Syria under Bashir Assad (closed end 2014)

[Dayuhan]

Don't worry: I have realized already months ago there is no point in 'lecturing' you about anything at all.

There's no point in lecturing anyone here. This is not a classroom, where someone appoints you master and your lessons are received without question. It's a discussion forum, where people engage as equals and no opinion or position is any better than the evidence and reasoning presented to support it.

It's not only that you can't learn: you refuse learning even from your own mistakes - or mistakes of your own government, to be more precise - so what would be the point?

There seems to be some confusion here between fact and opinion. You seem to feel that the US government's failure to become directly involved in Syria was and is a mistake. That's your opinion. Others have other opinions. While there's no doubt that Syria is a mess, it is at least not our mess, and if we have to choose between a mess with us in the middle of it and a mess without us in the middle of it, I for one will take the latter any day.

You're asking since when is the USA responsible for protection of civilians...

Whether this is the official US policy or whatever else, it doesn't matter: it's not me who is declaring the USA for 'craddle of democracy', 'supporting anybody struggling for freedom and democracy' and all other BS of that sort. That's simply the image emitted by the USA since decades. That image has created specific expectations from specific people outside the USA: you can now ignore this and explain it for irrelevant, and no part of your policy, and whatever other nonsense, but this is the soup the USA have created. Therefore, don't get surprised when there are plenty of people disapointed to realize the USA do not act that way in reality - and then turning against the USA as as result.

Hence the overwhelming global clamor for US involvement in Syria... oh, wait, that doesn't exist, does it. You may perhaps have noticed that US involvement in the domestic conflicts of other nations is typically not greeted with joy or perceived as support for democracy. More often it's perceived, with good reason, as self-interested meddling. I've no doubt that there are factions in Syria that would be delighted to take our guns and (especially) our money, but I see no reason to suppose that the absence of US interference is perceived as failure to support democracy. Fear that people will doubt our commitment to democracy if we don't dive into every conflict on the planet is a very weak argument for intervention.

In 1989, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan which they have sysematically ruined in 10 years of war. They've left behind a week 'central' government, opposed by US/Saudi sponsored insurgency, run by Pakistan. Instead of doing something to rebuild the country, the USA have left Afghanistan at mercy of Pakistani (and other) Saudi-sponsored Islamists - with well known results. What a surprise then, that 20+ years later Afghanistan is still the same quagmire....

Of course it is. That's not because of any lack of the US "doing something to rebuild the country", it's because building a nation and installing democracy were never realistic goals from the start. The US can't build an Afghan nation: only Afghans can do that, and they will have to do it in their own time and in their own way, not at the behest of or on a template provided by Americans. Sending an Army to build a nation makes about as much sense as asking an engineer to do neurosurgery in any event. The lesson to take away from Afghanistan is that "armed nation building" is a fool's game and any intervention that has a chance of forcing the US into a nation building role should be avoided like the plague.

In 1991, the USA kicked Iraq out of Kuwait, and then called Iraqis to raise against Saddam. The Iraqis did so, but did not receive any kind of support: Saddam was left free to gas Shi'a in southern Iraq and Kurds in the north. When, 10 years later, the USA finally came to the idea to remove Saddam, Americans were ah so greatly surprised the Iraqis were not the least pleased about their late appearance....

I agree that urging Iraqis to rebel when there was no will to support them was stupid and wrong... but are you seriously arguing that this mistake was a cause of the later resistance to American occupation? That seems quite insupportable. Somehow I don't think those Sunni insurgents in Fallujah and Ramadi were fighting because the US failed to support them against Saddam, and the Kurds, who had more reason than anyone to feel betrayed, showed no great enthusiasm for the insurgency. If we take a lesson from this, it will be that the reactions of various parties in Iraq to the eventual American occupation were driven by their perceived interests, threats, and opportunities at the time, not by memories of transgressions past.

The uprising in Libya received Western/NATO+friends support within 2 months of breaking out. It was over within 8 months, with dictatorship removed. Correspondingly, there was no time for Wahhabists (or similars) to gain a foothold, not to talk about 'taking over' the insurgency. Instead, Libya now has a pro-Western government. Surely, it's going to need another 10-15 years to get all of its troubles sorted out, but its biggest problem is out of the way.

I would call Libya a qualified success, in that the two primary goals of the intervention were achieved: the dictator fell and the US was not dragged into taking responsibility for the aftermath. Whether that could have been repeated in Syria is another question altogether: Syria is not Libya and would have been a far more complicated target for intervention. You know the reasons why, I'm not going to bother listing them.

The uprising in Syria is now more than 3 years old. It never received any kind of serious Western support (or if, then only in the last few weeks), with the result of the Wahhabists (and/or similars) being given all the time not only to gain a foothold, but indeed nearly collapse the insurgency 'from within'. Result: none of problems from 2011 has been removed, the country is in tatters for decades, unlikely to regain any semblance of sovereignity, full of extremists of all sorts, harbouring heavy IRGC-QF presence etc., and therefore likely to remain a main source of troubles for the time of our lifes.

If you want to argue that the US should intervene or should have intervened in Syria, you'll need to demonstrate what vital or at least pressing US interests are/were at stake (last effort in this regard went in the fail bin), and show that there is/was an opportunity for intervention that offered reasonable prospects for success without threatening to draw the US into full-scale involvement. It would also help to demonstrate that there was sufficient home front support for intervention to sustain he effort, because it's never a good idea to start something if you know the commitment to finish it isn't there.

I'm begging you, Dayuhan: PLEASE, do not 'learn' anything at all from all of these. Come back with your silly babbling about the lack of proxies in Syria, about the lack of cohesion within Syrian insurgency, and then go on listing the remaining 745.394 of your cheap excuses.

Non-intervention doesn't need an excuse, all you need is the absence of compelling reason to intervene and a lack method that offers a good chance of success and limits the risk of escalation. Intervention is a costly, risky, and messy business that goes wrong more often than right, and the burden of proof is on those proposing it, not those opposing it.

Saying that intervention goes wrong because it's done wrong means nothing unless there's a credible explanation of what doing it right might be.

But, and whether you accept them or not, and no matter how much you refuse to accept them, these are bottom line facts. That's where the core of the issue - namely utter stupidity of decision-makers in Washington - lies; and that's all I have to say to you any more.

No, those aren't facts. Those are your opinions. There's a difference.