Turkey set to invade northern Syria, White House says, raising concerns for Kurdish fighters

He did a very good job at it.
Maybe EU can hire him...

 

Good enjoy each other then

 

At what point will people realize that being a friend or ally to golden shower boy is temporary at best and you'll be stabbed in the back as soon as it suits him?

I mean seriously

 

I do not think you can lose any credibility in the ME.

 

He's sent about 2,000 to Yemen, and, even though that's a tiny force, it's about the only example of "warmongering" the lefties can pin on Trump.

Trump has been a major buzzkill to the warmongering scaremongering fantasies the left was hyping when Trump was first elected. In all, it's been a net negative, with Trump withdrawing more troops than he's deployed, and that has been a major disappointment to the left and their bloodthirsty warmongering fantasies that they'd hoped Trump would make come true for them.

 

How many dead Muslims would satisfy you?

 

How many Muslims would Trump have to slaughter to restore America's credibility in the Middle East?

 

So in other words, you were just making stuff up

Got it

 

Retarded question

 

really??? Yoda say too much CNN you watch

 

That was so close to coherent

LOL

 

How many American boots on the ground is enough for you? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?

How large of an American military presence would make America's ME policy credible?

 

I'd start with not abandoning your allies

Shows you have some honor

Well, at least DID

 

Washington did have a long term plan in Syria, and that was to break it up in ethnic and religious enclaves and Balkanize it. That way there will always be friction between the different states and Syria will be weakened. Russia destroyed it by supporting the legitimate president Assad and his all inclusive and secular Assad government. Also once the Sunni's in Syria realized they might end up under Sharia law, they rejoined Assad's army.

As for the area with the oil and gas East of the Euphrates, Washington's plan were to have the Israeli friendly Kurds free it from ISIS and form an independent country. By doing this they would drive a wedge between Syria and Iran and also deprive Syria of the money they need from the oil and gas to rebuild their country.

The Kurds are not indigenous to that area and are highly resented by the Arabs living there, so they would have to ethnically cleanse it, and since most are probably Shia they have formed militias and are supported by Iran. Then we have Turkey with its own security concerns involving the Kurds. They fear that if a Kurdish nation comes into existence the 20 million Kurds within their own country will want to free themselves from Turkey.
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Russia also has security concerns. They had enough problems with the wars in Chechnya with the Sunni jihadis coming in from the Gulf states, so they need the separation of the Shia crescent that runs from Syria to Iran - Yet Washington wants to break that crescent by creating a Kurdish state East of the Euphrates. This Kurdish state would not only drive a wedge between Syria and Iran, but also eliminate the Shia wedge that separates and keeps the terrorist jihadists from entering the moderate Sunni states within Russia and on its borders.

Assad said that if the US pulls out of Syria, then they will ask Iran to leave, so what Trump is doing is smart. Graham though who is a strong supported of Trump is now speaking against it, so will those who formulated our foreign policy of chaos and destruction allow it?

 

"Allies"

Yeah, that's what the Kurds are, our "allies". Our good and faithful ol' buddy ol' pals.

Sorry, there are no good guys over there, just bad guys, and badder guys. How many times do we have to get burned before we accept that simple truth? There's only one winning strategy when dealing with the ME.

 

Some of what you have said is correct (e.g. Balkanization plan for the ME), some wrong (Kurds being Shia) and others misconceived.
Whatever Assad may have told the Russians, he wants Iran to remain in Syria for one reason. He doesn't want to become totally dependent on the Russians or become a Russian tool to be traded whenever the Russians decide. Right now, Assad's palace guards are still forces close to Iran, while his brother is still commander of the only major unit in Syria's army (4th division) that hasn't been totally cleansed of anyone but pro Russian stooges. Many of Assad's closest friends, relatives and aids have been arrested by various military units under effective Russian command (under Russian stooges forced on those units by the Russians) and Assad is finding himself increasingly isolated and encircled by the Russians. The one thing that keeps him maintain a semblance of independence and allows him to sleep at night is the presence of pro Iranian forces. In many ways, Assad wants those forces in Syria even more than Iran, although Iran clearly wants them there also to keep the land bridge to Hezbollah running.

 

Assad wouldn't have a country to sleep in at night if not for Russia. He may not like it, but that's the truth and he and everyone else knows it.

 

Assad had survived several years, including the most difficult period when everyone (except Iran) was reading from the Assad "must go" mantra (the Russians only debating details), before the Russians entered the civil war. But no doubt the Russians helped Assad defeat the rebellion instigated by outside forces. Still, he wasn't interested in defeating one foreign force only to become stooges of another one! If he had any such interest, Assad could have avoided the civil war altogether: on numerous occasions, he was offered to cut his ties with Iran and the axis of resistance and even the "Golan" was dangled at one point as an inducement for him to do so. These efforts had all sorts of intermediaries, including the Russians.

Assad is thankful to the Russians, but his idea of saving Syria and resisting one form of foreign domination isn't to replace it with another form. He would, incidentally, feel the same way if he was totally at the mercy of Iran. It is not about Assad not being thankful to either side. He doesn't want foreigners ruling his country, period.

 

Assad had survived but was steadily losing ground, even with Iranian help. He was looking at a fate similar to Gaddafi's as it was going. Russia turned the tide, full stop.

Why you insist on characterizing Russian involvement as you do is beyond me. There is a Syria today largely due to Russia and its "stooges" in Syria. Iran is grateful, too, as the "Axis of Resistance", as it is known, would have been fractured with the fall of Syria.

 

There was absolutely no serious threat to Assad himself falling after the first few years of the Syrian civil war when Russia entered the war, but Assad did not have the means to take the rest of his country back without the Russian help.

But lets say for a moment you are right: do you really believe Assad wants to be anyone's stooge? The Russians are overreaching in Syria, trying to do what the Syrian civil war and many inducements to Assad before it wasn't able to, namely cut Syria out of the axis of resistance. They are being egged by the Israelis to exacerbate tensions between Russia and Iran in Syria, while believing that is the surest way for them to avoid US/Israeli opposition to their takeover of Syria.

As for why I am not as 'grateful' as you imagine Iran and Syria are to the Russians. The answer is simple: I don't want any outside forces taking over the region. Whether Russian, Israeli, American. But if I had to absolutely choose between the ones I mentioned, the Americans might be a better choice. The Russian boots are rougher, the Russians are closer and frankly their record of standing by their friends (including the ones you mentioned, namely Qaddafi or Saddam) isn't all that inspiring. Even Assad didn't see the Russians step to the plate until several years into the civil war, when resistance to the agenda against him (by then more openly driven by extremist Jihadists making up almost the entire forces behind the "rebels") no longer carried the same negative connotations as when that resistance was being portrayed as a "pro democracy movement" in Syria.

 

Huh? It was the US that was leading the "Assad must go" mantra. It was the US, along with, and sometimes independent of, its client Gulf states, that armed the jihadis. Perhaps you also forget the missile atracks in retaliation for Assad's alleged chemical atracks?

Should I go on?

 

Of course it was the US -- and many others. I have no doubt about it. But before all of that, Assad was given a lot of incentives to avoid the civil war that was unleashed on him. The only condition was that he take himself out of the axis of resistance. The idea that Assad would then suffer through a civil war, and Iran would invest billions of $$ to help him defeat those agendas, so that the Russians would come and do it for the US/Israel is not all that serious. Iran may have the weakest cards right now, but what is the point of "resistance" to the Americans if you are to replace one foreign power with another one?

Anyway, to tie all of this to the issue at hand, let me say this: there are two somewhat divergent strands in the Republican party right now. One strand is the old neocon alliance between the military industrial complex and the pro Israel lobby. The other one is what I would call the "Moscow project": an alliance between pro Israel lobbies in the US and Russia, to forge a crusade against Israel's enemies, giving the Russians "near Russia' and Syria and some other goodies, in return for Russia to pave the way for them to take out Iran. Because the Moscow Project hasn't won the day in America yet, the Russians haven't been fully prepared to trade their "Iran card" completely yet. But for now, they have Trump who is fully on board on the "Moscow Project" and the reason he isn't as concerned about the Turkish moves is because he is fully prepared to have anyone but Iran (including especially Russia) take over Syria. Under this project, how to deal with the issues in Syria would then be a problem for Russia and how they handle the issue with Turkey. The only thing the Iran obsessed Israelis care about is that Iran be kicked out of Syria. Which sounds fine to the Russians too.

The older neocon agenda, on the other hand, was to kick both Iran and Russia out of Syria, bring an implosion in Iran, while work on their project for Balanization of the entire ME (including using the Kurds for that purpose, with large Kurdish minorities in Syria, Iraq, Iran and of course Turkey). For Iran, the choice between the old neocon agenda and the new Moscow Project isn't much of a choice.

 

I didn't say the Kurds are Shia, I said the local Arabs that the Kurds want to displace are Shia and that brings in Iran. If they are not Shia, then please correct me.

You're wrong. Assad depends on Russia to keep Syria from becoming a battle ground between Iran and Israel. To keep them from fighting and setting fire to the Middle East and to the world in general, Russia has established Chechnyan manned posts along the Israeli/Syria border. The Chechnyans being moderate Sunnis and wearing Russian uniforms are not a threat to either Israel or the majority Sunnis in Syria.

These Chechnyans are also enabling the Syrian refugees to return by guarding the deconfliction zones, something that would not be possible if they were Syrian soldiers.

 

Iran is crucial to both the BRI and the SCO. Russia will not be throwing Iran under the bus.

 

It was Europe in particular France and England who drew up what the Middle East would look like after WW l.

The Middle East is extremely tribal and extremely complex.

Islam made it worse.

Obama made it even more worse.