(06-23-2016 12:00 AM)shiftyeagle Wrote: We should have backed the Assad regime. Yes, he is an awful person. But this goes back to the whole "let's oust Saddam Hussein because he is also a terrible person" scenario. There was relative stability there and now it is total chaos.
We are backing rebels who hate us. Who are fighting both the Assad regime, who hates us, and ISIL, who harbors a hate for all non-Muslims more than words can possibly explain.
Our strategery over there has been awful. I think we are siding with the rebels just so we don't "side with the Russians." Old habits die hard I suppose.
Our dislike of the Assad regime is far more complex than that. When the war started, it was a spontaneous revolution. And after Assad attacked his own people, again, it has been and remains clear that Assad can never enforce any peace in Syria. There are tribal and religious contexts to this conflict. We couldn't have stopped this from exploding even if we were willing to invade.
Of course, the US is going to condemn gas attacks on civilians. And we're going to call for democracy. Don't confuse that with intervention.
We aren't backing ANYONE in Syria. Because there really aren't any good players there that have any support. Obama knew damn well that the GOP wasn't going to authorize him to do military support.
What we have done is to attack ISIS when they come after the Kurds or minorities in the region. But do so only in a very limited way and encourage the Kurds to fight for themselves FIRST and ask us to bail them out LAST.
Basically all the players that could have stopped this decided it was in their best interest to exploit this crisis. But they've all paid a heavy price for that.
Turkey (Erdogan) decided that he could line his pockets by laundering ISIS embargoed oil. To his credit, Biden 'let slip' (it was on purpose) a public statement calling them out on that. Turkey also felt that it was in their interest to prop up ISIS so they could attack the Kurds. They didn't get the Kurds, but did end up with 3 million Syrian refugees. Most likely result, Kurds will control even more of the border with Turkey. Total fail for Turkey. And completely self inflicted. The only advantage is that Turkey now has 3 million people it can threaten to send to Europe if they don't cooperate with him in certain respects. The EU was stupid to help him in any way.
The Saudis/Qataris have been supporting ISIS and al Nusra on the down low. Don't think that the Obama Administration didn't account for that in the Nuclear deal. Iran isn't our ally, but they're useful in some of the fighting (especially in the Iraqi portion of the fight). The Saudis miscalculated, badly. And their proxies are going to lose. Again. So what will happen is that ISIS will be replaced by some other Sunni group that will explode in Raqqa within 2 years of ISIS leaving. Because after this war, the Sunnis will never accept Shia/Alawite rule again.
The Iranians have largely been a winner on the geopolitical front, but their clients in Iraq have taken a terrible beating. And that has larger geopolitical consequences for the expansion of soft power in the region. They've been seen as ineffective as a sponsor of their Shia brethren, and worse, have to behave because they need the US to cooperate with them, especially in Iraq. Have y'all noticed that Hezbollah (the Iranian proxy in Lebanon has been VERY quiet recently)?
The Russians got involved for hubris reasons. They still have their port, but they're stuck there, and its going to be expensive to continue. A fair portion of their military is tied down in Crimea, the Donbass, and Syria too, which limits their flexibility in other areas. Their action there also ruined the bromance between Erdogan and Putin and has caused Russia headaches elsewhere (Armenia) as Turkey has sought to expand the playing field of hybrid war.
The Kurds were largely the 'injured party' here. I believe that ISIS attacked them to get/maintain the support of Erdogan. But they've largely righted the ship and look to control pretty much the entire southern border of Turkey east of Aleppo when ISIS falls apart and is replaced by some other Sunni force (which will probably be al-Qaida based). At this point, it appears that the Kurds are going to double their area of control (or more) and might end up with Mosul. Now that ISIS is losing, the Kurds don't want this to stop. Of course, they have to be careful as not to bring more Turkish military assistance against them. But Turkey is constrained by the fiction that they are a NATO member.
From a cynical perspective, the US (and Israel) are being helped by this as all of its rivals blow each other to bits there. But the US would prefer this settle down. We don't need Lebanon or Jordan to get hit with this. We don't need Israel involved either. And the impact of billions of dollars of military hardware being funneled into that region will cause issues going forward too.
Of course there is one 'winner' at this point....Israel. But that could change quickly as a result of all the new combatants and military equipment in the region.
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If the US saw a path to resolve the conflict that would actually fix it for more than 2 months, sure. But there isn't one. So the only solution is to try to help out the civilians as much as you can, protect the Kurds as much as is practically possible (by the way, I don't doubt they'd screw us as quick as they could if there was some leverage in the region that could be gained from doing so), and generally work on keeping this conflict from expanding.
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Russian Air Force bombs base of US Backed Rebels. US Jets respond.
![[Image: 1449664643122266794.jpg]](http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--uIGvicZ8--/1449664643122266794.jpg)
