Syria: a civil war (closed)

[JMA]

David maybe you can help decipher this Landis 'doublespeak'?

Q. He said (as you quoted):

A. There is an assumption by those advocating a direct, military intervention it is in short a "fix", Landis disagrees and this sentence meets the demands of the "do something" school, with a minimum level of support for the opposition. That alone will not be decisive.

Q. How does the Landis man produce a thought pattern where aiding, arming and providing intel to one side does not 'try to decide Syria's future'?

A. The USA, Landis's primary if not sole audience, all too often sees issues as starkly black and white. It believes - at the start - it can decide.

Not seen as you do. I think Landis is unable to connect the dots that by supplying one side (or a favoured faction) with aid, arms and intel it can and will play a role in deciding Syria's future.

Is Landis stupid? I don't think so more like he is a non-interventionist to the point that he is reduced to making incoherent comment... like the following:

Anyone who believes that Syria will avoid the excesses of Iraq -- where the military, government ministries, and Baath Party were dissolved and criminalized -- is dreaming

and

If anyone tells you they are going to build democracy in Syria, don't buy it.

and

The argument that the United States could have avoided radicalization and civil war in Iraq by toppling Saddam Hussein in 1991 is unconvincing.

Landis writes like a journalist (at least in this article) and by no stretch of the imagination can be called a 'respected academic commentator' and this quoted article is an insult to the intelligence of the reader.