And now we have let Afghanistan fall back to the Taliban…anyone surprised? Maybe China will take a crack at them next.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Wow, what a mess in Syria. I say enough already, let the Russians have a shot at it.
I am with you. ISIS would wish the U.S. took out Assad and we were just lobbing the occasional bomb at them. We care about civilian casualties. The Russians don’t. They will be brutal against ISIS. No measured response, just an out right blood bath. And if they are captured and sent to a Siberian prison, they would rather be dead.
They way I see it, a brutal dictatorial state is easier to deal with than a nomadic terrorist organization. We know where Dumbasskiss is and it ain’t moving. We know where Assad is and we know where the Russians are. We can never be sure where ISIS or Al Qaeda is going to be.
At least with Assad, we know where to point the missiles. I prefer stationary enemies.
Along with targeted strikes against ISIL, the United States should pursue deligitimization. Delegitimization suggests that states and substate actors can use the religious or ideological rationale that informs terrorist behavior to influence it. In the case of ISIL, the organization has carefully elaborated a robust metanarrative that has proved to be remarkably successful as a recruitment tool, in identity formation for adherents, as public apologia and interpretation of the Koran, and as a weapon of war -the so-called media jihad. . Delegitimization would have the United States and its friends and allies use ISIL’s own narrative against it by targeting and degrading the ideological motivation that guides support for and participation in terrorism.
The terrorists have won.
But yet, their Caliphate may fold like a house of cards. Seems they are cowards like some of the people here who have actually fought them have said.
The last paragraph is interesting. Just what we have been saying right along.
nonsense
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
The last paragraph is interesting. Just what we have been saying right along.[/quote]
[quote]shorty_blitz wrote:
nonsense
[/quote]
My mistake, last 2 paragraphs:
“The Obama administration gambled that a nuclear deal would lead to a responsible Iran,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R- Calif., stated today as he announced a hearing on Wednesday to examine the brutal and destabilizing role of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Instead, the regime is working harder than ever to export violence and terror to Syria, Yemen and beyond. Iran’s backing of Syria’s Assad regime has fed the rise of ISIS. Soon, sanctions will be lifted and the Iranian regime will hit a jackpot in the tens of billions. This money isn’t going to ordinary Iranians; it will be used to strengthen Iran’s murderous Revolutionary Guard Corps."
Care to explain why this is nonsense?
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]shorty_blitz wrote:
nonsense
[/quote]
My mistake, last 2 paragraphs:
“The Obama administration gambled that a nuclear deal would lead to a responsible Iran,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R- Calif., stated today as he announced a hearing on Wednesday to examine the brutal and destabilizing role of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Instead, the regime is working harder than ever to export violence and terror to Syria, Yemen and beyond. Iran’s backing of Syria’s Assad regime has fed the rise of ISIS. Soon, sanctions will be lifted and the Iranian regime will hit a jackpot in the tens of billions. This money isn’t going to ordinary Iranians; it will be used to strengthen Iran’s murderous Revolutionary Guard Corps."
Care to explain why this is nonsense?[/quote]
The JCPOA is not a gamble that Iran will change its bad behavior. The administration has stated this itself numerous times through public speech acts. It is an arms control agreement aimed at preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. It’s a hell of a lot easier to keep Iran “in the box” in Washington parlance if Tehran remains nonnuclear. And it’s an agreement that has teeth- it establishes the most intrusive and comprehensive inspections and monitoring regime in history. The agreement is not based on trust, but distrust and verify. Besides its universal commitment to nonproliferation, the United States spearheaded the Iran nuclear deal precisely because Iran cannot be trusted.
The conventional wisdom of critics is that Iran will receive a financial windfall to the order of $100 billion. That is reductionist. Roughly half of those frozen funds are allocated toward preexisting financial obligations. Iran will need to keep around $25 billion in liquid reserves. That leaves Tehran with roughly $25 billion at its immediate disposal, which is not an insignificant sum. However, a primary Iranian motivation for the JCPOA was to improve it’s ailing economy, which the clerical regime perceives as an existential threat to its continued rule. Considering that economic projections of required Iranian infrastructure investment over the next decade are placed at over $1 trillion, much of that $25 billion will need to be invested in the domestic economy.
Even if that wasn’t the case, consider the following. The activities of the IRGC in general and Quds Force in particular should be of concern to policymakers, the nuclear deal will not exponentially increase Iran’s ability to facilitate unconventional violence. Terrorism is cheap to finance. Containment of a nuclear power, however, is not.
ISIS moves into Libya. Yes, great idea to kick out and eventually kill Qaddafi.
300 ISIS fighters trapped in Iraq, we should be bombing the hell out of them:
edit- Great…we are NOW JUST bombing ISIS moving targets!!!
Interesting article about fighting both ISIS and the bastards who started the whole thing almost 40 years ago.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
ISIS moves into Libya. Yes, great idea to kick out and eventually kill Qaddafi.
300 ISIS fighters trapped in Iraq, we should be bombing the hell out of them:
edit- Great…we are NOW JUST bombing ISIS moving targets!!!
You know I think there is a wisdom to be learned from the fact that there are/ were some many oppressive, blood-thirsty despots concentrated in this region. It’s the only way to govern these people. They don’t want to be free, they want to be ruled with an iron fist. Every time a place gets delivered from their blood-thirsty despots, they go nuts and start killing each other.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
ISIS moves into Libya. Yes, great idea to kick out and eventually kill Qaddafi.
300 ISIS fighters trapped in Iraq, we should be bombing the hell out of them:
edit- Great…we are NOW JUST bombing ISIS moving targets!!!
You know I think there is a wisdom to be learned from the fact that there are/ were some many oppressive, blood-thirsty despots concentrated in this region. It’s the only way to govern these people. They don’t want to be free, they want to be ruled with an iron fist. Every time a place gets delivered from their blood-thirsty despots, they go nuts and start killing each other.[/quote]
Pat:
We disagree on a LOT of things (with the President at the top of the List).
But not with this. You knocked it out-of-the park…and I agree 200%.
It’s a sad state of affairs that you are “better off” when ruled by an Iron Fist.
Amazing.
Mufasa
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Interesting article about fighting both ISIS and the bastards who started the whole thing almost 40 years ago.[/quote]
That is not an article, it’s a propaganda piece the MEK (known as NCRI in the US) paid to have foxnews.com publish. Just like they pay people like Giuliani and Michael Bolton to speak at their events to lend some sort of credibility.
This is the same fringe group that provided the garbage source for the the NY Post article you linked to earlier about Soleimani dying. Which by the way has been proven to be completely false. Much like everything else MEK claims.
Nothing published or said by this group should be taken seriously. They are a cult and a terrorist organization. Only recently having been removed from the designated terrorist group list by the US after decades of intense lobbying and money changing hands. The rest of the world still considers them a terrorist group. First and foremost they are a crazy cult. Like seriously batshit crazy people.
Yea, no Iran and there wouldn’t be ISIS or al-qaeda. I suppose the Middle East would resemble Northern Europe and be civilized and peaceful if it weren’t for those crazy bastards in Tehran. Just let the MEK take over Iran and everything will sort itself out (which is the concluding paragraph in that drivel). Give me a break.
[quote]BPCorso wrote:
Yea, no Iran and there wouldn’t be ISIS or al-qaeda. I suppose the Middle East would resemble Northern Europe and be civilized and peaceful if it weren’t for those crazy bastards in Tehran.[/quote]
You have to admit they got the ball rolling with their Islamic Revolution, getting involved in the cluster that was Lebanon and Al-Qaeda & Isis is really just the Sunni version of the same radicalization that started in Iran with the fall of the Shah.
Do you suppose if the Shah was an ally of the Russians during the Cold War, all things considered, the Iranians would be chanting Death to Russia today?
Before Iran it was the secular dictators & the PLO mad at the West & Israel. Iran was a game changer as far as Islam extremism goes.
I’ll admit that Iran has had a sordid history since 1979, but I do not believe islamic extremism wouldn’t exist were the Shah never overthrown. That’s a real long discussion for another day. There is a lot of evil in the Middle East and Iran’s been a convenient scapegoat for it all for a long time.
As far as the Russians, I believe that if Russia was propping up the Shah and involved in the 1953 coup and involved in stealing Iran’s oil - then yes - Iranians would be chanting death to Russia today. Especially b/c there is a lot of history b/t Iranians and Russians, most of it not positive. Although there is a fundamental difference in that America is truly the lone superpower in the world and exerts its influence and will in a way Russia could only dream of. Defying Russia doesn’t have the same gravitas as it does the USA.
I wrote that previous response mostly b/c I have a particular distaste for the MEK and sincerely believe they are crazier than the Mullahs. They’re almost universally despised within Iran and in diaspora b/c they sided with Saddam Hussein and waged war with him on Iran against their own countrymen. They have zero chance of ever gaining legitimacy within Iran. Saddam Hussein is likely the most reviled person in modern Iranian history.
As a side note, my non-Iranian GF worked as a lobbyist for them (as NCRI) a few years back. She actually helped them get off the US terrorist list. I obviously did not approve but definitely support her advancing her career.
Interesting reply.
Now for the other guy who said Assad did not help terrorists cross into Iraq from Syria to fight US forces during the war…perhaps he knows more than the former US defense secretary? Nah. Read this:
That’s a good perspective from Gates. I agree with his assertion that Maliki and the Syrian civil were primary catalysts to the rise of ISIS.
I believe the 2003 Iraq war ended up being a disaster for US interests. But I also believe it’s foolish and not productive to blame every bad thing in occurring in the Middle East in the last decade on the Iraq war. It’s another example of scape goating and diffusing responsibility.
Personally I think it’s ridiculous to blame Bush/Cheney or Obama/Kerry for ISIS. Frankly ISIS or something similar was likely inevitable. The only thing new about ISIS is they flaunt savagery as if it’s a marketing tool.
There simply aren’t enough countries in the Middle East where people have a sense of nationalism or unity. Too many impoverished and uneducated people being governed or oppressed by people they hate. There’s also too many people in the Middle East that are short sighted and control enough money to fund radicals in a significant way.
There will always be war in the Middle East until one side is wiped out or borders are redrawn. The idea that there will ever again be a united Syria or Yemen (as currently drawn) is facile and isn’t even worth pursuing at this point.
Here’s one:
again…what people having been saying on here for years.