wonder what would happen if the West completely withdrew from all interests in the middle east and 'left them to it'?
ISIS in Iraq and Syria
- Thread starter Suli
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We'd have no oil.
leaving that aside Captain obvious
The Gulf Arab states would be fecked, Iran would become top dog and Israel would probably be more diplomatic without US weaponry and the UNSC veto.
And you'd have no oil.
Why would we have no oil? Supply and demand would still be at work.
Am I missing something? why couldnt western states continue to trade with those countries? We dont need to fight wars to buy oil.
Middle East needs revenues from oil as much as the West needs to grease their economies.
Serious instability in the region would cause wild fluctuations in the price of oil, which would be disastrous for western economies. The reason they go to such great lengths to avoid a complete meltdown in the region is about maintaining a relatively stable price, rather than continued supply.
Armageddon
Would there be serious instability if we took a step a back? It's not like things a nice and dandy as it stands.
The price of oil would go up the global economy would probably plunge into crisis as a result.
Oi! We have plenty of oil here in Canada. Just need to build that Keystone pipeline and it's all good.
except SA almost every single country is already instable as feck.
Almost certainly.
I was under the assumption that by "withdraw all interests" he meant trading too.
i wasnt really thinking about trading, was more withdraw troops, close down embassies, dont get involved in peace talks. Basically only time we talk to them is when we want to trade.
The USA/UK and allies are blamed for destabilizing the region. Which is it?
In which case:
- Gulf Arab States would be fecked
- Iran would likely be top dog
- Israel would probably be more inclined towards diplomacy and peace
Well, 2 out of 3 isn't bad right?
First two probably. Third one, I think the opposite if anything.
The last one is highly unlikely. If anything, it will give Israel even more reason to be belligerent. Even if their neighbors teamed up, Israel has the ability to destroy them in the field. If the Arab nations decided to strike up jihad against them, they'd have few scruples against decimating the opposition.
The second one is also unlikely because Israel wouldn't let it happen. They have the ability to strike at Iran, as they did with Syria and Iraq, and Saudi probably wouldn't mind looking the other way if it happened given the Iranian threat to them.
Nice video from Kobane countryside of ISIS rats running.
Yeah I read that too today. I'd laugh if it wasn't so tragic.
Just watched the first half hour, my god that was tedious - 25 minutes of Curtis just throwing together every second of supposedly relevant footage he's managed to uncover, all backed by the sinister, gloomy soundtrack he always uses, with about 5 minutes of genuinely interesting footage (the Roosevelt-Ibn Sa'ud meeting and some of the 1950s Helmand development project). Does it continue on like this? Because I'd actually like to see what point he's trying to drive home (I can guess given his politics, but would like to see it all the same), but no way I'm sitting through another 1 hour 45 mins collage of irrelevant snippets of footage ranging from the 1940s to the 2000s,
Just watched the trailer and couldn't make sense of the purpose of half the footage. If the whole thing is like that then I think I will pass.
I've just finished watching it and I agree. There a good history lesson in there as well. I certainly learnt a thing or two.
A good watch.
I was getting annoyed at that too. A lot of completely irrelevant clips that didn't fit the timeline.
And for anyone outside the UK that doesn't have access to BBC iplayer
This is what happens when you think a text written by primitive man well over a thousand of years ago is the divine word of the Almighty master of the universe. Logic went out the window a long time before they started burning and maiming people.
Interesting as some points, incredibly tedious at times as well.
Only other thing I've seen from Curtis is the Power of Nightmares, and there seems to be two distinct documentary styles employed. Some of his strongest points and the most interesting sections are tangents based upon his Power of Nightmares argument
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I don't get the logic behind FNC, GOP, and supporting based constantly claiming Pres Obama does nothing to combat terrorism. Further dismantling of Al Qaeda forces, killing Bin Laden, increased drone strikes, covert ops missions, supplying aid and weapons to nations, etc. That's no more or less than his predecessors did, outside invading a sovereign nation. The voices opposing Pres Obama conveniently fail to mention that our colossal feckup in Iraq created ISIL/ISIS.
Is the Jordanian president actually going to fly combat missions? Because seeing how the right has reacted in the US, with the endless images of the Jordan president in uniform vs the US president riding a bicycle, one would be led to believe such. We also saw this nonsense with Putin images. Either way, no US president has fought in a war during his tenure. It's possibly forbidden to avoid a military state.
Actually, I do get the logic. Create a false narrative, rile up the supporting base, use the GOP voice outlet (i.e. FNC), and garner more votes.
Is the Jordanian president actually going to fly combat missions? Because seeing how the right has reacted in the US, with the endless images of the Jordan president in uniform vs the US president riding a bicycle, one would be led to believe such. We also saw this nonsense with Putin images. Either way, no US president has fought in a war during his tenure. It's possibly forbidden to avoid a military state.
Actually, I do get the logic. Create a false narrative, rile up the supporting base, use the GOP voice outlet (i.e. FNC), and garner more votes.
i was hoping both parties would stay away from the middle east, iraq, syria and libya are a good example of "how to feck up the world even more"
Had exactly the same thought a couple days ago.
Surely it'd just mean crazy regimes (ala N.Korea style) and trade deals?
Excellent map of the situation in the Kobane countryside right now. YPG, FSA and Peshmerga, assisted by US air strikes, are advancing rapidly on a daily basis. Soon, operations will begin to liberate the key border towns of Jarablus and Tel Abyad. Both of these towns are the main way that ISIS get their fighters and supplies from Turkey.
The collapse of ISIS across the Kurdish regions of Northern Syria indicate how effective these forces are in fighting the terror group and how they should have the so called Anti ISIS coalition backing, and arming, them.
The collapse of ISIS across the Kurdish regions of Northern Syria indicate how effective these forces are in fighting the terror group and how they should have the so called Anti ISIS coalition backing, and arming, them.
Where you getting these maps?
The Kurds have taken that much territory? Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that Kobane was contested?
Yep
As I've said in this thread, ISIS fighters are running so quickly back to their strongholds now that Kobane is gone. In fact, they haven't even put up a fight for any of these villages, because nearly all of them are absolutely deserted. The real conflict comes when we advance into their towns, as we are doing now. At the moment, it's just a race between the beardos on who can run back the fastest with their pants still up.
Reddit and Twitter have accounts that produce excellent, reliable maps.
Is it true IS were also chased out of most of Aleppo Province in the last week or so?
Yeah they're withdrawing from that area quite a lot atm. Bare in mind that area includes Jarablus and other towns that the YPG + FSA are near to and will attack in the coming weeks. There is no point in ISIS putting up a point in these areas as they will inevitably lose, so they seem to be gathering all their scattered fighters to bolster defences elsewhere, like in Raqqa, or support attacks such as around Deir Ezzor. They've had quite a big collapse in the past weeks, and one of the key factors has been the loss in Kobane and everything that comes with it.
I know I'm like a week overdue on this, but I'd like to point out the stuff you also learn about at Uni, but you don't necessary go on about when you talk about degrees:
I know the topic here is history, but this criticism concept applies to pretty much any field with social sciences and humaniora. A bit of a linchpin for me, as an historian, in a time when a disturbing number of people seem to take almost anything they find on Youtube as solid gold. I've seen a few vids about Holocaust denial which looks pretty convincing for someone with no knowledge about the topic, for instance.
Now, I haven't seen those videos in that link a few pages back, and I am not going after anyone involved in the discussion, I just think people should be a tad more aware of these six points above and maybe turn to some of the heavy boring bricks of books written by guys with years of ballast in their bag for solid knowledge.
Anyway, sorry for going violently off topic.