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Griffen posted:The Ukraine crisis? John Kerry get's played by the Russian foreign minister like a fiddle. How, exactly, has Kerry been played like a fiddle by Lavrov with regard to Ukraine? It seems to me that the U.S. has done everything it possibly could that wouldn't escalate the situation in a direction that wouldn't be in anyone's interests.
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Mar 10, 2016 19:35
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icantfindaname posted:Well, you could argue that the whole attempt at diplomatic reset was one of the reasons why Russia was able to take Crimea, but IMO it wasn't that big a deal. The real place where Kerry's been played like a fiddle is Syria Yeah, and I think the diplomatic reset was a very good idea overall. The problem with it was, the Bush Administration's policy towards Russia really dug us into a hole - I think a deeper one than Obama initially realized. Dropping the Eastern European missile defense idea and restarting the bilateral arms reduction process were both wise, necessary moves, but they weren't enough. From the Russian perspective, the U.S. needed to actually codify that it was limiting its capacity to act unilaterally, as it had under Dubya. They wanted a deeper-cutting arms reduction agreement, a return to the ABM Treaty, and a cessation of eastward NATO expansion. Whether or not those things could have been accomplished with the Republican-held Congress is obviously difficult to say, but I think the Russian government viewed the "reset" as just barely scratching the surface. quote:The real place where Kerry's been played like a fiddle is Syria I dunno, I think the situation had already been mishandled by the time Kerry became Secretary of State, unfortunately. The "Assad must go!" policy was already in place. I think Kerry just inherited a lovely situation, and I give him credit for at least moving us away from a self-defeating maximalist position. e: Like, I can understand being disappointed with how Russia's intervention in Syria has turned out - I'm disappointed too. But I don't think there was much the U.S. could have done to keep them out AND keep them honest, without risking an even worse crisis. The Russians were always going to insert themselves anyway, without or without our acquiescence, to prop up Assad. Majorian fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Mar 10, 2016 |
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Mar 10, 2016 20:11
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Main Paineframe posted:Syria would have been another Iraq or Vietnam for sure - there was simply no way any intervention could have had any real effect, short of an all-out military invasion which would find itself facing a permanent insurgency and unable to establish a strong and stable puppet government. There's no realistic "exit strategy" for sticking our noses into a civil war where we don't like any of the participants and don't want any of them to win. Obama's problem in Syria wasn't that he was too non-interventionist, as his administration is trying to portray it. The reason he's been burned so badly by Syria is because, even though he realized the ultimate futility of intervening in the Syria conflict, he couldn't resist involving the US anyway. Since he realized it was a bad idea with a lot to lose and basically nothing to gain, he tried to compensate for that by restricting the scope to throwaway efforts so we could cut our losses and bail if needed rather than escalating into yet another Middle East quagmire. Instead, the resulting vague, non-committal involvement ended up looking worse than just pretending the conflict didn't exist in the first place. Syria was kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't thing, though. It's hard to blame him for worrying that it could turn into another Rwanda. And even if you don't ascribe any altruism to his foreign policy, at the very least he knew Rwanda was a black mark on Clinton's legacy and didn't want to repeat that either. I mostly agree with you that less intervention than has happened would have been better, but I also think that wasn't quite so clear for a President in Obama's position at the time.
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Mar 10, 2016 21:24
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-Troika- posted:Obama doesn't really have a cohesive doctrine for international relations, he just kind of flops around limply like a fish, when he isn't actively ignoring the US's long time allies in order to suck Iranian and Russian dick. Do tell us, Troika - why is the Iranian Deal particularly laughable? What do you object to about it? Also, how has he sucked Iranian and Russian dick?
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Mar 11, 2016 03:02
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rudatron posted:I think actually that's the best way to characterize Obama's foreign policy. Remember the 'reset' with Russia? Or how about the 'pivot to Asia'? What did either of them actually achieve? The reset with Russia kept relations from being as bad as they would have been otherwise. Bush rushing to get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, and sending troops into Georgia after the 2008 invasion, risked a much larger conflict. It didn't cut deep enough, but it at least walked us back from the brink.
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Mar 11, 2016 06:53
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Volkerball posted:The thing about the chemical weapons deal is that it only removed Assad's "declared" stockpile. Even the OPCW, who were responsible for destroying the weapons, won't say the stockpile is eliminated. Sarin was used on the one year anniversary of the Ghouta attack for funsies, and chlorine and other chemical weapons are used fairly frequently in Syria to this day. Where are you getting this from? I'm not seeing any reports of sarin use by the Syrian Army since 2013, and it hasn't been determined that the chlorine gas attacks came from government forces at all. E: more importantly, it's kind of silly to say that the OPCW mission didn't accomplish anything. Even if Assad kept some weapons from the inspectors, there are still considerably fewer now than there were in 2013. Assad's ability to create more of them is pretty much nonexistent now. That's a significant accomplishment. Majorian fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 07:29
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Volkerball posted:It's been determined dozens of chlorine attacks have come from the regime. They are responsible for several attacks both before and after Ghouta, mainly through chlorine barrel bombs. The UN even said so (page 19), so I have no idea what kind of truther bullshit outlet is still trying to play the "who knows what really happened, the truth is probably in the middle" line. Eyewitnesses say they saw barrel bombs being dropped by helicopters. That probably means it was the government, I agree. But to use that as evidence that the agreement to get Syria to join the CWC was all for nothing is simply not accurate. Syria's ability to use WMDs against its own civilians has been decimated. What's more, while use of chlorine as a weapon is illegal under the CWC, the possession of chlorine is not. Clearly Assad is in violation of the CWC, but you can't exactly claim this as a failing of the agreement. quote:As for sarin, it was a small attack that Brown Moses dug up on the day of. I'm looking for OPCW reports on it; if I find something I'll comment on it. Until then, though, bear in mind, even if the Syrian government used sarin again, we at least now have a legal mechanism through which to hold them accountable, we have a means of applying more pressure on Russia, and we've reduced Damascus' ability to use WMDs dramatically. I don't think that makes our intervention a success by any means, but it's hardly the fault of the inspectors or the negotiators. e: I'm not seeing anything on it. That doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't an attack, but I'm guessing that the video BM posted was from a separate incident. quote:There was no oversight whatsoever when it came to making sure Assad declared all of his stockpile. He said "here's 1,300 tons of chemical weapons," the OPCW said "ok, we'll take that," and that was it. All evidence suggests that the OPCW teams have done their due diligence under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances on the ground. I don't see any reason to believe that they were as credulous or incompetent as you're portraying them. Yes, Assad kept some facilities secret. Everybody knew he would probably try to do so. The inspectors found them. You're making it seem like someone else stumbled onto them, or that Assad just shouted, "Hah! Gotcha! I have an undeclared facility over there!" Plus, keep in mind, the only reason why these inspectors can function in Syria in the first place is because the Obama Administration got Syria to join the CWC. The fact that there's further probing is a good thing; it means the inspection and enforcement mechanisms are working, in spite of the fact that Damascus has behaved deceptively and in bad faith. e2: Also keep in mind that finding "traces of VX" does not mean that CERS had been weaponizing VX up to the moment it was discovered. Given that the only piece I can find on this is the Reuters article, my instinct is that whatever VX weapons were created at CERS were destroyed with the rest of them. Majorian fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 08:08
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mobby_6kl posted:Having Russia occupy like a quarter of Ukraine and slowly eat up Georgia is certainly doing wonders for relations with them. There's not much we can do to stop them that won't make the situation markedly worse.
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Mar 11, 2016 16:50
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MaxxBot posted:I oppose taking out Assad but 90% of my opposition comes not from the actual taking out Assad part but about what would happen afterwards. The US military is great as destroying clear targets but we cannot create stability out of nothing in a catastrophically unstable region. If Assad were killed there would be a power vacuum for which the US would obviously blamed, and I'm extremely skeptical of our ability to somehow fix the problem. Why would we be any more successful here than in Iraq or Afghanistan? Even if we were successful we could get no credit and everyone in the region would still hate us and blame us for everything bad that happened because of our ugly history in the region. It's a lose/lose/lose/lose situation and really the only thing the US can do at this point is pull back from this clusterfuck. Agreed. I think the best outcome we can hope for in Syria is for Assad to remain in power, but with only enough power to keep the country relatively stable, while at the same time having his ability to commit atrocities against his own citizens minimized. Obviously that's an insanely difficult balance to achieve, and realistically we'll probably never bullseye it, but we can at least try to aim for something close to where Saddam was between 1992 and 2003. (when, of course, we totally upended that balance and hosed everything up, because yaaaay neoconservatism) Doctor Butts posted:I thought this was a very good article and I don't think any Presidential candidate can come across as being as thoughtful as President Obama. It's a low bar to clear, but I think that's a valid thing to keep in mind. Whatever criticisms people may have of Obama's foreign policy, there can be no question that he's been more thoughtful about it than any of his likely successors probably will.
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Mar 11, 2016 20:23
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Volkerball posted:I too think that a period in which 500,000 children starved to death You know that's not what I'm talking about, Volkerball. I didn't say anything about crippling sanctions.
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Mar 11, 2016 20:33
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Volkerball posted:From the day he took office until August 2nd, 1990, Saddam spent basically every day of his Presidency wrapped up fighting an offensive war he started. From August 6th 1990, the day sanctions started, to the beginning of the Iraq invasion, he didn't start one. Totally unrelated, I'm sure. I would say the far greater impact was made by the absolute destruction of the Iraqi military in the first Gulf War.
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Mar 11, 2016 20:41
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icantfindaname posted:Obama's already using sternly-worded letters as his major foreign policy tool in the ME, and it hasn't worked very well Keeping an air power coalition together to bomb ISIS and support anti-ISIS insurgent groups, while at the same time doing everything possible to keep Saudi Arabia and Iran from turning it into a proxy war = "sternly-worded letters"?
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Mar 11, 2016 20:53
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icantfindaname posted:In dealing with Assad. Those issues are sideshows compared to the Assad vs Rebels fight, which Obama has refused to intervene in Getting Assad to turn over the vast majority of his chemical weapons arsenal doesn't strike me as a refusal to intervene. icantfindaname posted:So basically we should let millions of Arab civilians get murdered because it's good PR for Obama and the Democrats? No, we shouldn't directly intervene because we don't have a very good record of actually making things better in the region through full-on military intervention.
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Mar 11, 2016 20:59
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icantfindaname posted:So as Volkerball said Assad didn't actually turn over the majority of his chemical weapons. That's a ridiculous assertion. There's no evidence that he held onto "the majority" of his chemical weapons. He's held onto some, but you're seriously overestimating the amount. quote:The results of our interventions have actually been dramatically better than the result of our non-intervention in Syria. 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. icantfindaname posted:Your side has already established that it prefers millions of dead Arabs to the moral stain of intervention Millions of dead Arabs is the direct result of our intervention, Jesus dude.
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Mar 11, 2016 21:09
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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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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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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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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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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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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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blowfish posted:wtf is that baby head The Avshalom doctrine.
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Mar 13, 2016 08:46
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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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JFairfax posted:The USA heavily supported Mubarak since the early 1980s. Eh, I actually wouldn't go quite that far - or, more precisely, I'd say it's a little more complicated than that. I think the degree to which our leaders have usually cared about the well-being of the populace of these countries has been pretty low, but there was a rather naive, blindered narrative in which, regardless of how brutal the Pinochets or Mubaraks were/are, at least they're not Communists/Islamists. Therefore, the population in those countries will still somehow be better off, and we can deal with replacing those leaders or pressuring them to become truly democratic later. Who cares if tens of thousands die - you have to break a few eggs etc etc, and the Communists/Islamists would kill far more, wouldn't they? That's been the narrative, regardless of whether or not it's factually true, and it allows our leaders to feel good about the decisions they've made and sleep well at night. A few of them are outright sociopaths that don't care at all, but a lot of them genuinely think they're making the right decisions in backing these monsters - they just don't care enough to actually find out if that's true or not. e: I understand that that probably seems like I'm splitting hairs, but hey - it's a cultural mindset within the U.S. national security apparatus that does need to change, so I think it helps to pinpoint what the mindset actually is. 
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Mar 14, 2016 17:14
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Xandu posted:Saudi Arabia is none too happy with this article, and has pretty much accepted that their relationship with Obama is done. Inshallah. Seriously, I'm very glad they're acting like such whiny babies about this. Hopefully this will just strengthen the administration's pivot towards Iran. e: quote:Or is it because you have pivoted to Iran so much that you equate the Kingdom’s 80 years of constant friendship with America to an Iranian leadership that continues to describe America as the biggest enemy, that continues to arm, fund and support sectarian militias in the Arab and Muslim world, that continues to harbor and host Al-Qaeda leaders, that continues to prevent the election of a Lebanese president through Hezbollah, which is identified by your government as a terrorist organization, that continues to kill the Syrian Arab people in league with Bashar Assad? Not sure this is the most compelling argument a Saudi prince could be making... Majorian fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 20:10
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Discendo Vox posted:My impression is that one of the main reasons the administration backed away from the Red Line was that Russia appeared unusually willing to support the Assad regime. Kristov posted:Yeah, plus that whole stopping Iran from getting nukes thing. If you take out their only buddy in the region they're probably just going to double down. Exactly, and it's encouraging to see the President recognizing that, right or wrong, the Kremlin views this facet of their foreign policy as a "vital interest." We don't. So...advantage Kremlin in that regard. That said, Putin is saying he's withdrawing troops from Syria, which is a pleasant surprise: quote:Putin, at a meeting in the Kremlin with his defense and foreign ministers, said Russian military forces in Syria had largely fulfilled their objectives and ordered an intensification of Russia's diplomatic efforts to broker a peace deal in the country. We'll see what that means, though, obviously.
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Mar 14, 2016 20:25
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icantfindaname posted:The Soviet Union was at the peak of its power in 1945. I don't actually think the US has meaningfully changed in power dynamics with regards to the rest of the world over the last 100 years. We did have nuclear supremacy from '45-'49 actually...
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Mar 15, 2016 09:06
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