I pretty much pity anyone who seriously tries to understand Syria, including myself.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I don’t think it’s impossible to understand, unless you accept the argument that the U.S. has to get involved.
I’m very comfortable understanding it as something we’d be smarter staying out of.
But if you assert that the U.S. should be involved, then you have to pick a side, and then it becomes impossible.
The US liked Syria well enough in the earlier days of the Iraq War. Served as a refuge for Iraqis fleeing the various conflicts in Iraq and took in and tortured “some folks” at the request of the USG. Based on that Assad may have thought he was off the USG regime change target list.
And now he’s patient zero for the Putin Doctrine; our great power diplomacy defends your right to domestic tyranny.
I believe Putin expects to thwart NATO and rebuild the Russian Empire with the support of an alliance of such tyrannies in the former republics. Syria has the added advantage of blocking Turkey, a nation in the hands of yet another empire-obsessed megalomaniac.
There’s been wars aplenty involving Russo-Turkish shenanigans. I’m struck also by the emerging parallels between the Syrian and Spanish civil wars; in the bitterness and scale of the military engagement but also the international hand-wringing and intervention. Not to mention the foreign volunteer legions from diverse nations. For any student of 20th century history the Spanish Civil War is fraught with disturbing portents of the subsequent conflagration.
With the breakdown/break up of the Soviet Union, NATO should have ceased to exist. At a minimum it shouldn’t have been expanded which had been agreed to.
The relationship between Syria and Moscow is longstanding. Not sure why so many want to “read” Putin’s mind about Russia attempting to help a friend. And let’s not forget who it was that invaded and destroyed Iraq and has been overtly and covertly facilitating regime change in that region for the past fifteen years.
No argument with any of that although NATO disbanding in the aftermath of the CCCP’s dismemberment was never going to happen, was it?
But Assad is no more ‘friend’ than any other tinpot tyrant with whom Putin does business; he’s got quite an assortment of them now. Assad is freely expendable the moment he becomes a liability to Putin; just watch. His stock is already pretty low.
Perhaps it was never going to cease to exist, but it certainly shouldn’t have expanded, eastward to Russia’s very border, during a time we were supposed to have ended the Cold War with our former enemies.
As for Assad, yes indeed he’s expendable by Putin, but if that occurs, Putin would want to be the one who decides it — Syria being so close to Russia and in its sphere of influence — and not the world’s policeman the United States.
As of yesterday and the agreement w/Kerry, it would seem the US is finally coming around to accepting the better judgment of Putin on Syria.
We’ll see how things play out. Putin is a gambler.
Lots of factors, of course, but it’s very much about keeping a lid on to prevent more Syrian extremists flowing into the area, as many are already active in problem regions; are a mere day’s drive from Russia’s border; no reason i can’t repeat this for the millionth time, since no one seems to pay attention, more interesting in rambling on about empires,
Pretty interesting: Syria as Spain. Of course Spain foreshadowed WW2.
Juxtaposing the two has some pros and cons; there’s great power backing for various factions but nothing quite on the scale of the face-off between the fascist powers and the Soviet Union. On the other hand timid Britain and France (NATO) seem boldly outmanoeuvred, yet again, by a ruthless adversary.
Perhaps the ideological ethos of the struggle also makes for interesting comparison; the committed Left of Europe rallying to the Republic as against the jihadis of Daesh declaring the caliphate, both mobilising volunteers from diverse places and discomfiting unaligned nations. It remains obscure, however, in Daesh’s case, whether their acolytes’ motivations are genuinely theological or mere piracy.
“Based on that Assad may have thought he was off the USG regime change target list. “
The more fool he. No one is ever off the list. Sometimes a stay of execution, but never off.
Actually, Saddam Hussein thought he was America’s boy, too. Look at what it got him and Iraq.
isn’t it a little late for that?
I’m pretty sure the Syrians themselves don’t understand what’s going on and from what I can tell, there’s at least 3 wars going on at any given moment.
It boils down to the reality that no “good” choices exist in Syria, and haven’t since Assad discovered the world would let him get away with chemical strikes on civilian neighborhoods. Staying out of the country altogether is unthinkable. Plunging into the country with both boots first is also unthinkable. What’s left is a range of options that are varying kinds or degrees of awful. “Understanding” Syria necessarily means making awful choices to avoid unthinkable ones.
Exactly. Syria is easy to understand, but there are no good solutions to it. This confuses people looking for a win, out, or acceptable option. Many things in life are lose/lose. Once you get that a lot of things become much less opaque.
If you look for a good and fair solution to things, you are naive and should be ignored and laughed out of the room. This applies to all things in life.
Osborne Ink, Who told you that the Syrian government carried out chemical attacks on civilian neighborhoods?
“Evidence strongly suggests that Syrian government helicopters dropped barrel bombs embedded with cylinders of chlorine gas on three towns in Northern Syria in mid-April 2014, Human Rights Watch said today. These attacks used an industrial chemical as a weapon, an act banned by the international treaty prohibiting chemical weapons that Syria joined in October 2013. The Syrian government is the only party to the conflict with helicopters and other aircraft.”
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/13/syria-strong-evidence-government-used-chemicals-weapon
I realize that doesn’t play into the narrative that it was a false flag operation by rebels but as they have been investigating issues like these since 1978 I don’t think they would make that statement unless they believed it. Not to mention that Assad has been barrel bombing his citizens since 2011 so turning those bombs into chemical weapons wouldn’t be that much of a stretch.
I also realize that contradicts many a progressives’ narrative that ALL of the problems in the world, especially the Middle East, are the USA’s fault but frankly I will believe HRW over them any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
That is not to say that we haven’t contributed to the problems in the Middle East (for example the rise of Daesh can be directly linked to de-baathification) but that doesn’t mean we are responsible for ALL of the turmoil there. Assad cracked down with Russia’s tacit approval and that also contributed to the rise of Daesh. It was also the start of the Syrian refugee crisis.
It’s pretty convincing if you read about the apparent engineering of the rockets based on photographic evidence. We had this argument here for many a thread in the day.
Those in the clown car are explaining everything you need to know about Syria on CNN right now.
Question — from the HuffPo debate photo do any of these men not need a tailor?
Carly isn’t wearing a flag pin, but she has a big cross hanging from her necklace.
Is it burning?
Probably gold. Not sure gold even burns in hell.
I was thinking of the KKK cross, but then a crucifix is supposed to burn a vampire also.
HuffPo picture down — Here’s one that will stick around.
Christie appears to be wearing ortho shoes. His pants are rumpled and the legs too wide and short. Trump’s are even more rumpled b/c they don’t fit at all. Jeb looks like he’s wearing a body Spanx and was poured into his suit; no rumples for Jeb?. Cruz has the stance of a cowboy but has no record of having been raised on a cattle ranch. Paul and Kasich look tidier than usual.
You mean understanding a country with SIX THOUSAND YEARS of continuous history can’t be done in a week and half?
Whodathunkit???
It’s a lot easier if, as in the GOP debate tonight, you consider the people who actually live in Syria to be either terrorists or irrelevant. And those were the better opinions. The rest seem to conflate the terms “Muslim,” “Syrian,” and “terrorist.”
As for the Republicans and Syrian history, they’d be the first to tell you Syria has NOT been around for no 6,000 years. That would mean Syria was present at the creation of the Earth. Only Israel was around then.
I believe the literal phrase was “carpet bomb” the region, a war crime per 1977. Thinking about whether something is a war crime is for “feckless weaklings”. Real men show they’re not feckless weaklings by shooting down Russian airplanes, taking names, kicking ass, bombing children, and starting WWIII.
Me too. In the words of a blogger long ago and far away:
Booman Tribune ~ Dune
Nobody else belongs there except the Syrians. We need to just get the fuck out of Dodge and let them sort their own shit out.
We created ISIS in Iraq, from what I know, and all of this crap is blowback from MUCH longer ago. Tentacles wrapped around tentacles, within an enigma, to paraphrase David Ferrie from “JFK”.
And our tentacles will have wrapped up our testicles, if we don’t smarten up and GTFO of Dodge. NOTHING GOOD is going to come of any of this. Has anything been resolved in Iraq? In Afghanistan? THIS is the kind of shit that brought down the British Empire – getting involved where we have NO fucking business. Hell, there isn’t even any OIL there.
I don’t think understanding Syria is that hard. At least not if one focuses on what is happening on the ground instead of on the propaganda where everybody is fighting terrorists.
You have a bunch of factions fighting a civil war + groups of foreign powers supporting different factions.
One group of foreign powers is simple: The Syrian government is supported by Russia, Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah.
The other is more complex: The US led group started out supporting anyone fighting against the Syrian government, with a division of tasks (US got the guns and training, Turkey and Jordan the logistics and Saudi and Qatar contributed most of the cash) as well as favourite factions (US: seculars, Saudi and Qatar: different islamists, Turkey: Turkmens (and anyone fighting the Kurds)). ISIS/Daesh has complicated the situation as they are both bombed by the western component of the US alliance and supported by the Mid-East component.
Finding paths to peace is hard. The peace talks has not even settled on which factions will be repesented, and it is clear that some will not be. So best case scenario for the ongoing peace talks is some parts make peace, and the fighting continues in some parts. Genies can not be put back, and civil wars can go on for long times (see Somalia).
But what I think is really hard is understanding US policy here. Syria was before the conflict a pretty much cooperating dictatorship. In most countries the US ignored dictatorships defeating the democracy movements of the Arab Spring. What US interests – if any – were advanced by promoting civil war in Syria? Was there a case of wishful thinking? Or is the US government the wrong thing to analyse here? How coordinated are actions of the state department, Pentagon and CIA? Should they rather be analysed as promoting different interests?
excellent
Thanks.
I am hoping for some input on the drivers of the US foreign policy here, because I really don’t get it.
My reading: Obama has been setting a new direction for US foreign policy – labelled “non hegemonic leadership” by an international affairs person with whom I discussed this a few years back. a difficult process and there’s pushback from many interests. your comment is very interesting in that regard, and tallies with what I have observed. hope some more commentators will weigh in on it – you could pose it on some of the other threads
I guess I could write a little more: one way to put it is that Obama (and Kerry) is moving US foreign policy towards non hegemonic leadership very much through back channels, the relationship with Putin is a particularly active one, to which the Ukraine crisis was pushback. (Tarheel dem wrote about this during that crisis). Hence much of what Obama says publicly about foreign policy must be assumed to be for public consumption only or taken with a grain of salt. he’ll also only bring one major item forward at a time – Iran agreement, now Syria. there is lots of pushback, and that’s where your last paragraph is very interesting, because the pushback is not coordinated imo, kind of scattershot but no less problematic.