Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Coming War in the Middle East (2013)

hoover.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 91 posts

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

#71

Post by ralmidani »

finid wrote: post #56
ralmidani wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The protests were peaceful, eh? So the govt forces that were killed during those "peaceful" protests shot themselves.

That's the problem with ideology. Facts don't matter, and history can be revised to fit the desired narrative.

Countless videos show assad forces shooting at unarmed protesters, in some cases killing and wounding dozens. I do not deny some soldiers were killed in the early stages of the Revolution. Some were killed for refusing to follow orders. Others may have been killed in isolated incidents.

But again, the protests were largely peaceful, and assad forces were (and still are) responsible for the majority of deaths.

Edit: typo

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

#72

Post by jwtadvice »

finid wrote: post #69
pault wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly off topic: does anyone know of any forums/news aggregators of comparable quality to the HN community (e.g. generally well informed, polite, and strictly moderated/self-moderated) that focus on geopolitics?

I'll like to know that too. Geopolitics is my thing, but haven't found a non-partisan site to engage.

Have you found a partisan site(s)?

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

#73

Post by jwtadvice »

ufmace wrote: post #24
hx87 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the conspiracy theory narrative, and it's the real real absurdity here. US ambassadors don't have the power to raise hell on the streets of any given country, especially in one where a significant portion of the population have long-standing and legitimate aggrievances against the current government.

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…

> Which serves to infantilize the entire population of every other country in the world.

With due respect the United States is a global hegemonic superpower. Sure it isn't all powerful, but to recognize it's influence as punching above the weight of foreign populations isn't to infantilize them.

Nor can the OP be appropriately summarized the way you did. It's really easy to defeat straw men, sure, but the people who contribute to Hacker News are intelligent enough to recognize that straw man for what it is.

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

#74

Post by finid »

nickik wrote: post #37
sremani wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no "liberal" syrian rebels, the factions america along with Saudis are supporting are Sunni militias which are cousins if not brothers of AQ. You have divided interests of Kurds, Turks, Alawite regime + Russian, Sunni Militias + Saudi + USA, Iraqi Shia + Iran each having their varied interests. Assad wants ISIS to linger around since the focus would be on it rather than him, and he is focused on fighting th…

The Kurds are not unified, and the Turks don't universally oppose them. The Syrian Kurds do not want to create a independent Kurdistan, while the Iraqi Kurds (KGP) do, and they are on good terms with the Turks. The US support of different groups has been overplayed. The US efforts were rather small and "in bed with AQ" is just spouting new headlines. The US tired to build a fraction, but failed, they have largely aba…

The US support of different groups has been overplayed. The US efforts were rather small and "in bed with AQ" is just spouting new headlines. The US tired to build a fraction, but failed, they have largely abandoned the effort.

I hate when people write stuff like that! Thanks largely to Russian intervention, the US/Saudi/Qatar axis has, so far, failed to topple Assad. But no, they've not given up.

Far from it.

"Assad must go" is still official policy. Just remember that we have boots on the ground. Rebels (read: terrorists) are being pummeled in Aleppo, but we're still doing all we can to to support them.

The real obstacle is Russian firepower. Without, it, Assad would have been history, and Syria in worse shape that it is right now.

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

#75

Post by jwtadvice »

ars wrote: post #70
jwtadvice wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's correct. The proposed pipeline goes from Qatar, though Saudi Arabia, through Syria, into Turkey and then would provide Natural Gas to Europe. There's a second proposed pipeline people often don't talk about... it would go from Iran, through Iraq, through Syria to Europe. Guess which one Europe and the United States want.

You can just route it a bit to the East and bypass Syria completely, going directly from Iraq to Turkey. If you are willing to go underwater you can go through Jordan, Israel and Cypress. I get that it's a bit shorter to go through Syria, but a war, just for that? There's a major station in Doğubeyazıt, you can link to that.

This is a silly comment for the fact that there are no such pipelines being evaluated or proposed. The argument rests on the idea that there are good ways to bypass Syria (there aren't).

And no, the war is not merely about this pipeline. But it is one of the 'prizes' at stake which has gotten the support of foreign countries spending money and shipping arms into Syria proxy forces (notably, in this case, Qatar).

Take a look at the Center for Strategic and International Studies policy assessment for Gulf Countries during the Syrian Proxy Conflict: https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/1...

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

#77

Post by knz »

jwtadvice wrote: post #61
knz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise with genocide. There is a reason "we" get involved in some conflicts.

Right, like in Bahrain? Unfortunately the history of US intervention is entirely ruled by strategic objectives, and the popular support narrative ruled by cherrypicked facts and selective attention to context.

I don't disagree but that is probably true of every country. Military engagement is always going to be driven by the foreign policy and objectives of a country.

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

#78

Post by PerfectDlite »

ars wrote: post #57
X86BSD wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ab…

> So they want to build a pipeline from Qutar to the med through Syria. They want to what??? You really need to look at a map before saying things like that. I just..... Do you realize Qatar is on the coast? Why would you need to build a pipeline to another coast? And why go through Syria of all places? There are so many other routes you can take, and you think they want Syria so badly they triggered a war?

> They want to what??? You really need to look at a map before saying things like that.

That's the popular 'opinion' induced by Russian propaganda and they're notorious for ignoring the reality.

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

#79

Post by ordinary »

pault wrote: post #51
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…

Slightly off topic: does anyone know of any forums/news aggregators of comparable quality to the HN community (e.g. generally well informed, polite, and strictly moderated/self-moderated) that focus on geopolitics?

I enjoy /r/geopolitics.

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

#80

Post by finid »

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…

What you wrote about Obama is actually correct.

True, Obama came in with a set of foreign policy objectives that were not inline with standing US foreign policy. So he lost that battle.

He was very reluctant to involve the military, especially in the ME. So in Libya, for example, and even in Syria, he was accused of leading from behind.

Even with respect to Russia, recall that he wanted to "reset" relations with that country, but that, too, was not in line with what the military guys, that is, the guys who actually run the country, wanted. So he lost that battle too.

Post reply on HN