Article

2019-10-15 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Goodbye to the Middle East by Peter Zeihan

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Posted by DarthVader 2019-10-15 10:22|| || Front Page|| [13 views ] Top

#1 [The US] ...didn’t even do the heavy lifting, but instead relegated themselves to providing intelligence and materiel support.

Without intel and materiel the Kurds otherwise didn't have, there would be no "lifting" at all, heavy or otherwise.

On the other hand, the United States was always going to leave Syria. If the Americans were unwilling to commit 100,000 troops to the overthrow of Syria’s Assad government and its subsequent forcible reconstruction, then there was little reason to become involved in a decades-long, grinding multi-sided civil war.

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

Posted by M. Murcek 2019-10-15 11:18|| 2019-10-15 11:18|| Front Page Top

#2 "forcible reconstruction" only seems to work on non-tribal civilisations.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2019-10-15 11:46|| 2019-10-15 11:46|| Front Page Top

#3 "forcible reconstruction" only seems to work on non-tribal civilizations.

There are tribal-civilizations?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-10-15 12:15|| 2019-10-15 12:15|| Front Page Top

#4 Middle East was semi-peaceful when the Europeans controlled the place.
Middle East was semi-peaceful when the Ottomans controlled the place.
Europe isn't up for the task, but I'm willing to give the Ottomans another chance. Let them start with Syria and see how it goes.

Posted by ruprecht 2019-10-15 12:28|| 2019-10-15 12:28|| Front Page Top

#5 American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent.

American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent.

American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent.

Worth repeating.

Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-10-15 12:33|| 2019-10-15 12:33|| Front Page Top

#6 If Trump's moves re Syria upset people like Fareed Zakaria and Thomas Freidman I'm for what Trump is doing 100%.

Posted by M. Murcek 2019-10-15 12:39|| 2019-10-15 12:39|| Front Page Top

#7 Aside from the Iranian vector, American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent.

Bingo. Not, "create an autonomous Kurdish region [for yet another of the Kurds' many factions]", not "reconstitute the Syrian government."

Just keep the Iranians down and smash ISIL, and restrain Turkey's involvement through diplomatic means. Not with American troops.

Can't we learn, once, maybe, from the endless war in Afghanistan?

Posted by Lex 2019-10-15 12:47|| 2019-10-15 12:47|| Front Page Top

#8 It'll be interesting to see the Dems take the war monger position against Trump.

Posted by ruprecht 2019-10-15 13:08|| 2019-10-15 13:08|| Front Page Top

#9 "MBS is not a friend, nor is Saudi Arabia an ally. America used to have to put up with this sort of activity from the Saudis during the Cold War because without Saudi oil, the global trading system would have collapsed and taken the American alliance network with it. Courtesy of America’s shale revolution, those days are over."

Man, Zeihan is just hitting these out of the park.

Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-10-15 13:52|| 2019-10-15 13:52|| Front Page Top

#10 I'm willing to give the Ottomans another chance.

Erdogan is Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey. His ultimate goal is a worldwide caliphate with himself as caliph. In typical MB style, he is willing to use the soft jihad of the law to move in a step-wise progression that doesn’t scare the frogs out of the heating pot. For the past few years we’ve watched him driving secularists and Gulenists out of public life at home and taking over all the Gulenist private schools around the world, whose excellent curriculum looks to Turkey as the center and definer of Islam. According to Russia Today, Turkey is building a second military base in Qatar, in addition to which this chronically nearly bankrupt country has bases or military personnel

...in Azerbaijan, Northern Cyprus, northern Iraq, Somalia and northern Syria.

And Turkey has been on a mosque building spree around the world — including a $100 million behemoth on 60 acres in Maryland — funded by the Diyanet, the government office of Muslim religious affairs, with an annual budget around 2 billion Euros the biggest item in the Turkish budget, plus another 100 million or so Euros in zakat extracted from current congregations “donated” to the project.

In the old days ribats were caravanserais on the Muslim trade routes, also serving the quietly invading force as fortresses and weapons depots. What odds these modern, donated Turkish mosques are not planned to serve a similar duty by the man who proudly said, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers,” and has told Turkish immigrants in Germany that "assimilation is a crime against humanity."

Posted by trailing wife 2019-10-15 19:11|| 2019-10-15 19:11|| Front Page Top

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