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

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RaiGuy said:
I'm not a fan of Assad, but I'm not a fan of the rebels either. Most aren't Syrian. This guy, for instance, is not speaking Arabic. Sounds Turkish to me. Also, don't think that replacing Assad with religious extremists is any better for the long run.
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If it hurts Russia, it’s an improvement.
 
Paine said:
Yeah, that’s the thing isn’t it? These actions always have unintended and unforeseen consequences.
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Yeah.

In this case, our best action looks like inaction. I see no way or reason to get involved and no inclination to do so without an engraved invitation.
 
Calheel said:
The Taliban hurt Russia in Afghanistan. Was that an improvement?
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Well, if the Afghanistan invasion really was the final nail in the Soviet coffin (as many experts have argued, though I've not found them convincing), then probably. Russia has backslid into tyranny of course, but the fall of the Soviet Union was liberatory for hundreds of millions of Germans, Poles, Slavs, Ukrainians, Romanians, etc.
 
Paine said:
It’s impossible to know what would’ve happened if the Soviets had remained influential in Afghanistan. What we know for sure is that arming and funding the mujahideen directly led to the Taliban controlling the country. It also led to Al Qaeda and ISIS.

The USSR would’ve collapsed shortly after anyways.
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You're seriously neglecting how the Gulf War and aftermath had more to do with Al Qaeda than us supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Fwiw, nobody has ever really been in control of Afghanistan.
 
I was mostly reflecting on something I read that suggested one of the big triggers in the growth of A-Q was how long we left troops in Saudi Arabia after the war. I can't speak to the validity of that but the nationality of the 9/11 attackers and the home of the Wahhabist movement are the same.
 
Where would they get support? I don't know the politics of that area.

I tend to agree with you about the dictator but there's always a fear that's just pushing a civil war down the road. They have almost no choice but to exploit divisions in the country to stay in power unless somehow there is enough secular support to keep him there. That always seems to aggravate any difference between the sides and ends much chance of any compromises. That was one of the reason Iraq was so bad after Saddam. There was no middle. I believe, though, they might be among the more divided nations anyway. So, I don't know if that's a good comparison.
 
superrific said:
Well, if the Afghanistan invasion really was the final nail in the Soviet coffin (as many experts have argued, though I've not found them convincing), then probably. Russia has backslid into tyranny of course, but the fall of the Soviet Union was liberatory for hundreds of millions of Germans, Poles, Slavs, Ukrainians, Romanians, etc.
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So you think Russia withdrawing from Syria will bring down Putin?
 
RaiGuy said:
I'm not a fan of Assad, but I'm not a fan of the rebels either. Most aren't Syrian. This guy, for instance, is not speaking Arabic. Sounds Turkish to me. Also, don't think that replacing Assad with religious extremists is any better for the long run.
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There is no doubt that there is a Star Wars Cantina hive of villainy among the rebels in this mess.
 
BlooVooDoo said:
It wasn’t the withdrawal that brought down the Soviet Union. It was the sinking of massive resources into it for a decade.
The better analogy would be if we continued to support Ukrainian resistance for another 5 years. Would that bring down Putin? I’d take that bet.
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Sounds good to me.

Don’t see much value in ISIS 2.0 taking over Allepo though.
 
finesse said:
I was mostly reflecting on something I read that suggested one of the big triggers in the growth of A-Q was how long we left troops in Saudi Arabia after the war. I can't speak to the validity of that but the nationality of the 9/11 attackers and the home of the Wahhabist movement are the same.
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This is correct. Bin Laden wrote manifestos so it's not hard to understand his train of thought. The "innovation" of Al-Q was collapsing the distinction between the Near Enemy and the Far Enemy, and taking the fight to the Far because fighting the Near was counter-productive. And by far the issue that most aggrieved bin Laden, as I understand it, was the presence of foreign troops in the holy land. That and Iraq sanctions.
 
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