Yeah, Senator, it’s pretty bad. But it could get even worse. Syria is a lot more complicated than Libya.
Anyone else think this is a good idea?
Probably not Newt, since he’s more interested in invading Iran.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57391357/gingrich-eliminate-irans-govt-over-oil-route/
Seriously, how could anyone who is not either an idiot or a multimillionaire want the Republicans in charge?
Well, it’s no surprise, given McCain’s ardent support for intervention in Libya. He’s still an interventionist, and always will be.
Good idea? No, but I’m still against bombing Tripoli and invading Grenada, so yanno, peacenik.
I think it’s a marginally better–and safer for US interests, troops, and materiel–than a campaign against Iran. If–if–the US built a coalition involving NATO, the Arab League, and the UN, and if it could receive at least nominal buy-in from Russia and China . . . then dismantling the Assad regime might work out well for the US.
But I agree that the geopolitical situation in Syria makes intervention far more problematic than Libya.
ETA: and call me cynical, but I think the humanitarian concerns are a red herring.
Given the past 50 years - from Chile to Iraq - it’s difficult to read an American politician condemning “state-sponsored violence” and not fall about on the floor laughing.
What other concerns could there be? I’m sure McCain has noticed that these Arab-Spring revolutions, if successful, tend to bring the Muslim Brotherhood or something like it to power; which is not so bad, the MB are really the MENA equivalent of Europe’s Christian Democrats, they’re not about to stone adulterers or declare war on Israel – nevertheless, I can’t see McCain reading such a change as good for American or Israeli interests.
I dunno, but I hope Obama makes up his mind on this quickly, so Newt Gingrich can know whether its a good idea or not.
What about idiot multi-millionaires?
I was trying to think of military operations, proposed or actual, that John McCain was against. Literally the only thing I can think of is Obama’s position in the 2008 debates that if he knew bin Laden was in Pakistan, he would go get him, which McCain essentially said was foolish.
One can only imagine what would be happening in the world today had McCain been elected president. Whoa.
The Syrian Air Force has as many combat aircraft (~500) as Iraq did in 1990, and we probably wouldn’t have every nearby Arab state to stage from like we did last time. This is a really bad idea.
They also have some pretty bad-ass anti-aircraft systems IIRC, from the Russians.
They’re mostly apolitical, they spend all their time on the shrimp and fruit businesses. And church choir.
Nor the widespread European support. In Libya, I think that American aircraft were flying only unmanned drones after the first week. In Syria, we’d be exposing our people for much longer. Besides, in Syria, we don’t have an armed rebel force with a defined front; it’s all urban fighting, which makes it much harder to bomb. In Libya, the open warfare made Qaddafi’s air power a potent weapon against the rebels, and so a no-fly zone made sense. In Syria, the government isn’t really using their air force much. To do anything worthwhile, we’d need boots on the ground.
Protecting innocent civilians is the moral thing to do, from a humanitarian, democratic, and international law perspective. If we could get Arab League and UN support, I’d back any effort to stop the massacre.
I believe any action here would only further inflame the Iranian fear that if you don’t have nukes the US is going to give you shit. We absolutely should help anyone else’s effort, but I don’t think we should just go in or otherwise lead on this one.
OTOH, in this case we can’t “protect innocent civilians” without, in effect, taking sides in a civil war and destabilizing the government.
And Syria is such a social-religious-ethnic powderkeg (in a way Libya never was) that destabilizing the government could lead to neighborhood-by-neighborhood ethnic cleansing, like in post-Invasion Iraq.
One lesson we should have learned from Iraq is that, sometimes, a brutal dictatorship really is the best thing for a country under the circumstances, in the sense that all plausible alternatives are even worse.
I’m reminded of the scene in Trading Places at the end of the movie where the newly rich former butler is asked by the waiter at the beach whether he would like the lobster or the crab, and his buxom blonde lady friend looks at him and says “Why can’t we have both?”?
So seriously, why not nail both Syria and Iran simultaneously? Surely the Republicans can get on board with that.
Perhaps so. I just distrust that his motivations are all that pure.
Hey, Iraqis? Yeah, I know we said we were leaving. Look, a situation has come up and we need to use your country as a staging-ground to invade two of your neighbors at once. Yeah, we’ll have to move about half a million troops in, but don’t worry, they’re not occupying you this time, they’re just . . . camping . . . you won’t even know they’re there, you guys’ll be all right, what could go wrong?
Any effort? Even an ineffective or counter-productive one?
We should get together and have some sort of poll to see whether America will do what John McCain thinks is right or what Barack Obama thinks is right.