Posted on 04/17/2018 8:18:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Ten days ago, President Trump was saying 'the United States should withdraw from Syria.' We convinced him it was necessary to stay."
Thus boasted French President Emmanuel Macron Saturday, adding, "We convinced him it was necessary to stay for the long term."
Is the U.S. indeed in the Syrian civil war "for the long term"?
If so, who made that fateful decision for this republic?
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley confirmed Sunday there would be no drawdown of the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, until three objectives were reached. We must fully defeat ISIS, ensure chemical weapons would not again be used by Bashar Assad and maintain the ability to watch Iran.
Translation: Whatever Trump says, America is not coming out of Syria. We are going deeper in. Trump's commitment to extricate us from these bankrupting and blood-soaked Middle East wars and to seek a new rapprochement with Russia is "inoperative."
The War Party that Trump routed in the primaries is capturing and crafting his foreign policy. Monday's Wall Street Journal editorial page fairly blossomed with war plans:
"The better U.S. strategy is to ... turn Syria into the Ayatollah's Vietnam. Only when Russia and Iran began to pay a larger price in Syria will they have any incentive to negotiate an end to the war or even contemplate a peace based on dividing the country into ethnic-based enclaves."
Apparently, we are to bleed Syria, Russia, Hezbollah and Iran until they cannot stand the pain and submit to subdividing Syria the way we want.
But suppose that, as in our Civil War of 1861-1865, the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, and the Chinese Civil War of 1945-1949, Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Shiite militia allies go all out to win and reunite the nation.
Suppose they choose to fight to consolidate the victory they have won after seven years of civil war. Where do we find the troops to take back the territory our rebels lost? Or do we just bomb mercilessly?
The British and French say they will back us in future attacks if chemical weapons are used, but they are not plunging into Syria.
Defense Secretary James Mattis called the U.S.-British-French attack a "one-shot" deal. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson appears to agree: "The rest of the Syrian war must proceed as it will."
The Journal's op-ed page Monday was turned over to former U.S. ambassador to Syria Ryan Crocker and Brookings Institute senior fellow Michael O'Hanlon: "Next time the U.S. could up the ante, going after military command and control, political leadership, and perhaps even Assad himself. The U.S. could also pledge to take out much of his air force. Targets within Iran should not be off limits."
And when did Congress authorize U.S. acts of war against Syria, its air force or political leadership? When did Congress authorize the killing of the president of Syria whose country has not attacked us?
Can the U.S. also attack Iran and kill the ayatollah without consulting Congress?
Clearly, with the U.S. fighting in six countries, Commander in Chief Trump does not want any new wars, or to widen any existing wars in the Middle East. But he is being pushed into becoming a war president to advance the agenda of foreign policy elites who, almost to a man, opposed his election.
We have a reluctant president being pushed into a war he does not want to fight. This is a formula for a strategic disaster not unlike Vietnam or George W. Bush's war to strip Iraq of nonexistent WMD.
The assumption of the War Party seems to be that if we launch larger and more lethal strikes in Syria, inflicting casualties on Russians, Iranians, Hezbollah and the Syrian army, they will yield to our demands.
But where is the evidence for this?
What reason is there to believe these forces will surrender what they have paid in blood to win? And if they choose to fight and widen the war to the larger Middle East, are we prepared for that?
As for Trump's statement Friday, "No amount of American blood and treasure can produce lasting peace in the Middle East," the Washington Post Sunday dismissed this as "fatalistic" and "misguided."
We have a vital interest, says the Post, in preventing Iran from establishing a "land corridor" across Syria.
Yet consider how Iran acquired this "land corridor."
The Shiites in 1979 overthrew a shah our CIA installed in 1953.
The Shiites control Iraq because President Bush invaded and overthrew Saddam and his Sunni Baath Party, disbanded his Sunni-led army, and let the Shiite majority take control of the country.
The Shiites are dominant in Lebanon because they rose up and ran out the Israelis, who invaded in 1982 to run out the PLO.
How many American dead will it take to reverse this history?
How long will we have to stay in the Middle East to assure the permanent hegemony of Sunni over Shiite?
He is prisoner of the stupid party.
You go to war in a case of enemity in self defense with full intent to destroy your dangerous enemy, not for a safari on predator-prey maintenance or issues of making the world “nice” selectively.
The only real question about Pat Buchanan is, does the swamp come only to the level of his midsection, or does it envelop him so deeply that most of his head is under water?
President Trump has it in his power to be one of the great American Presidents or the one of the worst.
The way he falls into the latter category is getting involved in any globalist adventurism.
It’s that simple a choice: a prosperous, peaceful Republic.
Or a broken-down, Junta - blindly fighting losing wars on behalf of others.
Not anymore.
Now we go to war for globalists, the House of Saud, pipelines, Israel, military lobbyists...stuff like that.
Quagmire Number: ?...what is our commitment to France? Explain the Rules of Engagement...do we need their oil? I think not. We have enough of our own plus other trading partners for oil.
When the three objectives are reached...hopefully we're out of there!
agreed - stop squandering trillions blowing shit up in sandland. come home & protect our borders. Build our country
The majority of this is a result of needing to maintain the worldwide use and reserve status of King Dollar.
The petrodollar is already being challenged by Russia and China in agreements to settle trades in their own currencies. They recently started trading oil futures in Shanghai that is settled in Yuan and (supposedly) backed by gold bullion. This is not a trivial development. War with the the ‘Bear’ and the ‘Dragon’ are inevitable, it’s just a question of whether it will be done directly or by proxy.
Syria is also in the middle of it with that oil pipeline, and the USA knows it can ill afford for even more hydrocarbons or various commodities to be sold for anything other than US Dollars.
If our currency loses it’s coveted preeminence in the world, our economy, political system, and culture will take a hit we may never recover from.
This is one reason ‘the children’ of Syria or Iraq are more important than the children of, say, Bangladesh or Nicaragua. Or the thousands of American babies brutally murdered daily through abortion.
Our President is in a tough position. We know he wants out of the endless wars - he always has.
The answer is no
Democrats are the war party. They got us into just about ever war we’ve been in.
This is just more liberal projection onto others for their own behaviors.
This is the Donald Trump his base voted for.
If something has changed he needs to look us in the face and tell us what.
They didn't vote for Rand Paul and a continuation of Obama's inept foreign policy that gave rise to an Islamic terrorist threat to Americans home and abroad.
Trump also campaigned on building up the military.
Didn’t the President, and others I think, indicate a week or so ago that isis was already defeated in Syria?
Paddy suffers delirium from inhaling swamp gas and his PTSD from imagining Jewish people and Protestants lurking under his bed and in his closet.
The vote for Trump was to see ISIS destroyed and the United States and allies like Israel defended. He’s done a better job than any other president. The tiny faction of loosely affiliated radical traditionals and other Balkan-esque interests only make a lot of noise sometimes, especially the loserdopians.
Or even worse, Mexican Catholics.
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