You’re thinking of the wrong treaty. The treaties that carved up the Ottoman Empire are the Treaty of Sevres and the Treaty of Lausanne. The Treaty of Sevres was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies, but it was rejected by the Turks during the Turkish War of Independence. It was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne.
Why blame the partitioning? Turkey is self-determined. It won its war to gain independence and it still has a problem with parts of its Kurdish population. Most of the reason why is simply authoritarian rule. Similarly, the Arab Spring countries’ populations are rebelling against auhtoritarian rulers. Where the authoritarian rulers are giving ground there is no civil war or calls for the end of the regime. Where the regimes have dug in, there’s been violence and civil war.
It’s good that the Obama administration is supporting the rebels in the way we are doing. It’s the right time to do it because the Syrian rebel forces are getting to the point where they are organized and part of a mostly uniform force both within and outside the country. Also, UN efforts have failed completely, leaving little reason not to get involved. After all, what’s the downside? On the one hand, if they win they will have a favorable attitude toward the US. If they lose then it’s still Assad. It can only get better for us, at minimal cost and no loss to US forces.
Nitpick - while the two treaties you noted may have sealed the deal, the modern map of the Middle East was largely drawn in the secret Sykes-Picot Agreementfrom 1916.
Yes and no… the weapons pipeline to Hezbollah tends to run through Syria and there have been reports of Hezbollah trying to get some of their stockpiles out in case the regime goes belly up. Self interest can play a huge motivating role. There’s also the fact that while Hezbollah tends to be an Iranian creature, there’s a much higher likelihood of rogue elements within a paramilitary force than within a well regulated army.
It’s also not inconceivable that Hezbollah would be taken off the leash by Iran. As I mentioned up thread, we (brilliantly :rolleyes: ) just informed Iran that, yeah, Stuxnet was ours and Israel just offered some help along the way. The Iranians have launched Hezbollah attacks against our military forces for much less in terms of direct provocation, and military attacks against Israeli/Jewish civilian targets for similarly low thresholds of a casus belli.
It is not at all beyond the pale that publicly acting to take out Assad’s regime, coming right on the heels of publicly admitting that we were the ones who created Stuxnet, could have negative repercussions for us.
You are allowed to ignore any and all facts which you find inconvenient, for any reason or reasons, Inbred.
Then provide some facts. Provide a reasonable chain of causality, with cites, that would lead Hezbollah to attack American military and civilian targets due to civil war in Syria. Or better yet, stop trying to make this thread on Obama’s policies toward the Free Syrian Army a thread about Iran, Hezbollah and Israel.
The facts have already been mentioned. Please specify which facts you are ignorant of and require additional citations for.
If you don’t understand why American military action against Syria involves both Iran and Hezbollah, you need significant help in order to comprehend the basic dynamics at work. It’s also interesting as you’re now the one trying to make this thread about Israel while you decry the (fictional) focus that I’ve put on it. Why, do you think, you’re trying to shift the topic?
Wikipedia articles are highly unreliable particularly when discussing the Middle East.
Perhaps you can fully explain why exactly you consider Al-Nour to be more “extremist” than the Muslim Brotherhood rather than just throwing out a wiki link.
Moreover, since you made the assertion that the Muslim Brotherhood was comparable to the Christian Democrats in Europe, perhaps you can link us to examples of the following; Christian Democratic parties forbidding women from being leaders, calling for executing homosexuals, insisting that men should be allowed to beat their wives “so long as they break no bones and spill no blood”, calling for the executing Christians who converted to othe religions, insisting that all Christians who convert to Islam have the phrase “ex-Christian” stamped on their ID cards to enable discriminatio against them, and insist that Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs and should be slaughtered as such and declare Christians who blow schoolchildren in Sbarro’s into kosher hamburger “Shahids” who will be sent to paradise where they will serviced for eternity by nubile, willing virgin girls.
Finally, perhaps you can explain why groups who do the above are not, in your opinion “extremists”?
Or perhaps you might reconsider your earlier assertion about the brothers and recognize that extremists take many different forms. Al Quaeda and Hamas both despise each other and have very different ideologies but I think most people on this board would classify them both as “extremists”.
I assume you do as well, but if you don’t think Hamas is extremist then pleas explain.
Way to evade what I actually asked for. Bravo. You did do the Bush thing where the key words are included in sentences but no factual information sorrounds them. Good for you.
Here’s a link to what Hezbollah is doing: Keeping it’s mouth shut. If anything, helping the rebels to defeat Assad will weaken Hezbollah. Again, what’s the (probable) downside?
It’s clear that while you’re not arguing dishonestly, you are arguing from a position of willful, militant ignorance. And as such, the result is much the same.
So, yet again, Hezbollah retaliation against the United States is a probable result of getting publicly involved in ousting Assad, especially when coupled with our public admission that we were behind the recent cyber-attack on Iranian’s nuclear program. What facts do you remain ignorant of on which you would appreciate being educated? It’s good that you’ve dropped your nonsense about any focus on Israel on my part, as I’d wager that you’ve realized it’s an indefensible accusation for you to make, but you’re still arguing from a position of ignorance. You could have your ignorance cleared up if you politely request that I help educate you, but your hostility to being educated hardly makes me want to go out of my way to bring you up to speed.
I too frankly don’t see the Hezbollah attaking the USA, and I especially don’t think it is a “probable result”.
What I’m worried about is a new civil war in Lebanon. The civil war in Syria is throwing yet another bone of contention in this country, and I’m already wondering how it isn’t collapsing.
Hezbollah attacked US forces on multiple occasions with zero provocation and Jewish civilians with even less. The idea that they would retaliate if we support the overthrow of one of their allies and their munitions pipeline to boot is hardly farfetched…
Hmm. Maybe I’m not aware of all of Hezbollah’s attack against the USA, but didn’t they all happened when US forces were present in Lebanon? (Isreali citizens aren’t what we’re discussing).
Besides it seems to me that attacking the USA would be very counter-productive as a way to support Assad’s regime.
The US forces in Lebanon were noncombatants, the US forces in Saudi Arabia were there at the government’s request and I was taking about Jewish civilians in Argentina, not Israelis.
