Rachel Marsden truly knows nothing about the Middle East.
There is a reason historians refer to that region as “the Graveyard of Empires”. There are no ‘true’ governments in that region, as all the so-called nations are just temporary extensions of tribal entities.
There is but one solution - kill them, and kill them all.
Irradicate the cancer of islam and 99% of the problem will be solved. We can deal with introducing the Arab into polite society after that.
We knew about the Iran activity more than a year ago. That is, we measured the amount of clandestine communications in the Iran channels.
Not the slightest of interest.
The author's fatal conceit here is that assorted parties on either side actually want a peaceable solution.
On the contrary, many of them -- including the "Prog" Democrats and the Islamists -- are actually actively seeking conflict or a pretext for conflict (a la the American Civil War) so they can impose a political solution by force, or at least overthrow the old solution and foment revolution. This includes the Moslem political fronts.
"To some, the obvious solution is to cut off funding to all proxies and abandon all foreign interests to refocus on domestic economics and security. The common refrain is, "What are we still doing in Islamic countries? Let's get out of there and bring everyone home." Right. And the ragtag "rebels," including al-Qaeda, shuttling as needed between Libya, Syria and elsewhere to foment paid unrest on behalf of the highest bidder are just going to go home, kick back with a beer and take up macramé?"What have the $100's of billions, blood, and nation building gotten us over the last decade and a half? The radical Muslim Brotherhood controlling the whole middle east. Also, exiting the middle east will take a major grievance off the table, while minimizing our own causalities and saving $100's of billions of expenditures that we borrow from China.
Regarding Russia and China stepping in, they are more compatible in terms of their political structure (fascist), they don't like Israel, and they'll sell any weapons to anyone, but they are infidels and will not be tolerated after the Islamists get what they need from the useful idiot allies.
Why not let the middle east go the way they want, but step in when our interests are in jeopardy (let's get off their oil to minimize inter-dependencies) and try to help Israel survive by using intelligence and technology (like Stuxnet), and when necessary, military assets. Of course this only works when we have strong leadership and protect our intel.