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The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

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Re: The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

#41

Post by [deleted] »

ralmidani wrote: post #10
finid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to predict a war long after it has started. It's like predicting WW II in 1942. The Syrian war, which we have a heavy hand in - before and after it began, started in 2011. That article was written in 2013. And did you check the bio of the author. It's easy to predict a war after it has started and when you have inside knowledge and a hand in how the war should proceed and end.

The notion that the Syrian Revolution began with foreign (especially US) meddling is absurd. In 2011, the US was in the process of normalizing relations with the assad regime. Obama had appointed a new ambassador the year before. Clinton thought assad was a 'reformer.' The war broke out for a very simple reason: assad's forces kept shooting peaceful protesters. Despite assad's violence, the Revolution remained largel…

[deleted]

Re: The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

#42

Post by X86BSD »

ralmidani wrote: post #10
finid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to predict a war long after it has started. It's like predicting WW II in 1942. The Syrian war, which we have a heavy hand in - before and after it began, started in 2011. That article was written in 2013. And did you check the bio of the author. It's easy to predict a war after it has started and when you have inside knowledge and a hand in how the war should proceed and end.

The notion that the Syrian Revolution began with foreign (especially US) meddling is absurd. In 2011, the US was in the process of normalizing relations with the assad regime. Obama had appointed a new ambassador the year before. Clinton thought assad was a 'reformer.' The war broke out for a very simple reason: assad's forces kept shooting peaceful protesters. Despite assad's violence, the Revolution remained largel…

This is all false. The reason the US suddenly wanted to kill Assad is very simple.

Qutar has natural gas.

Europe relies almost solely on Russia for natgas.

The west doesn't like that at all. So they want to build a pipeline from Qutar to the med through Syria.

Assad says absolutely not.

Assad is now enemy number one for denying the pipeline which would've freed Europe from Russia's natgas stranglehold.

This is all about energy folks. It's that simple.

Re: The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

#43

Post by nickik »

ars wrote: post #26
saiya-jin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this advice should have been used and adhered to for last 50 years, and the world would be truly much better place. what a dream...

Sort of. Most of the time America intervened not for the benefit of the locals, but for its own (or its allies) benefit (including as a proxy against Russia). It's harder to criticize that. It's bad for the locals, but America needs to do what's good for America. In this case though, it's entirely "for" the locals, so America should stay out of it because it's not actually helping the locals.

The Iraq war has been called "The worst foreign policy mistake since Vietnam" by Ambassadors, CIA directors, policy analysis's, foreign relation professors and more.

The US had plans, if those plans had worked out, it would have been good for the US. These objectives failed.

All expert universally agree that the US policy has many helped Iran, not the US.

Re: The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

#44

Post by blahi »

enraged_camel wrote: post #33
ars wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of. Most of the time America intervened not for the benefit of the locals, but for its own (or its allies) benefit (including as a proxy against Russia). It's harder to criticize that. It's bad for the locals, but America needs to do what's good for America. In this case though, it's entirely "for" the locals, so America should stay out of it because it's not actually helping the locals.

It's difficult to claim that America's actions in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world have been good for America. In fact, the only war America participated in that ended up being a net good for America was World War 2, which resulted in the devastation of much of Europe and allowed American industries to expand and advance virtually unchallenged for almost 50 years. The Vietnam War however was a disaster of e…

What do you think were the objectives in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and the prolonged interference in the middle east as a whole?

Re: The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

#45

Post by ralmidani »

finid wrote: post #16
ralmidani wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that the Syrian Revolution began with foreign (especially US) meddling is absurd. In 2011, the US was in the process of normalizing relations with the assad regime. Obama had appointed a new ambassador the year before. Clinton thought assad was a 'reformer.' The war broke out for a very simple reason: assad's forces kept shooting peaceful protesters. Despite assad's violence, the Revolution remained largel…

That's the official (US) narrative, and it's the real absurdity here. You should find out how those "peaceful protests" started, and the activities of the US ambassador to Syria just before the protests broke out. It's from the same playbook that was used successfully in Libya and Ukraine, and almost succeeded a few years ago in Cuba. It's an interesting exercise if you have the time. Venezuela is in the same neighbo…

I am from Syria. I've been following events there from the very beginning. The protests were indeed peaceful, despite your use of air quotes in an attempt to defame.

Re: The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

#46

Post by mason240 »

nickik wrote: post #39
mason240 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That advice is what lead to ISIS in the first place, when the US withdrew from Iraq too early before it was stable enough.

You seem to live under the assumption that everything would have been better with the US there. That is a fantasy world that some right wing people live in. First of all, the US had a signed a agreement, breaking that would have been terrible (maybe read something about the history of foreign military bases that were not wanted in Iraq). Second, the US could not have sustained the force for financial reasons. Third,…

>First of all, the US had a signed a agreement, breaking that would have been terrible

The agreement was perused because the US government wanted to withdraw. I have no idea what you are trying to argue here (aside from circular logic). If the US didn't didn't withdraw ... it wouldn't have negotiated a withdrawl.

>Second, the US could not have sustained the force for financial reasons.

This is false.

>Third, the US had done a horrible job of setting up the state and fixing that would have been almost impossible.

Also false. At any rate, it was the Iraqis that elected leaders to draft their constitution and developed their government.

>Staying there even longer and spending even more money

And the Syrian refugee crisis coupled with our current and future involvement in Syria is free?

>The US has already shown that they are absolutely terrible at nation building.

You mean aside from the successes in Europe, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and others, right?

Re: The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

#47

Post by idlewords »

nickik wrote: post #9

This is a pretty good article and worth a read for people who are not already informed. They were not completely correct. They seem to underestimate the stability and staying power of Jordan. Both US and Israel help to make sure that Jordan is protected. Stability of monarchies are typically underestimated. Syria's government has not fallen, and Nusra (now Jabhat Fateh al-Sham) never managed to unify the rebel to any…

They're Houthi, not Hutti (for the benefit of anyone trying to Google).

Iona Craig and Peter Salisbury are both excellent on the current, horrible proxy war in Yemen.

Re: The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

#48

Post by blahi »

clarry wrote: post #31
mwfunk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but how? As an American I can try to vote for politicians that are opposed to meddling in the region, but the most that would do is create a non-meddling America. That's not going to affect the policies of other countries. In fact, a non-meddling America would likely open the door for even more meddling by countries like Russia. So: how? I really want to know.

I don't think Russia is interested in meddling. If anything, it seems like a made up "threat" the US officials can use to justify whatever the heck they're doing.

As somebody from Eastern Europe, I can assure you that Russia is most definitely interested in meddling, controlling political parties, parliament, almost all the newspapers, key industries, online comments and pretty much everything in my country and I suspect the countries around me.

I know it is a joke, but I really have to say: THANKS OBAMA.

Re: The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

#49

Post by hx87 »

saganus wrote: post #35
ufmace wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a conspiracy theory so much as a oddly popular Chompsky-ite view of foreign policy that can be summarized only a little tounge-in-cheek as: America is somehow responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened anywhere in the world. Nothing bad can happen anywhere without it somehow being a result of something that America did. Which serves to infantilize the entire population of every other country in t…

I was under the impression that it's not so much about America being responsible for every bad thing in the world, but that historically America has been taking advantage of those thousands of years of history, culture and of course conflict, to their own benefit. So if due to some political agenda there is profit or benefits to be reaped from nudging certain conflicts this or that way, there's a high probability tha…

It's one thing to have a vested interest in an event happening, another to be competent (and lucky) enough to pull that event off yourself. Nudging is easier, but then you can't put 99% of the blame on the nudger.

Re: The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

#50

Post by jwtadvice »

This article is okay, but it misses much of the context.

For example it says: "Just as Al Qaeda in Iraq has ostensibly been fighting to free Baghdad from what it calls heretical “Persian”—read “Shia”—domination, the Nusrah Front today fights to free Syria from the supposedly heretical rule of the nominally Shia Alawite regime of Bashar al Assad."

But then later posits: "If Al Qaeda/Nusrah can establish a base in Jordan, Saudi Arabia will find itself threatened by Al Qaeda franchises on both north and south that will be well-positioned to resume the pursuit of Al Qaeda’s core goal of toppling the Saudi monarchy and “liberating” the holy cities of Mecca and Medina."

Al Qaeda is and has been fighting a pan-Islamist fight to extricate foreign influence - what it sees as continued colonialism - from the Arab World.

Interestingly, both the Ba-athists (Shia governments of Syria and Iraq) and Al Qaeda claim to be fighting against the forces of foreign manipulation. The Ba-athists approach it from a Pan-Arab manner rather than Pan-Islamist, but have histories of Western support (indeed the Alawites in Syria were originally militarily conceived by the French and the prior Sunni regime in Iraq conceived by the British) that can spoil their claim to independence.

The article also misses the regional proxy war aspect, where Gulf Countries and the United States have been arming proxy groups to achieve geostrategic ends, such as the establishment of energy pipelines and determining the future of Mediterranean access.

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