This is the mess Trump will have to clean up.

[Musburger1]

Open insurrection exists where the Secretary of Defense openly defies the Commander and Chief.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/1...us-from-international-syria-negotiations.html

 

[Mr. Deez]

Every time I think our handling of Syria has hit rock bottom, it gets worse and more embarrassing. Frankly, I don't blame Russia, Iran, and Turkey for not involving us. We've been a disorganized and incoherent mess from Day 1.

Can Trump clean the mess up? Maybe, maybe not. He's willing to go after ISIS without reservation or condition - doesn't care if Assad goes, doesn't care if he pisses off Saudi Arabia, doesn't care if Russia has a seat at the table, etc. That'll certainly bring some much-needed clarity. But it's still going to be a complicated situation, and since Iran has its foot in the door, I'm not sure how he's going to play ball with them in Syria while wanting to scrap the nuclear deal. The good news is that I don't think he'll make it any worse.

 

[Musburger1]

Yeah, it's a dysfunctional mess. I'm not sure reform is possible at this point no matter who the next commander in chief would be.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Yeah, it's a dysfunctional mess. I'm not sure reform is possible at this point no matter who the next commander in chief would be.

It may not be possible, but dropping the demand that Assad be ousted goes a long way. You know from past discussions that I'm not a fan of Vladimir Putin and that we should check him in Europe. However, the more immediate threat to the West is ISIS and Islamic terrorism in general. If he's interested in fighting that (and he seems to be), then I'd join him and bust the entire ISIS regime apart. Obviously Russia would have a seat at the table in deciding what to do with the area after ISIS was destroyed, but we could negotiate a settlement with them from a position of strength. Both sides would be better off than they are under our crappy policy now.

 

[Musburger1]

I've got a feeling most of the citizens in Europe would agree with your assessment, but most of the political posts in Europe are filled with people that disagree and would rather stay the course. In the US, for better or worse the people chose Trump. In Europe, maybe that means the 5-star movement in Italy, Wilders in Holland, and LaPen in France come to power. And Germany?

 

[Mr. Deez]

I've got a feeling most of the citizens in Europe would agree with your assessment, but most of the political posts in Europe are filled with people that disagree and would rather stay the course

It is a weird dynamic. It's pretty easy to find people who will attack the US policy (because that's always easy to find), but that's somewhat blunted by contempt for Putin and especially for Trump. (The European press would make the New York Times look like Breitbart. They friggin' hate Trump and routinely put him in a class with Hitler and don't think they're exaggerating.) Furthermore, like in the US, the media here is pretty hostile to Assad. However, it's tough to find anyone with a better solution. Nobody wants an expanded military role (because they never do) or greater cooperation with Putin as Trump does. They want a peaceful solution but don't want to go to any trouble to get it.

In the US, for better or worse the people chose Trump. In Europe, maybe that means the 5-star movement in Italy, Wilders in Holland, and LaPen in France come to power. And Germany?

LePen probably won't win (unless there's another terror attack in France), but in a way, she wins even if she loses. The socialists have been discredited (though Hollande started to wake up, it's way too little and way too late), and the conservatives aren't going to win without moving in her direction and making concessions to her constituency. In fact, they already are.

I still don't see a way forward in Germany. Right now AfD is costing Merkel's CDU a lot. They're polling at around 16 percent - easily enough to enter the Budestag but no where near enough to make Frauke Petry the chancellor. I doubt that the SPD will overtake the CDU and elect their own chancellor (who would be worse than Merkel), but so long as the CDU and SPD are willing to form a "grand coalition," the CDU is going to keep Merkel. The only way she goes is if the SPD won't work with them and they have to coalesce with AfD to form a government. If that happens, AfD will make her ouster a condition of joining a coalition with CDU. However, I don't see why SPD would abandon the CDU. Working with empowers them and doesn't politically harm them.

Gotta admit that I haven't followed the Dutch and Italian situations enough to form much of an opinion.

 

[Monahorns]

I actually don't think the US to be all that involved. It makes more sense geographically for Russia, Iran, and Turkery to be involved than for the US.

 

[Mr. Deez]

I actually don't think the US to be all that involved. It makes more sense geographically for Russia, Iran, and Turkery to be involved than for the US.

If the impact was limited to Syria's borders and the surrounding areas, then I'd agree. However, it isn't. The war empowers ISIS, who launches terrorist attacks all over the world, including in the United States. It's also creating a humanitarian crisis that has caused millions of people to have to run to other nations and burden them.

I'm not saying the US should unilaterally invade Syria and colonize it. However, we're not going to stop the ISIS problem or the refugee problem without the Syrian problem being resolved.

 

[Monahorns]

I think we (the US), should stay uninvolved on a military and a humanitarian basis. The government should not act and it also shouldn't keep US citizens from acting. People should be able to volunteer their time to help in any way. At this point the US government should just keep out. We can fight ISIS and stay out of Syria. Russia doesn't like ISIS either. I think US and Russian interests are pretty well aligned in Syria.

 

[Musburger1]

...I think US and Russian interests are pretty well aligned in Syria.

Not at all.

US interests in Syria have absolutely nothing to do with ISIS or terrorism. The goal has been to overthrow Assad, install a puppet favorable to Israel and US allies (Saudi Arabia an Qatar), damage the relationship between Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Iran in which Syria functions as an intermediary, and create pipelines from Qatar and Saudi Arabia to carry gas through Syria into Turkey which would cut into the Russian market. As a side bonus, Russia's lone Mediterranean naval port which is in Syria could be closed down.

To accomplish the above, the US has covertly supported jihadists with arms and training. As a result, Russia responded in order to protect her interests. The losers have been the citizens of Syria, and before that Libya, which are now flooding into Europe exasperating an already severe humanitarian crises.

Despite the rhetoric, ISIS has been used as a tool against Assad from the get go. The US could have easily wiped them out at the beginning, but instead turned a blind eye as they traveled across the open desert and in fact sold them weapons which had been extracted from Libyan storehouses after the removal of Qaddafi.

Al Qaeda splinter groups led by El Nusra have used citizens in Aleppo as human shields for the past four years, committed atrocities such as kidnappings, executions, and withholding food, but the western press has portrayed them as freedom fighters. What we are told is simply that Assad and Putin have been committing war crimes against innocent citizens. The whole portrayal is composed of a bombardment of lies and half-truths.

 

[Mr. Deez]

We can fight ISIS and stay out of Syria.

How exactly do we do that?

I think US and Russian interests are pretty well aligned in Syria.

They should be aligned, but as Mus indicated, they aren't. We may not like ISIS, but screwing with Russia is a higher priority for us than stopping ISIS. It shouldn't be.

And if you look at previous discussions on Russia, I'm generally hostile to or at least suspicious of Putin and have strongly disagreed with Musburger on NATO and Putin's approach to Europe. However, I don't think containing him should trump every other priority. He's not murdering Americans and Westerners. ISIS is. I'd rather set aside concerns with Putin to defeat the more immediate threat, as we did with Stalin.

 

[Clean]

The Middle East has had brutal dictators, like Assad, since time immemorial. Every time the US. and its allies either remove one, or attempt to remove one, we make matters worse. See Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria.

The Syrian and Libyan debacles have flooded the West with muslim refugees, which has had the unintended consequence of destabilizing Europe and gone a long way towards the Islamization of countries like Sweden, France, and Germany. The Christian Wall of Western Europe is beginning to crack, after holding back the muslim hordes for a thousand years.

Those incursions have allied us with and caused us to arm terrorists who are as bad or worse than the people we were trying to remove, such as al queda. We practically created Osama. It also created a power vacuum that ISIS quickly filled and is using to spread terrorism world wide.

At this point I don't see any alternative except to let the big regional players like Russia, Iran, and Turkey try to solve the Syrian mess. Yes, heads will roll and blood will spill, but probably not as many as if we became directly involved militarily.