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There is a point you seem to miss...being that when others make a statement of opinion you demand they substantiate their opinion... while when you make such statements if challenged you demand that you be proved wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayuhan
It is puerile high school level debating/discussion tactics. Don't you think it's time you grew out of it?
Hey Wm,
I definitely agree that the US should keep a low profile in what is primarily a Middle Eastern problem complex to be solved by Middle Easterners. The Turks have been pushing some public diplomatic buttons in accord with their expressed desires to develop Arab (Saudi) and Russian partnerships.
E.g., TZ (22 Jul 2012), Syria crisis unlikely to mar Turkish-Russian partnership:
By comparison, Syria is a much smaller (and weaker) fish in Putin's frying pan. E.g., TZ (3 Aug 2012), Syria reaches oil deal with ally Russia:Quote:
Russia and Turkey widely differ in their positions regarding finding a solution to the 16-month crisis in Syria, but there is little indication that the violence in Turkey’s southern neighbor will cast a shadow over the growing partnership between Turkey and Russia.
...
In his speech, Putin emphasized that the volume of bilateral trade between Russia and Turkey has grown by 20 percent, exceeding $34 billion. He stated that Russia will construct a nuclear plant in Akkuyu, and praised the efficiency of the High Level Cooperation Council set up between the two countries. Putin further noted that 3.5 million Russian tourists had traveled to Turkey in 2011, thanks to the quality of service experienced in the nation and the removal of visa requirements.
Both leaders agreed that they should continue working to achieve their goal of $100 billion in bilateral trade. Significant steps have been taken to improve mutual investments. To this end, during his visit to Moscow, Erdoğan’s met with the CEO of Sberbank, which has purchased Denizbank German Gref. Russia and Turkey will also cooperate on the Göktürk satellite project, due for completion by late 2013. A Third High Level Cooperation Council was also scheduled, which Russian President Putin and members of his cabinet will travel to Turkey on Oct. 15 to attend.
The Kurdish problems (all four states, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, have their own versions) are regularly addressed in TZ. Davutoğlu's visit to Iraqi Kurdistan and meeting with Barzani has generated some excitement. E.g., TZ, 1 Aug 2012, Davutoğlu, Barzani pledge cooperation in north Syria:Quote:
Syria has reached an agreement with ally Russia to secure much-needed fuel as a delegation of ministers sent by President Bashar al-Assad asked Moscow to help alleviate the effects of sanctions on the war-torn country.
...
Under the deal, Syria will export its crude oil to Russia in exchange for refined oil products, which Damascus sorely needs to keep its economy and military running.
"Russia wants to help the Syrian people," Syrian Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Qadri Jamil told reporters in Moscow on Friday.
"We will deliver our oil and receive gasoline and fuel oil; it will be a barter," he said, adding that Syria is producing about 200,000 barrels per day.
However, Syria's Oil Minister Said Hneidi said production was less than 140,000 barrels per day.
...
Likewise, Syria is one of Russia's last Middle East footholds and hosts a Russian repair and maintenance facility on its coast. Damascus bought nearly $1 billion in arms from Moscow last year, or some 8 percent of all of Russia's arms exports.
The Iraqi government went ballistic (diplomatically); and the Turks slapped back (diplomatically). From TZ, 3 Aug 2012:Quote:
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu raised the issue of the Syrian government's loss of control over territory with Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani on Wednesday, and both officials vowed to consider any attempt to exploit the power vacuum in Syria a “common threat.”
“Any attempt to exploit the power vacuum by any violent group or organization will be considered a common threat that should be jointly addressed. The new Syria should be free of any terrorist and extremist group or organization,” read a joint statement Barzani and Davutoğlu's offices released following talks in Arbil.
Iraq summons Turkey envoy to protest over visit:
Turkey hits back at Iraq in Kirkuk visit controversy:Quote:
Iraq made a formal protest to Turkey's envoy in Baghdad on Friday after the Turkish foreign minister made a surprise visit to an oil-rich Iraqi city claimed by both the central government and the country's autonomous Kurdistan region.
The episode, the latest in a series of diplomatic spats and ###-for-tat summonings of envoys between the neighboring countries, is likely to worsen already strained relations.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had travelled to Kirkuk on Thursday after visiting the regional president in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
But Iraq's foreign ministry accused Turkey of violating its constitution with the visit, saying that Davutoğlu had neither asked for nor obtained permission to enter Kirkuk.
A junior minister at Iraq's foreign ministry had handed Turkey's charge d'affaires a protest letter on Friday, a strongly-worded statement from the foreign ministry said.
...
Relations between Iraq, close to Shi'ite Iran, and Sunni Muslim regional power Turkey, were tested after US troops pulled out of Iraq last year and the government immediately tried to arrest one of its Sunni vice presidents.
He fled first to Kurdistan and later to Ankara, where he was given refuge.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan then traded public insults. ...
The larger context is explained in Orhan Miroglu's column (TZ, 3 Aug 2012), Davutoğlu’s visit to Arbil:Quote:
Turkey has lashed out at the Iraqi government for criticizing Ankara for interference in Iraqi affairs after Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu paid a surprise visit to an oil-rich Iraqi city claimed by both the central government and the country's autonomous Kurdistan region without consulting the Iraqi authorities first.
Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned Iraq’s Ambassador in Ankara to protest Baghdad’s subsequent statements after Davutoğlu’s visit to the contested city. Sources said the statements Iraq made after Turkish foreign minister’s Kirkuk visit are “unacceptable.”
Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu told the Iraqi envoy that Turkey is taking every step in an open way and that it has no hidden agenda. Sinirlioğlu warned Iraqi authorities to be careful while making statements.
Turkey’s protest came after Iraq delivered a formal diplomatic note to Turkey's envoy in Baghdad on Friday. ...
We'll see how the new (since ca. 2001) and gentler Turkey is viewed by the Arab powers. So far, its public actions and statements (viewed from this armchair) speak less to a neo-Ottomanism than to a Neo-Hittitism:Quote:
There are those who argue Turkey has been caught unprepared for the Middle Eastern Spring and does not have a game plan for it.
Just as was the case in the past, Turkey has a game plan for today and everything is being played according to this plan.
In this context, it can be argued that Turkey was not caught unprepared for the invasion of Iraq that started with the Gulf wars and came 12 years later, but it managed to become one of the major players in the new process.
As a result of the choices Turkey made during the rebuilding of Iraq, the traditional codes of Turkish foreign policy were largely abandoned.
This policy essentially preached friendship and solidarity with the Kurds, who obtained a new status in the region as a result.
The outcome was tremendous. The relations established with Kurdish leaders such as Massoud Barzani who would have been portrayed as feudal tribal leaders until two years ago helped to ease the tension created by the conflict in Turkey and contributed greatly to the social thaw.
If there were not the new and conscious political choices made regarding the Kurdish region in northern Iraq and Turkey in the 1990s and if Turkey continued to maintain its harsh attitude against its domestic Kurdish population, the Kurdish issue would have been in a worse position today. ...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...te_Kingdom.png
For a more in-depth presentation on the Turkish government's more recent approach to its Kurdish problem, see Karaveli, Reconciling Statism
with Freedom - Turkey’s Kurdish Opening (2010) (HT to Ted for the cite and his discussion).
Regards
Mike
I've heard of CJ Chivers reporting before, IIRC from Libya, but don't normally follow him.
Link:http://cjchivers.com/post/2860544688...pons-watch-theQuote:
...what can be seen is that as the government has been pressured it has incrementally stepped up its campaign by freeing up heavier weapons...The attacks are, in all likelihood, and in a strictly military sense, unsustainable.
For Mr. Assad’s military, scattered in the field in a pitched fight against a strengthening foe, these are bad omens. And they only part of the picture. Add in attrition, add in defections, add in the suspect loyalty of certain commanders and units, add in the psychological and physical tolls of months of sustained head-to-head fighting, factor in the vulnerability of an extended supply line over terrain where the anti-government forces are active and growing more bold, and the far-flung Syrian military looks much less strong than it did only a few months ago, and in a much more precarious position than all the breathless accounts of its continued capacity for organized violence, or the appearance of a fresh weapon system, would tell.
The video of a helicopter gunship dropping an unguided bomb is strange IMO; that suggests to me in my faraway "armchair" the gunship is afraid to go low and engage, with it's normal weapons and their ammunition stocks are low if a "dumb" bomb was dropped.
You must work on your comprehension skills.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyatt
My comments seldom if ever relate to the US military as a force.
US soldiers have been placed in a position to be humiliated by the politicians on a regular basis.
On balance on after the fact results - due to political decision making - US foreign policy results have been largely negative. This is sad.
What is even more sad is that the double whammy response by many USians that somehow having among the most inept politicians in the world is worn like proof that the military will always be subordinate to the civil authority and that to reach general staff in the US one has to have - not a labotomy - to sacrifice their balls. Somehow these things are good?
Rhodesia was not my country but I was happy then and remain happy now to have served there in their time of need.
I will pass on responding to the childish retort about losing the war.
In fact the war was going well right up to the political settlement and the numbers of insurgents were swelled a majority of semi-trained or untrained rabble which we were dispatching on an industrial scale. After the war they (ZANLA) admitted that their losses were unsustainable. It was Jimmy Carter who saved their ass by refusing to recognise the Muzorewa government. But then you knew all this didn't you.
Now can we get back to the current foreign policy cock-up of the US as it plays out in Syria?
Oops!Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayuhan
Syria reaches oil deal with Russia
It seems that certain people seek out complexity when often it is not there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Surferbeetle
Look at a map and fill in the Sunni/Shia domination/control and see what you come up with and whether you obtain a greater clarity on this subject.
Mike
The 2 Zaman articles from your last post --Syria crisis unlikely to mar Turkish-Russian partnership, Syria reaches oil deal with ally Russia--point out what could be an interesting dilemma for Turkey. The Turks are are making nice with Russia. But they have the opportunity to keep the Russia-Syria oil deal from being worth much if they close the Bosporus/Hellespont/Dardanelles to shipping carrying Syrian crude or Russian refined products. I don't think that will happen because of the recent rapprochement with Russia and the softening line with the Kurds you also noted in your post. But I think it can still be a trump card/bribe for the Turks to help push Assad out the door to a nice retirement in the Russian Federation. In other words, a Syrian oil vendor gets the Russian oil business if it "helps" Assad leave and Russia gets Syrian oil business if it takes him in.
The Iraq/Kurdistan/Turkey three way is a different story. I see that pretty much as Orhan Miroglu's piece describes it--a way to put more pressure on Shia Iraq and Iran by courting the Kurds. And of course there's oil in Kirkuk to transit through a Turkish pipeline.
I like the Neo Hittite construct as well. Too bad the Turks don't have the same kind of technological advantage the Hittites had (iron weapons against everyone else's bronze)!
In some cases that's true. In this debate, for example, I've maintained that the US has not seriously considered and should not consider military intervention because:Quote:
Originally Posted by JMA
- No viable plan for such intervention has been proposed
- There's no evident perception of compelling national interest
- There's no significant home front political support for intervention.
None of these are susceptible to proof, because it's logically impossible to prove an absence. It can be disproved by demonstrating the presence of any of those things, but it can't be proved. As I've said, I'll gladly reconsider if anyone can demonstrate the presence of any of those elements.
On the other hand, the contention that US policy is "incompetent" could be effectively substantiated by an explanation of what superior (or simply "competent") alternative policy existed. The claim that the US refrained from intervening out of fear of Russia or China could be effectively substantiated by evidence suggesting that the US ever wanted to intervene but backed away, or some hint of what the Russians or Chinese might have done that the US feared.
Anyone who accuses a national leadership of incompetence but can't (or is afraid to) explain what a "competent" course of action would have been is in a poor position to accuse anyone else of failure to substantiate opinions. Glass houses, stones, and all that.
wm,
My thoughts parallel yours about the Turkish-Russian partnership and the Russian-Syrian oil deal. The TZ commentators have been pretty much in line that Russia has to get something tangible to arrive at a negotiated settlement. Adding the Iraqi Kurds to the list of satisfied parties enhances the prospects for that settlement. As you note, there are lots of oil reserves in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Assad, however, is very damaged goods (Levrov says they don't want him). I expect in the final diplomatic picture he will be absent - expendible goods. If that final diplomatic solution avoids the three likely pograms (Alewite, Christian and Shia), expending Assad and his thugs would seem well worth it.
The Hittites were pretty good at diplomacy as well. :)
Regards
Mike
They aren't sticking their necks out in any way, there's no risk to them there. They buy a small quantity of oil (which they don't need) and send back refined oil products. The terms of the deal aren't mentioned but I'd guess they are favorable to the Russians. How would that constitute sticking their necks out?Quote:
Originally Posted by JMA
I would say that civilian supremacy over the military is a very good thing, and I would not ever want to see the US (or any nation) go to war because anyone, civilian or military, felt it necessary to swing their balls in public.Quote:
Originally Posted by JMA
Why not get back to the question of why exactly you think it's a cock-up, and what exactly you think might have been done that would not have been a cock-up?Quote:
Originally Posted by JMA
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._portrait2.jpg
JMA, shut up. You sound like an idiot right now.
Good you are still around, perhaps you could spend your time more more productively putting together personal statement - in say 500-600 words - of how you the situation in Syria? It would be interesting to see if there are any smarts hiding behind the bluster.Quote:
Originally Posted by jcustis
This Thread is closed due to continued egregious personal attacks in spite of that warning.
Ken White