I’m interested to see this myself. I suspect he might come out even in that he may lose some die-hard Trumpets but pick up some that were on the fence.
The other thing to watch are the special elections going on (Kansas voting is today). If the dems win or make strong inroads in GOP strongholds, it will be very interesting to see how Congress reacts.
If that happens, and sanctions are eventually lifted since we’re “playing nice in the sandbox” with Russia, it’d fit in nicely with USMC & BG’s conspiracy theory.
“Ousting Assad” doesn’t mean much if you don’t resolve the question who controls what in Syria - do Iranians retain control of the Alawite coastal heartland and the Homs-Hama-Latakia road? If they do, that’s a spectacular win for them and sunni nations will be super pissed, especially Turkey.
Also, in any potential Putin/US deal over Syria the take-home message for Putin is that military intervention and escalation pays off big time - he’s bound to get some concessions from Tillerson to alt least nominally abandon Hezbollah and Iran.
No one apparently told Tillerson that the KGB doesn’t honor “deals”
You have that wrong (wrong again). You are the one who looks terrible and also very petty. You are not able to say "Zeb my original statement about you was wrong. I erred and it’s not worth continuing. No instead you tried to expand and distort the subject and then defend that. But as I said you don’t get to do that. For example if If you accuse someone of stealing a car that accusation must stand on its own. You cannot later come back and say “well…he was only looking at it and leaning on it…um let me explain” No the accusation is out there no explanation is needed. And the only reason you offered one was to change your original meaning. Didn’t work.
It’s not about what you manage to spew forth after the fact. Broadening the topic and then defending that and distorting your original point does not help you. It’s about you being able to defend your original assertion which you could not do. So, at this point you need to take your own advice as this makes you look terrible…so move on.
You might be right but according to the polls the Syria attack was popular. I don’t have the numbers in front of me but a majority of people agreed that it was a good thing. Does this mean that he will gain supporters?
Could be…although it’s pretty unclear what exactly it accomplished at this point. Spicer’s presser yesterday didn’t alleviate concerns about a long term conflict there.
It won’t mean anything in terms of the millennia old Sunni/Shia bloodletting but it will be significant in terms of US influence and credibility. Also I suppose there are moral justifications for Assad being held accountable If anyone still believes in that sort of thing… As far as Turkey/S.A. is concerned let them be pissed, once they get their Salafi jihadists in line we can talk about their beachfront property in Syria.
He learned that lesson from the previous administration, besides the concession we’re making here is to stop bombing the Assad regime. Putin knows that if we cripple the Assad regime the same we did in Libya it paints Russia as a weak ineffective ally, he can’t afford that. Instead working as an equal partner with the West on the future of Syria allows him to retain credibility and shrug off some of the pariah reputation he’s built up.
We all know that the Kremlin doesn’t believe in win/win but I think this is as close as we’re going to get.
I think the limited, pinprick nature of it makes it easier to digest for the America First crowd, but it’s going to be impossible for action in Syria to end there. I think the America First crowd needs to gird themselves that this president will look a lot like a less eloquent GWB when it’s all over. The ethnonationalists have been downgraded in the administration and it looks like neocon-style foreign policy and tax-cuts-uber-alles on the domestic front (along with no wall).
I think a lot of people share your concern right now hence the poor poll numbers.
This looks pretty fundamentally different than the neocon policy of regime change/nation building though. Worst case scenario this looks like another Libya or well WW3 in which case who needs approval ratings?
The only people that appear to be calling for an American occupation and regime change are the more hawkish members of the GOP. McMaster and Tillerson seem to be implementing a different strategy.
Right, but TB’s making the point that the administration is undergoing a pretty substantial change right now. Bannon appears to be on his way out (McMaster had a big hand in getting him off the NSC). Sounds like Preibus may be on the line as well.
Yea I got that, it just seems people expect an administration to act on one extreme or the other without recognizing that there is sensible policy that doesn’t completely fit either ideology.
Considering Trumps poll numbers were in the gutter prior to McMaster cleaning house I doubt they’ll get much worse