Syria & Middle East News Catch-all | Lebanon Finally Elects a PM

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Israel has seized the Syrian part of Mt Hermon. This is a strategic location that allowed Syria to monitor Israel's own monitoring activities, and look into Israel. The takeover is reportedly done in cooperation with UNDOF.GeSRnZMXcAAsrCw?format=jpg&name=large.jpg

Israel this morning also conducted airstrikes in Syria. Main targets are reportedly former SAA assets that Israel wouldn't want to fall into rebel hands, including anything related to SSMs, chemical weapons, and other strategic weapons that could be used to attack Israel.
 
I'd like to hope for the best, but Al Qaeda with a new name is basically in charge now.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
the last four sentences are why Trump's foreign policy is a popular position.
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Your use of the singular verb "is" suggests that Trump has some unified, coherent foreign policy. Perhaps you think he is a noninterventionist. He is not. He is a wholly transactional person who makes decisions based on whatever will personally help him. If he thinks invading will help him, he will. If he thinks staying out will help him, he will. It is not as though there is some bedrock principle guiding his decision-making. Simply put, he has no foreign policy. There will never be a Trump Doctrine.
 
altmin said:
I'd like to hope for the best, but Al Qaeda with a new name is basically in charge now.
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It's now like there are good choices. This one doesn't cost us anything in particular and we have no commitments to anyone I'm aware of. I like having a country we don't have to care about. There's not many.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Despite the rambling weirdness, and the logical disconnect of criticizing Obama for staying out of it, while he advocates the same thing, the last four sentences are why Trump's foreign policy is a popular position. Expect similar choices throughout his presidency.
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This Syria collapse may encourage Trump not to be too hasty in ending the Ukraine War. But why does Trump even care about ending the Ukraine War? I suppose what he really wants is to help his buddy with a positive outcome. Or in a weird way, Trump thinks he will be seen as a hero? Just don't get it.
 
BlueSmoke said:
This Syria collapse may encourage Trump not to be too hasty in ending the Ukraine War. But why does Trump even care about ending the Ukraine War? I suppose what he really wants is to help his buddy with a positive outcome. Or in a weird way, Trump thinks he will be seen as a hero? Just don't get it.
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You answered your own question. Biden wasn't able to end the war. Trump wants a notch on his belt. It is 100% all he cares about. He couldn't care less about the terms of any ceasefire, just that he can claim victory.
 
Calheel said:
You answered your own question. Biden wasn't able to end the war. Trump wants a notch on his belt. It is 100% all he cares about. He couldn't care less about the terms of any ceasefire, just that he can claim victory.
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That's one way of looking at it.

Another way is that he badly wants Russia to win, but Russia's victory condition is no longer absorption of Ukraine, if it ever was. Its victory condition is truce with Russia holding its territorial gains.
 
superrific said:
That's one way of looking at it.

Another way is that he badly wants Russia to win, but Russia's victory condition is no longer absorption of Ukraine, if it ever was. Its victory condition is truce with Russia holding its territorial gains.
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It’s true that Trump’s mythopoetics may compel him to support the grand expansion of Novorossiya, as our one friend used to call it. But I suspect his ego drive to get the “W” and claim world heroic status will win out.
 
superrific said:
That's one way of looking at it.

Another way is that he badly wants Russia to win, but Russia's victory condition is no longer absorption of Ukraine, if it ever was. Its victory condition is truce with Russia holding its territorial gains.
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He's always favored Putin because he's thought of him as a trade partner, either for corrupt means to line his own pockets or helping Trump get and maintain power. But I think Zelensky is on to him. Dangling the 26 Trillion in undeveloped resources offers Trump many corrupt opportunities that he might not be able to resist.
 
Calheel said:
Your use of the singular verb "is" suggests that Trump has some unified, coherent foreign policy. Perhaps you think he is a noninterventionist. He is not. He is a wholly transactional person who makes decisions based on whatever will personally help him. If he thinks invading will help him, he will. If he thinks staying out will help him, he will. It is not as though there is some bedrock principle guiding his decision-making. Simply put, he has no foreign policy. There will never be a Trump Doctrine.
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I really disagree. He is in general a non-interventionist. He tends to take bombastic positions but in the end, everyone calms down and nothing really changes. He also tends to feel that radical islamists are a bigger threat to America than traditional enemies like China or Russia.
 
BlueSmoke said:
This Syria collapse may encourage Trump not to be too hasty in ending the Ukraine War. But why does Trump even care about ending the Ukraine War? I suppose what he really wants is to help his buddy with a positive outcome. Or in a weird way, Trump thinks he will be seen as a hero? Just don't get it.
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I do think Trump wants to end the war. I think he wants a Nobel Peace prize which wouldn't happen even if he got Superman to leave the Fortress of Solitude and pitch every nuclear weapon into the sun, but a man can dream.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I really disagree. He is in general a non-interventionist. He tends to take bombastic positions but in the end, everyone calms down and nothing really changes. He also tends to feel that radical islamists are a bigger threat to America than traditional enemies like China or Russia.
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Seems like since we've quit messing around over there, they mostly have more important things to do. They need most of their manpower for the power struggles in the ME.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I really disagree. He is in general a non-interventionist. He tends to take bombastic positions but in the end, everyone calms down and nothing really changes. He also tends to feel that radical islamists are a bigger threat to America than traditional enemies like China or Russia.
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The invasion of Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza are both direct results of Trump's foreign policy. It is not the case that everyone calms down.
 
finesse said:
I don't remember. Did Neville Chamberlain get it?
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No. Neither did Nicholas II, Kaiser Wilhelm, Franz Josef, Clemenceau or even David Lloyd George. Everyone seems to remember the lessons from the beginning of world war II but conveniently forget the lessons from the beginning of world war I.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I really disagree. He is in general a non-interventionist. He tends to take bombastic positions but in the end, everyone calms down and nothing really changes. He also tends to feel that radical islamists are a bigger threat to America than traditional enemies like China or Russia.
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He has you fooled. Trump is not about policy. On anything. He sees what X and Fox and Breitbart are saying that day and he amplifies it. The day when Trump makes a decision based on principles will be never.
 
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