The mood of the nation after 9/11 was such that opposition to the President was seen as risky subversive and unpatriotic. Again, I was all for deposing Saddam, not because of WMD;s, but because I believe it is the duty of the Free World to oppose tyrants and free people wherever we practically can and to me Iraq was the right dictator at the right time. What we screwed up was the administration of the peace, specifically disbanding the army and civil service because we severely underestimated the effects of the post war tribal rivalries and overestimated the attraction of democracy to a people with no democratic history or values. We thought eliminating the Baathist would be a rallying point for the people, but without the element of order we yielded chaos. I don't think the US will ever get involved anywhere to the Iraq or Afghanistan (or Vietnam, South Korea) level again. We only have to look at our own country right now to understand the base adversarial nature human beings. Democracy requires a willing, educated, population with a tradition of accommodation and compromise, that see themselves as one 'unit', whose whole is greater than the sum. I'm not sure we even have that here now.
If you start military action in Syria, you will eventually have to send ground troops to get anything accomplished. If that is actually off the table, then we are going to blow **** up just to say that we blew **** up.
We were going to blow **** up to to say, you can't use chemical weapons without consequences. You can accomplish that just taking out concrete runways.
No, you can't. We've been over this. Runways can be easily patched and restored. If you really want to prevent Assad from doing it again you need to either remove his capability to do so, which means taking out his fixed and rotor wing air force, and destroying virtually every artillery platform he has, or you need to go in on the ground and seize the weapons themselves. Which would take lots of ground troops. News out today that an agreement has been reached, and it sounds like it's everything the Russians and Assad wanted. There will be no UN authorization for military force in the event of noncompliance, only more sanctions which Assad never seemed to care about before. It's highly likely it'll all turn out to be a sham and Assad will just take a card out of Saddam's playbook, which buys him time to win his civil war. But at least we don't have to act as Al Qaeda's air force... The difference between Iraq and Syria is that one is in the past, and we can learn from our mistakes there, and the other is in the future, and we have an opportunity to apply that learning. We misjudged the character of the Iraqi people and underestimated the level of chaos that would result from our actions because of the nature of the people. We didn't fully understand the role of tribalism in the region going in because it has no Western counterpart. Technically, we accomplished our mission in Iraq, but it was much more difficult and costlier than we thought it would be going in, and their future is anything but secure. It's likely that Iraq will degenerate into civil war at some point, and/or break up into separate entities. At this point there is no hope whatsoever that Syria's future would be brighter than Iraq's, or that intervention could make it so. It mystifies me why those who opposed Iraq are not applying what we learned in this case. And at least Iraq occupies a relevant place in terms of geopolitical security. Syria really doesn't, at least not at the same level that Iraq does. And in Syria, we know going in that no matter who wins the civil war - Assad or the rebels - bad guys will be in charge. If that doesn't beg for keeping our noses out of it then what possibly could?
this is not about civil war. this is about chemical weapon control. this is a serious threat to any country especially the US. if we don't do anything then anybody will follow.
Nonsense. There is zero chance that Assad uses chemical weapons against the US. The only way those weapons get used against the US is if Assad falls (very possible if we intervene, ask Khadaffi how that works) and the Nusra Front gets control of the CBW. Intervening actually makes it more likely that those weapons are used against the US. As for others using them, how did that work out after Saddam did it? It's a nonsense argument. And if you want "control" over the chemical weapons, be prepared to put lots of ground troops into Syria. That, or accept that Russian troops will flood into Syria to do it in our stead, in which case you can forget about the rebellion. You can't get control of those weapons from the air. This is exactly the sort of shallow thinking that nearly got us into a war last week.
You cant justify Iraq has helping the Iraqi people. It would be hard to make the same claim in Syria as victory would mean the country is run by the Muslim Brotherhood. Obviously this would not be good for the Syrian people. The only allies Obama seems to be able to muster up are terrorists. That should be a clue.
I guess it's academic now anyway, but I was trying to illustrate a most minimum possible response. But crashing the runways of their 10-12 airbases would be in effect a short term no fly zone, and all we really wanted to accomplish was a statement that we can and will punish you for chemical weapons violations. You didn't have to destroy their means, you only had to show your resolve. I don't think the US really wants Assad defeated in a revolution anyway. The resulting chaos is a ripe opening for Islamic Statist. A much better end would be a negotiated settlement between more moderate revolutionaries and the Assad government for a more ordered transition and a shared fight against Al Qaeda. It can be brokered an managed by Russia as an alliance against their common enemy, the inevitable Islamist insurgency.
Syria shares a border with Israel. Iraq does not. Any regime change in Syria, and the subsequent chaos and anarchy associated with militant groups, will be seen as a threat to Israel. They are America's #1 political and military ally thanks to the powerful Jewish lobbyists.
True - but Israel and the Jewish lobby support missile strikes that would increase the likelihood of that, for whatever reason.
So, you actually think that Assad would strike the US with CBW? And you also believe that causing Assad's fall without having control of the country on the ground would NOT increase the likelihood that AQ-linked rebels or Hizbollah would be able to capture the WMD? Really? If you believe either of those things then you are delusional. Which, I suppose, is probably the case.
They likely want us to take Assad out and get dragged in to clean up the aftermath. They'd be quite happy having us erase that threat once and for all and having a military presence on their northern front busy fighting AQ-types and Hizbollah. That doesn't mean we should oblige them.
Israelis only support airstrikes if chemical weapons are used against them, or there is a threat of it. They do not want regime change in Syria, they made it clear they are more comfortable negotiating with "the devil we know, the devil we don't know." They know how to deal with Assad, if they supported a regime change, the US would have already attacked by now. However, the Israeli government does see the potential to use this conflict as some more leverage against Iran.
It depends on what you want accomplished. One reason I'm against military action is I haven't heard enough about what they want accomplished. They won't want the strikes to end the civil war by removing Assad. They don't believe the strikes will get rid of all of the chemical weapons ability of the Syrians, so those two goals don't sound like what they want to accomplish. So far it sounds like they want to show Syria that using chemical weapons will bring about some destruction from more powerful nations and hopefully that will deter them from using them again. That wouldn't require ground troops.
