Religious Extremism in Syria:A New Launching Pad for Global Terrorism

[Dayuhan]

Am I to understand it was self combustion?

Largely, yes, just as Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain were. Dictators eventually generate rebellions, there's no need for an outside agitator, though dictators (and their supporters) generally assume one. Certainly the other Arab Spring revolts had something to do with setting off the Syrian situation, but I see no reason to assume that the US was involved.

Yes, I can say what is 'getting it right'.

Let nations be as they are and what they think is right and not impost on them as to what you think is right.

I agree. Of course just because the US stays out doesn't mean everybody else will, and there's a whole lot of external intervention in Syria that has nothing to do with the US.

Letting nations "be as they are and what they think" will not of course produce peace and order, because many nations contain multiple conflicting ideas about what they are and what they think, and those will occasionally erupt into violence, as they have in Syria. I think we often forget that civil war in Iraq was going to be a very likely feature in any post-Saddam scenario. Nations sometimes need to sort out their own internal conflicts, and it's generally not a very pretty process.

Let them stew in their own juice and not tell them to have the American apple pie!

Again, agreed... but I don't think anyone in Syria is pushing American apple pie.

No Islamic nation has been a problem until they were told 'what is right'!

Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal was largely ignored, and turned into a bit of a problem.