Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
There are two assumptions in your argument, one is flat out wrong. First you're logic implies the U.S. not doing anything (wrong, we did things, so you obviously meant not enough) is why Syria ended up the way it is...
Bill,
I'm the first to say that, a) 'no, the USA is no centre of the World'; b) 'no, the USA would not go killing Assad' even if WH decided to 'do something' about Syria; and c) there is no certainty about the outcome of a possible US intervention in that country.

BUT...

- A matter of fact is that this 'war on terror' against specific extremists is de-facto one of priorities in the foreign policy of the USA. It doesn't matter whether you like this fact or not, or whether you want to fight that war or not: you're 'Target No.1' on targeting lists of extremists in question.

- This results in conclusion that

a) whenever the USA fails to act, and especially when the USA fails to act preventively, extremists are going to exploit the situation to their advantage;

b) whenever the USA fails to act, majority (if not all) of the West is failing to act too;

c) whenever the USA fails to act and drags the West with it, most of pro-West actors around the World fail to act too, and

d) this is precisely what happened in Syria.

So, perhaps doing nothing in Syria was in 'best interest of the USA' - supposedly because 'getting USA involved in a regional quagmire is not in interest of the USA'. Fine. But, it resulted in nobody else - except extremists and their supporters, of course - doing anything at all. And that has made space for extremists. Worse yet: doing nothing in Syria resulted in massive frustrations for various of US friends in the Middle East, because it resulted in a direct threat for their security and simultaneous 'success' of their enemies.

Therefore: in this case, lack of US action resulted in an outright catastrophe - in Syria, and in Iraq.

If you think that's 'bolstering US interests in the Middle East'... well, perhaps you should go back to checking that with 2+2=4, too.

Furthermore:
This argument assumes that getting the U.S. involved in a regional quagmire would somehow be in our interest?
You - the USA - are eyebrows-deep in that quagmire since at least 1942 (start of cooperation with Sauds and thus Wahhabists), indirectly since 1919 (King-Crane Comission), and very directly ever since, so where is the problem?

On the contrary, if you argument/think in this fashion, then the question is rather: why everywhere else (in the Middle East) but only not in Syria? Where's the logic in that?

Why isn't it in our interest to see both of our adversaries (Sunni extremists and Iran and their proxies) fight one another, and for once strain their economies instead of ours?
Because whichever of them 'wins' (all provided that conflict is 'winnable' for one of involved belligerents) they remain your (US) enemies.

Means: whichever party wins there, it's only going to be reinforced by success.

Is this in US interest?

Why can't we wait until there is an opportunity to actually achieve something that is in our interests?
Oh, no problem. You can repeat the exercise from the 1990s, and wait until another airplane crashes into some skyscraper - or something else of that kind happens.

It's your choice, really. You can ignore the fact that, in military terms, the ISIS is far more sophisticated than the AQ ever was. You can further prefer to offer them more time so they can get even better, too. No problem: just wait and see.

Removing Malaki would be one example, the situation was managed to great effect in that aspect, but who knows what the new government will do.
That was near-pointless, and came much too late.

But, don't let yourself get disturbed by such observations....

Since I'm not sure of the extent of support we're providing and to whom, I can't make an argument on whether we need to increase it our not, but I haven't see a good argument yet on why we should intervene, or should have, intervened, militarily in Syria.
In essence, official USA are not providing any kind of serious help to anybody (in Syria). There is simply no trace of evidence for that.

The WH is meddling (in particularly idiotic fashion) through attempting to condition provision of aid by third parties (Saudi Arabia, Turkey etc.) to specific groups of genuine Syrian insurgents, and/but - foremost - through attempting to steer specific groups of (genuine) Syrian insurgents (not Jihadists) from 'operational rooms' in Jordan and Turkey. This meddling is usually to be seen in stoppage of all flow of aid provided by other players whenever this is needed the most (like when the regime is on offensive). Which in turn is usually resulting in Syrian insurgents getting only more frustrated by the lack of US support, then in defections of the same to the side of Islamists etc., etc., etc.

Except for this, the WH has only permitted specific private, US-based organizations to provide non-lethal aid (cars, food, clothes etc.) to hand-picked groups of Syrian insurgents.

Is that of any help?

Everyone is making a lot of wild guesses made on sensational news reporting instead of facts, because the facts are not available the public.
That depends on what facts do you want to get, and especially: what do you prefer to hear (or ignore), I would say.

From my POV, 'sensational news' were all those declaring the uprising and insurgency in Syria for 'al-Qaida' right from the start, which was a mountain of nonsense and BS. Tragically enough, that had the 'desired' effect - between others of keeping the USA (and West) out of this affair - and now a group worse than AQ advancing there too.

In the end those clamoring for U.S. military involvement should provide a theory of change and identify a condition that we can feasibly obtain.
While I'm not 'pro-US intervention', I offered plenty of 'theories' that have proven to 'work' over the time. For example, an 'investment' of little more than 50, perhaps 100 million into right groups, back in summer 2012, could have prevented Syria from going down the sink. Various people high above circles you or me are frequenting have suggested very much the same.

So, perhaps some (re-)reading (?) of older posts might be of help here.

While yes, it's terribly frustrating to see what became of the country and people (who were quite effectively frustrated away from the West by the lack of support), it's really not my fault if you (and quite a few of others) prefer to look the other way and consider this for, 'just background noise from frustrated people'.