Michael wrote:grzegorz wrote:Fellow Terrorists,
I suggest the U.S. just leaves the Middle East alone and just buys their baklava.
By the way, Frontline's Obama's War illustrates the headache called Syria very well.
I'll take a look.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obama-at-war/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/obama-at-war/transcript-84/Some interesting quotes from the program.
ROBERT FORD: The Syrian protesters were just very surprised that I came. They surrounded our car. My bodyguard was— was very afraid.
OUBAI SHAHBANDAR, Syrian Opposition: But when the people saw that the American ambassador was coming, they came up to his car and were throwing flowers. They were throwing olive branches. They were excited. The Americans were here. They were showing their solidarity.
ROBERT FORD: They were happy that the international community was paying attention to them. They believed that my presence would deter the government from sending in security forces, which they said would create havoc and violence.
DEMONSTRATORS: [subtitles] The people want the downfall of the regime!
Do you think it is appropriate for the US ambassador to Syria to join this kind of demonstration? Is this diplomacy? The USA diplomats also did this in Moscow in 2009,Beijing in 2011 and Kiev 2014; they were in the streets in the middle of protests. I think it's contrary to diplomacy for an ambassador to take such a prominent position against the current government.
Pres. BARACK OBAMA: We have been very clear to the Assad regime 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.
DAVID ROTHKOPF, CEO and Editor, Foreign Policy: That was not, apparently, a planned thing. He said it in response to a question from a reporter who was asking about the use of chemical weapons.
An off hand and unplanned remark from President Obama during a news conference on a different topic created the red line that almost drew the USA into another Middle East War. Does this reflect an intelligent foreign policy capable of producing good results in Syria?
MARTIN SMITH: It began when a reporter in London asked Secretary Kerry how Assad could possibly avoid a strike.
JOHN KERRY, Secretary of State: He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week, turn it over, all of it, without delay, and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it. And it can’t be done, obviously.
MARTIN SMITH: It was an off-hand remark. But it got the attention of Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. He contacted his Syrian counterpart, who got Assad to agree.
Obama went on network TV to sell the idea to the American public.
An off-hand and pessimistic remark, essentially a diplomatic gaffe by Kerry provided an opening for Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov to propose a diplomatic solution to destroying all of Syria's chemical weapons. The USA was a day or two away from an air campaign on Syria when the British parliament went against the bombing [read the Seymour Hersch article posted earlier for a theory why] and luckily this solution was proposed by Russia.
39 minutes
ROBERT FORD: When you’re in a civil war and the side that’s fighting you is dropping barrel bombs, killing indiscriminately, when it is using chemical weapons, and then someone comes to you and says, “We will help defend you against those people—” I think it’s human nature to seek the help of those who will defend you against this external threat that’s killing you, arresting you, torturing you.
Is it really a surprise that— that Syrian opposition and the people that support them would seek the help of anybody to get rid of the regime that is inflicting this pain?
Moderate rebels join ISIS.
DEREK CHOLLET, Asst. Sec. of Defense, 2012-15: The fall of Mosul was something that we had not anticipated. And the suddenness with which that fall occurred was something that— that was a shock. They seized everything from small arms to light-armored vehicles to anti-aircraft weapons.
When terrorists of this kind get their hands on weapons, it was a huge concern to us. I don’t think we truly understood the depth of the problem until the fall of Mosul.
MARTIN SMITH: [on camera] For all the contingency planning that you routinely do here at the Pentagon, were there plans for how to react to the fall of Mosul to ISIS?
Gen. MARTIN DEMPSEY: Well, no, there were not, because, of course— so, look, there were several things that surprised us about ISIL, the degree to which they were able to form their own coalition both inside of Syria and inside of northwestern Iraq, the military capability that they exhibited, the collapse of the Iraqi security forces. Yeah, in those initial days, there were a few surprises.
DAVID ROTHKOPF, CEO and Editor, Foreign Policy: Within in the White House, the reaction was shock and concern that it looked like they were losing Iraq. But there was very little action. Mosul, the second biggest city in Iraq, even that was not enough to really motivate action.
USA surprised at ISIS ability, total failure of USA trained Iraq security forces who leave all kinds of weapons for ISIS. USA has no plan for what to do.
47:50
JOSHUA LANDIS: In a sense, Washington needs Assad today. That’s the horrible truth. We don’t want to ally with Assad, but we— strategically, we’re allied with Assad. He is a bulwark against the spread of ISIS today. We’re trying to destroy ISIS. But if America destroyed Assad and helped that agenda to come forward, who’s going to take Damascus? It’s going to be ISIS and Nusra.
This is the truth. Assad's government and army is the only way to stop ISIS in Syria or Iraq.
OUBAI SHAHBANDAR, Syrian Opposition: The Assad regime is still using chlorine gas bombs against Syrian civilians. Now, chlorine gas is certainly of less lethality than Sarin gas, but it is a chemical weapon, nonetheless. So you have a regime that’s using chlorine gas continuously against the civilian populace without international repercussions.
Has not been proven that Syrian army ever used chemical weapons. Assad's response to the charge is that such weapons are ineffective and the international inspectors have not confirmed the accusations about who is responsible.
51:00
Col. ANDREW BACEVICH (Ret.), Author, The Limits of Power: History shows pretty emphatically— history of the last 30, 40 years— that our efforts to police the Middle East haven’t worked. And when you talk about moral obligations, there is also a moral obligation, it seems to me, to take history seriously, to learn from one’s mistakes rather than simply to insist that if we try harder next time, we will get a better outcome.
Many of the particulars about what should be done in Syria in regards to the Assad government and whether or not to give military support to the armed Syrian opposition in the past or now can be answered in what has happened in the past 25 years of USA/UK/NATO military involvement in the Middle East. There is no need to speculate about the outcome in Syria because it's already played out in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. That's what happens when the USA uses military force in the Middle East.