Quote Originally Posted by CrowBat View Post
There is a nice verb in German, for which there is no translation to English.

It's called 'zerreden'.

It's the best description of such 'explanations' about Syria, like your's.

Example?

First let Assad detain and disappear 60.000-120.000 peaceful, secular activists; congratulate him for 'reforms' like letting 5,000 Islamists out of his jails, where these were extremised; then let Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey sponsor extremist gangs organized by these while doing whatever is possible to curb foreign support for secular armed groups (including taking away all of their MANPADs)...add plenty of such nonsense like 'Turkey is supporting moderate Syrian insurgents', 'CIA is doing the same too'...preferably while establishing a close alliance with Marxist/Maoist terrorist group that's completely foreign to the country in question - and then declare the entire affair for 'no matter of national interest', before, finally, concluding it just couldn't work.

Then, sigh, fighting a war for... well, gauging by Afghanistan: meanwhile it's 40+ years and there's no end in sight... is, what: 'cheaper'?

Than what?

(Disclaimer: and of course, there's no conspiracy; then any similarities to earlier, well-known and well-documented cases - are pure coincidence.)
There are two words in English that may still have some currency in your stomping grounds: Western betrayal.

If we must still suffer hearing about the incomparable bravery of a handful of people with clandestine printing presses in Copenhagen and Brussels, and about how the Free French Forces were the fourth-largest of the Allies in 1945, then I suggest you get used to hearing about how the YPG fighters are liberal, democratic and pluralistic heroes.

Firstly, where did you arrive at this figure? Is it pre-Civil War? Even the lower bound would be more than four times higher than the non-political prison population. Assad was not “congratulated” for detaining some 200,000 people during the course of the war and murdering more than 10,000 of them.

Secondly, where do Saudi Arabia and Jordan fit in among the foreign sponsors? You are actually confirming my argument that direct U.S. intervention was necessary rather than “leading from behind”. One can infer that given the lessons of Operation Cyclone, the U.S. objective was never to establish a strong, liberal democratic state in Syria, but to set it ablaze and make it ungovernable by Assad and Khamenei. If the objective was the latter, then Operation Timber Sycamore was the most efficient means of doing so.

Thirdly, the primary Western interest in the Syrian Civil War is preventing spillover, including Islamist terrorism. The PKK/PYD has made itself very useful in that regard, by establishing a truce of sorts with Assad, and fighting Daesh. Of course, we will reap the whirlwind of an ethnic war for Kurdish independence, a political struggle for leadership of the Kurds whether independent or not, continued sectarian war between Sunni and Shia, and a struggle between the unitary states in question and the centrifugal forces of autonomy and outright secession.

As Americans made clear in 1918 and 1945, they care little for unfinished business so long as they are protected by two great oceans. As the British learned over a period of centuries, dabbling in “offshore balancing” not only worsens the carnage and destruction, but it usually opens the gates to the next existential threat.

As for Afghanistan, “victory” is possible so long as the definition of that victory is restricted. There will be no strong and friendly state in Afghanistan (there never was a strong Afghan state to begin with), but there can be an autonomous client region in the north, not unlike the KRG in Iraq.

Lastly, none of your points alter the fact that the liberation of Syria and its reconstitution as a liberal democracy, would have required a major U.S. national commitment on the order of those it has made to France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. You will note that the Special Operations Executive or its post-1945 iterations did not liberate Europe from either of its 1939 occupiers.

I would enjoy seeing the relative success in Tunisia be replicated beyond its borders, but it may well be short-lived and due to unique local factors.