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I can only hope that Obama bows out and accepts this initiative, with a speech about how the threat of force lead to actual successful diplomacy and the standard against chemical weapons use was upheld or something. This is beyond embarrassing.
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Sep 9, 2013 18:43
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Firing a few cruise missiles at Syria would not improve the situation for the people in Syria as well. If this works and Assad never uses chemical weapons again, all is as good as we can hope for. The only thing the west could do would be to invade Syria and partition it in a way that the ethnic/religious communities are divided in separate countries. But this would involve a big land war, and nobody has the political will to do something like that, not to mention that it would provoke an even bigger anti-western reaction. This diplomatic solution is the best course of action from a realpolitik standpoint I think. Obama can still bomb the country should Assad use the weapons again, which would admittedly be small comfort for the victims.
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Sep 9, 2013 22:22
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German newspaper Der Spiegel is now guessing that this was not a gaffe by Kerry, citing a report by the London based Al-Quds Al-Arabi about secret US-Russian negotiations at the G20 summit. The report from last Friday says that the biggest demand of the US was that Assad needs to destroy all of his non-conventional weapons.
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Sep 9, 2013 22:38
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Al-Saqr posted:The attack on baqubah has been repelled by the Iraqi military, I definitely think at this point we've seen the end of what ISIS can do. You mean the most ISIS can expand. They still hold a shitload of territory. I still think it won't end well for Iraq. Brown Moses posted:The UK Foreign Office just announced it'll reopen the embassy in Iran due to increased contact over the ongoing situation in Iran Together with the thawing of US-Iran relations, I wondered what kind of competing interests the USA and Iran even have in the Middle East, aside from Israel. Of course they finance some terrorist organizations, but the US "allies" in the region have no problems financing their own brands of (Sunni) terrorism. The Iranian hostage crisis was more than 30 years ago. Am I wrong in thinking that the USA could only win if it establishes better relations with Iran?
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Jun 17, 2014 13:03
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Sergg posted:http://news.yahoo.com/u-considers-air-strikes-iraq-holds-talks-iran-003051937.html  That can only end well.quote:Baiji refinery north of Baghdad is shut down, making it difficult for Iraqis to get enough fuel and pump enough water for the hot summer. quote:"According to one Shi'ite Islamist working in the government, well-trained fighters from the Shi'ite organisations Asaib Ahl Haq, Khetaeb Hezbollah and the Badr Organisation are now being deployed as the main combat force, while new civilian volunteers will be used to hold ground after it is taken." 
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Jun 17, 2014 21:29
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Nckdictator posted:
Noted fair and just person Saddam Hussein, under whom Shiites were safe and he was only a "little" brutal.
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Jun 17, 2014 23:00
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The PKK-Turkey conflict is also a different beast compared to a few decades ago. Besides, Realpolitik sometimes makes you choose between two unappealing options, tolerating a Kurdish buffer state may be preferable for Turkey in this situation.
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Jun 29, 2014 13:41
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Can their leader really claim descent from the Prophet?
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Jun 29, 2014 18:36
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Exioce posted:As for being a descendant of Muhammad, this was never a requirement for the Caliph in Sunni Islam. But he claims to be a descendant: quote:Therefore, the shūrā (consultation) council of the Islamic State studied this matter after the Islamic State Or am I reading things wrong?
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Jun 30, 2014 08:30
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Fangz posted:Oh, they want all of India? That seems... ambitious. We already talked about that, if ISIS gets all lands they claim, Muslims won't be the majority in the new state.
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Jun 30, 2014 13:36
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Nenonen posted:This picture in particular, the game is Victoria 2 I want to see 10k ISIS fighters take on about 70 million Shiites in Iran. Good luck with that.
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Jun 30, 2014 14:51
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Looking at the map again, that's not the current northern border of India. Wanting a part of China as well, they certainly ARE ambitious!
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Jun 30, 2014 15:37
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ChaosSamusX posted:The Iraqi government seems hell-bent on making sure they have absolutely no allies in the region whatsoever. Is this some new geopolitical strategy akin to 'shooting the moon' in hearts (the card game)? They learned that from ISIS, who seem just as determined to piss off all potential allies.
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Jul 2, 2014 08:35
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Section 31 posted:ISIS plan for Taking Medina but not Mecca? Or is that just the medium terms plan, with the long term goal to conquer the whole planet?
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Jul 7, 2014 21:44
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Just The Facts posted:The West should do everything they can to Fixed that for your. What could go wrong? 
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Jul 13, 2014 20:58
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What Islamic Caliphate doesn't have getting control of Israel/Jerusalem as one of it's long term goals?  They may have enough on their plate with Syria and Iraq for now, but I'm 100% sure that they are not happy with the Jews controlling Palestine.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:37
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Calling Assad a good guy is ridiculous, but is he the lesser of two evils? How was Syria before their civil war started, I thought it was one of the better places in the Middle East? The only good guys are certain parts of the Syrian opposition that are both weaker than ISIS or Assad. It will probably end very badly. 
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Jul 27, 2014 13:25
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Flaky posted:America should never have believed the hype about the arab spring, nor should it have funnelled weapons to anyone. It should have encouraged regional partners to do likewise. When Syrian civil society was mature enough and sick of his poo poo enough, they would have thrown him out themselves. Now the country is more backwards than Afghanistan, an entire generation (probably more than one) is lost and Assad is still in power. Oh, and then there is the whole state full of Islamic extremists. Yeah great going world police. America is not the only one funneling weapons or money to various rebels, there are the Saudis or Qatar or Iran etc.
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Jul 27, 2014 14:54
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New Division posted:Hmmm where are the good guys that we can funnel weapons and money to? If we could only figure that out the Middle East will finally know peace... I heard this Erdogan fellow is a real leader and a big champion of western values (like freedom of speech). Perhaps Turkey could conquer the Middle East to erect a peaceful caliphate?
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Jul 27, 2014 21:03
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Aside from this, there's also the question of munitions. The US has the advantage in sheer numbers, matching the number of combat aircraft of the next two countries, but they're likely also far better supplied. They certainly were compared to their European counterparts during the bombing campaign in Libya. I see this brought up all the time, but if you don't plan to invade other countries soon, does it really make sense to store munitions for a months-long bombing campaign? And even if you plan an invasion, I think you would normally bomb the most important targets and then move in with ground troops, reducing the need for air strikes.
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Jul 29, 2014 14:14
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TildeATH posted:That's a horribly corrosive metaphor. The "mowing the grass" and other preventive measures that states are using is actually a major cause of radical, militant Islam. It's the natural expression of a people who have been oppressed and seen their leaders executed or bought out, and their families bombed with American or European or Soviet-provided bombs. Look how well it worked for Israel, periodically culling the population of Gaza! Now everybody loves Israel and it is safer than ever and...
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Sep 16, 2014 09:25
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Sergg posted:Let's remember that for like 2000 years Europe was the most violent place on earth Pax Romana ended only about 1850 years ago. Also, you are underestimating how violent places outside of Europe were at times. Sergg posted:and regularly had continent-spanning wars in which millions died Please show me the continent spanning wars in which millions died that took place before the 17th century.
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Feb 6, 2015 12:15
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Mightypeon posted:Mongol conquest of China? Timurid invasion of Iran? Mongol Invasion of Iran? Arguably some of the bigger Chinese Warring state clashes? Look at the original post I quoted. It's partly my fault for splitting the sentence, but the Op reads: Sergg posted:Let's remember that for like 2000 years Europe was the most violent place on earth and regularly had continent-spanning wars in which millions died and that it only stabilized after WWII when they divided most of Europe into ethnically homogeneous states. If you need a strongman like Assad or Saddam Hussein to maintain the integrity of your nation-state by getting all genocidy and gassy, then your nation-state ain't poo poo and needs some federating or partitioning. Europe had continent spanning (that means Europe spanning in this instance) wars regularly in the last 2000 years, at least according to Sergg. All examples you cited were not in Europe, which only proves my point that Europe wasn't more violent than a lot of other places.
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Feb 6, 2015 15:25
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suboptimal posted:At this stage, I do have to wonder if the US and EU are going to re-enter the Libyan fray, albeit in a much more quiet way than 2011. I somehow doubt that anybody in Europe is interested in seriously going back into the Arab world as long as the Ukraine situation is as dire as it is right now.
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Feb 16, 2015 14:21
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Tafferling posted:That and Italy is currently pissed off because their huge humanitarian relief effort (Mare Nostrum) has been cut to 1/3 its size after they managed to make the EU participate http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/31/italy-sea-mission-thousands-risk Right, that would make it seem really, really horrendous what Frontex is (not) doing in the Mediterranean Sea, and then we would have to actually start rescuing people and we would get even more refugees. No EU government wants that.
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Feb 16, 2015 16:47
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Aleppo is just gone 
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Mar 12, 2015 20:23
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What a useless line of thinking. If the Abrahamic god exists then he is older than the universe. If not, then the Pyramids are only older than the fables about the Abrahamic god.
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Mar 12, 2015 23:36
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There is nothing wrong with negotiating with Assad except if you think that letting Syria being destroyed by a few decades of civil war is better than negotiating with one of the worst human beings in the world. If we let them alone, either Assad or the Islamists will commit ethnic/religious cleansing, which would be horrible, no matter who wins. But who knows, perhaps negotiations can create a better deal? Attempting negotiations to create something resembling peace is a good thing in my opinion, even though the odds of success are very low. It can hardly get worse than it is already.
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Mar 15, 2015 17:12
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Volkerball posted:Just wait until you see what would happen if we came to terms with an agreement that Assad manipulated and loopholed enough to accept. Not that it matters because no rebels are going to accept any agreement like that knowing full well what awaits them from a butcher who's shown that his idea of peace in every "cease-fire" has been to round up all military aged males and disappear them. It'd be convenient for the US if this all just stopped and people accepted the boot on their face and the high probability of getting tortured for existing, but it won't happen. All this does is make the US look bad and further disenfranchise Sunni's who are pissed that the world doesn't care about them, and make ISIS' open arms stretch a little wider. That obviously depends on the terms of the agreement reached, if there ever is an agreement, right? I think the talks resulting in failure is much more likely than the US accepting a deal as bad as you described.
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Mar 15, 2015 17:29
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fspades posted:You know, when Syrian and Iraqi civil wars ended up destroying ancient historic sites I didn't cared that much when I compared it to general human suffering going on. But if this poo poo sandwich turns old city of Sana'a into a pile of rubble I'm going to cry a bit. Damascus and Aleppo are two of the oldest cities in the world, and Aleppo is basically reduced to rubble. Why is Sana'a different?
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Mar 28, 2015 12:05
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Armyman25 posted:So, anyone have a summary of what resulted from all the Jordanian air strikes in February? I thought they were placating domestic outrage after ISIS burned one of their pilots alive? I would guess that they didn't need to bomb any more after a while.
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Apr 1, 2015 21:30
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My Imaginary GF posted:That's not true, Volkerball; that's precisely what the Congress has been saying and the President ignoring in order to get any deal done. Its why Obama's row with Bibi won't stand, because, fundamentally, Iran will not change its unacceptable policy agendas. They can't, they're a totalitarian dictatorship subserviant to the final will of one man with no mechanisms other than death for his removal. Like the King of Saudi Arabia? Doesn't stop the US from being friendly with their state.
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Apr 2, 2015 20:34
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Vladimir Putin posted:If Iran has the bomb KSA will get the bomb, it's that simple. If Iran doesn't have the bomb there's no reason for KSA to do it. Good thing for us that the deal negotiated today will most likely prevent Iran from getting the bomb.
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Apr 2, 2015 22:43
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My Imaginary GF posted:Its a bad deal with bipartisan opposition. It is the responsibility of Iran to create a deal agreeable to Congress, not the job of Congress to kowtow to a nation which chants "death to America" every week. Given that the USA wasn't the only nation negotiating with Iran it's only the responsibility of Iran to create a deal agreeable to the negotiating nations. The heads of the P5+1 countries approved the deal/framework, so Iran did everything right. Should Congress sabotage the deal it will rightfully be considered the fault of the USA, not Iran. The sanctions of the other countries will be lifted, and any military action will be seen as an illegal preventive war. You are delusional if you think that the USA will engage in a bombing campaign several months long. And it's not like Congress can force Obama to bomb Iran.
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Apr 10, 2015 22:59
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Cerebral Bore posted:Eh, it's not like anyone in Yemen had much of an incentive to start lobbing scuds into Saudi Arabia in the first place. If the Saudis are ging to experience any blowback from their little misadventure, i'd say that pissed off Yemenis making some sort of terrorist attack would be a bigger threat than anybody trying to hit anything valuable in Saudi Arabia with a scud. Most of the country is just desert, after all. Please don't repost Hollywood propaganda by pretending as if the US was the lone, or even most important party in the victory over Nazi Germany. If the US had recognized that post-Saddam Iraq would inevitably be dominated by Shiites, and had worked with the Iraqi Shiites and Iran to create a system where the Iraqi Sunnites had a protected place in post-war Iraq, it could have ended much better.
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Apr 22, 2015 12:28
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Hitting tourism in Tunisia again is a strategically smart choice. While Tunisia came out of the Arab Spring better than any other "affected" country, their economy is still quite weak. If ISIS can scare the tourists away, the country will face more economic hardship, could destabilize and provide fertile grounds for recruiting by the terrorists.
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Jun 26, 2015 22:17
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Count Roland posted:I think this has been the main driving force for a deal, especially from Europe. Europeans salivate at the idea of developing alternate sources of energy, to become less dependent on Russian oil and gas.
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Jul 15, 2015 21:41
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Also, the more the PKK engage in terrorism in Turkey, the higher his chances to succeed with either banning the HDP, or making them unpopular enough that they fail to clear the 10% hurdle in the soon-to-be called next elections.
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Aug 2, 2015 18:22
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fade5 posted:We are literally Elijah, no divine intervention required, unless you consider JDAMs to be "divine". How does this square with the general homophobia of extremist Islamist groups?
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Aug 5, 2015 14:20
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My Imaginary GF posted:Nor was it as if the allies just waltz'd into Germany; they made the Germans, no matter where they lived, know they were defeated through a non-halfassed measures like the strategic air campaign. One should also note that Nazi Germany actually started an illegal war of aggressive expansion, the Nazis were actually evil (Holocaust), and they did the total war thing first. As a German, I would say that the Allies leveling half of Germany was actually just. On the other hand, the USA started an illegal war of aggression against Iraq without any acceptable justifications. Additionally, one of the phony reasons put forward was that they were "merely" targeting the Saddam government, that they were only after regime change and that they were liberating the Iraqi people. It would hardly be appropriate to do that by waging total war against them, right? Also, it can't be overstated how much the Western allies profited from having the hated communists occupy the eastern half of Germany in the aftermath of the war.
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Aug 6, 2015 06:33
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