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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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 Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2015 3:44 pm Post subject: The Talk about US Policy in the Middle East Thread |
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We have been spending quite a bit of time talking about people leaving the Middle East, so lets talk a bit about what's actually going on there. It seems to me that the United States has a terrible Middle East policy, but I am not sure what a good Middle East policy would be or would look like. Also, it seems like Russia has more or less the same policy, with the major difference of supporting a (more and more marginal) 'legitimate' state actor and working with Iran and Iraq.
To contribute to the discussion, I present this
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/19/official-mission-creep-timeline-us-war-in-syria-obama-administration/
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In Washington foreign-policy circles, there is an allergy to history, especially of the recent varieties that could illuminate current policy debates. Thucydides, the Founding Fathers, Carl von Clausewitz, and Winston Churchill (and other assorted men of history) are acceptable touchstones and references for historical reflection, but the foreign-policy objectives of current or recent White House occupants are referred to far less frequently. The common reason offered is that the United States finds itself in the current situation and should focus exclusively on forging a way ahead. And, in my experience, when recent illuminating history is raised, the response one gets is: “Well, yes, OK, but what should we do now?”
President Barack Obama faces yet another “what to do now” question with regards to his anti-Islamic State strategy in response to Russia’s 2-week-old bombing campaign in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman declared broadly, “Barack Obama is under pressure, at home and abroad, to restore the image of American strength by responding more forcefully,” while Zbigniew Brzezinski proposed “strategic boldness” in the form of destroying Russian air and naval assets if President Vladimir Putin did not stop his country’s attacks in Syria. Although there have reportedly been White House or State Department reviews of military options (for five years now, actually), it does not appear that Obama will authorize a significant, overt U.S. military escalation within Iraq or Syria.
Before diving into what the United States should do now regarding its anti-Islamic State strategy, it is essential to first look back and analyze exactly how the United States has arrived at where it is. Claims that Obama is demonstrating “restraint” or is “doing nothing” overlook the gradual accretion of U.S. forces and arms shipments, and the enlarging scopes of the missions being undertaken. When listening to debates about what to do now in Syria, please bear in mind the history of the last year-and-a-half. To help readers do this, here is your official “mission creep” timeline of the 15 most significant military policy declarations since June 2014, when the Islamic State’s uprising in Iraq dramatically escalated. |
Within the article is a timeline of each time we have increased US commitment to Syria, and today Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has proposed to "step up its operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, including through “direct action on the ground."
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/carter-syria-iraq-isis/412681/
I think that some action is smart and defensible, such as making sure the Kurds are not overrun, humanitarian airlifts, such as when the Yazidi's were trapped on the mountain. Mostly, I think for a sustainable solution to come, it needs to come from the people in the region, but seeing as how the dictators we supported actively crushed all non-religious civil society I am not sure how this would work in practice. |
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Swartz
Joined: 19 Dec 2014
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| Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2015 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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The US has a terrible Middle East policy if you are approaching it from the perspective of the costs/benefits for Americans and America. However, if you are looking at it from the perspective of the costs/benefits for Israel, it is very reasonable. Israel fears strong neighbors and leaders that are antagonistic towards its long term goals for establishing the Greater Israel (or Oded Yinon) Plan. They want to break up any country they see as a threat which, unsurprisingly, is just about all of them. Since Israel obviously cannot do this themselves, they rely on their dual-citizen powerbrokers inside the US gov, the media, think tanks, etc., as well as the banking cartels they operate, to manufacture a reality, persuade, and bribe insiders into enacting policies conducive to their goals. Their financial and media influence also gives them a stranglehold over the political process, allowing them to negate or ruin any politician who speaks ill of Israel or offers resistance. Pat Buchanan referred to D.C. as “Israeli occupied territory” in the 1970s; that description is likely even more apt now. Washington is as incompetent as ever.
They finally got rid of Saddam and shattered Iraq, did the same with Gaddafi and Libya, and were on the brink of a similar success with Assad and Syria before Russia stepped in. But they failed in Lebanon and have yet to push the US into a war that atomizes Iran, despite decades of propaganda and lobbying. Iran is a major lynchpin for Lebanon and Syria, everyone knows this, Russia especially. But this is where it gets a little complicated. Controlling the opposition and having a backup plan is a key strategy for long term success. While the Israeli Lobby and neocons are chickenhawks that constantly try to push the US into war, Israeli-firsters also control J Street, a seemingly more moderate lobbying group that helped broker the Iran deal. You win even when you lose if you manage the terms.
But I give Obama some credit here. He realized that the neocons burned him in Libya and hasn’t overcommitted himself too much since, and US might be at war with Russia, Iran, or both now if McCain or Hillary was at the helm. Also worth mentioning is that, since Obama wasn’t willing to commit, the Israelis and others (probably with the assistance of the US) empowered ISIS to go in and finish the job while the US was pretending over the last year plus to passively oppose ISIS. Putin called this bluff, went in, and has had ISIS running ever since. Or that was how it seemed the last I checked.
Finally, to the point about change in the Middle East coming from within: While I agree that the US has no business in the region, quarantine is likely the best option. These are low-trust, tribal cultures with shocking levels of inbreeding:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Global_prevalence_of_consanguinity.svg/2000px-Global_prevalence_of_consanguinity.svg.png
These effects are now prevalent among Muslims in Europe.
http://dcgazette.com/muslim-inbreeding-may-genetic-catastrophe/
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/591577/British-Pakistanis-13-times-more-disabled-children
High institutional functionality and democratic principles in Western societies are the evolutionary result of high-trust and non-tribal attitudes. The people make the country, not the other way around, although importing people from tribal societies will certainly change that dynamic. Low IQ, low-trust, kin-based tribal cultures cannot reproduce that high level of functionality in any comparative fashion. Meaning, the Middle East will likely be a basket case prone to strongman rule for a long time to come. |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2015 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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I have not really been paying attention very lately. I do hear that Obama has committed ground troops, because I guess the United States finally received the memorandum that air power has very strict limitations.
In any case, I strongly oppose putting boots on the ground to combat ISIS. |
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young_clinton
Joined: 09 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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| The policy of the US in the Middle East should be to help the non Muslims and no one else. The US can produce enough oil on its own we don't need the duplicitous Saudis and the rest of the Arabs. Iran should get wacked. |
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trueblue
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Location: In between the lines
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 11:21 pm Post subject: |
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| young_clinton wrote: |
| The policy of the US in the Middle East should be to help the non Muslims and no one else. The US can produce enough oil on its own we don't need the duplicitous Saudis and the rest of the Arabs. Iran should get wacked. |
Some truth to that. |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 2:33 am Post subject: |
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We must appear tough: Hillary's boldish stance against Daesh
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Like Obama, Clinton rejected the notion, advanced by some Republicans, that crushing ISIS, as the terrorist army is also known, would require a large U.S. troop presence on the ground in Iraq and Syria.
“That is just not the smart move to make here,” she said. “If we have learned anything from 15 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s that local people and nations have to secure their own communities. We can help them, and we should, but we cannot substitute for them.”
But Clinton said that Obama had not sent enough elite U.S. commandos into Syria, where they have been working with rebel forces caught between ISIS and government forces loyal to strongman Bashar Assad.
“We should be sending more,” she said.
At the same time, Clinton said an attack on U.S. soil might increase pressure to send conventional U.S. troops into Syria but that “it would be a mistake” to do so. |
Aerial bombing doesn't work alone; although the deployment of air power works really well in coordination with ground troops. Now, the US has been bombing ISIS, but ISIS is still there. Why? They own the space. ISIS was able to take control over an impoverished, war-torn, climate-changed, water-deprived region. It has held it through a high tax, high spending welfare state (it got the ball rolling on spending after seizing all those banks in Iraq). Bombing isn't going to change that dynamic in a radical way. Neither will special operations ground forces. Clinton's plan is just Rumsfeldian; we're going to have to put boots on the ground, but lets make it the smallest and most affordable force possible. That's not how it works over the medium-term; a platoon or squad gets wiped out, and then there's more political pressure to ramp up involvement. Alternatively, generals advise more troops and he gets them while the President and Congress downplay the involvement (which is how we now have thousands of troops in Iraq to counterbalance ISIS).
If the US wants to decisively destroy ISIS, it will have to (a) defeat them on the ground, and (b) nation build. The US is probably incapable of the latter, so why do the former? Oh, right, Military Industrial Complex.
Also, Outside Powers Must End their Proxy Wars in Syria.
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The Islamic State’s international attacks call for a strategy. If the goal is to eliminate ISIS from territory it rules in Iraq and Syria, and from which it plots murder elsewhere, the forces opposed to it must come together. It took more than 100 dead in Paris and 224 passengers on a Russian airliner for France and Russia to coordinate their airstrikes in Syria. What will it take for the U.S. to do the same?
Airstrikes, however, do not win wars. Warplanes drop bombs, meaning they function as airborne artillery. No military doctrine holds that artillery alone can conquer territory. That takes forces on the ground. The ground forces exist in both Syria and Iraq, and they are not from the Western world. The Syrian Army, though odious to many Syrians and to the Western powers, is the strongest of these and has weathered four-and-a-half years of war without breaking up. It lost territory to ISIS in northeast Syria and at Palmyra, and it has reclaimed some of it with Russian air support. The Kurds of Iraq, supported by Kurds from Turkey and Syria and by U.S. airstrikes, have clawed back most of the territory that ISIS seized from them last year. The Shiite militias in southern Iraq, which filled the vacuum left by mass desertions from the U.S.-created Iraqi Army, with Iranian support and American air cover saved Baghdad from ISIS conquest and regained lost ground. The war requires infantry, but not American, British, and French troops. Nothing would turn Iraqis and Syrians to the jihadis more quickly than a Western invasion. |
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Swartz
Joined: 19 Dec 2014
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| Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:08 am Post subject: |
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| Plain Meaning wrote: |
| Aerial bombing doesn't work alone; although the deployment of air power works really well in coordination with ground troops. Now, the US has been bombing ISIS, but ISIS is still there. Why? They own the space. ISIS was able to take control over an impoverished, war-torn, climate-changed, water-deprived region. It has held it through a high tax, high spending welfare state (it got the ball rolling on spending after seizing all those banks in Iraq). Bombing isn't going to change that dynamic in a radical way. Neither will special operations ground forces. Clinton's plan is just Rumsfeldian; we're going to have to put boots on the ground, but lets make it the smallest and most affordable force possible. That's not how it works over the medium-term; a platoon or squad gets wiped out, and then there's more political pressure to | | | |
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