is partly the fault of those, including George Bush ,who appeased the Moslem Establishment, and never truly asserted American ideals of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness in the Moslem world.
Along with aggressively pursued energy independence, if we had gone to the Middle East with the intent of establishing American ideals and resolutely not taking any crap otherwise until we did, we would not be faced with today’s problems.
You cannot coddle or pander to Islam, you must crush it’s Satanic impulses and reform it to your liking. And don’t be apologizing for doing it either. It’s what needs to be done, sooner or later, or there is going to be real Hell to pay.
Doodslag is right. Islam needs to be constrained and contained within it’s current borders and rolled back into the smallest possible geographic area possible. De-Islamization should be pursued at full tilt. All immigration from Islamic to the West should be halted, and the legitimate power of the state turned against everything Islamic. The Muslims are NOT our friends. At best they manipulate us for their own ends, at worst they extort us like the Dhimmi losers we have elected to our leadership.
Totalitarians such as Obama support the jihad because they hate Christianity and Judaism.
It’s nothing new. This dude from Damascus had the Muslim threat figured out in the 700s.
Arabs are Arabs and Muslims will be Muslims. The action on the ground in Syria is evolving into an historical pattern that had been interrupted by socialism but, only for so long. That western notions of rule of law have never taken hold in the AM world for a prolonged period is my point. At no time during the expansion of Islam from flea bitten Mecca to India and France have the AMs not had their own internecine war ongoing. Syria is no exception. Sunni v Shiia, Alewhite v Kurd, Persian v Turk it is just one big happy family. The Salafists, with their ties to Al Azhar and the Wahabis, will fight to the teeth all and sundry. On the other side we have the Persians, who with the loss of Assad, will use all of their efforts to support those who survive the royal family’s demise. The Khomennists think long term, have assets on the ground and cannot allow the loss of the Syrian conduit to their lackeys in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere in the eastern med.
Meanwhile the Saudis will be ramping up support for the Wahabbi claque. The Kurds will once again overstep, they still have their hard core socialist/strongman faction as was shown in Iraq. Can the Kurds survive sitting in their mountain strongholds throughout this process? Sure they have been gaining some ground in Turkey as Ataturkism is in retreat. Now come the Turks.
They have long had influence in Syria, Lebanon and throughout the Levant. When the Bathists were in the lead in the Levant, Ataturkism had saved the Turkish state in the aftermath of Ottoman debauchery. Turkey has been involved in Syria to a very large extent. Can Erdogin stem the Salafist from the west and the Wahabbis from the east? What will they do with the Jihadis both east and west? While Turkey has been running, not walking, from the old model military balancing act domestically it is yet to be seen whether their new construct can withstand their own Jihadis. Recently, it has been noted in the media that the US is now, I suppose at the pleading of Erdogin, bringing troops to the Syrian border.
What does all of this indicate? Well history will out. A period of Arab jockeying, Muslim on Muslim, sect on sect, socialist vangards correcting the abuses of the Bathists etc. etc. Hide the women and christians folks this will not be pretty.
The West, as it is now, is too self indulged to exert any influence on its best interests. The End of History and all that. The saddest thought of all is that Putin will have Russia’s best interests in his mind whereas our Administration will have our worsts interests in mind thinking that they are on the correct (heaven forbid the “right”) side.