So, as long as there's one guy on the planet who might be an ISIS member, the US must keep boots on the ground in that region, huh. Why would the US care about Iranian influence in Syria? Assad has always been Iran's ally, so seriously what are you even proposing here? It's like saying you want to remove China's influence in North Korea. That bird has flown a very long time ago. There's nothing to curtail now, Assad is Iran's ally and he's being kept in power by Russia.occamslightsaber wrote:No, the Kurds aren’t treaty allies, but treaties alone don’t make allies. The US military has not yet declared the ISIS threat to be entirely removed, since there are more than 10,000 of their fighters still active in the field who are now joined by escaped detainees. Even after ISIS is fully defeated, the US can use the Kurds to curtail the Iranian influence in Syria, so the US still has a very good reason to keep the Kurds as allies for the foreseeable future.
Well, what can I say? Should I defend Trump's concept of strategy? I don't feel like it's worth doing it. I guess we'll see if his approach works better than Obama's bumbling hesitation. I don't think Trump cares what the rest of the world thinks about the USA. He cares about what US voters think about the US more. Because he's not getting voted by the French, the BBC or global experts.American policymakers want US foreign policy to be predictable and clear cut for everyone else in order to minimize the risk of miscalculation. US deterrence posture around the world relies on not just US military capability, but also on the fact that other countries understand what key US interests are and therefore know what redlines not to cross. Trump is making the world more conflict-prone by casting doubt on US credibility with his “unpredictability” and undermining US deterrence posture. It has nothing to do with the US being held hostage to its commitments. Trump claims that his motive is political to fulfill his campaign promises, but if that’s the case it has backfired severely, seeing how he is being roundly criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike.
That's so 1980s-early 1990s. Maybe a bunch of neocons still believe in this, but my impression is that current US policy makers are pretty much actively working to dismantle the EU. Not to mention the US financial press that never misses an opportunity to mock the euro and announce its soon-to-come demise.I literally said European integration is in US interest to balance a resurgent Russia. Tell me, what part of that sounds altruistic to you?
I also thought that even some Democrats think that Russia is no longer the threat that it used to be. China is the new Cold War Russia now. If you ask n0el for example he'll say Russia is no longer the enemy, China is. And I don't think he's a Trump supporter. I think this attitude is quite common among many Democrats and Repubs alike in the US. They think Russia is no longer the bogeyman it once was.
So does the EU really contain Russia? Then why is Germany buying gas from Russia? They're basically keeping a huge chunk of their revenue stream alive by doing that. Nice contain...
Russia never stopped supporting Assad and keeping friendly relations with Iran. They even had joint drills with Iran on different occasions. Iran has been getting supplied with Russian missile systems too. During the 1990s Iraq war, Soviet Russia provided military assistance to Saddam Hussein's regime. Little to no influence, huh?Also, most of the reasons you listed for US involvement in the Middle East are either minor or flat out wrong. Russia had little to no influence left in the region after the Soviet Union collapsed, so you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about.
Competing... Lol. That's like saying the US and UK are competing over who gets more defence contracts with the German government. They're all part of the same regional network of interests. Probably even more convergent than the Western alliance.The US isn’t even very concerned about the spread of Russian influence now, because it is mostly limited to Syria and even there Moscow is competing with Tehran over the Assad regime.
Nah, this never concerned anyone in the White House. If it did, they would have actually done something to stop the wave of migration that was headed to Europe. They didn't because they didn't really care. It wasn't their problem.The only real concern was that the Russian incursion prolonged the Syrian Civil War and exacerbated the refugee crisis, which like I said set back the plans for European integration to check Russia.
Obama made it clear when he took office that his geopolitical priorities didn't include any special plans for Europe. He was mostly focused on the Pacific and improving relations with other regions like Latin America and Africa. When some European NATO countries got involved in Lybia, he remained hesitant and later regreted, becayse Lybia fell apart as a result of a half-hearted, unfinished intervention. It really shows that Europe hasn't been the focus of any of the past recent US administrations, neither Obama's nor Trump's. So I really doubt that what you're saying was actually a priority for any of the recent US presidents. You're basically saying typical stuff that policy buffs in Washington believed in, but that wasn't necessarily translated into policy.
Armed them and sent CIA operatives to train them too. Some of the weapons got in the hands of groups that later turned into ISIS. That's what you get for not understanding much about the region and thinking you do. And if you fund and support them, expecting them to not switch sides at any point. But hey, you gotta stick with your "allies". Those Kurd allies actually organised terror attacks in Turkey. It's not for nothing that Turkey has beef with them. There's literally bad blood between them, we're talking about many deaths over the years.Plus, the US didn’t “start” the civil war in Syria. In fact, Obama refused to be directly involved like in Libya and only armed the rebels to fight Assad. And this was all before the refugee crisis began in earnest with the Russian intervention in 2015, so the US had no idea how the civil war would impact Europe. And sure, Russia and Assad “won” the civil war, although a sizable chunk is still under Kurdish control and the Syrian government is fighting Turkish-led forces as we speak.
That sheer distance is not something that can't be overcome with the right technology. Why do you think there's been so much energy invested in making sure Iran doesn't produce uranium that could be usable in warheads? Because they're not a real concern for Israel, right.As for all the other “reasons” you brought up for US involvement in the Middle East, no, the US isn’t very worried about Iran attacking Israel because of the sheer distance between the two, not to mention that Israel is strong enough to defeat Iranian proxies.
Oh but I didn't claim that. I'm well aware that the US doesn't really need Middle Eastern oil. This had nothing to do with why American companies got involved in Iraq and elsewhere, thought. Haliburton, the company in which Dick Cheney (who was US defense secretary during the first war in Iraq) was involved up to a point, gained access to contracts in Iraq after the war, since there were plenty of money-making opportunities in different areas, like bringing burning oil wells under control. Later Cheney was vice-president in W Bush's administration. And they led another operation of removing Saddam Hussein from power. Just a coincidence. I mean, when a country gets destroyed by war, lots of opportunities for rebuilding are left after war operations end. And if you install the right, friendly administration there, they will probably also lend a friendly eye to your companies' business propositions. Which is what happened in Iraq.Contrary to popular belief, oil was not one of the main reasons why the US invaded Iraq, if at all; otherwise the US wouldn’t be the biggest producer of oil today.
One doesn't preclude the other. The US already has Eastern Europe in the bag, it doesn't need to go to great lengths just to secure its allegiance. The Middle East is an ongoing effort for the US, it's always been this way. Your administrations never really managed to get a grip on this region, but that doesn't mean they ever stopped trying to install your own friendly governments there and so encircle Asia or preemptively remove a potential strategic interest from them.It’s also ridiculous that you think the US wants bases in the Middle East to contain Russia and China, when the US is doing precisely the opposite to redeploy forces in Eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Despite the protests and setbacks, Iraq has made long strides to stabilize itself since 2003 and it’s too early to tell if its democratic experiment is a failure. Egypt is still an American ally and hardly the first autocratic one. Libya is a cesspool, but that doesn’t matter since it’s hardly a key US interest.