The Syria Fairy Tale Lives!

National Review ^ | 12/22/2018 | ANDREW C. MCCARTHY

[CaptainK]

Unlike my colleagues, I’ve been a bemused spectator during this week’s Syria follies. As readers of these columns know (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here), I believe the United States has less interest in Syria than in the persistence of drought in Burkina Faso. That is why I was a steadfast naysayer on American intervention in a conflict among rivals whose common ground consists of hatred for America and affinity for sharia supremacism (and the abetting thereof — I’m looking at you, Vladimir).

The current frenzy was ignited by the president’s abrupt decision to pull U.S. forces (all 2,200 of them) out of Syria. This prompted Defense Secretary James Mattis’s resignation — though General Mattis’s stinging letter indicates that Syria was really just the last straw for him after two years in the Trump grinder.

These latest chapters are already being folded into the Syria Hawk Fantasy Narrative. To recap, we are to believe that President Obama, by extracting forces from Iraq (inconveniently, pursuant to an agreement struck by President Bush) created a “vacuum,” in which ISIS spontaneously generated. It is supposed to be irrelevant to this story that the American people never supported Washington’s farcical sharia-democracy project, and that the Iraqis claimed to want our troops out even more than we did. What matters is that Obama’s decision “created ISIS,” dashing the dreams for a secular, pluralist democracy harbored by the moderate Muslims who predominate Iraq (at least on days when they’re not executing homosexuals and apostates), and making an unspeakable bloodbath of the heroic struggle by the same moderate Muslims to overthrow Syria’s Tehran-backed monster, Bashar al-Assad.

[Sasparilla]

So, are we fated to stay in the Mideast forever?
Dont and e still know how to use Cruise missiles?
Don’t we still have precision bombing?
No more lives need to be lost.

[2banana]

Wrong. Because obama would not negotiate the status of forces agreement

*******

Narrative. To recap, we are to believe that President Obama, by extracting forces from Iraq (inconveniently, pursuant to an agreement struck by President Bush

[MNDude]

Hillary is screaming for us to stay in Syria. That is a about all you need to know.

[Revolutionary]

Defeating ISIS in Syria was the reason we were there. The last bit of ISIS is now surrounded by other forces. Post ISIS is an ongoing civil war. The Russians are supporting Assad with combat forces. What side would we be on if we stayed. Only a fool would stay. Trump arranged for Saudi Arabia and the UAE to protect the Kurds.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Defeating ISIS in Syria was the reason we were there.

Getting the pipeline built for Qatar was the reason we were there. And nobody is getting their under-the-table payoffs unless we stay.

[mac_truck]

That is why I was a steadfast naysayer on American intervention in a conflict among rivals whose common ground consists of hatred for America and affinity for sharia supremacism (and the abetting thereof — I’m looking at you, Vladimir).

Hmm, lets see...Russia has been steadfastly supporting the sectarian government of Bashir al-Assad, while the US has been supporting any number of wild-eyed Islamist "rebel" forces against him.

So tell me again who's aiding and abetting sharia supremacism over there Andrew...

[momincombatboots]

Bingo.. cannot believe you are the only one who remember the pipeline. Thanks for the reminder of the real reason we went.. that had zero US interest.

[shanover]

Defeating ISIS in Syria was the reason we were there

Obama/Clinton/McCain removal of Assad idiocy was the reason we were there. These same a-holes loved how easy Libya was. Obama is the father of ISIS by design (foreign policy/NWO/Globalism. Neither party likes the Kurds BTW.

[Sam Gamgee]

This was the Hillary-McCain-Bill Kristol war. Assad is no angel, but I am not convinced we know who are the good players and bad players in this. And I am not thrilled that any American soldiers should be fighting a Holy War on behalf of Sunnis against their Shiite political class. If the political class REALLY cared about innocent lives they would take some interest in Haiti, or Nigeria, or the slavery in Sudan. What is so freaking special about Syria?

[CaptainK]

Whatever side wins, they will eventually turn on us.

[Billthedrill]

It was, moreover, absurd for President Trump to declare victory just because ISIS has been stripped of 95 percent of the territory it once held.

No, actually it isn't. ISIS attempted the move from terrorist organization to actual possessor of territory, which is, after all, the requirement of a budding Caliphate or nation state. That denied, they're just another band of ultraviolent punks. Even in an environment where victory has no grand strategic objective or grand narrative, that's victory.

One might as easily contend that our victory in WWII was incomplete because there were still Nazis who hadn't been killed yet. It's quibbling nonsense.

[rintintin]

Is Assad worse than our allies the Saudis, or the rulers of Egypt?

[ek_hornbeck]

That is why I was a steadfast naysayer on American intervention in a conflict among rivals whose common ground consists of hatred for America and affinity for sharia supremacism

This guy should get a basic grasp of what he's talking about before writing op-eds. There was and is no Sharia law in Assad's Syria - it's a secular dictatorship, not an Islamist theocracy. And what exactly is "Sharia supremacism" supposed to mean?

[Sam Gamgee]

True, though Assad is probably a little more focussed on Israel first.

[Sam Gamgee]

Nope, and we shouldn’t have taken out Mubarak. Egypt from what I understand hasn’t actually done anything to us like the Saudis have. They are ruthless to their own people to be sure. Syria does bear responsibility for the Marines killed in Beirut in the 1980s and for hiding Saddam’s chemical weapons.