Once again the Obama regime has shown its ineptitude at foreign policy. Every initiative, if you can call them that, has been a total failure with the exception of the killing of Osama bin Ladin, a moral victory rather than anything else. Obama, his advisors, and handlers, including the two inept Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry, have virtually no understanding of history and military tactics, much like the Carter regime (not knowing, ignoring, or not understanding history is why Obama has a failed presidency). First Obama pissed off our two best allies, England and Israel. Then he went to Cairo and promised a kinder gentler US in respect to the Arab world. culminating in his bowing down to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Arabs understand strength and laugh at weakness, its the primitive nature of Islam. N. Koreas and Iran openly mock him, the Russians ignore him, despite his suspension of the missile defense system for Eastern Europe. The Chinese have been of little help, as well, and oppose our goals, if we actually have any in Syria. Naturally for being such a total failure at peace, he has a Nobel Prize for being the most inept at bringing peace to the world.
History tells us that Islam is very diverse and has many denominations and the various countries and regions where Islam is prominent has a diversity of ethnic groups. Many of both the religious denominations and ethnic groups hate each other and want to kill each other. There are few if any democratically elected leaders who represent all of religious and ethnic groups fairly. Instead, as in Syria, Assad represents a Shiite and Alowite minority repressing Sunnis and the huge number of other ethnic and religious groups. Syria is also the home of almost two million Christains who represent several different denominations. He is the first civilian dictator in a long line of military dictators since Syria became independent of France after WWII.
Islam is for the most part stuck in the 11th century, especially those who want Sharia Law to reign supreme. Sharia Law requires the demeaning and subjugation of women and the murder of homosexuals and non believers. As a result, violence is a very important part of Islam culminating in a constant state of Jihad. How Obama expects to make friends with those countries dominated by Sharia law is incomprehensible. The so called Arab Spring turned out to be one group of bad guys replacing another. Our State Department's failure to recognize or ignore this is the main reason for out polcy failure.
In addition corrupt and ineffectual administrations have plagued nearly all Muslim countries. Foreign aid usually winds up in the bank accounts of the leaders rather than the people. There is little if any trickle down, so poverty remains the biggest problem and drives everything else, sometimes to the advantage of the leadership. Inept and corrupt leaders tend to blame others for their failures. (One need look no further than our own inept leader.) In the Middle East, it is Israel and the United States that are blamed for all of the failures, encouraging Jihad and sacrifice i.e. suicide bombers. In Africa, it is often other tribes and religious groups, traditional enemies, that blame each other for poverty and failure,. The only Middle East countries that show any success are those with a nearly uniform religious and ethnic groups, and a leadership willing to share its wealth with the people. Leaders of some oils rich countries have recognized this in order to retain power.
Not recognizing or ignoring the above has doomed the Obama regime's foreign policy to total failure. Denying that radical Islam and a war on terrorism exists is a dangerous policy. Prisoners at Guantanamo should never be tried or released until the war on terror is over. This is not the 18th century where prisoners of war are furloughed and sit out the war back home. During WWII nearly 500,000 POWs were housed in the US. None were tried and none were released back to their own countries until the war was over and treaties signed. In Egypt we supported a mob against a violent and corrupt president who was a nominal ally. The mob elected a repressive corrupt president. In Libya we supported a mob against an unfriendly, but inactive anti American dictator. His replacement was so weak that violent mobs including Al Qaida roam the country killing four Americans, including our ambassador with no consequence.
Now in Syria we have the Free Syrian Army fighting a brutal dictator who is supported by Iran, Russia and Hezbollah. Iran has made Syria its surrogate against Israel as a way to get arms to Hesballah. The Russians maintain a large naval base on the Syrian coast. The Chinese and Europe get Syrian oil exports, that have declines significantly due to the civil war. The make up of the Free Syrian Army is very diverse and the CIA has given up its attempt to determine if there are any good guys who we could arm. Basically its bad guys fighting bad guys. The only group that we could probably count on are the Kurds. Kurds are a Muslim and ethnic sect that occupy portions of northern Iraq, northeaster Syria, and eastern Turkey. Recall that these are the people that Sadam gassed. They helped us during the Second Gulf War. The Kurds want their own country, Kurdistan, but the main stumbling block is Turkey, a NATO member and nominal ally. If the UN gets involved, once Assad is gone, they could designate northeastern Syria a separate new country for the Kurds.
As usual Obama continues to make statements that he has trouble backing up. He has drawn a "red line" in Syria and it has been crossed. He has painted himself into a corner. Both Bush 41 and 43 obtained a consensus before the Gulf Wars. Having pissed off the British, they will not join us. Both China and Russia will veto any UN involvement. Without the British, NATO with possibly the exception of the French, who are wavering, shows no inclination in joining us. Therefore, we must go it alone. Obama believes he will have a "consensus" by getting Congressional approval. Even that is not a sure thing, though I believe he will get it. If not he will blame Congress for what is clearly his problem.
Obama continues to show his ignorance of tactics. Rule number one of warfare, never tell the enemy when, where, or how and with what much you are going to attack. Assad has had time to shift and conceal his military assets through out a country, the is the size of Washington state. What I think he should do is degrade the air force and heavy long range artillery and destroy poison gas supplies. Anything less would only encourage Assad to gas civilians again. Doing nothing would be far better than a meaningless token attack by a few hundred cruise missiles. That never seems to work. My recommendation would make the fight more even and allow the bad guys to continue killing bad guys. We should give material aid and encourage the UN to aid the millions of refuges that have left Syria for safety, especially if they are in countries that are friendly to us. Once both sides have degraded each other to the point of severe weakness, the UN should then step in, broker a peace that eliminates Assad, permits real elections, and make certain that any new regime is not repressive before leaving. The Kurds should get serious consideration as well. The new regime should be encourage to make peace with Israel and stay out of Lebanon and eliminate all support of Hezbollah.
There you have it. My view of the complex issue of Syria, based on history. Sorry for not producing any blogs for a while. I know its time for at least another "you just can't make this stuff up." Your comments are always welcome.
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