Putin and Russia in Syria

[DFreshKing]

It amazes me how and why people take sides in these horrors.

Do people here think that there is good and evil in what happens in these wars.

Do you really think for example Russia is terrible and America is a saviour or vice versa?

What we need is protest against all the murder that is taking place around the world - irrespective of the 'reasons'

 

[NinjaFletch]

It amazes me how and why people take sides in these horrors.

Do people here think that there is good and evil in what happens in these wars.

Do you really think for example Russia is terrible and America is a saviour or vice versa?

What we need is protest against all the murder that is taking place around the world - irrespective of the 'reasons'

So we're the good guys? Thought there were no sides?

 

[PedroMendez]

It amazes me how and why people take sides in these horrors.

Do people here think that there is good and evil in what happens in these wars.

Do you really think for example Russia is terrible and America is a saviour or vice versa?

What we need is protest against all the murder that is taking place around the world - irrespective of the 'reasons'

The caf is a good example of the effects of nationalism. Everyone roots for their "team", while the others are the bad guys. Well at least some American, Russian and middle eastern poster seem to do that.

 

[naturalized]

Right, let's protest then, all of us 6 billion strong. Let's start with ISIS, I think everyone can agree on them as being the worst players of all. Let's ask them to shut up shop.

... and then? Is there a step two to this plan?

 

[sun_tzu]

Right, let's protest then, all of us 6 billion strong. Let's start with ISIS, I think everyone can agree on them as being the worst players of all. Let's ask them to shut up shop.

... and then? Is there a step two to this plan?

bomb them if they wont play nicely?

 

[Raoul]

It amazes me how and why people take sides in these horrors.

Do people here think that there is good and evil in what happens in these wars.

Do you really think for example Russia is terrible and America is a saviour or vice versa?

What we need is protest against all the murder that is taking place around the world - irrespective of the 'reasons'

What good would such a protest do ? It certainly wouldn't stop anything that is happening now. What we actually need is a diplomatic solution to the Syria crisis, involving all stakeholders except ISIS of course. That's the only way we are likely to get out of this mess.

 

[Kaos]

What good would such a protest do ? It certainly wouldn't stop anything that is happening now. What we actually need is a diplomatic solution to the Syria crisis, involving all stakeholders except ISIS of course. That's the only way we are likely to get out of this mess.

Would you add Al Nusra to the exclusion list since they're, you know - Al Qaeda?

 

[DFreshKing]

So we're the good guys? Thought there were no sides?

What you referring to I can't make sense of your post.

 

[Danny1982]

Would you add Al Nusra to the exclusion list since they're, you know - Al Qaeda?

Um, no, duh! They're still in the "warriors for peace" phase right now.

Besides, if you take Al-Nusra out, and Ahrar Al-Sham out, and every single Al-Qaeda-related fraction out, whom do you think the US and its allies are going to fight their political opponents with? Those 4 to 5 trained fighters??

It was funny though inviting Ahrar Al-Sham to a conference aimed at "creating democracy" in Syria.

 

[DFreshKing]

What good would such a protest do ? It certainly wouldn't stop anything that is happening now. What we actually need is a diplomatic solution to the Syria crisis, involving all stakeholders except ISIS of course. That's the only way we are likely to get out of this mess.

So if the people of 'western democracies' made it clear that bombing and murder was not acceptable to them their governments would just ignore them?

Now I understand democracy a bit better.

 

[naturalized]

So if the people of 'western democracies' made it clear that bombing and murder was not acceptable to them their governments would just ignore them?

Now I understand democracy a bit better.

Clearly Western governments cannot indefinitely ignore the will of the people in the medium to long term - cf the rushed Obama withdrawal from Iraq, which played a big part in the rise of ISIS in the first place. Obviously.

But I was asking what happened in a miracle world where both Russia and the West had governments which were instantly responsive even to short term pressure of the type you describe. And then what? We ask ISIS to stop by sending them reports of how many people are protesting their actions world wide, they respond by literally wiping their ass with said report, and then what?

People who protest ISIS in territory they control often seem to end up dead for some reason, so I assume those living under their thumb right now won't be joining us, by the way.

 

[JustAFan]

Clearly Western governments cannot indefinitely ignore the will of the people in the medium to long term - cf the rushed Obama withdrawal from Iraq, which played a big part in the rise of ISIS in the first place. Obviously.

.

FYI the withdrawal from Iraq was done in compliance with an agreement set in place by President Bush. The agreement with the then Iraqi govt was made in 2008 with Dec 31, 2011 as the deadline.

 

[Raoul]

FYI the withdrawal from Iraq was done in compliance with an agreement set in place by President Bush. The agreement with the then Iraqi govt was made in 2008 with Dec 31, 2011 as the deadline.

This is something that often gets overlooked, especially by GOP candidates who like to blame Obama for something Bush initiated at the behest of Maliki, who had to strike a deal with Iran and the Sadrists to remain in power as PM. It was Maliki's subsequent sectarian reign that opened the door for ISIS to emerge out of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which the US had previously beaten into obscurity.

 

[Will Absolute]

FYI the withdrawal from Iraq was done in compliance with an agreement set in place by President Bush. The agreement with the then Iraqi govt was made in 2008 with Dec 31, 2011 as the deadline.

I can't honestly claim to have followed events closely, but I remember that a principal plank of Obama's campaign in 2008 was withdrawal from Irag; whereas his republican opponent, John McCain, said America could be in Iraq for 50 - 100 years. If Bush had already committed the US to withdrawal, how did that work?

Reading what Wiki has to say about the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, to which you refer, it seems things weren't completely clear-cut. Robert Gates, the US Secretary of Defense, envisaged that a residual force of 'several tens of thousands of American troops' might remain in Iraq - which,of course, would have completely stymied IS.

Are you saying that if McCain had been elected, the outcome would have been the same?

 

[JustAFan]

I can't honestly claim to have followed events closely, but I remember that a principal plank of Obama's campaign in 2008 was withdrawal from Irag; whereas his republican opponent, John McCain, said America could be in Iraq for 50 - 100 years. If Bush had already committed the US to withdrawal, how did that work?

Reading what Wiki has to say about the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, to which you refer, it seems things weren't completely clear-cut. Robert Gates, the US Secretary of Defense, envisaged that a residual force of 'several tens of thousands of American troops' might remain in Iraq - which,of course, would have completely stymied IS.

Are you saying that if McCain had been elected, the outcome would have been the same?

The agreement was in place before Obama took office and the actual withdrawal met the time table set out in the agreement. What McCain would have actually done had he been elected I can not say.

Remember that just because there was an election going on doesn't mean that Bush was not still in office in 2008.

 

[PedroMendez]

I remember, that most GOP politicans had the plan to (re)negotiate the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq and planned to leave troops in the country. Dunno if this was realistic, but at least that seems to be the narrative.

 

[naturalized]

FYI the withdrawal from Iraq was done in compliance with an agreement set in place by President Bush. The agreement with the then Iraqi govt was made in 2008 with Dec 31, 2011 as the deadline.

A bit of Googling - and I won't pretend I was fully aware of all this at the time I made my earlier post - shows very conclusively that the situation is far more complicated than "the deal was done and Obama had no say in the matter". Yes, the Status of Forces Agreement was in place and called for a withdrawal of troops. Yet:

It was widely assumed a new plan would be negotiated after the 2008 version expired in 2011. There were no stipulations about a specific number of American military personnel to be left behind.
Obama ran on the campaign pledge of bringing a responsible end to the Iraq War, and announced shortly after taking office that combat operations would end in 2010. A high of 168,000 U.S. service members were in the country after the 2007 surge, drawing down to about 43,000 after combat troops left in 2010.

He said in October 2011 almost all troops would be home by Christmas. About 200 Marines would stay to train the Iraqi army and act as security for diplomatic personnel. In short, he kept the 2011 timeline Bush and al-Maliki had chosen.

When it came time to renegotiate a new agreement, there was little consensus on whether a residual force should stay in the country. Military leaders in Baghdad and the Pentagon pushed for as many as 24,000, but the White House rejected that amount. (For the record, U.S. forces in South Korea number more than 28,500.)

Obama reportedly did consider leaving up to 10,000 troops in strategic locations after the exit, but that plan faced opposition both in the United States and in Iraq. Obama ruled out a force that size during an August 2011 conference call.

Negotiations led to the idea of a smaller, continuous force of 3,500 troops, with up to 1,500 more rotating in and out, and about a half-dozen F-16’s. But this plan ran into several roadblocks, including the insistence by Washington that those troops be immune to Iraqi -- although not American -- prosecution should they commit a crime.

Austin Long, a Columbia University international and public affairs professor, said al-Maliki allegedly supported the residual force and may have signed a new plan, but the Iraqi parliament would not. Facing the prospect of a weak agreement that didn’t protect remaining troops the way the United States wanted, when neither Baghdad nor Washington wanted to leave them there, negotiations broke down.

Anyone interested should read the full article - they've got bits from experts evaluating not just whether Obama was responsible for the pullout but also whether leaving troops behind could have been effective in cramping ISIS (tl;dr yes.)

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...refused-sign-plan-place-leave-10000-troops-i/

This checks out with news reporting of the pullout at the time.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203554104577003931424188806

Friday afternoon is a traditional time to bury bad news, so at 12:49 p.m. on Oct. 21 President Obama strode into the White House briefing room to "report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year—after nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over." He acted as though this represented a triumph, but it was really a defeat. The U.S. had tried to extend the presence of our troops past Dec. 31.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/w...-not-expected-troops-would-have-to-leave.html

President Obama’s announcement on Friday that all American troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year was an occasion for celebration for many, but some top American military officials were dismayed by the announcement, seeing it as the president’s putting the best face on a breakdown in tortured negotiations with the Iraqis.

And for the negotiators who labored all year to avoid that outcome, it represented the triumph of politics over the reality of Iraq’s fragile security’s requiring some troops to stay, a fact everyone had assumed would prevail. But officials also held out hope that after the withdrawal, the two countries could restart negotiations more productively, as two sovereign nations.This year, American military officials had said they wanted a “residual” force of as many as tens of thousands of American troops to remain in Iraq past 2011 as an insurance policy against any violence. Those numbers were scaled back, but the expectation was that at least about 3,000 to 5,000 American troops would remain.

Let me be clear I am not criticizing Obama from the right on this. (Nor does it have anything to do with my initial point, by the way!) It was a tough call and he made a rare misstep IMO. I doubt anybody could have seen how ISIS would have metastatized the way it did in 2011.

 

[naturalized]

A good analogy maybe would be the periodic debt ceiling government shutdowns the Americans experience when a previously negotiated extension expires. Yes, literally speaking, there's a deadline put into effect by your predecessors by which you are theoretically bound, but everyone understands and expects you to do something about it, and if you fail to do so - however intransigent your opponents were and however insurmountable the difficulties involved - then you're going to need to own at least part of the outcome.

 

[RedTiger]

What good would such a protest do ? It certainly wouldn't stop anything that is happening now. What we actually need is a diplomatic solution to the Syria crisis, involving all stakeholders except ISIS of course. That's the only way we are likely to get out of this mess.

At some point, even though it's highly repugnant, we need to talk to ISIS. As the Israelis say, there are new realities on the ground. No amount of munitions and passport controls are going to extinguish this threat, millions upon millions of people are going to die over the next 50 years yet I'll still hazard a guess and say that ISIS will still exist in some form or other.

As you can tell I'm a pessimist.

 

[naturalized]

At some point, even though it's highly repugnant, we need to talk to ISIS. As the Israelis say, there are new realities on the ground. No amount of munitions and passport controls are going to extinguish this threat, millions upon millions of people are going to die over the next 50 years yet I'll still hazard a guess and say that ISIS will still exist in some form or other.

As you can tell I'm a pessimist.

I see this fairly frequently on here and from the left, and I respect this view, but don't fully understand it. What could we possibly say or offer to them, and what would we expect in return? I can't see them realistically agreeing to stay within their present territory and cease further expansionism - that's literally their raison d'etre. And I can't see the international community accepting that a genocidal death cult - and that really is what they are - should be allowed to stay in existence, nor should it.

Obama is right on this - degrade and destroy without committing to large-scale ground intervention. I think it's already working, however slowly.

 

[JustAFan]

A bit of Googling - and I won't pretend I was fully aware of all this at the time I made my earlier post - shows very conclusively that the situation is far more complicated than "the deal was done and Obama had no say in the matter". Yes, the Status of Forces Agreement was in place and called for a withdrawal of troops. Yet:



Anyone interested should read the full article - they've got bits from experts evaluating not just whether Obama was responsible for the pullout but also whether leaving troops behind could have been effective in cramping ISIS (tl;dr yes.)

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...refused-sign-plan-place-leave-10000-troops-i/

This checks out with news reporting of the pullout at the time.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203554104577003931424188806



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/w...-not-expected-troops-would-have-to-leave.html



Let me be clear I am not criticizing Obama from the right on this. (Nor does it have anything to do with my initial point, by the way!) It was a tough call and he made a rare misstep IMO. I doubt anybody could have seen how ISIS would have metastatized the way it did in 2011.

I just pointed out that contrary to the claim it was a rushed decision it was the result of a plan put in place in 2008.

 

[DFreshKing]

Clearly Western governments cannot indefinitely ignore the will of the people in the medium to long term - cf the rushed Obama withdrawal from Iraq, which played a big part in the rise of ISIS in the first place. Obviously.

But I was asking what happened in a miracle world where both Russia and the West had governments which were instantly responsive even to short term pressure of the type you describe. And then what? We ask ISIS to stop by sending them reports of how many people are protesting their actions world wide, they respond by literally wiping their ass with said report, and then what?

People who protest ISIS in territory they control often seem to end up dead for some reason, so I assume those living under their thumb right now won't be joining us, by the way.

You fail to understand that there would be a knock on effect of not bombing their country and civilians to death - Like no ISIS to begin with.

Do you think ISIS would be in the very countries we have been bombing/occupying/aiding civil unrest if we hadn't done those things?

Are they just an unhappy coincidence?

 

[RedTiger]

I see this fairly frequently on here and from the left, and I respect this view, but don't fully understand it. What could we possibly say or offer to them, and what would we expect in return? I can't see them realistically agreeing to stay within their present territory and cease further expansionism - that's literally their raison d'etre. And I can't see the international community accepting that a genocidal death cult - and that really is what they are - should be allowed to stay in existence, nor should it.

Obama is right on this - degrade and destroy without committing to large-scale ground intervention. I think it's already working, however slowly.

I'm at work so I'll reply with a more detailed post later, but in short just treat them like the saudis considering they're cut from the same cloth.

 

[PedroMendez]

No they are not like the Saudis. At least not at the moment. What is the point in talking to ISIS? I am all for diplomacy, but there is a limit. It might be reasonable to negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan, because they have primarily a local agenda and legitimacy. It might be possipossible to come to some kind of power-sharing deal under those circumstances. ISIS can never agree to anything that would be remotely acceptable.

 

[naturalized]

I just pointed out that contrary to the claim it was a rushed decision it was the result of a plan put in place in 2008.

Fair enough, and almost splitting straws here, but as the reports I cited point out, the final decision not to extend the SOFA was made in Oct 2011. With the actual pullout occuring in Dec 2011. That's quite tight, and certainly almost surely not Obama's optimal outcome. I'll drop this here as we're splitting hairs in truth.

I'm at work so I'll reply with a more detailed post later, but in short just treat them like the saudis considering they're cut from the same cloth.

Alrighty and I look forward to it, though I'll pre-emptively note that Saudi Arabia is neither expansionistic nor genocidal, which are the two points that are the concern here. Not to mention terroristic.

You fail to understand that there would be a knock on effect of not bombing their country and civilians to death - Like no ISIS to begin with.

Do you think ISIS would be in the very countries we have been bombing/occupying/aiding civil unrest if we hadn't done those things?

Are they just an unhappy coincidence?

This is reductive. Not all interventions are the same. Western air assistance (for instance at Kobane) is not the same as Iraq'03. Not everything revolves around the west.

 

[DFreshKing]

Fair enough, and almost splitting straws here, but as the reports I cited point out, the final decision not to extend the SOFA was made in Oct 2011. With the actual pullout occuring in Dec 2011. That's quite tight, and certainly almost surely not Obama's optimal outcome. I'll drop this here as we're splitting hairs in truth.



Alrighty and I look forward to it, though I'll pre-emptively note that Saudi Arabia is neither expansionistic nor genocidal, which are the two points that are the concern here. Not to mention terroristic.


This is reductive. Not all interventions are the same. Western air assistance (for instance at Kobane) is not the same as Iraq'03. Not everything revolves around the west.

The only thing that is reductive is the replies you have made from my points.

I never said "all interventions are the same" or Air assistance in kobane is the same as Iraq 03 or everything revolves around the west.

Not much point discussing if you make replies that have nothing in common with my post.

Surely we can agree things would not be as they are and Westerners would not be targets for retaliation.

I am no more a fan of religious extremism as I am colonisation or slavery but our (western) response is as incompetent as it is impotent.

To repeat the mistakes that help foster it (or at least enable and extend it) is ludicrous but seems to be the path set to continue.

 

[RedTiger]

Alrighty and I look forward to it, though I'll pre-emptively note that Saudi Arabia is neither expansionistic nor genocidal, which are the two points that are the concern here. Not to mention terroristic.

When I said the Saudis, I was not referring to Saudi Arabia. I was specifically referring to Muhammad ibn Saud (the ruler of the first Saudi state) . He was a Najdi who went on to join forces with Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, they and their immediate descendants went on to commit genocide in the rest of Najd, the Eastern coast and the Iraqi/Shia city of Karbala. Their expansionism took them to the Hejaz where they had no legitimate Claim, yet they still took over the holy cities, deposing the ruling sheiks who had been in place since the rashidun caliphate.

The whole point of this expansionism was to gain the religious authority to rule (even though they never declared a Khilafat). In this respect ISIS are cut from the same cloth (you can disagree but that's my opinion), the Sauds and Al Baghdadi want the same thing (control of the Hejaz and legitimate authority to rule religiously).

The point I made about negotiating was semi tongue in cheek but honestly this "war" will never end, it will just lead to lots and lots of Muslims dying and at the end trust me, even if it's 50 years down the line, at some point there will be a negotiated truce of some sort between those who desire a Khilafat and the sole hyper power.

 

[LeChuck]

@RedTiger - top post.

 

[naturalized]

When I said the Saudis, I was not referring to Saudi Arabia. I was specifically referring to Muhammad ibn Saud (the ruler of the first Saudi state) . He was a Najdi who went on to join forces with Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, they and their immediate descendants went on to commit genocide in the rest of Najd, the Eastern coast and the Iraqi/Shia city of Karbala. Their expansionism took them to the Hejaz where they had no legitimate Claim, yet they still took over the holy cities, deposing the ruling sheiks who had been in place since the rashidun caliphate.

The whole point of this expansionism was to gain the religious authority to rule (even though they never declared a Khilafat). In this respect ISIS are cut from the same cloth (you can disagree but that's my opinion), the Sauds and Al Baghdadi want the same thing (control of the Hejaz and legitimate authority to rule religiously).

The point I made about negotiating was semi tongue in cheek but honestly this "war" will never end, it will just lead to lots and lots of Muslims dying and at the end trust me, even if it's 50 years down the line, at some point there will be a negotiated truce of some sort between those who desire a Khilafat and the sole hyper power.

Nope, don't disagree with bolded at all, and I thought this was a good article on point: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alast...ia_b_5717157.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in. But there's only so far historical analogies can take us. The point is that a) I don't agree that ISIS will ever mellow the way KSA has, b) I'm not willing to wait a hundred years to find out.

As for underlined, I don't understand where this defeatism as regards ISIS comes from. The premise of your argument is that intervention will ultimately and necessarily be futile. Now, I hope people who know better than me (i.e. probably everyone in ISIS thread) will please correct me if this is mistaken, but aren't we making gradual progress against them on virtually every front? Ramadi, the Kurdish front, Aleppo, the news seems to generally be good all round lately. They can be beaten. Why shouldn't we try?

 

[RedTiger]

Nope, don't disagree with bolded at all, and I thought this was a good article on point: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alast...ia_b_5717157.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in. But there's only so far historical analogies can take us. The point is that a) I don't agree that ISIS will ever mellow the way KSA has, b) I'm not willing to wait a hundred years to find out.

As for underlined, I don't understand where this defeatism as regards ISIS comes from. The premise of your argument is that intervention will ultimately and necessarily be futile. Now, I hope people who know better than me (i.e. probably everyone in ISIS thread) will please correct me if this is mistaken, but aren't we making gradual progress against them on virtually every front? Ramadi, the Kurdish front, Aleppo, the news seems to generally be good all round lately. They can be beaten. Why shouldn't we try?

we may be making physical progress by denying them territory but the will and desire for a Khilafat won't be denied. That ideology had its seeds sown 100 years ago, unfortunately the desire and the violence seems to have grown exponentially since then. You can make the desert glow with bombs but the supporters of the ideology will still be there.

Thats my reasoning as to why we'll have to talk at some point, when that point occurs is up to the powers that be.

 

[naturalized]

we may be making physical progress by denying them territory but the will and desire for a Khilafat won't be denied. That ideology had its seeds sown 100 years ago, unfortunately the desire and the violence seems to have grown exponentially since then. You can make the desert glow with bombs but the supporters of the ideology will still be there.

Thats my reasoning as to why we'll have to talk at some point, when that point occurs is up to the powers that be.

I get what you're saying but I still have to say there are leaps in logic here. Even if most Sunni Muslims considered this caliphate legitimate, which they emphatically don't, the fact that a caliphate of some sort might be religiously desirable in the abstract doesn't mean we should allow the continued existence of any bastardized, violent, genocidal "caliphate" so long as it sticks that label on itself. And it certainly doesn't mean we should stop hitting it if the hitting is effective.

Bolded - you're seeing a Ted Cruz where there isn't one, and I think it is a disservice to discussion to equate any and all types of intervention with that idiot's rhetoric.

 

[devilish]

What I do find infuriating is that the same countries who seem so trigger friendly in terms of turning nations into failed states do tend to be the most conservative in accepting refugees from those same nations. The pattern seem always to be the same. They first bomb a nation, than thousands of people start leaving these areas and then they expect other nations to shelter all. They also have the cheek to say that these immigrants are actually a resource. If that's the case why are they so against in opening the gates to them back home?

 

[RedTiger]

I get what you're saying but I still have to say there are leaps in logic here. Even if most Sunni Muslims considered this caliphate legitimate, which they emphatically don't, the fact that a caliphate of some sort might be religiously desirable in the abstract doesn't mean we should allow the continued existence of any bastardized, violent, genocidal "caliphate" so long as it sticks that label on itself. And it certainly doesn't mean we should stop hitting it if the hitting is effective.

Bolded - you're seeing a Ted Cruz where there isn't one, and I think it is a disservice to discussion to equate any and all types of intervention with that idiot's rhetoric.

Mate, like I said earlier, I'm a pessimist...glass permanently half empty.

 

[Danny1982]

When I said the Saudis, I was not referring to Saudi Arabia. I was specifically referring to Muhammad ibn Saud (the ruler of the first Saudi state) . He was a Najdi who went on to join forces with Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, they and their immediate descendants went on to commit genocide in the rest of Najd, the Eastern coast and the Iraqi/Shia city of Karbala. Their expansionism took them to the Hejaz where they had no legitimate Claim, yet they still took over the holy cities, deposing the ruling sheiks who had been in place since the rashidun caliphate.

The whole point of this expansionism was to gain the religious authority to rule (even though they never declared a Khilafat). In this respect ISIS are cut from the same cloth (you can disagree but that's my opinion), the Sauds and Al Baghdadi want the same thing (control of the Hejaz and legitimate authority to rule religiously).

The point I made about negotiating was semi tongue in cheek but honestly this "war" will never end, it will just lead to lots and lots of Muslims dying and at the end trust me, even if it's 50 years down the line, at some point there will be a negotiated truce of some sort between those who desire a Khilafat and the sole hyper power.

Good post mate. Many people don't know how Saudi Arabia was actually created in the first place.

 

[Danny1982]

Assad Can Stay, for Now: Kerry Accepts Russian Stance

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday accepted Russia's long-standing demand that President Bashar Assad's future be determined by his own people, as Washington and Moscow edged toward putting aside years of disagreement over how to end Syria's civil war.

"The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change," Kerry told reporters in the Russian capital after meeting President Vladimir Putin. A major international conference on Syria would take place later this week in New York, Kerry announced.

...

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/kerry-moscow-talks-syria-ukraine-35770084



The first bolded statement doesn't sound like such a bad idea, does it? Certainly doesn't look to me like something you should be "not accepting" for 4 years. And for the second, yeah right .

 

[JustAFan]

Fair enough, and almost splitting straws here, but as the reports I cited point out, the final decision not to extend the SOFA was made in Oct 2011. With the actual pullout occuring in Dec 2011. That's quite tight, and certainly almost surely not Obama's optimal outcome. I'll drop this here as we're splitting hairs in truth.



Alrighty and I look forward to it, though I'll pre-emptively note that Saudi Arabia is neither expansionistic nor genocidal, which are the two points that are the concern here. Not to mention terroristic.


This is reductive. Not all interventions are the same. Western air assistance (for instance at Kobane) is not the same as Iraq'03. Not everything revolves around the west.

Just to add the reduction of troops began before Oct 2011 it is not like we pulled everyone out in 2 months. In fact by time you get to your Oct 2011 time frame US troop strength was down to less than 25% of its max (ie down to around 40k vs a max of around 170k)

 

[Will Absolute]

What I do find infuriating is that the same countries who seem so trigger friendly in terms of turning nations into failed states do tend to be the most conservative in accepting refugees from those same nations. The pattern seem always to be the same. They first bomb a nation, than thousands of people start leaving these areas and then they expect other nations to shelter all. They also have the cheek to say that these immigrants are actually a resource. If that's the case why are they so against in opening the gates to them back home?

It's hardly Western bombing that has caused the Syrian refugee problem.

 

[devilish]

It's hardly Western bombing that has caused the Syrian refugee problem.

It's certainly didn't help (especially when arming isis). Same in Iraq, Libya and afghanistan. If certain countries do not want immigrants than they should stop bombarding countries. It's unfair that countries close to the area or at the peripheral of the eu region should foot the consequences of other countries mistakes all by themselves

I think that the US, France, Britain and co should think hard whether their decisions in Iraq, Syria and Libya (all countries are either at the brink of becoming failed states) was a wise decision or not and how long will they keep on messing around in the politics of a region which is getting worse by the day. Colonialism, the strategy of shaping the countries the way they were shaped and now that of destroying every dictator some of whom were once backed by them (Mubarak, Saddam etc) has left a big toil on the region and each neighbouring country (Turkey, Greece, Italy, Malta etc). If you drop the bombs that you have to share the immigrants

 

[naturalized]

Just to add the reduction of troops began before Oct 2011 it is not like we pulled everyone out in 2 months. In fact by time you get to your Oct 2011 time frame US troop strength was down to less than 25% of its max (ie down to around 40k vs a max of around 170k)

I'm not sure why we're still arguing about this but moving 40-43k troops anywhere on short notice - bearing in mind these are combat units with vehicles and equipment - in two months is a HELL of a lot of troops. It was a big deal when Op Atlantic Resolve organized the movement of 500 troops (Op Dragoon Ride) just a few months ago.

More than the numbers I just don't know where you're going with this. Are you seriously arguing that the word "rushed" does not reasonably apply to the American withdrawal from Iraq in response to American public opinion turning anti-war? Without said public opinion I doubt Obama would be in office right now!

 

[naturalized]

Mate, like I said earlier, I'm a pessimist...glass permanently half empty.

There's much to be pessimistic about in the world right now tbf! You've probably got a better handle on it than me in that regard.