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riversedge

(69,731 posts)
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 08:12 AM Dec 2016

Mika telling Joe twice he has talked about Obama failure in Syria first hour over

and over and now she wants to know what will happen. What is Trumps policy? I had listened to about 10 minutes in 1st hour and the panel was ragging on and on about the failure of Obama policy in Syria. No one on the panel had anything good to say about what the policy should have been.

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InAbLuEsTaTe

(24,110 posts)
11. Donny Tiny Hands knows more than the Generals... a military genius!! Can finally sleep easy... NOT!!
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 09:49 AM
Dec 2016

Renew Deal

(81,803 posts)
2. There were never any good options in Syria other than direct intervention against Assad
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 08:16 AM
Dec 2016

And we didn't want to do that

BeyondGeography

(39,285 posts)
3. Idiots
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 08:18 AM
Dec 2016

Plus they'll never get around to what our "reward" would have been, after we got done with our victory strut. The "winning" policy in Syria puts you in charge of an ungovernable country. The victorious Russians are having a very bad day today; the first of many.

 

oberliner

(58,724 posts)
4. John McCain and Lindsey Graham call for 20,000 troops in Syria and Iraq
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 08:28 AM
Dec 2016

Two senior senators called on Sunday for Washington to nearly triple military force levels in Iraq to 10,000 and send an equal number of troops to Syria as part of a multinational ground force to counter Islamic State in both countries.

Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham criticised Barack Obama’s incremental Islamic State strategy, which relies on airstrikes and modest support to local ground forces in Iraq and Syria, and said the need for greater US involvement was underlined by this month’s Paris attacks.

“The only way you can destroy the caliphate is with a ground component,” said Graham, who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination. “The aerial campaign is not turning the tide of battle.”

McCain, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, recently proposed intervention in Syria by a European and Arab ground force backed by 10,000 US military advisers and trainers.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/29/john-mccain-lindsey-graham-20000-troops-syria-iraq

That seems to be what they are suggesting should have happened.

 

FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
5. That would achieve another temporary victory
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 08:44 AM
Dec 2016

But Bush failed to make Iraq and Afghanistan into western democracies. Their idea that you can remove dictators and theocrats by force and the people will spontaneously adopt democracy has not proven to work.

Obama and Clinton backed westernized elites in revolutions against dictators in Libya, Egypt and Syria in the belief that these folks could then persuade the populace to adopt democracy. That didn't work either.

It's time to look for a way to help the Islamic world evolve over time from theocracy to a modern view of politics and religion. But that is a multi-decade endeavor with no quick solutions.

It took from 1517 to 1648 and a lot of dead people for Europe to establish the principle that politics is controls religion. It took even more centuries to establish that politics and religion are separate.

 

oberliner

(58,724 posts)
6. The sad thing is that things have actually devolved since the 1970s
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 08:46 AM
Dec 2016

Things have gotten much more theocratic over the past few decades.
 

FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
7. Primarily because we sided with the reactionary and theocratic elements in the Arab world
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 08:56 AM
Dec 2016

For a variety of historical reasons, the more modern types in the Arab world were generally socialist or leaning that way.

We overthrew Mossadegh in Iran and installed the Shah. We had a continuing alliance with the Saudi Royal family. We backed another King in Jordan. The UK attempted to install King Farouk in Egypt, but he was so obviously corrupt and incompetent that they couldn't manage it.

Thus during the end of the Cold War, we were aligned with the godly Islamist against the ungodly Communists. Especially in Afghanistan, but also elsewhere.

Theocracy in the islamic world is mainly a result of Western policy which amplified a natural feature of the religion which provides a unified legal/political and theological system.

 

oberliner

(58,724 posts)
8. The Shah was not theocratic
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 09:11 AM
Dec 2016

He was secular. (Autocratic certainly, but not theocratic)

The government that replaced him after the 1979 revolution was theocratic.

Theocracy in the Islamic world is not a result of Western policy. That is way too simplistic. There are many many factors: Western interference is among them, but there are others.

 

FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
9. I would put him in the "reactionary" bin.
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 09:22 AM
Dec 2016

It is strange that the US and UK, ostensibly democratic countries, restored or attempted to restore hereditary monarchy in the Middle East.

tavernier

(12,322 posts)
10. Are they still on tv?
Wed Dec 14, 2016, 09:28 AM
Dec 2016

I thought they were too busy at "The Tower" advising their king on his royal appointments. (I hear Joe is up for caretaker of the king's toilet)

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