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Syria Superthread [merged]
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S.M.A. said:
The Associated Press is Tweeting: BREAKING: United Nations says 45 captured Fijian peacekeepers are released in Syria's Golan Heights.
https://twitter.com/AP
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I suspect most will disagree, but I do agree with Andrew J. Bacevich in an essay he contributed to Reuters "Great Debate" series. His article is headlined: Obama is picking his targets in Iraq and Syria while missing the point.
Prof Bacevich says, "successive U.S. presidents have fastened on that benighted country as a place to demonstrate the implacable onward march of modernity ... The effort failed abysmally ... This much is certain, however: Even if Obama cobbles together a plan to destroy the Islamic State, the problems bedeviling the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East more broadly won’t be going away anytime soon."
He concludes, "All the military power in the world won’t solve those problems. Obama knows that. Yet he is allowing himself to be drawn back into the very war that he once correctly denounced as stupid and unnecessary — mostly because he and his advisers don’t know what else to do. Bombing has become his administration’s default option ... Rudderless and without a compass, the American ship of state continues to drift, guns blazing."
I agree. I'm not sure what President Obama is proposing; I'm not sure what Prime Minister Harper thinks he might accomplish ~ other than getting a few "brownie points" with the US administration ("points" we can "cash in," later to get something we really want) which is, very often, the main objective of Canadian policy; I am pretty sure it, everything they and David Cameron and Tony Abbott and all the others, decide to do will like a rudderless, ship, adrfit with all guns blazing.
Prof Bacevich says, "successive U.S. presidents have fastened on that benighted country as a place to demonstrate the implacable onward march of modernity ... The effort failed abysmally ... This much is certain, however: Even if Obama cobbles together a plan to destroy the Islamic State, the problems bedeviling the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East more broadly won’t be going away anytime soon."
He concludes, "All the military power in the world won’t solve those problems. Obama knows that. Yet he is allowing himself to be drawn back into the very war that he once correctly denounced as stupid and unnecessary — mostly because he and his advisers don’t know what else to do. Bombing has become his administration’s default option ... Rudderless and without a compass, the American ship of state continues to drift, guns blazing."
I agree. I'm not sure what President Obama is proposing; I'm not sure what Prime Minister Harper thinks he might accomplish ~ other than getting a few "brownie points" with the US administration ("points" we can "cash in," later to get something we really want) which is, very often, the main objective of Canadian policy; I am pretty sure it, everything they and David Cameron and Tony Abbott and all the others, decide to do will like a rudderless, ship, adrfit with all guns blazing.
GR66
Army.ca Veteran
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I've often heard the argument that Canada does certain things in order to curry favour with our allies (primarily the USA as our largest and most important trading partner) or to maintain our "seat at the table" internationally. To my eye though I have serious doubts about the effectiveness of this policy. It sure seems to me that the US does what it needs to do in order to keep its domestic interests happy. Can anyone give me an example or two of times that the US gave Canada a "gimme" on an issue of contention between our countries due to support we gave them on another issue?
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jollyjacktar
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Spot, on.PanaEng said:
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The Gulf states say they'll fight ISIS...when they actually helped create and fund this ISIS monster in the first place as a foil against Assad.
Military.com
Military.com
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Once again, backing the wrong horse.
ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhoods, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia are all on the same side against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.
The main interest of the West is to contain the fighting inside the Middle East. Supplying Israel, the Kurds and various other ethnic groups like the Baloch helps distract the major players in the Shia/Sunni conflict, and provides a few entry points for whatever Western interests are still served in the region.
The West should just sit back, park a carrier battle group in the Med and one in the Arabian sea and start the popcorn. Let them spend their blood and treasure fighting each other.
ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhoods, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia are all on the same side against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.
The main interest of the West is to contain the fighting inside the Middle East. Supplying Israel, the Kurds and various other ethnic groups like the Baloch helps distract the major players in the Shia/Sunni conflict, and provides a few entry points for whatever Western interests are still served in the region.
The West should just sit back, park a carrier battle group in the Med and one in the Arabian sea and start the popcorn. Let them spend their blood and treasure fighting each other.
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Thucydides said:
I agree with Thucydides: IS** is a barbaric thing, but barbarism is as old as history, older, probably, and not uncommon, on scales large and small, in many, many (most?) of the regions of the world.
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What we have, today, in the Middle East, is some people we dislike intensely (Bashar al-Assad and his friends and followers) killing and being killed by other people we dislike at least as intensely (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his friends and followers) ...
I'm not sure air strikes are going to do anything except provide profits for the bomb makers. We've been bombing Iraqi villages for 90ish years ... see e.g. Lionel Charlton, "Boom" Trenchard, Winston Churchill, et al; it doesn't seem to have done much good. There is, possibly (probably?), a way to bomb the Middle East into submission but my guess is that it has more to do with Dresden than with precision (surgical) strikes.
Maybe less of this ... ... but more of this will work
What I am sure of is that "boots on the ground," Western troops fighting in what are, essentially, Arab civil wars, will not do us any long term good.
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The root cause of IS** is the centuries old and unresolved religious conflict between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. There is nothing much Christendom or East Asia can do about that. One supposes that, eventually, there will be a clash ~ think the Thirty Years War ...
I don't wish another Thirty Years war type of experience on anyone ... but I am reasonably confident that such a thing, decades of revolts, rebellions, civil wars and internecine wars between the Africans, Arabs, Persians and West Asians is both inevitable and necessary for the resolution of Islam's own, internal difficulties.
I am absolutely, 100% certain that neither we, the US led, secular, democratic West nor the equally secular Asians have any role, at all, to play in the resolution of Islam's contradictions. Old fashioned, 1950s style, containment is my only suggestion ... but I would take containment farther than did the brilliant George Kennan: I would add a larger dose of isolation.
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Meanwhile, US SecState Kerry continues enlisting allies to fight against ISIS in Syria:
Source: The New York Times
Source: The New York Times
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http://www.funker530.com/germany-bans-all-isis-support-after-sharia-police-were-found-patrolling-german-streets/
Interesting
Interesting
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E.R. Campbell said:
Some further support for the containment option is found in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8f850056-38ee-11e4-a53b-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3DNLmQfU4
America’s perpetual war on terror by any other name
If you embark on something with your eyes half-open, you are likely to lose sight of reality
By Edward Luce
September 14, 2014
Few have given as much thought as Barack Obama to the pitfalls of waging open-ended war on an abstract noun. On top of its impracticalities – how can you ever declare victory? – fighting a nebulous enemy exacts an insidious toll. Mr Obama built much of his presidential appeal on such a critique – the global war on terror was eroding America’s legal rights at home and its moral capital abroad. The term “GWOT” was purged the moment he took over from George W Bush. In his pledge last week to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, he has travelled almost full circle. It is precisely because Mr Obama is a reluctant warrior that his legacy will be enduring.
The reality is the US war on terror has succeeded where it was supposed to. Mr Bush’s biggest innovation was to set up the Department of Homeland Security. If you chart domestic terror attempts in the US since September 11 2001, they have become increasingly low-tech and ineffectual. From the foiled Detroit airliner attack in Mr Obama’s first year to the Boston marathon bombings in his fifth, each attempt has been more amateur than the last. The same is true of America’s allies. There has been no significant attack in Europe since London’s July 7 bombings nine years ago. Western publics have acclimatised to an era of tighter security.
If this is the balance sheet of the US war on terror, why lose sleep? Chiefly because it understates the costs. The biggest of these is the damage an undeclared war is doing to the west’s grasp on reality. Myopic thinking leads to bad decisions. Mr Obama pointedly avoided using the word “war” last week. Although there are more than 1,000 US military personnel in Iraq, and more than 160 US air strikes in the past month, he insisted on calling his plan to destroy Isis a “campaign”. Likewise, the US uniforms are those of “advisers” and “trainers”. These kinds of euphemism lead to mission creep. If you embark on something with your eyes half-open, you are likelier to lose your way.
In 2011 Mr Obama inadvertently helped to lay the ground for today’s vicious insurgency by withdrawing US forces from Iraq too soon. He left a vacuum and called it peace. Now he is tiptoeing back with his fingers crossed. The same reluctance to look down the road may well be repeating itself in Afghanistan. Mr Obama went out of his way last week to say that the Isis campaign would have no impact on his timetable to end the US combat mission in Afghanistan. The only difference between Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan today is that you can see the Taliban coming. Nor does it take great insight to picture the destabilisation of Pakistan. In contrast to the Isis insurgency, which very few predicted, full-blown crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan are easy to imagine. So too is the gradual escalation of America’s re-engagement in Iraq.
Mr Obama’s detractors on both right and left want him to come clean – the US has declared war on Isis. Why else would his administration vow to follow it “to the gates of hell”, in the words of Joe Biden, the vice-president? Last year, Mr Obama called on Congress to repeal the law authorising military action against al-Qaeda that was passed just after 9/11. “Unless we discipline our thinking . . . we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight,” he said. Mr Obama is already vulnerable to what he warned against. His administration is basing its authority to attack Isis on the same unrepealed 2001 law.
Why does America need to destroy Isis? The case for containment – as opposed to war – has received little airing. But it is persuasive. The main objection is that destroying Isis will be impossible without a far larger US land force, which would be a cure worse than the disease. Fewer than 1,000 Isis insurgents were able to banish an Iraqi army force of 30,000 from Mosul in June – and they were welcomed by its inhabitants. Last week Mr Obama hailed the formation of a more inclusive Iraqi government under Haider al-Abadi. But it has fewer Sunni members than the last one. Nouri al-Maliki, the former prime minister, has been kept on in government.
The task of conjuring a legitimate Iraqi government looks like child’s play against that of building up a friendly Syrian army. Mr Obama has asked Congress for money to train 3,000 Syrian rebels – a goal that will take months to bear fruit. Isis now commands at least 20,000 fighters. Then there are America’s reluctant allies. Turkey does not want to help in any serious way. Saudi Arabia’s support is lukewarm. Israel is sceptical. Iran, whose partnership Mr Obama has not sought, is waiting for whatever windfalls drop in its lap. The same applies to Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president.
Whose army – if not America’s – will chase Isis to the “gates of hell”? Which takes us back to where we started. Mr Obama wants to destroy an entity he says does not yet pose a direct threat to the US. Mr Bush called that pre-emptive war. Mr Obama’s administration calls it a counterinsurgency campaign. Is it a distinction without a difference?
The US president’s aim is to stop Isis before it becomes a threat to the homeland. History suggests the bigger risk is the severe downside of another Middle Eastern adventure.
It is hard to doubt Mr Obama’s sincerity. It is his capacity to wade through the fog of war that is in question.
I remain persuaded, reluctantly, that no one in Washington ~ not President Obama, not the admirals and generals in the Pentagon, not the "big brain" analysts at Fort Meade or Langley, not the out of office talking heads in think tanks ~ have a plan. I think they cannot have a plan because they don't understand the problem, they are, as others have said, drifting aimlessly. We ought not to follow ... I accept that America "asked" and our political position is that w cannot say "no," too often, but if we are going to follow we should, at least, understand that we're following a blind man who is wandering in the fog.
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Obama's Gulf state "allies" might not like working alongside the IDF if the situation calls for it...
Defense News
Plus a warning to Assad:
Reuters
Defense News
Plus a warning to Assad:
Reuters
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S.M.A. said:
Obama/the USA/the US led West (which includes Israel, in my opinion) doesn't have any allies in the Gulf. Jordan is an ally in the Middle East ... and that's about it; the rest range from disinterested freeloaders to real enemies. Anyone who thinks that any Arab/Persian or West Asian state is a friend is delusional.
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