... Carthage. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, the United States seemed poised to dominate the world for the foreseeable ... ... failed to effectively deal with conflict in Libya, Ukraine, and Syria, all within or near its periphery. The situation in Syria ... ... show kindness and compassion to refugees, may be ousted sooner by politics rather than later for her troubles, and other governments ... ... policy, as racial, ethnic, and religious tension, fears of Islamic terrorism, nativism, and demagogues become ever more commonplace,...
... clear and provable beyond any reasonable doubt. Ultimately, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's policies and the dynamics of Syria's raging civil war are the clear catalysts and drivers behind current crises with ISIS both in Syria and Iraq.
... ... if Maliki had treated the Sunnis and Kurds more fairly, the Iraqi government—Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds united against terrorism as they were back in 2007—would have been in a strong position to fend off any ISIS incursions coming into Iraq ...
... positions/villages—part of a series of Russian bombings in recent days that have targeted Turkmen—on the border area of Turkey and Syria. Turkey is supporting these Turkmen rebels against Assad that Russia is bombing, and had previously asked Russia not to ... ... to harm Russia’s interests more than those gains would help them: Russia is particularly vulnerable to Sunni extremist terrorism for a number of clear reasons and its moves in Syria, as I have written before, are only going to expose Russia to further ...
... are some sort of moral equivalent. Drones involve precision weapons, and strikes target those are terrorists or involved in terrorism. There are civilian deaths in these attacks quite often, but with no evidence to the contrary we cannot legitimately ... ... you believe.
To those who think the only solution to this is simply more use of force and would blame Obama for not invading Syria and Iraq today like Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, please, just go away and stop talking. There are many complex factors in ...
A Sensible Grading of Obama’s Middle East Strategy: The Syrian Civil War
Grading Obama on what has—and has not—been done by his ... ... people—and confirmed publicly by several major Western governments (including that of the United States), Human Rights Watch, and later by the United Nations. As to who was the... ... muster Congressional support, it would empower him that much more in the public and politics senses. And yet, Obama’s putting so much power and influence in the hands...
... Andendall and by Tuck Magazine.
Other articles in this series:
Grading Obama’s Middle East Strategy (Sensibly): Part II: Syria
The cocks who crow “failure” every time the sun rises about the Obama Administration’s overall Middle ... ... in December 2011, I had come to agree that, having spent blood and treasure to give Iraqi politicians breathing room to make politics work—the explicit stated objective of the “Surge”—while having seen no serious effort at politics ...
... and investing in the region.
2.) America’s involvement in the Arab Spring will likely remain limited.
Even in situations like in Egypt, for many years one of the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid, Obama and Americans, as was/is the case in Syria and Iraq, seems to prefer a “don’t do stupid shit” (to quote the president) approach.
Obama has—correctly—realized that it is immoral, ineffective, counterproductive, and far costlier for the U.S. to default to forcing ...
... political effort towards enlisting Sunni Arab Iraqis to fight extremists, especially in Iraq’s western Anbar province on Syria’s border, saw the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq/Mesopotamia and similar extremist Sunni groups that had alienated local ... ... country of Iraq in the face of such a reckless and violent onslaught and possible formal disintegration?
The Solution: Local Politics First, or No Cavalry
Obama brilliantly approved and executed a plan that minimized the potential pitfalls and maximized ...
