[quote=Bluesman;315805]THERE. Right THERE.
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This is what I''ve been talking about. Willam, you have a basic misunderstanding of what's going on, where our interests lie, AND the Syrians', AND the Israelis'.
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Au contraire mon ferrer, understanding the situation is much more textured, nuanced and sophisticated then "bash 'em with a rock".
Here are some of the United States' interests with regards to the Middle East and Central Asia:
1. Counter terrrorism;
2. Counter proliferation;
3. Counter narcotics;
4. Energy security (for ourselves and to a greater extent our European and Asian allies);
5. Regional stability without which none of the above is going to happen in the first place.
There are others, naturally, but that is a pretty comprehensive short list for purposes of argument.
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Iran and Syria are what we call ENEMIES. Israel is an ALLY. Destabilizing an enemy regime, or two, or three DOES serve our interests, and Israel's.
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I have found that there are a myriad of things you can do to make an enemy serve your purposes besides just ***** about them and throw rocks at them.
Ok, so Syria gets clobbered tommorrow.
This would make you happy but then you would be railing about the terrorists and weapons smugglers taking advantage of the refugee flows, chaos and porous borders to threaten Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and what not.
This is how it happened in Mr. Bush's first two wars in the region, albeit with different borders; would it be rational to suppose it would happen differently in a third?
Introducing more instability to the region is clearly not going to further U.S. interests.
Israel is good people and I have no problem with them as an ally but their grand strategic consideration that "Israel's fortune depends on Leabanon's misfortune" is a direct impediment to our own grand strategic aims in the region.
This being the case, we should not do them too many favors, especially since taking the Syrians out of their hair would be shooting ourselves in the foot...unless we can get a suitable quid pro quo,of course, which is extremely unlikely where Lebanon is concerned.
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You seem to imagine that the Iraq Surrender Group had a dam' good point: if only we can get Syria and Iran to see that their fostering of chaos in Iraq is a Bad Thing - not just for us, but for them, too - well, then they'll just change that decades-old, well-considered, heavily-supported plan, and just come on aboard the Ole American Bandwagon.
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Frankly, I do not care if Iran and Syria are on the wagon or not as long as we have people in Washington capable of getting them to act in a manner that is pursuant to our interests (and if their crooked govenrments loose sway in the process, fine by me).
And of the two, Syria is pretty worthless but Iran is gem of incalcuable worth viz U.S. interests in the Middle East and CARs which is why we should only smash it as the policy of last resort.
And do not continue to blame the chaos in Iraq on Iran and Syria because the facts clearly show that it is a result of American interventionism. When you hold the door for your enemy, do not complain if he saunters through it.
Your peer group clearly has disdain for the ISG and its conclusions and your attempt to link mine to theirs for purposes of your audience is a very well known propaganda technique. However, it is a bit misleading given the fact the ISG followed me by a very significant chronological margin and I have never had any contact with that body.
I researched and came to my own conclusions years ago; I did not need somebody to spoon feed them to me from a can of ideology. However, watching the President get the medicine as a result of not doing his own homework has been amusing...outside of the "stay the course" butcher's bill.
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NO SIR. You don't get it, and I've pointed that out to all and sundry on this Board almost since you first posted that pap
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If you want to win, you have got to convince me, not them.
Show me some evidence and present it persuasively and I might jump.
Repeating the dangers of radical Pan Islam and trying to scare me with tales of decapitating, Islamic boogey men ad infinitum is not much of an argument.
Your mission in our ongoing debate is to prove to me that a belt of instability extending from the beaches of Lebanon to the border of China somehow forwards the intersets of the U.S. and its allies and fetters the interests of our enemies (e.g. "the terrorists", proliferators, etc.) as well as hampers the aspirations of our strategic competitors (e.g. the Chinese and the Russians).
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How would destabilizing Iran and Syria help stabilize Iraq? By forcing them onto the defensive, like we currently are. Instead of a Green Zone in Baghdad, let's have a couple in Damascus and Tehran.
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Why in the Hell would I be idiotic enough to grant my enemy the economy of the defensive to my own detriment?!?
Let him blunt his sword on my superior shield and machinations while I dispatch him at the time and place of my convenience.
Figure out what to do with one Green Zone before you demand another.
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Right now, as we speak, the most deadly weapons in the terrorists' aresenal, the Explosively-Formed Projectile, is flowing in an uninterrupted stream across the Iranian border. And the operators of same are flowing in from the other side, the Syrian border.
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If my grasp of history is correct, the situation you are so alarmed about is a direct byproduct of the American introduced instability in Iraq combined with the failure to manage some sort of dialog with Tehran.
You are making my case for me and giving some credibility your hated ISG's as well.
I might bet you five dollars that if we and/or the Israeli's haul off and throw Iran into the same kind of chaos with which we have afflicted the Iraqis, you will be singing the same tune and calling this dance:
"Right now, as we speak, the most deadly weapons in the xyz's arsenal, (insert WMD, rogue scientist, CBW, etc. et al) are flowing across the Iranian border to willing operators in (insert XYZistan du jour, North Korea or wherever)."
If it is in the United States' interest to combat terror, proliferation of all types of arms and realted concerns, than the United States is going to have to pursue a policy of fostering stability to develop a framework in which to pursue those aims in the first place.
As you have clearly pointed out the instability introduced into Iraq by ill thought out, American military interventionism was the greatest of boons to our enemies and the terrorists.
The security climate in Iraq was dictated by Americans, not the enemy. We manufactured the threat; it just did not spontaneously materialize.
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They are ENEMIES, William, and you'd do well to study up on that word, and the strategic imperative of defeating them. They kill Americans, and if you gave two damns about that, instead of the defeat and retreat in the face of a victorious enemy that you've been urging, even somebody as blinkered as you are MAY urge that we fight back, and stop respecting a line on a map that our enemies don't give a dam' about.
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I have a few enemies myself which is how I know what to do with them.
Doing what they want me to do is the last thing on my mind.
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Just try to get out of your Realist mindset for a moment (because, thank Gawd, the ISG's laughable product has utterly discredited it)
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1. You might find that I am not a realist.
2. You call the ISG's product laughable and discredited. Has its recommendations been implemented yet?
3. How much damage has the ISG done to US interests since their recommendations were presented and how much more effective has the so called Bush Doctrine been based on that assesment?
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and get your head around this concept: chaos, anarchy, instability and the Fog of War are our ALLIES, when used against our ENEMIES.
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From a clinically militarist standpoint, you may be correct but as the facts have shown, chaos, anarchy, instability and the Fog of War are tools the Bush Administration has used to weaken our alliances, reduce the chances of successfully fulfilling our strategic aims, emboldened our enemies and forwarding the cause of the terrorists.
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JAYZUS, this is so BASIC; how can you not SEE that?
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That it is what I keep asking myself about you and your ilk.
Think big...really BIG.
We are strong enough to deploy many insturments of national power yet the Bush Administration is unwilling to do so. Why should we squabble in the vacumn when we can do something about it?
Lets throw a few combinations and watch 'em reel.
Regardless of our immediate disagreement on academic and practical security concerns, I wish you and the Lady of your Hall a Happy Christmas and the blessings of Peace and Prosperity in the coming year.
William