Pat Lang’s Sic Semper Tyrannis has another interesting data point. I think there is more to the story of Bannon and Flynn not wanting a US Middle East war. Like I say, politics becoming Byzantine and byzantine.
Sic Semper Tyrannis: McMaster is pushing for US war in Syria – Cernovich
Harvey and McMaster have been trying to subvert Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford and Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Mattis and Dunford support working with our allies in the fight against ISIS. Harvey and McMaster are advocating for a massive American-only ground force.
Two men were standing in between another U.S.-led war in the Middle East – General Mike Flynn and Steve Bannon.” Cernovich
There are some nuances here, I believe. “US-led war” means “US unilateral war, without the encumbrance of NATO or other allies”. “Another US-led war” means open alliance with Russia and Syria to bring the Syrian civil war to an end; I’m not sure what it means with respect to Iraq and DAESH/ISIS/ISIL; Flynn and Bannon never were quoted much on that or it was more in alignment with conventional wisdom. Whatever is going on, I do not trust Bannon and Flynn to be peaceniks with regard to the Middle East. And Flynn seems to have had it in for either Iran or the de facto Shi’ite Crescent that might occur with a Shi’ite-dominated Iran, Assad continuing in power, and Hizbullah power in Lebanon.
We are getting stories of personal infighting now, but we are getting a clearer picture of the policy banners that each faction is flying.
Needless to say, Mattis and Dunford are closer aligned to where Hillary Clinton’s position would have been, except Dunford might be still working the same strategy Obama set in motion until there is an ISIS endgame in Iraq and Syria. Or at least their positions do not diverge as widely as do McMasters’s and Flynn’s from continuity in national security policy.
