After Afghanistan and Iraq how do you idiot bro cons still think regime change is a walk in the park.

Nothing I'm saying would be more costly than what exists now. I'm not talking about involving the US military. I'm talking about giving money and weapons to groups that aligned with our interests, and making rhetorical gestures against the Assad regime on the world stage. Or at least not having Hillary Clinton keep calling him a reformer for the first year of the war.

Basically, do to the initial secular rebels what Putin and Iran do for Assad. Would it have for sure worked? Who can tell? But at least it wouldn't have put us on the road to where we are now, which could hardly be worse.

"After Afghanistan and Iraq how do you idiot bro cons still think regime change is a walk in the park."

No one's saying it's a walk in the park, just that it's better than what exists now. And again, I'm not talking about direct intervention. I'm talking about even less than we did in Libya.

Obama tried to over-learn the lessons learned during the Bush era.

Again your assumptions are staggering

It is always the same: the civilians will suffer the most.

I believe America is seriously overestimating the price of these kinds of involvements. Even during a serious and relatively recent conflict such as the war in Vietnam, only 2% of the total casualties were American. Every life lost is one too many, but in a geopolitical context, the price America would have had to pay even for a relatively modest contribution to the good side in a scenario like what Invictus proposes is negligible. If Obama had intervened, he'd also have a better relationship with S-A now and he would have been in a much, much better negotiating position with Iran. The incompetence of this guy still shocks me every time I hear what kind of decisions he takes.

@redhouse1938 When you say "If Obama had intervened" it seems like your assuming "If Obama had intervened *and achieved a favorable outcome*" - that's far from certain, regardless of casualty ratios.

I have no idea what the right answer would have been, but it seems like Syria is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. Assad was underestimated in any event, which is why he's still there. Certainly the full force of intervention could have removed him, but what would have remained of Syria in the aftermath, who knows.

@ redhouse

Unlike our president, I don't consider any number of dead Americans to be "negligible". Frankly, that's appalling. You'd rather see *both* dead American soldiers and dead Syrians in the streets of Damascus than dead Islamist radicals? Assad and his cronies, for all of their oppressive tyrannical douchebaggery, are admittedly taking out the trash when it comes to radical Islamists.

Obama's incompetence has actually proven to be a blessing to the American people. America does *not* want another war; we can't afford another war. I just wish he hadn't made a bunch of empty threats and pissed off the Russians in the process.

@ tendmote

"but what would have remained of Syria in the aftermath, who knows."

Precisely. That's the scary part. Assad, for all of his faults, is predictable, even amenable. As long as he gets to keep his own little Tropico, he won't bother anyone. Forcing him from power would piss off the Russians and destabilize the entire region.

But anyhow, getting back to the original post, the conflict won't end. The stakes are too high for each side's foreign backers and the players within Syria can't realistically expect to defeat their foes any time soon. There's probably too much bad blood for the various groups to ever come back together in a functioning society again.

I keep saying it, but I really think it's a good description. Syria is now East Lebanon. It can't really break apart like, say, Yugoslavia did, but it also is too broken by this conflict to ever be the functioning civil society it once was. "Peace" may come someday, but it took 15 years to come to Lebanon and 120,000 deaths. Syria's matched that number already.

@ redhouse

Also, our high K/D ratio in Vietnam was mostly because we had B-52s and the Viet Cong didn't. And Americans just plain kick ass, too. Our K/D from the Korean War is staggering. Those damned chicoms might have pushed us back to the 38th, but we took a whole hell of a lot of the red bastards with us. Korea has to be some sort of record for most successful fighting retreat of all time.

@ Invictus

Do you think a Balkanization of Syria or an extremely long civil war are the only possibilities? What do you think is more likely of the two? I'm just curious; I'm not looking to argue with you.

I don't think balkanization in the sense of several new states popping up in the former Syria is likely at all. It doesn't make geographic sense and, apart from the Kurds, no players in the war would want it. However, balkanization in the sense of people being divided along petty religious-ethnic-social reasons has already happened. Much like Lebanon didn't turn into Maroniteland, Sunnistan, and Shiitia, Syria won't really split. No, the players will keep the frontiers the same and fight for control of the whole thing or to protect their position in it. And that will go on indefinitely, since Iran and Russia will always give Assad whatever he needs to keep things going and the Saudis and the rest of the Gulf states will give their rebels whatever they need to keep things going.

Even if, say, the rebels assassinate Assad and his "government" falls or Assad totally retakes the northeast, that just changes the phase of the war. Plenty of people will still fight the Islamists even if Assad himself is gone and plenty of people will still fight Assad indefinitely (whether they're Syrian or not) since the Saudis have made this the current jihad and Assad winning means Allah losing.


I really just can't see any way this ends, short of one side totally winning, which is very unlikely. Regardless of how the situation came to this point this is where it is now, and this is probably where it will stay unless something dramatic happens.

Interesting insight. Sounds like an accurate prediction to me, but time will tell.

Time will tell. I wonder how the program to destroy Syria's chemical weapons will relate to the six month deadline on the Iran nuclear deal.

That's one thing I don't understand. Why is the international community trying to force Syria to get rid of their chemical weapons?

To give the impression they're doing something constructive. Besides which the push on chemical weapons was only really made as a pretext for military action. The military action may have faded into nothing, but we don't want to admit that was the only reason and so we're carrying on regardless.

Imagine a child colouring in a picture, and using a back coloured pencil instead of blue for the sky by accident. He could simply rub it out, but that would mean admitting he'd cocked it up, so instead he changes the entire picture to a night scene and pretends the people sunbathing in the foreground are vampires.

Has anyone not considered that Syria, as a sovereign nation, has the right to possess chemical weapons?

The Russian Federation (formerly the Soviet Union) and the United States have had chemical weapons stockpiled for decades.

Do they have a right? It depends upon what treaties they may have signed.

Other question: Do we and the rest of the world have a right to try to prevent an unstable nation with ties to terrorist organizations from obtaining a weapon of mass destruction.

It is not about who else may have them - that question is irrelevant.

Do you not prosecute one criminal for seeking to obtain, for example, 10 K of cocaine because you know some other criminal elsewhere may also have 10 K of cocaine?

Anyway, WHAT chemical weapons? Did not Lord Obama His Most High and Mighty rattle his sabre and fart twice and bend over for Putin and in so doing eliminate forever the threat of chemical weapons in Syria? These fantastical topics about things that cannot be – chemical weapons in Syria…a FANTASY! – are clogging up the forum…

You propose giving them back?

"After Afghanistan and Iraq how do you idiot bro cons still think regime change is a walk in the park. "

Regime CHANGE is easy...Roll in the tanks, kill all the leadership, and BOOM...new regime.

What is difficult is not having an equally perverse, or more perverse and evil, regime spring in to the void...which is why if you roll the tanks, you had better be prepared to spend a *generation* or two occupying the land to make sure the culture changes in support of your goals...which means staying until all the middle aged people with a voice against you grow old and die...

How is it going to end? In the same way all wars end; with too many people dying for no good reason.

Unless everyone tires of the thread and votes 'draw'

@ krellin

Why is America any better than Syria? Sure, we're not in the middle of a bitter civil war and we don't harbor, er, unsavory individuals, but that doesn't mean that we can have chemical weapons and they can't.

Also, your cocaine example is bad. Cocaine should be unregulated and legal for recreational use, but that's an argument for another day.

@ Jamiet

No, I wouldn't propose giving them back, but it wasn't right to take them away in the first place. I don't really give a shit what Assad does with his sarin shells as long as the gas clouds stay inside Syria.

It's going to end with a convoy from Spain

it's going to end ????
I can't see that happening soon, or later
too many individuals who want to fight each other, who want vengeance,
who cannot forgive, negotiate or have any genuine wish for peace

Why would we want it to end? Who am I going to sell my weapons too then...