# Syria: Is there any way this can end well? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2012, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919 "2012-02-06T01:51:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/81 "2013-02-01T13:59:44Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I figure as long as they’re fighting each other, they can’t invest a lot of time in planning ways to harm Israelis or Americans, so … keep it up fellas. Apropos [Will Syria Bleed Hezbollah Dry?](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/opinion/global/will-syria-bleed-hezbollah-dry.html?_r=1&) - unfortunately that is seldom how the world works. Instead they’ll spread instability, lawlessness and conflict, and Islamists and terrorists (many of the foreigners) trained in the Syrian conflict will take their skills to new battlegrounds. In ten years time we’ll see terrorists acts in the USA or Europe masterminded and carried out by terrorist groups established by rebels in Syria. And if the USA intervenes in any way, we’ll be sure to hear no end to how the USA created the terrorist group, in the same way that they created Al Qaeda, the Taliban, etc. Keep out. There is no upside for you. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/82 "2013-02-01T15:43:18Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Apropos [Will Syria Bleed Hezbollah Dry?](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/opinion/global/will-syria-bleed-hezbollah-dry.html?_r=1&) > > - unfortunately that is seldom how the world works. Instead they’ll spread instability, lawlessness and conflict, and Islamists and terrorists (many of the foreigners) trained in the Syrian conflict will take their skills to new battlegrounds. In ten years time we’ll see terrorists acts in the USA or Europe masterminded and carried out by terrorist groups established by rebels in Syria. And if the USA intervenes in any way, we’ll be sure to hear no end to how the USA created the terrorist group, in the same way that they created Al Qaeda, the Taliban, etc. Keep out. There is no upside for you. I think you are largely correct. If the USA, or GB intervened, they would become the “bad guy” within a week. By staying out, the USA can actually benefit: -Syria may well break up along ethnic/religious lines-that will keep the islamists busy fighting eachother -the breakup of Syria may well encourage the breakup of Iraq (the Kurds want their own country) TE Lawrence accurately forecast this turn of events over 80 years ago. Versailles and its nation building decrees is long gone, the big question is: what will the ME look like in 10-20 years time? ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/83 "2013-02-01T16:56:47Z")
Much of the fighting at this point is between different groups of rebels. Mainly between Islamists and Kurds. The Turks – having a special dislike for the Kurds, and especially any move towards Kurdish independence – have even allowed whole tank battalions to cross the border into Syria ([Kurd-jihadist clashes in north Syria](http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i5gi0DGCrI8PgEz-_lkZaPIWG1kA?docId=CNG.1b97d97c19ef1173f82b9ae0a3321f2d.181)). The jihadist have also been busy looting and torching churches and murdering Alawites. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/84 "2013-02-12T18:01:50Z")
Apparently, [now the rebels are shifting their focus from city battles to capturing military installations.](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/02/201321214119606560.html) ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/85 "2013-02-12T18:15:19Z")
The thing, for me, is that Assad has figured out that he has no way out that doesn’t include killing as many people as it takes to make the rebels stop. He’s killed so many that there is not any other thing he can do. He’s burnt every possible bridge. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/86 "2013-02-12T18:41:17Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > The thing, for me, is that Assad has figured out that he has no way out that doesn’t include killing as many people as it takes to make the rebels stop. He’s killed so many that there is not any other thing he can do. He’s burnt every possible bridge. I am in blood Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er. – _Macbeth_ ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/87 "2014-06-27T16:29:22Z")
[Obama is asking Congress for $500 million to train and arm “vetted” Syrian rebels.](http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/6/26/obama-seeks-500mtotrainequipsyriarebels.html) This is shaking out into a multi-sided war like the Lebanese Civil War. The Syrian rebels are fighting each other as well as the government. The U.S. is still against Assad but also against ISIS. Iran is for Assad but against ISIS. And so on. It’s hard to see how that can end well. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/88 "2014-06-27T16:56:16Z")
WTF dude? You post that in 6 (eta:sorry, only 5) different threads all at once? Including " What should the USA do in Iraq?" when it isn’t about Iraq. Bad form. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/89 "2014-06-27T17:15:57Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > WTF dude? You post that in 6 (eta:sorry, only 5) different threads all at once? Including " What should the USA do in Iraq?" when it isn’t about Iraq. Bad form. Is there some kind of invisible Ipana shield on the Syria Iraq border that prevents fighting ISIS in Syria has no bearing on fighting ISIS in Iraq? ISIS is based in Syria and have invaded Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/90 "2014-06-27T17:33:38Z")
Golly! Thanks for the update, NFBW! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/91 "2014-06-27T19:50:26Z")
> [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > ISIS is based in Syria and have invaded Iraq. I’d like to see a cite for that. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/92 "2014-06-27T20:06:39Z")
[ISIL’s Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_in_Iraq_and_the_Levant) > [@](#): > > The group in its original form was composed of and supported by a variety of insurgent groups, including its predecessor organizations, the Mujahideen Shura Council, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the insurgent groups Jaysh al-Fatiheen, Jund al-Sahaba, Katbiyan Ansar Al-Tawhid wal Sunnah and Jeish al-Taiifa al-Mansoura, and a number of Iraqi tribes that profess Sunni Islam. Though it’s an easy mistake to think they are from/based in Syria, since that’s where they seem to have gathered real strength. It’s also an easy mistake if you are intent on thinking this is a foreign invasion of Iraq, like NFBW is. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/93 "2014-06-27T20:12:27Z")
I am curious when exactly they began to have such a large contingent of complete foreigners (eg Europeans and Chechnyans) ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/94 "2014-06-27T22:19:15Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > [ISIL’s Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_in_Iraq_and_the_Levant) > > Though it’s an easy mistake to think they are from/based in Syria, since that’s where they seem to have gathered real strength. It’s also an easy mistake if you are intent on thinking this is a foreign invasion of Iraq, like NFBW is. Do you consider where a headquarters is established to be an organization’s base? Wikipedia lists ISIS’s headquarters as right here: > **[Raqqa](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar-Raqqah)** > > Raqqa (Arabic: ٱلرَّقَّة, romanized: ar-Raqqah, also al-Raḳḳa) is a city in Syria on the North bank of the Euphrates River, about 160 kilometres (99 miles) east of Aleppo. It is located 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine city and bishopric Callinicum (formerly a Latin and now a Maronite Catholic titular see) was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate between 796 and 809, under the reign of Harun al-Rashid. It was also the cap... Ar-Raqqah is in Syria not Iraq. And here’s a headline from International Business Times: What Is ISIS, The Syria-Based Jihadi Group That Took Over Mosul? By Erin Banco on June 11 2014 3:26 PM. > **[What Is ISIS, The Syria-Based Jihadi Group That Took Over Mosul?](https://www.ibtimes.com/what-isis-syria-based-jihadi-group-took-over-mosul-1598682)** > > Well-funded and on the rise, although not necessarily linked to al-Qaeda, ISIS is expanding and taking over chunks of Iraq and Syria. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/95 "2014-06-27T22:23:23Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > [ISIL’s Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_in_Iraq_and_the_Levant) > > Though it’s an easy mistake to think they are from/based in Syria, since that’s where they seem to have gathered real strength. It’s also an easy mistake if you are intent on thinking this is a foreign invasion of Iraq, like NFBW is. I am not discussing ISIS’s predecessor organizations. I am referring to the current terrorist oganization that has its HQ located in Syria according to Wikipedia. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/96 "2014-06-27T22:47:19Z")
I wonder if Mace and Carnalk would like to try to refute this version of events: > [@](#): > > In other words, the Bush administration had presided over the rise of precisely what it had said was one of the key goals of the Iraq War to destroy: a safe haven for al Qaeda in the heart of the Arab world. > > By 2007, al Qaeda’s untrammeled violence and imposition of Taliban ideology on the Sunni population provoked a countrywide Sunni backlash against AQI that took the form of Sunni “Awakening” militias. Many of those militias were put on Uncle Sam’s payroll in a program known as the “Sons of Iraq”. > > The combination of the Sunni militias’ on-the-ground intelligence about their onetime AQI allies and American firepower proved devastating to al Qaeda’s Iraqi franchise. And so, between 2006 and 2008, AQI shrank from an insurgent organization that controlled territory larger than the size of New England to a rump terrorist group. > > But AQI did not disappear. It simply bided its time. The Syrian civil war provided a staging point over the past three years for its resurrection and transformation into the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” or ISIS. And now ISIS has marched back into western and northern Iraq. Only this time there is no U.S. military to stop it. > **[Bush’s toxic legacy in Iraq | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/13/opinion/bergen-iraq-isis-bush/index.html?c=&page=2)** > > Peter Bergen says the U.S. attack on Iraq helped provoke creation of the al Qaeda arm that’s now threatening that nation’s fragile stability The last line from the excerpt: " And now ISIS has **marched back into** western and northern Iraq. Only this time there is no U.S. military to stop it." Those that contend that ‘marched back into’ is not synonymous or interchangeable with ‘invaded’ are simply in error. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/97 "2014-06-28T00:06:41Z")
Well, mine was pure whoosh, but I have to admit that **CarnalK** has a point. They may be “headquartered” in Syria at this point in time, but now they are all over the place in both Syria and Iraq. And they came out of Iraq in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/98 "2014-06-28T00:57:52Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, mine was pure whoosh, but I have to admit that **CarnalK** has a point. They may be “headquartered” in Syria at this point in time, but now they are all over the place in both Syria and Iraq. And they came out of Iraq in the first place. They were not ISIS when they were driven out of Iraq by the Sunni Anbar tribal fighters who were on Uncle Sam’s payroll at the end of that counter-terrorist campaign. They became ISIS and for a few years headquartered in Syria after being driven out of Iraq. Wherever any of these individual terrorists/barbarians came from originally, they have invaded/marched into Iraq this year from their current base/HQ in Syria as I said. And that invasion was noticed by most observant people in the world beginning on June 10. I’m not sure of the reason that you missed it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/99 "2014-06-28T01:24:41Z")
Eh. You can say whatever you want. I stand by my post. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/100 "2014-06-28T01:35:26Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Eh. You can say whatever you want. I stand by my post. Stand by it. Sit by it. Lay down by it. It is in error. Are you getting bored with the story in Iraq now that ISIS has lost the ability to advance on Baghdad? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919.md?page=6)