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JFairfax posted:Right so from a secular country you would end up with a 'moderate' Islamic state which would likely disintegrate and fall apart into civil war... Okay and you think that this would have resulted in less death and destruction? ISIS has been around in one form or another since 2006 and getting rid of Assad would make it easier for them to make gains. Assad hasn't actually been fighting ISIS and has explicitly acted in such a way as to allow them to make gains. But then you and your side as so desperate to avoid reality that pointing this out is useless Main Paineframe posted:Replace "Obama" with "the current President" and "Democrats" with "the party in power" and you've got basically the dictionary definition of "American foreign policy" since, what, 1916? From the standpoint of effective foreign policy, it's just more of the same. From a moral standpoint, Obama has pursued US policies that have directly led to the torture or death of Arab civilians for the sake of US interests, so the only surprise in Syria is that he isn't in there actively making it worse somehow. The defense of Obama that you've given thus far has entirely been that he's better than previous presidents. So now you're saying you can't criticize him because he's no worse than previous presidents? If you tried to pivot any harder you'd break your neck Majorian posted:Really? Because I'm pretty sure that our intervention in Iraq was a major direct cause of this civil war in Syria, particularly its worst aspects like ISIS. Millions of dead Arabs is the result of Assad burning his country to the ground to stop a revolution that the US did not start, and is a result we could have prevented. Same with Saddam in the 80s and 90s. The US chose very poorly in both of those cases, and it chose very poorly in Syria
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Mar 11, 2016 21:18
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Griffen posted:Except Obama did nothing to get Assad to turn over the chemical weapons, that was all Russia done for the sake of making the US look like a bunch of tools. That's totally untrue. The U.S. was one of the key parties to the agreement, along with Russia and Syria, and the U.S. is the one carrying out the destruction of the weapons. quote:Do you realize what you're saying? You are trumpeting the fact that Obama drew a red line on WMD use, failed to hold the line, and then relied on Syrian promises to give all their chemical weapons to Russia (verified by Russian inspectors) all on the "honor" system. OPCW is using international inspectors. You're talking out of your rear end.
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Mar 11, 2016 21:23
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icantfindaname posted:Millions of dead Arabs is the result of Assad burning his country to the ground to stop a revolution that the US did not start ISIS exists as a direct result of the invasion of Iraq. 
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Mar 11, 2016 21:24
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Volkerball posted:You know we found chemical weapons, right? ISIS looted his old stockpiles and are currently using them on the Kurds. I don't think anyone would argue Syria has nukes hidden somewhere. show me the proof that ISIS found Saddam's chemical weapons in Iraq.
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Mar 11, 2016 21:25
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JFairfax posted:show me the proof that ISIS found Saddam's chemical weapons in Iraq. They didn't "find" them. We already knew the weapons were there, and there were ongoing international efforts to destroy them. But yes, they overran the storage facility. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10913275/Isis-storms-Saddam-era-chemical-weapons-complex-in-Iraq.html
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Mar 11, 2016 21:28
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That being said, ISIL is fundamentally an Iraqi phenomenon that just so happens to project into Syria. They didn't help make the civil war any simpler, I don't think that they were the most important factor.
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Mar 11, 2016 21:33
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Volkerball posted:They didn't "find" them. We already knew the weapons were there, and there were ongoing international efforts to destroy them. But yes, they overran the storage facility. from that article: One US official told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that Isis fighters could be contaminated by the chemicals at the site. “The only people who would likely be harmed by these chemical materials would be the people who tried to use or move them,” the military officer said. from a report “Two wars, sanctions and UN oversight reduced Iraqi’s premier production facility to a stockpile of old damaged and contaminated chemical munitions (sealed in bunkers), a wasteland full of destroyed chemical munitions, razed structures, and unusable war-ravaged facilities,” it said. “Some of the bunkers contained large quantities of unfilled chemical munitions, conventional munitions, one-ton shipping containers, old disabled production equipment and other hazardous industrial chemicals.” Yeah so hardly stockpiles of usable chemical weapons. JFairfax fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 21:37
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Haystack posted:That being said, ISIL is fundamentally an Iraqi phenomenon that just so happens to project into Syria. They didn't help make the civil war any simpler, I don't think that they were the most important factor. No, but by the same token, they're emblematic of why this can never be as cut-and-dry a case as Volkerball or icantfindaname are making it out to be. There is no easy, direct path to a peaceful Syria at this point that doesn't include Assad, unfortunately, and I don't think there ever was. The non-ISIS rebel groups are too weak, and are being deliberately targeted by Russia and Turkey. Removing Assad would create a vacuum that ISIS would almost certainly fill.
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Mar 11, 2016 21:40
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JFairfax posted:from that article: you: oh yeah, i'm sure assad has chemical weapons just like saddam did me: saddam did have chemical weapons. we found them. we know that. you: prove it. me: ok, here you: well they're expired now. 
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Mar 11, 2016 21:40
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Volkerball posted:you: oh yeah, i'm sure assad has chemical weapons just like saddam did not expired, destroyed. that was one of the premier facilities but had clearly fallen into disrepair and did not have stocks of usable chemical weapons. that article quotes a US official who clearly states that ISIS did not steal usable chemical weapons, and that overrunning the facility was more of a danger to them than anyone else. ALSO it begs the question why, many years after the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US and UK - IF this facility had lots of chemical weapons that could be used, then why the gently caress weren't they moved / destroyed by the coalition forces?
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Mar 11, 2016 21:42
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quote:There is no easy, direct path to a peaceful Syria at this point that doesn't include Assad
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Mar 11, 2016 21:45
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Or that does include Assad. Why do you think that, exactly?
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Mar 11, 2016 21:49
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Majorian posted:That's totally untrue. The U.S. was one of the key parties to the agreement, along with Russia and Syria, and the U.S. is the one carrying out the destruction of the weapons. And I'm sure Assad and Putin are entirely trustworthy in all things and they have never lied or misled anyone about anything. Right. Also, just the fact that the US was one of the key parties to the agreement has nothing to do with the core impetus for the agreement's existence. Obama drew a red line, Assad crossed it, then Obama did nothing. So please tell me how anything the US has said to Assad has shaped his actions in the last 5 years, and why Assad would call Obama's bluff, suffer no consequences, and then all of a sudden - out of the goodness of his heart - decide to disarm of all chemical weapons. You are naive if you think we had anything to do with it; it was Russia 100%.
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Mar 11, 2016 21:51
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icantfindaname posted:The defense of Obama that you've given thus far has entirely been that he's better than previous presidents. So now you're saying you can't criticize him because he's no worse than previous presidents? If you tried to pivot any harder you'd break your neck Here's the thing. I'm not defending Obama at all. My perspective is that if he wanted to conduct effective foreign policy, he should have pretended the Syrian Civil War never happened, rather than repeatedly sticking his finger in and then yanking it out again as his common sense wrestled with his personal desire to get involved. If he wanted to be a moral and humanitarian president who did good by Arab civilians, he probably shouldn't have spent most of his term bombing Arab civilians and spreading chaos throughout the Middle East. His Syria policy was poor, with many mistakes that his advisers often had to talk him down from. However, his mistake was that he got involved at all. I see no way an American intervention in Syria in 2012 could have resulted in lasting peace. The US is simply politically incapable of taking the steps that would have been necessary for a lasting Syrian peace, and Obama could have done little to change that even if he were inclined to.
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Mar 11, 2016 21:52
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Griffen posted:And I'm sure Assad and Putin are entirely trustworthy in all things and they have never lied or misled anyone about anything. Who cares that they're untrustworthy? OPCW has done an amazing job of conducting inspections and finding the weapons and facilities Assad hasn't declared. The U.S. wouldn't have been able to have found and destroyed them without getting Syria to join the CWC, so I'm not sure what you think the problem is in this regard. That Assad has tried to cheat? What a tremendous shock! I'm sure no one at OPCW expected that would happen. quote:Also, just the fact that the US was one of the key parties to the agreement has nothing to do with the core impetus for the agreement's existence. Obama drew a red line, Assad crossed it, then Obama did nothing. You seem to be under the impression that Obama promised to send ground troops in if that red line were crossed. He made no such promise. He said it would "change his calculus" about how to address the situation - and it did. He got an agreement out of Russia and Assad, and now Assad has been deprived of the vast majority of his chemical weapons. e: The full exchange: Q: Mr. President, could you update us on your latest thinking of where you think things are in Syria, and in particular, whether you envision using U.S. military, if simply for nothing else, the safe keeping of the chemical weapons, and if you’re confident that the chemical weapons are safe? A: I have, at this point, not ordered military engagement in the situation. But the point that you made about chemical and biological weapons is critical. That’s an issue that doesn’t just concern Syria; it concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel. It concerns us. We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people. We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation. Majorian fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 21:55
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JFairfax posted:not expired, destroyed. that was one of the premier facilities but had clearly fallen into disrepair and did not have stocks of usable chemical weapons. Digging into it, the UN locked it all up during their destruction of CW in the mid-90's, and due to how unsafe the place was, they decided not to gently caress with it any more after that. quote:Stockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored there. The most dangerous ones have been declared to the UN and are sealed in bunkers. Although declared, the bunkers contents have yet to be confirmed. These areas of the compound pose a hazard to civilians and potential blackmarketers. https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap5_annxB.html Whether from here or undeclared Syrian stockpiles, ISIS got mustard gas from somewhere.
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Mar 11, 2016 21:58
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This thread has moved fast.Juffo-Wup posted:What do you think a good American policy toward the middle east would look like? That's such an enormous question it's not really possible to answer without either writing a dissertation or being so vague as to hardly be saying anything meaningful. As a first step, though I'd suggest re-examining why America is trying to dominate control of oil rather than focusing on moving away from fossil fuel dependency. A Manhattan-project level of government investment in developing alternatives to fossil fuel would be preferable and probably cheaper than America's current energy strategy. More generally the US should re-examine it's long standing tendency to give money and aid to forces that it ends up fighting shortly thereafter. The Americans (and others) have been too clever by half and are constantly trying to fund groups like Hamas or Fatah to undermine each other. Rather than promoting stability the US actually promotes instability -- or, to be more precise, the promote an uneasy 'balance of power' between various regional actors, all with the intention of preventing any local country (or any outside force other than the US, such as Russia or China) from gaining supremacy. I would suggest the US should give up on this objective and leave the Middle East to its own affairs, with only limited involvement. This would trigger a period of greater instability in the short term but is the only acceptable long term solution. You can't have a Republican and an empire at the same time so one of those two things needs to be sacrificed, and it would be better for both the American people and the world if America would return to seeing itself as a city on a Hill rather than the increasingly incompetent world policeman who can't help but gently caress everything it touches up. icantfindaname posted:Sure, works for me Obama is just a continuation of past US presidencies. The differences are only interesting to clueless and myopic American liberals who apparently take state department and White House propaganda at face value when assessing America's goals in the Middle East. By your logic if I were to set your house on fire and then show up a few minutes later with buckets of water to help you put the fire out, then I should be praised for helping you fight the fire. Or alternative, if I don't show up with a bucket of water, then I should be condemned for not bringing water but apparently no one should mention that I am the one who set the fire in the first place. America does not have the institutional capacity to be an objective umpire type figure in the middle east. If America intervenes in the middle east it will only be to advance the perceived benefits of 'American interests', which are only tangentially related to the interests of the majority of actual Americans. I mean hell, even losing access to cheap gas would probably save millions of American lives in the long term by killing car culture and cutting down on obesity and diabetes rates in the heartland. This insane fairy tale that America or any other world power is capable of intervening in foreign conflicts without inevitably serving the interests of the people who run that world power is staggeringly naive. No empire in history has ever invaded other countries for the benefit of those countries and nothing is going to change that. At most you might find some very extreme edge cases like the liberation of France where the interests of a global power coincidentally lined up with the interests of the local population, but even these examples are vanishingly rare in the historical record. If America hadn't exported any guns, invaded any countries, given any diplomatic support to or otherwise had anything other than peaceful trade relations with the countries of the Middle East since, say, 1991, then the entire region would likely be vastly richer, happier and more stable than it is right now. It wouldn't be a perfect world but literally hundreds of millions of people would still be alive and countless more would continue to enjoy basic government services.
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Mar 11, 2016 22:09
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quote:Why do you think that, exactly?
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Mar 11, 2016 22:43
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Rent-A-Cop posted:You know, I'm not sure if it was the systematic employment of rape as a punishment, the widespread kidnappings and torture, or the use of chemical weapons against civilians that really convinced me. Yes, but you see, if Assad is removed from power, the group that is most likely to fill the vacuum also does all of those things. And have what could most optimistically be referred to as a "revisionist" view of the regional map.
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Mar 12, 2016 01:31
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JFairfax posted:Yeah so hardly stockpiles of usable chemical weapons. JFairfax posted:not expired, destroyed. that was one of the premier facilities but had clearly fallen into disrepair and did not have stocks of usable chemical weapons. http://nypost.com/2016/02/15/samples-confirm-isis-used-mustard-gas-in-iraq-diplomat/ quote:Islamic State militants attacked Kurdish forces in Iraq with mustard gas last year, the first known use of chemical weapons in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a diplomat said, based on tests by the global chemical weapons watchdog.  says it was left over from the Iran/Iraq War.)Also ISIL's used chlorine a bunch of times: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-islamicstate-chlorine-idUSKBN0MA0OT20150314 http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/19/middleeast/isis-chemical-weapons/ http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/02/13/3025891/ The only reason it's not mentioned more is because we're already bombing them.
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Mar 12, 2016 02:20
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Majorian posted:Yes, but you see, if Assad is removed from power, the group that is most likely to fill the vacuum also does all of those things. And have what could most optimistically be referred to as a "revisionist" view of the regional map. Unless you meant Russia, then I agree.
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Mar 12, 2016 04:11
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Which group is that? ISIL? Because they seem to be getting their asses kicked a little bit at the moment. I do mean ISIS/ISIL. They are getting their asses kicked, but not so completely that if we took Assad out they wouldn't eventually take over. If the Russians took over, then yes, that would probably happen too.
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Mar 12, 2016 04:16
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPz21cDK7dg
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Mar 12, 2016 07:26
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After reading the OP about I can only wonder how different Obama's tenure would have been had he not been handed a massive economic crisis at the very start of his term. I have to imagine that the recession put everything else he had in mind on the backburner.
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Mar 12, 2016 07:39
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Main Paineframe posted:Here's the thing. I'm not defending Obama at all. My perspective is that if he wanted to conduct effective foreign policy, he should have pretended the Syrian Civil War never happened, rather than repeatedly sticking his finger in and then yanking it out again as his common sense wrestled with his personal desire to get involved. If he wanted to be a moral and humanitarian president who did good by Arab civilians, he probably shouldn't have spent most of his term bombing Arab civilians and spreading chaos throughout the Middle East. His Syria policy was poor, with many mistakes that his advisers often had to talk him down from. However, his mistake was that he got involved at all. I see no way an American intervention in Syria in 2012 could have resulted in lasting peace. The US is simply politically incapable of taking the steps that would have been necessary for a lasting Syrian peace, and Obama could have done little to change that even if he were inclined to. This is my position. You guys are basically admitting that the best-case scenario of direct US intervention to remove Assad is a bloody, protracted civil war that ends up killing a lot of people, but likely far fewer people than what we ended up doing. I don't even buy that it would be that successful, but let's roll with it. Well, in that alternate history, you don't have a comparison point to say "even more people would have died if the US didn't get involved." The worldwide interpretation is that Obama's intervention in Syria led to greater destabilization of the region, an extended civil war, a lot of death, and a power vacuum filled by Islamist militants. Sounds familiar. For both domestic and international perceptions of the US, the correct choice was always to stay away from loving with the government. That includes not leading the FSA/etc. on and leaving them hanging. Even if US intervention saved thousands of Syrian lives, the blame for the lives still lost would be increasingly directed back to the US.
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Mar 12, 2016 21:12
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 (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 13, 2016 01:33
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wtf is that baby head
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Mar 13, 2016 07:55
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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blowfish posted:wtf is that baby head The Avshalom doctrine.
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Mar 13, 2016 08:46
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Calling mustard gas a weapon of mass destruction is kind of a joke.
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Mar 13, 2016 09:00
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SedanChair posted:Calling mustard gas a weapon of mass destruction is kind of a joke. "Weapons of mass destruction" is a pretty nebulous term, though. Mustard gas can be, and has been, used to kill massive numbers of civilians. While it's debatable whether or not it counts as a WMD, though, it is a CWC-controlled schedule 1 agent, so if it's showing up in Syria and/or Iraq, then there's probably been a violation that OPCW needs to address.
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Mar 13, 2016 09:57
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Oh man I'm sorry I'm late to this thread. To add to this discussion, Vox had a good article recently about the decline of neoconservatism within the Republican party. http://www.vox.com/2016/3/10/11189350/twilight-of-the-neoconservatives Twilight of the neoconservatives posted:The once-fringe neoconservative movement, in the space of a few short years, had seized first their party's intellectual power centers, then its legislative agenda, and now the commanding heights of American leadership itself. Against all odds, they had won. Obama is not unique in his support for a realist foreign policy, the Iraq war has discredited interventionists even on the right. Or alternatively as this article argues, the neoconservative ideologues were never popular among the American public, and are now losing their grip on Republican policymakers. I'm curious how the experience in Iraq has shaped the ideology of liberal interventionists like Hillary Clinton, which I have trouble distinguishing from neoconservatism. As an unapologetic fan of Obama's foreign policy I really want to jump into this debate but I'll have to wait another day I think to catchup with this thread. If anything I think he's been too aggressive militarily in a number of places, though I'm heartened by the thoughtfulness he displays in the Atlantic piece. I'm terrified by the kind of people who seriously believe America should be willing to spend billions and kill thousands to defend American pride or save face over statements like Obama's Red-line. It's truly shocking how much policy is driven by the needs of individual policy makers to affirm their own self-esteems which they have projected onto national policy.
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Mar 13, 2016 17:32
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Obama's "doctrine" seems to be doing the same bad stuff as Bush et al but more thoughtfully and competently. Unfortunately for him he is both not actually evil and buys into the benevolence of America's plan for the world, which means he ends up twisting in the wind when faced with a situation previous Presidents would have dealt with by just bombing or invading. So Obama settles for a little bombing here and there with assassination droids because that seems more sensible than using planes, or airstrike only campaigns that seem more sensible than land invasions, neither of them work but neither would the thing they're replacing. Fullscale domestic and allied spying? Sounds sensible and modern so that'll do too. I think a lot of people were excited for Obama before he was elected because he seemed like a guy who really beleived in the dream of America but thats a double edged sword. The world ended up with a guy who doesn't beleive in meaningless violence but who still beleives in "american interests" re: distrusting its own population and having total jurisdiction over foreign citizens.
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Mar 13, 2016 17:45
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Oh I couldn't help myself. icantfindaname, you have 1) said in this thread that Obama did not intervene in 2012, and that Obama's Syria policy has been one of complete "inaction"(I'm paraphrasing your third post itt), 2) you have argued that America could have ameliorated the suffering of the Syrian people through a more assertive policy, and 3) implicit itt, and expressed in the Middle East thread previously, you have argued America is in such a unique position of global power and influence that it is necessarily responsible for the outcomes of events in places like Syria (correct me if you think this is a mischaracterization of your position). I disagree with 1, America was always involved with the Syrian opposition and worked to undermine Assad. As for 2, I agree it's possible America COULD have done it, but I will argue trying to argue policy purely on the basis of hindsight is recipe for disaster, because American power is far more limited than suggested by 3, if for no other reason than because American policy makers often fail even to understand what is happening right NOW, let alone what the future will bring. First America was always involved with the opposition. Much of the support was non-military, putting sanctions on Assad, non-military assistance, and the facilitation of Gulf military aid. You can argue it was not enough which is a fair criticism, but you cannot in good faith argue nothing was done. I do not disagree that it is possible a better outcome could have been obtained through more muscular policy, but we must remember the context in which decisions were made. A man flips a coin and calls it heads. If it comes up tails, can we say he made the wrong decision? What does it even mean to be wrong or right in this context? America is uniquely powerful, but we can't expect to miracles even from well designed policy if it is premised on a false understanding of the present. We all remember Iraq how badly American intelligence failed on Iraq, but it Obama's policies in Syria have also suffered from intelligence failures. For example, the Atlantic article makes two important points, in 2011 Analysts were telling Obama Assad would soon fall just like Mubarak. And in 2014 General Lloyd Austin believed IS was “a flash in the pan.” These mistakes are indicative a fundamental flaw in the premise that America could have prevented these disasters, that is you can't stop something you didn't know was going to happen. People like Volkerball can truthfully say they saw these events coming and hence could have prevented them. But realistically American policy is necessarily limited by uncertainty, and in that foreign policy is no different than say economic policy. Hindsight is 20/20, but policy must be written in a confused an uncertain present.
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Mar 13, 2016 19:11
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Squalid posted:Oh I couldn't help myself. icantfindaname, you have 1) said in this thread that Obama did not intervene in 2012, and that Obama's Syria policy has been one of complete "inaction"(I'm paraphrasing your third post itt), 2) you have argued that America could have ameliorated the suffering of the Syrian people through a more assertive policy, and 3) implicit itt, and expressed in the Middle East thread previously, you have argued America is in such a unique position of global power and influence that it is necessarily responsible for the outcomes of events in places like Syria (correct me if you think this is a mischaracterization of your position). 1. The stuff we have done has been nominal and mostly tailored for domestic PR in the United States. Operations against ISIS don't really count, I'm talking about Assad and the Rebels specifically. We've provided some weapons and CIA support but very little besides that. 2. I would stand by that. Like I've said the actual outcome in Syria has been basically the worst possible one, even a still-flawed result from American intervention would IMO almost certainly have been better. 3. I also stand by that. Often times the cost associated with action are high enough that most people do not consider the action worth taking, but the fact is still that the US could change outcomes considerably. We're not omnipotent, sure, but for example we could have absolutely ensured the downfall of Assad and the SAA. And given what we've seen since 2012 IMO it's pretty clear it would have been worth it At this point it doesn't really matter because the window of action is closed, but I guess we'll just agree to disagree? icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Mar 13, 2016 |
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Mar 13, 2016 19:41
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Squalid posted:icantfindaname, you have 1) said in this thread that Obama did not intervene in 2012, and that Obama's Syria policy has been one of complete "inaction"(I'm paraphrasing your third post itt) I don't agree with them either, but this is a strawman, even if "complete inaction" was hyperbolic.
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Mar 13, 2016 19:44
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Squalid posted:America is uniquely powerful, but we can't expect to miracles even from well designed policy if it is premised on a false understanding of the present. We all remember Iraq how badly American intelligence failed on Iraq, but it Obama's policies in Syria have also suffered from intelligence failures. For example, the Atlantic article makes two important points, in 2011 Analysts were telling Obama Assad would soon fall just like Mubarak. And in 2014 General Lloyd Austin believed IS was “a flash in the pan.” These mistakes are indicative a fundamental flaw in the premise that America could have prevented these disasters, that is you can't stop something you didn't know was going to happen. People like Volkerball can truthfully say they saw these events coming and hence could have prevented them. But realistically American policy is necessarily limited by uncertainty, and in that foreign policy is no different than say economic policy. Hindsight is 20/20, but policy must be written in a confused an uncertain present. I wouldn't disagree with that assessment in that there's an aura of uncertainty around every decision in foreign policy. That's why I try to avoid saying that an intervention in Syria would've ended with an ideal resolution. It would've provided a greater potential for a better resolution, but there's certainly no sure things when it comes to a situation as volatile as the Syrian civil war. The thing is, you can't shut out whatever doesn't jive with your perception and expect to make rational decisions, and that's exactly what Obama did. Sure, a lot of analysts were saying the end was nigh, and I'd say it was the most common perception in regards to Syria well into 2012, as every development was in favor of the opposition. But that wasn't so universal that dissenting voices weren't visible. Joshua Landis is one of the most prominent academics when it comes to Syria, and he gave many lectures and wrote many articles during that time period explaining why anyone who thought Syria was Egypt was kidding themselves. And the death toll cracked 1,000 and 2,000 really, really quickly, and at that point, there were a lot of voices saying "something is going to need to be done about this, or it's going to degrade quickly." The thing that really frustrates me is that a lot of this was coming from the think tank community. It was analysts with Brookings and the Atlantic Council that were the ones explaining that protracted war would lead to a vacuum that would present a dire security situation. That Syria would not stay self-contained, and would destabilize the entire region. The Obama administration denied this, and were intent on making Maliki address "Iraqi problems," and focused on half-assed efforts to be seen as trying to find a solution in Syria, because they didn't recognize Syria as a situation that necessitated a US response. Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan all have a massively worse security situation than they did prior to the war, and nations like Iran and KSA have gotten tremendously involved in the fighting. So essentially, the entire Middle East is involved in this conflict one way or the other. The chaos in Syria has even spread to Europe, where the refugee crisis is now a major political issue that can't be ignored. And of course, lo and loving behold, ISIS suddenly emerged from its ashes and blew up out of nowhere, and it turned out that Syria was never a place the US could turn its back on after all. These predictions were absolutely true, and they were ignored. The think tanks that were predicting this were largely the same people advocating for an increased US role in bringing about an end to the conflict, as that perception of the conflict and that policy prescription go hand in hand. But here's what Obama thinks about them, even after this saga played out. quote:I have come to believe that, in Obama’s mind, August 30, 2013, was his liberation day, the day he defied not only the foreign-policy establishment and its cruise-missile playbook, but also the demands of America’s frustrating, high-maintenance allies in the Middle East—countries, he complains privately to friends and advisers, that seek to exploit American “muscle” for their own narrow and sectarian ends. By 2013, Obama’s resentments were well developed. He resented military leaders who believed they could fix any problem if the commander in chief would simply give them what they wanted, and he resented the foreign-policy think-tank complex. A widely held sentiment inside the White House is that many of the most prominent foreign-policy think tanks in Washington are doing the bidding of their Arab and pro-Israel funders. I’ve heard one administration official refer to Massachusetts Avenue, the home of many of these think tanks, as “Arab-occupied territory.” It's certainly true that a lot of these think tanks get substantial funding from Arab nations, but that doesn't change the fact that among the fellows at these think tanks are some of the most knowledgeable men and women we have on the region. They write for multiple outlets and advocate for positions based in reality that they genuinely believe. Obama lobbies for money himself, so what room does he have to thumb his nose at that establishment? What makes him inherently more wise and less biased? Since he turned out to be completely wrong, and they were right, I would posit not a goddamn thing does. It gives the vibe of a dnd poster leading the nation. Arab nations, leading scholars on the region, and humanitarian activists, Syrian and international, all come in and say "Mr. President, we feel Syria is on a self-destructive path that will have unimaginable consequence in the long term, not just for Syria, but for the region, and the world. The US cannot sit this one out, because the long term consequences of inaction outweigh the risks of the US getting actively involved in some capacity in order to bring about an end to the regime" And Obama goes "Oh yeah, lets just invade Syria and occupy it for 10 years. This time will be different." And all you can do is throw your hands up in the air in frustration because he's going to sit there and bash away at that strawman no matter what you say because he's already written you off. You're in the stupid poo poo caucus. You advocate for doing stupid poo poo. And that dynamic never changes, as the years pass, and the death toll mounts. I'm reminded of a recent article by Shadi Hamid, where he laments how inelastic and ideologically-driven Obama's foreign policy has been, by pointing out that both Clinton and Bush changed failing strategies by conceding that the current one was not getting the job done. quote:Of course, it is difficult to fundamentally re-orient policy on a particular http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Re...earch.pdf?la=en That Obama has refused to budge on this issue feels much more like arrogance and ignorance in situations like this one, where he was wrong, rather than him being some sort of levy holding back the endless flow of stupid poo poo that he seems to think of himself as. And which he is in many situations when it comes to domestic politics. There's one last point I'd like to make in this post, and that is the significance of the Arab Spring. This was a completely unprecedented event that had an opportunity to drastically reshape the Middle East away from tyranny, away from terrorism, and towards sustainable, long term solutions that benefited the world, and most importantly, the people living in those nations, hardest hit by those institutions. Obama talked about his disdain for the US being traditionally viewed by its allies as the gun to be used to back up their words. He wanted to fight against that, and the way he did it was by "leading from behind." He wanted to pull the US back and force those nations to stand up on their own two feet. Now I totally agree with that perspective, but, and I cannot emphasize this enough, this was not the time to focus on sending a message to our allies out of resentment for the US' role in those relationships. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd priority here should've been doing whatever we could've done to bring about reform in the Middle East, as there had never been a better opportunity to do so. Instead, Obama turned to KSA, to Maliki, to Qatar, and said you deal with this. This is the equivalent of France falling to Germany, England saying "Hey, we could really use some help," and the US saying "We are not the worlds police." The US had an absolutely massive role to play in the Arab Spring, and it completely shirked it. And the results are absolutely tragic. I don't know enough about presidential history to say conclusively, but I'd imagine if you lined up every President and sorted them in order of most capable of addressing something like the Arab Spring, Obama would be near the bottom of the list.  Well, nobody ever said the Middle East was lucky.
Volkerball fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Mar 13, 2016 |
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Mar 13, 2016 21:31
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lol the arab spring was absolutely pants shittingly scary to America, you think the US govt really wanted a new government in Egypt? They supported Mubarak for pretty much his whole time in office until it was completely obvious he was on the way out.
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Mar 13, 2016 21:53
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JFairfax posted:lol the arab spring was absolutely pants shittingly scary to America, you think the US govt really wanted a new government in Egypt? They supported Mubarak for pretty much his whole time in office until it was completely obvious he was on the way out. The Obama administration did a lot of that playing both sides thing I was talking about before. They supported Mubarak while he was in power, but that doesn't mean they disavowed Morsi. They never cut military aid to Egypt after Mubarak fell, and Obama personally called Morsi and congratulated him for winning the election. In fact, in the rise of dissent against Morsi, a major talking point the military, and now current ruling regime, used was that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were supported by the US. So Sisi actually fostered anti-American sentiment in his rise, by claiming the US supported terrorists (which is what Sisi was calling the MB). The situation was far more tense when Morsi fell, because US military aid was tied to language about a "coup," which put the US on the spot to take a stand. The US did suspend military aid for less than a year, but they re-instated it, and they never really came out hard against the coup. Just platitudes about maintaining democratic institutions and reholding elections and all that bullshit. Today, they maintain relations with Sisi. The US was mostly rudderless, and its goal was simply to be on good terms with whoever ended up on top once the cards fell. KSA was far more militant against Morsi than the US was. Anything else was just a security concern, and as far as security concerns go, I don't know if you've heard, but the US is not the worlds police. The result is that terrorism in Egypt is more prominent now than it has ever been in its history, and the strip from Tunisia to Egypt is a very fragile and scary place at the moment. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Mar 13, 2016 |
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Mar 13, 2016 22:15
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The USA heavily supported Mubarak since the early 1980s. The idea that America ever really cares about the fate of the people under the dictators it supports is laughable quite frankly.
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Mar 13, 2016 22:20
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Looking at the foreign policy of "America" as one solid, pre-determined path, is a simplistic outlook that refuses to observe the evolution of foreign policy, or the differences between each presidential administration, in favor of a more conspiratorial view that's easier to digest. I've got no time or tolerance for it tbh.
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Mar 13, 2016 22:25
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