Posted on 10/14/2014 12:06:06 PM PDT by Rusty0604
Should get interesting post 2016 because Barry no doubt harbors similar ambitions.
The USA needs to quietly move its nukes out of Turkey.
They are not secure.
Poland would be my suggestion. Or Israel.
Do I have to choose? Both are brilliant!
Obama IS an amateur that’s true, but none of our leaders in the last forty years have understood most of the Middle East very well, not well enough to realize that most of our so-called Arab “friends” are friends of convenience - their convenience - and not true allies with real shared values or even real long term shared goals.
I think he has messed things up more. Look at what he did in Egypt and Libya. And how he treats our only ME ally Israel.
While Erdogan is an Islamist and no friend of ours, Obama’s belly-aching over Turkey is a bunch of BS. We don’t need to use our assets in Turkey to bomb ISIS. Our planes flew close to 1000 miles round-trip to pound the Taliban after 9/11. The distances involved in Syria and Iraq are nothing next to that. The fact is that Obama has committed minimal assets to do the job. After 9/11, we had B-1’s, B-2’s and B-52’s doing round the clock air strikes, along with strike fighters based in the Persian Gulf and on a half-dozen carriers. Meanwhile, in Syria and Iraq, we’re hearing of a dozen bombs being dropped daily.
You may be right and, if so, it will mean an inevitable showdown between the Turks and the Arabs.
Yes. I was not trying to say that Obama is not worse when it comes to the Middle East. My main point, my only point, was that all our leaders for a long time have had many wrong-headed notions about many states in the Middle East.
In truth, every president is to some extent a “victim of circumstances” and some of the circumstances have origins that begin before a sitting POTUS takes office.
That was clearly the case with 9/11 - the Al Queda planning for which began and was settled long before GWBush was elected.
It has been my position that the current growth of ISIS, particularly in Syria is the result of our regime change agenda against Assad and its attachment in the region to Islamist forces backed by Turkey, the Saudis and some of the Gulf States. Prior to that we did have security issues with Syria, but they were issues we were managing very well.
WE - our regime change agenda - took a stable Syria and made it the destabilized mess that was perfect for the spread of ISIS (Islamic terrorists love to piggy back onto any war, any destabilization in the region). That agenda of ours began - CIA, State - more than a decade ago, under GWB; and quite frankly, the “moderates” are not a majority in the “Syrian opposition”, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is; and therefor I have never been keen on our supporting it.
Now then, it is also true that whether or not things develop from U.S. policy or in spite of it, it is how presidents deal with the circumstances that do develop that makes a difference.
Obama’s biggest problem with Syria, to me, was that he did not have a clear policy or clear objectives, once the U.S.-Turkey-Saudi arranged “Syrian opposition” made its public debut. His actions satisfied neither those of us who would have counseled we forcefully NOT project intentions of support for the Syrian opposition, nor did it satisfy those who wanted to see that support from us. The wishy-washy lack of clarity - not all in, not all out - is what has bothered everyone in the Middle East we were supposedly working with. The neocons, like on the WSJ editorial board, blame Obama for not being all-in on their regime change agenda, once it made its public debut as the “Syrian opposition”. My strong belief is that had there been a quick victory for that opposition, we would have seen a repeat of events in Egypt, only worse. It would have been a “Syrian government” dominated by the Sunni Islamist Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, but one that was immediately in a civil war with the non-Sunni population who would see their cause against a Sunni Islamist government championed by Hezbolla; and turning a Syrian civil war into a Lebanon-Syria-wide civil war.
To me there was no good outcomes possible from our regime change agenda against Assad. He was a containable situation like a common cold. ISIS is a major virus.
So now, at this time, none of that genesis is the most important thing. Fighting the virus, ISIS, NOT Assad is a right focus at this time. Again, Obama is the great prevaricator; he’s neither NOT fighting ISIS nor is he all-in on fighting ISIS, and he has little to say vis-a-vis Qatar’s aid to ISIS or Turkey’s refusal to help just across its own border. Its bad enough that many of these things rose on Obama’s watch, but, yes, in agreement with you, he has made each of the bad circumstances worse.
America is just waking up to the fact that Mohammedanism is in a perpetual war against the rest of humanity.
Eastern Christianity is under no such delusion.
Then wait.
Maybe Turkey is afraid of his ghost.
I listened to interviews with a Christian Dr. and a Christian Bishop, both from Syria, before ISIS hit the headlines. They both said that Christians and Jews were better off with a Dictator like Assad, and that America doesn’t understand that the countries in that region do not function well under democracies. They need “secular” dictators to keep the Islamists from killing everybody. They were asking for us not to help the rebels.
Mohammedanism is militarist and expansionist. The West is beginning to understand that.
I received many such reports since the “Syrian opposition” debut. It is essentially Syrian Sunni Islamist led with moderates fronting for western consumption and support. The moderates would become disposable over time, once Assad was removed and the real powers in the movement gained power over government - as was the case in Iran with ALL moderates and democrats (and socialists) in the coalition that the Mullahs formed (all politically sidelined, in prison, exiled or dead).
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