U.S. Should Rethink Policy on Syria’s Assad

The Wall Street Journal ^ | October 14, 2015 | Paul deLespinasse

[MinorityRepublican]

Numerous Journal editorials and other pieces, including William A. Galston’s “Obama’s Wishful-Thinking Syria Policy” (Politics & Ideas, Oct. 7), agree that the U.S. has been doing too little about Syria. Gen. David Petraeus recently told Congress the same thing. On the contrary, we have been doing too much.

Americans need to understand that moral standards appropriate at the personal (or “micro”) level cannot be applied uncritically at the “macro” level in which governments operate. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad presides over a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands and driven crowds to flee. American policy is that Mr. Assad is an evil man and has to go. Russian and Iranian support for his regime is considered outrageous.

We need to reconsider. Mr. Assad’s forces face several rebel groups and Islamic State. Wholesale atrocities, committed by all sides, will end only when the civil war ends. If rebel forces destroy Mr. Assad, war will continue while the various groups fight to see who would rule. A victory by Mr. Assad’s loyalists would be the fastest way to end the war.

Whatever their reasons for supporting Mr. Assad, therefore, Russia and Iran are promoting more humane results than is the U.S., whose support for rebels prolongs the misery. Syria is just one of many places where American inaction is the best possible action.

[Fresh Wind]

Rethink?

I’m still waiting for evidence that we’ve thought about it the first time.

[Southack]

Mugniyeh was killed *before* Obama’s “Arab Spring” turned Syria and Libya into warring wastelands.

Whole different ballgame today.

[Thunder90]

Having China, Russia, and Iran next to Israel spells disaster for that nation.

[Thunder90]

How does inviting in the Chinese and Iranians help protect Christians? China and Iran persecute Christians, and the Russians barely tolerate anyone who is not of the Russian strain of Orthodoxy (if the are not atheist due to the past).

[RedHeeler]

Hardly, if you are referring to Israel. The onus is upon the triad, you mentioned. They will have the reward of diminished return.

[Southack]

You’d prefer ISIS to be there, instead?

[Thunder90]

I prefer neither of them to be there. It is like Poland during WWII. Hitler and Stalin were both bad news. Remove one and you get the other. Either way, the people there suffer. The same thing is happening here.

[Alberta's Child]

Nobody is suggesting that Assad is a believing Christian. The point is that Christians living in Syria are safer with him in power than with someone else running that country. In fact, Christians in the Middle East were better off living in countries run by a lot of people who the U.S. has pushed out of power through various means over the last 15 years -- including Hussein, Mubarak, Khaddafi, etc. Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Allowing the Russian-Iranian axis to move forward until the Iranians have the bomb is insanity.

This sentence demonstrates how silly your point is. If the "Russian-Iranian axis" is the real problem here, then doing anything to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal is pointless because they can already get one from the Russians.

[Jimmy Valentine]

The Sykes-Picot agreement from WWI is unraveling and the old religious/ tribal boundaries are reforming. We need to get out of the way and let happen

[ETL]

You’d prefer ISIS to be there, instead?

I like the way you phony-baloney Putinistas try to make it seem like there are just these two choices: Russia or ISIS. How about the US step up its efforts to what it should have been from the start and wipe the terror group off the friggin map.

All but 1 or 2 of you have the integrity to openly admit that what you really want is for Russia to replace the US as the world's top superpower, and for them to finish retaking Eastern Europe and ultimately also grab control of the Middle East. ISIS is just the excuse for Russia to do what they're doing in the region. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if they, either, created ISIS themselves or have plants working within them whose job it is rile them up even further. Sort of like KGB/FSB Putin's version of Charles Manson's Helter Skelter.
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Charles Manson's Helter Skelter:

"Helter Skelter would begin, according to one of Charlie's devotees, 'with the black man going into white people's homes and ripping off the white people, physically destroying them. A couple of spades from Watts would come up into the Bel Air and Beverly Hills district...and just really wipe some people out, just cutting bodies up and smearing blood and writing things on the wall in blood...all kinds of super-atrocious crimes that would really make the white man mad...until there was open revolution in the streets, until they finally won and took over. Then the black man would assume the white man's karma. He would then be the establishment'..."

Charlie and the Family would survive this racial holocaust because they would be hiding in the desert safe from the turmoil of the cities. He pulled from the Book of Revelations, the concept of a "bottomless pit," the entrance of which, according to Charlie, was a cave underneath Death Valley that led down to a city of gold. This paradise was where Charlie and his Family were going to wait out this war.

Afterwards, when the black man failed at keeping power, Charlie's Family, which they estimated would have multiplied to 144,000 by that time, would then take over from the black man and rule the cities.

"It will be our world then," Charlie told his followers. "There would be no one else, except for us and the black servants.

[ETL]

From Aug 23, 2015:

"a recent investigation conducted by Novaya Gazeta, one of the few independent newspapers left in Russia, complicates this cozy tale of counterterrorist cooperation. Based on extensive fieldwork in one village in the North Caucasus, reporter Elena Milashina has concluded that the “Russian special services have controlled” the flow of jihadists into Syria, where they have lately joined up not only with ISIS but other radical Islamist factions.

In other words, Russian officials are adding to the ranks of terrorists which the Russian government has deemed a collective threat to the security and longevity of its dictatorial ally on the Mediterranean, Bashar al-Assad."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/23/russia-s-playing-a-double-game-with-islamic-terror0.html
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Understanding Provocation [Provokatsiya]

March 29, 2014

One of the most powerful tools the Kremlin has in its secret arsenal of Special War is provocation, what they call provokatsiya.

While Moscow cannot claim to have invented this technique, which has existed as long as there have been secret services, there’s no doubt that Russians have perfected the art and taken it to a whole new level of sophistication and deviousness. At times, it can become a strategy all on its own (not always, mind you, with edifying results).

Provokatsiya simply means taking control of your enemies in secret and encouraging them to do things that discredit them and help you. You plant your own agents provocateurs and flip legitimate activists [in this case, dupe actual Jihadis -ETL], turning them to your side.

When you’re dealing with extremists to start with, getting them to do crazy, self-defeating things isn’t often difficult. In some cases, you simply create extremists and terrorists where they don’t exist. This is causing problems in order to solve them, and since the Tsarist period, Russian intelligence has been known to do just that.

While this isn’t a particularly nice technique, it works surprisingly well, particularly if you don’t care about bloody and messy consequences. ..."

http://20committee.com/2014/03/29/understanding-provocation/
_________________________________

In other words, it's like starting a fire, or pouring gasoline on a fire, in order to be the 'big hero', being first on the scene to put it out. Except in this case, you get to grab control over the buildings and town you helped 'saved' from the fire you helped to start.

[JEDI4S]

The boys on Wall Street don’t want to be left out of the energy business once order is restored. They want their cut and the Chamber has changed it’s mind.

LET THE WOOKIE WIN!

[Southack]

"How about the US step up its efforts to what it should have been from the start and wipe the terror group off the friggin map."

Obama funded and armed those terror groups. That's what NATO ally Turkey has been doing. That's what our U.S. SpecOps have been doing in Jordan. That's what Hillary was scheming in Benghazi.

There are no "moderate" terrorists. There is no 3rd option as you and your buddy Obama keep pretending.

If you want dead terrorists, then the Israelis and Russians...and whatever few Syrians loyal to Assad are left remaining...are your only option.

[McGruff]

Just look at Libya. Iraq also.

[gtx960]

Why initiate a war involving all the global powers???

Not gonna be short or limited, if you think otherwise you are naive

---

All the global powers? What nation would ally itself with Russia in a struggle against the West? Belarus? The Warsaw Pact has gone the way of the Holy Roman Empire.

[100American]

Read, there is already alignment between China and Russia as the client states who buy their arms asked them to come on down...

Guess they are bumping into our arms sales folks who sell to anyone they can....

Warsaw pact, so 30 + years ago, world has changed significantly since then as we all know...

But the Hitleresque land grabbing model, domination of the Earth...

All Muzzies, no one else...

Take it to the Bank