Obama owns Syria and all that his timid inaction reaped - death, destruction, ISIS, desperate refugees, BREXIT - and probably even Trump. An enormous price to pay for the man who didn't want to risk his plans for Iraq. But he has become wealthy, probably beyond his wildest dreams. It's the rest of the world that is paying .
4
The Syrian conflict is quicksand. I'm glad Obama kept us (mostly) out of it. If it were up to me we'd leave the Middle East entirely and let them fight it out. If it were up to me we would stop selling any of them weapons and spend our resources helping the refugees.
Sir, it’s so much more complicated than that.
Give me a break! Go back and study your history books. Syria has been on the books long before Obama took office. In any case, the bottom line is it's about keeping war going and reaping the profits, regardless of the party in power.
I wonder if the situation in Syria would not be so dire and dangerous had Mr. Obama acted when he should have. His inaction and failure in Syria are most likely directly behind the mess that exists today.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/17/obama-presidency-defined-f...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-syria-aleppo-ob...
8
What a good idea! Now that we "own" Iraq and Afghanistan, let's wade in and get involved in another endless war with enraged Muslims. Yeah, that's the ticket!
5
President Obama acted in Libya and the
situation is wonderful there-stable, free,
democratic. No Libyan wants to leave
the country. 'What if' is a fantasy game.
1
Joshua Schwartz -- How about Israel does that for itself. Then you can find out first hand just what a good idea that is.
Was Milo Minderbinder involved in any of this?
Russia doesn't need the oil or to protect its southern flank. Putin is playin multidimensional chess with the us. And he's getting it cheaply! Iran and its Shia allies are doing the grunt work, and will now reap the benefits of having a corridor from Iran to the Mediterranean with the potential to threaten Israel, as we have just seen, and the sunnis (I.e. Saudi Arabia). This all messes with the us presence in the Middle East, and that's what's really going on.
Tom Friedman sounds like a child playing their own war game.
2
I agree with some analysis, but I think this war is not so different from other current wars. Also there is a difference in stakes of local, regional and international actors. Neighbors commonly interfere, they have high stakes and special interests as well as religious or ethnic allies. It was/is the case with basically any war. Hybrid method of warfare (proxies, mercenaries) was widely used after WWII and is even more prevalent now. XXI century wars also became more hi-tech and less people die in more technologically advanced armies, while more civilians may die in bombings. Russian mercenaries are the same soldiers, but with different "contracts", without any compensation to survivors and with secrecy enforced, they are not very costly. Nothing new, the same was used in Afghanistan and is used in Ukraine now. Population doesn't mind if they die, since they sign contacts voluntarily, their families are silent or silenced. It's also an option for employment and neutralization of young uneducated, possibly dangerous, men from the periphery. Aside from propaganda, Russia uses its wars to train the army and pilot/showcase the weaponry. US, I believe, is continuing engagement in the region out of inertia, military is interested in continuing limited engagement in a place , where they have infrastructure, and US may be trying to hold on to remaining influence out of inertia. It hardly can be broker for peace or any decisive solution anymore, especially with current leadership...
Did Dr Friedman or anyone else also noticed that the only major world power not involved in the entire ME mess is one that does not have democratic "elections"? Everyone, named and unnamed here, involved have elections, regardless of whether it is the west approved style (such as Iran and Russia).
Interesting, isn't it?
Far more dangerous to individuals and foreign nationals (including all military connnected folks) are southern areas of Afghanistan and targeted areas of Kabul and the bad-lands of Pakistan. However, I worry that S Lebanon and parts of Syria could flare into an Iran-Israel war and that Russian and Syria would get sucked in. What will happen if Israel strikes what it presumes to be a politically safe target but the intelligence is wrong and Hezbollah or Iran or Russia suffer unintended harm, inappropriately. Could Iran respond, try to take out American other allied assets?
Syria, thus, is potentially a major war-trigger-powder-keg that Afghanistan and Pakistan are not.
Years ago, an author named Pat Franks wrote a novel about a nuclear war and its aftermath. That war started right where Tom wrote this piece. Same place. Same players. In 1959.
Our only real ally, who it appears not to be stabbing us in the back, is the Kurds and we need to pump them. They appear to be on a successful path.
This is an area we have never understood and we, too, should be spending those trillions at home. The place needs us out, have its troubles and let the chips fall. Until the citizens of these countries band together and actually form countries, we will continue paying whack a mole with each new group. There's been about 10 since 2002.
Americans and Israelis have long had a strategic goal of creating a puppet Kurdish state by carving lands out of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and possibly Iran as well. Such a state would be a true puppet; they could use Kurdish fighters to fight Iranians, build all kinds of bases right next to Iran to keep it in check - and by the way, also control all the oil in northern Iraq and northern Syria (Syria has oil only in the north). It is naive to think that the countries in the region will just roll over and let big chunks of their land to be grabbed by Americans and Israel so they could create a puppet state.
Americans are arming and training Kurdish fighters in Northern Syria, who are directly linked to, and controlled by, the PKK, the Kurdish terrorist group who is a sworn enemy of Turkey and is a direct threat to territorial integrity of Turkey. Turks (especially president Erdogan) aren't necessarily the nicest guys in that neighborhood, but it is outrageous that Americans are openly supporting a terrorist group that is a sworn enemy of a NATO country. Hezbollah and many Iranian-backed militia also fight ISIS tooth and nail (because ISIS is a Sunni group); why don't the Americans arm and train those groups as well, if their only goal for supporting Kurdish fighters in Syria is to fight ISIS?
I stopped paying attention to Mr. Friedman when he so strongly supported the Iraq invasion, so I don't know if he has ever accept responsibility for his part in all the deaths and injuries and displaced persons and destruction that resulted from that war. Destruction that in many ways continues on in both Iraq and Syria. But whether he has accepted responsibility or not, it is very hard to take seriously his opinion on anything to do with the Middle East.
With regular Russian and American troops currently facing each other across lines of demarcation in Syria, and with Russian troops recently having suffered casualties, perhaps in the hundreds, from American proxy forces, I'm reminded of something President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said when addressing the National Executive Reserve Council about plans VS planning, when facing uncertain or emergency conditions that could lead to war: "Plans are worthless but planning is everything ".
And with the near chaotic conditions that seem to pervade in Syria involving multiple factions, armies, regional and even international players (as Thomas Friedman explains today), I'm just wondering what the plans are for avoiding an all out war in Syria; and what type of of planning could possibly account for a direct confrontation with the Russian's that ultimately did not involve the use of nuclear weapons?
Very complicated and the US isn't/can't fix what it broke. But just because there is no desire to get on the ground and fight, Syria and it's citizens should not be forgotten or ignored. More articles on Syria and less on Google and Amazon HR polices on relationships on the front pages of mainstream media is a good start.
1
Where's China? Guess they are WAY too smart to engage in a lose/lose proposition.
1
Take away the money and cut down the military spending, then everyone will behave better. Let the host country & endangered countries such as Syria, Israel, Turkey have a direct and honest discussion. And let the uninvolved countries such as Russia & us get out of it. This will make a better world. Just looks at the N. Korea & S. Korea improved situation when we, Russia, China, Japan are out of it.
Maybe Friedman should head to Yemen next. Maybe Afghanistan. Do suicide bombers detonating in a public square killing dozens of civilians count as much as an airplane being blown out of the sky? How about the Sinai? Plenty of African countries under turmoil. The Philippines have been using their army to battle Muslim insurgents in certain areas in a civil war contained to certain areas.
The commonality in every place in the world currently experiencing armed conflict? You'll find copies of the Quran everywhere. The NYT is too PC to bother mentioning that, as is Friedman.
It's all Netanyahu's fault, isn't it Tom?
3
We have no strategic interests in Syria and should remove our forces.
Assad may be a bad guy, but a look at Libya shows what happens when you knock off a dictator in the ME.
1
It's interesting that Friedman still refers to al-Qaeda affiliated groups and other radical islamists in Syria as merely "Sunni rebels" and not terrorists.
1
Since we are lead by an incompetent, Russian complicit but evil administration, I don't expect anything but huge Israeli reactions to Iranian and Russian (because they need Iran) pokes.
But, I can make up a goal in the region: Keep oil production down there while the US does a 2 pronged strategy: (1) Boost our oil production in the US to replace; (2) seriously get off oil. Once cash is out of the middle east, you'll see peace as no one else will care about it and we can make that permanent via energy tech.
Am I to conclude that most all of us live and die at the behest of the unseen economic forces which bring great riches to some at the cost of death to many?
Who would have even guessed the wealthy would find and use the time worn, but apparently still useful, tools of war as a way to garner more wealth and curb population under the as yet seen flag of peace?
These boys are brilliant.
3
The public dialogue about the gravest matters of state in America is now at so low a level that cheap commercial and cultural phrases -- "Pottery Barn rule", Nikki Haley at UN Sec Council on Rohingya "It's not OK" -- are used to communicate and trivialize what should be nuanced positions. SAD (sic)!
1
"Where else can you find Syrian, Russian, American, Iranian and Turkish troops or advisers squaring off on the ground and in the air — along with pro-Iranian Shiite mercenaries from Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan; pro-U.S. Kurdish fighters from northern Syria; ISIS remnants; various pro-Saudi and pro-Jordanian anti-Syrian regime Sunni rebels and — I am not making this up — pro-Syrian regime Russian Orthodox Cossack “contractors” who went to Syria to defend Mother Russia from “crazy barbarians” — all rubbing against one another?
As The Washington Post pointed out, “In the space of a single week last week, Russia, Turkey, Iran and Israel lost aircraft to hostile fire” in Syria."
And what is Trump discussing with his advisers? How much his support of wife-beater Rob Porter is hurting him personally. And Trump doesn't even read the daily intelligence briefing so NY Times readers now actually know more about what the situation in Syria is like than the supposed President of the United States. Maybe they could do a sock puppet show for him on this topic instead.
1
This seems to be all that grownups and religious folks are capable of.
Is it time to put atheistic kids in charge?
Friedman “owns” nothing for his shameless support for the invasion of Iraq which destabilized much of the Middle East including Syria. All of the deaths of both combatants and innocents .... Friedman doesn’t lament much less “own”.
He has no credibility with me.
5
A close 3rd disaster waiting to happen is Pakistan. But Syria does look increasingly chaotic and dangerous. All because Assad decided to murder the peaceful demonstrators a few yr.s ago. We need a creative genius negotiator from several nations in this region. DT makes sure the US has no such diplomat in the offering. Syria is truly a scary situation.
The sad reality about Syria and the political quagmire it has become, is that it's no longer a matter of "You Own It, You Fix It" -- it's more like you broke it, you buy it. Which would help to explain in part the prolonged Russian military presence in that country, regardless of the army and naval bases they have stationed there; because without them, Bashar al-Assad would have been gone a long time ago.
There's little doubt that in the meantime Syria has become a proxy war for all nations involved -- and it's a list that seems to grow longer with each passing day.
But the real danger lies in the fact that this administration still has no real foreign policy plan, except to get more and more firepower.
With Turkey in the hands of Recep Tayip Erdogan, Syria coming apart under Assad, Putin maintaining his iron grip, Iran anxiously on the sidelines, and Israel ready to jump into the fray, this situation has all the earmarkings of a situation that could go very bad, very quickly.
It's hard to see any "good news" in that.
2
"Maybe, eventually, the players will get tired and forge a power-sharing accord in Syria, as the Lebanese eventually did in 1989 to end their civil war. Alas, though, it took the Lebanese 14 years to come to their senses. So get ready for a lot more news from Syria."
I read a pretty good book some years ago "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" by Amin Maalouf. What happened to Christian occupiers then resembles the Middle East Derangement Syndrome that's applying to Russia and US today - you think you have goals, but then find there are 1,000,000 groups with their own goals, shifting alliances and rapid double-crossing. They're all willing to enlist outsiders in their fighting, too.
To the nations like Russia and Pakistan, one problem they're heading towards is mercenaries (in Russia's case, including thousands of ISIS folks from Russia's southern areas) coming home after this latest effort goes cold.
1
You simply forgot the most important participant, the arabian people. After all this started not as a clash for hegemony, but as a civil uprising for freedom and justice. And it will not be fixed if as long as arabian people are not free.
1
In regard to Friedman's 2nd to last paragraph, it is true that Iran wants a war with Israel. Which would inevitably draw the US in, to spend money they US does not have. So the 3 dimensional chess moves by the US should invest in strongly limiting Iran's involvement in Syria. That would probably be a thoughtful investment on the part of the US.
So, Russia simply wants to show that it is back in the game, and wants to siphon off Syrian oil? You can't be serious. That's the plot for a bad Hollywood action movie.
2
Syria is the new Afghanistan, to play war games as Iran cannot be attacked.
Uncle Friedman chips in once a while to provide senseless clarity and sanctify the destruction.
2
So those Humans of Earth are fighting amongst themselves again - is that what you're saying Thomas? I wonder if they'd unite if someone tried to take their beautiful planet off them? Sigh.
2
Good article by Friedman. The situation he describes, supposing it is accurate, is just uncanny, fascinating along so many scientific discipline lines. It doesn't seem all we mean by Syria today became this way by any human method, that it is rather some sort of natural phenomenon, that various interests cultural, national, political, economic just swirled into one place and now they are entangled. It's like a weather pattern or a pattern formed in one place as water goes down a stream. It's peculiar as if the more nations and of course the most advanced ones, try to enforce boundaries, keep from devolving to war in an age of WMD, their natural energies swirl to having to meet somewhere, that all attempts to enforce peace in the world, prevent war, are something like trying to force the weather or water in a stream to cooperate, but, in the process of doing so there will leakage, swirling now here and now there. It's pretty scary all this shoring up by great nations, all this WMD talk, all this increasing technology of computation, surveillance, attempt at minute and rapid advantage. Add rapid information flows, countries jamming and pouring propaganda at each other, and it all seems a project of flowing air currents or liquids and manipulations of such. It makes me wonder where the next Syria will be, what place next will be prove fragmented, porous enough to have everybody suddenly rush in to gain advantage. Yugoslavia/central Europe? South America? Africa? Myanmar?
4
When one looks back through history, well it's not pretty. When long established empires collapse it took sometimes a 100-200 years to sort things out. What we are witnessing is the resultof the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following WW1. To some degree it was papered over by the colonial powers in the inter-war years, and the emergence of states from those colonial systems. The main difference is the technology available makes the whole mess a lot more dangerous. If there was no oil in the region, the locals would eventually sort it all out on their own. Oil is what makes the area a problem, thus the need to move away from oil. No oil dependency, no need to protect the Persian gulf shipping lanes, etc. The sooner the world ends its dependence on oil, the sooner this region will have to get its act together.
3
In the meantime the Syrian people suffer and die and flee. We humans can be a despicable species. Happy Valentines!
4
Given that two weeks ago Friedman advocated that Israel could bomb civilians just... because...(notice he does it again), he is unqualified to untangle his own shoelaces. And the cute reference to quantum computing, what a joke. I’m surprised he didn’t manage to work in his pet phrase: communicate, collabirate and thrive.
1
“Iran, which just witnessed an uprising by its own people,”
This is the equivalent of calling the women’s march an uprising in the USA. Please try to write objectively.
Objective writing on your part would mean that you would acknowledge the massive casualties suffered by the Syrian Arab Army in defeating ISIS and the various terrorist organisations financed by Saudi Arabia, USA, UK, Israel, Qatar etc.
3
Oh please, why would the US want Syria? None of our business.
Rent or own, let 'em have it.
3
It would be funny if were not so terminally tragic. Not one of the players has there existence compromised other than Israel. This tri-dimensional chess game has the same potential as Rome did in 70AD.
Hezbolllah's 160,000 rockets, mostly from Iran are pointing areas from the Golan to Eilat. Iran's rethorics about erasing Israel off the map are epic. The Russian oportunism is willing to sacrifice everything and everybody to satisfy their egomaniac leaders.
Should I mention Erdogan? Nah! .... no need. This guy dreams about the future Otoman Mark Two. Rest of the Taqiyyah Islamic places! Got to be kidding.
The main idea is to finish with the Jews. And this is not paranoia. Check the neo-Nazi movements growth all over coupled with "the new antisemitism."
We humans are an insane creation and have no idea how to stop before is too late.
2
In the entire area, there are two entities with values we share: Israel and the Kurds. Israel can always count on us and so it should be with the Kurds.
Now that Turkey has gone rogue despite our policy of appeasement, the last argument against support for an independent democratic Kurdistan is moot. Nobody else will like it anyway, and so what? Which of these fanatics and criminals should we be trying to please? Can our policy, influence and might align behind a just cause, for once?
3
Is it possible that the Israeli attack on Syria has more to do with Netanyahu's
domestic legal problems than with a Iran drone?
2
I think from Russia's perspective, as Tom Friedman mentioned once before, Russian interest in Syria has more to do with their having a presence and a naval base on the Mediterranean, to monitor the Middle East intelligence-wise, to make a power statement vis-a-vis Western Europe, and to take advantage of any sudden political situation that might be to their advantage in the area. As well as meddle in any Middle Eastern elections, to their own benefit, of course!....
1
Why didn't Friedman suggest we stay out of the Middle East? There's no long-term solution with the current leadership in Israel, Syria, Iran, Russia, and the US.
If politicians want this war, then have them send their children. Yes, I mean you Friedman as well as Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsay Graham and any other warmonger.
3
If the Syrians were to come to their senses, none of the players in the
Great Game appear prepared to end the war. It's possible that Putin realizes he has overcommitted with the body bags of so many "mercenaries" coming home. Incidentally, they may be mercenaries but, as in Crimea and Ukraine, these Russians may be active duty military, masquerading as contractors
\\
We just announced, without benefit of cowardly Congress that we are in Syria for the long haul. That doesn't sound like the Trump administration is ready for peace. And Iran; forgeddaboutit. Turks, likewise, unless they can ethnically cleanse the Kurds from Syria. Israel, unready for peace with the Palestinians, is the only outside player ready for it in Iran.
It is my impression that the American public thinks the overriding reason we are in Syria is to fight ISIS. If so, my question is why? Yes - ISIS CLAIMS responsibility for many terror attacks, and some Americans die in those attacks. Probably almost as many have died in the last 5 years as die from texting on their phones in an average WEEK (or maybe DAY).
ISIS is the best thing that ever happened to Assad - so much military force directed at ISIS that would otherwise be directed at Assad. One suspects Assad CREATED ISIS. We arm rebel groups that would otherwise fight Assad so they can fight ISIS.
Well, nothing lasts forever. Civilization started in the Fertile Crescent or thereabouts and it looks like it may very well end there, too.
But, by all means, don't blame the Turks, the Russians, the Syrians, the Iranians, the USA, the Israeli's, the Lebanese... This whole mess is a direct result of the French and the British dismantling the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War 2. Since then the place has never been at peace.
1
I think you meant WWI.
It is a total waste of life, energy and money to be fighting in the Middle East, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It's all about money and a perpetual cash machine that goes into the pockets of the wealthy corporations and two percent.
The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex is alive and thriving in the USA. At some point, the Republicans will be ousted and we can move onto important things maybe like education, healthcare, and infrastructure. If not...in the end, the people will act, as they did in France, America, and elsewhere over time.
8
The Syria destruction was started by Hillary and Co. It is a new place for war games, with US, Israel, SA on one side and Iran, Syria, Russia on the other.
3
My goodness, don't they carry newspapers in Nashville? If you believe Hilary started the war in Syria, then this country is truly in danger.....Trump loves the uneducated
1
It is exceedingly unsettling to know of the multidimensionally complex battlefield confronted by a binary "bad-good" (if even that) Commander-in-Chief.
1
In reading this I had to wonder, does anybody in the Middle East like the other guy or at the very least tolerate him.
The notion of winning a war these days is idiocy unless one side is willing to go to the extreme total war scenario, whereby it destroys all and everything an enemy possesses and chases its friends and families, who would then become vengeful terrorists, across continents.
Your war of choice, your unnecessary war in Iraq, Mr. Friedman, was always going to unleash this misery. Your great, yet always futile, war opened up the hornets' nest that had been contained for decades by strongmen and their threats. Your own democratic ideology would not allow that to continue and now you complain of others' ideology, for which we have now created yet another adversary: Russian Cossacks.
We are fast running out of friends. Especially when we condemn the Kurds to their fate at the hands of our 'other allies' -- just as we did after the First Gulf War, btw. The only winners in all this madness being Ike's Military Industrial Complex. And perhaps journalists, too, who are, as someone already mentioned, also complicit in creating this particular "most dangerous corner of the world"
"Seven Pillars of Wisdom" and the lesser known "Prince of the Marshes." Two books to rid the notion of ever entering or re-entering these lands for any reason.
2
Where did you think the US and Russia are going to test new weapons and tactics? Syria is the ultimate proxy fight. No one cares about Syria the way they do about Israel or even the Ukraine.
Assad, for all practical purposes, "broke" Syria. According to the "Friedman Doctrine", Assad is therefore the one to fix it.
Ostensibly, the only reason for a U.S. "presence" in Syria has bee to combat ISIS -- apparently a task that is virtually complete from a military point of view. So, we might as well bring our troops there home.
Certainly there might be some possible "non-military" things the U.S. could do in Syria to prevent an ISIS resurgence. But, since the State Department has been dismantled by the current Administration, that seems to be on hold, pending the election of Trump's successor.
4
It must be noted that the U.S. wants to prevent Russia from making Syria into a satellite nation.
The basic problem with Syria and so many other states that were pasted together by the colonial powers of yore is that they are impossible to govern from the INSIDE without dictatorial means. Whoever rules Syria must rule despite rather than because of the will of the majority. It would be better if outsiders didn't insist that stability. let alone democracy, could be achieved by any ruler in Damascus.
6
Minor quibble - I love you Thomas, but pretty much everyone except for Paul Wolfowitz, Don Rumsfeld, and certain others had already learned the lessons of the Colin Powell doctrine before the adventure in Iraq was hatched. The Iraq war was not the event that taught us this lesson. Alas, Colin Powell...
My question to any of these perplexing issues is one: Where is this limitless supply of weaponry, bombs, ammunition, guns, etc., coming from? Can we start there?
Also, when you look at all these armed conflicts, a simple visual glance should reveal one big common denominator. They're all guys.
And they're all armed, to the teeth.
I can't help but feel a lot of the motivation for these constant battles in Syria is as much about arms sales and war profiteering than anything else. Yes Iranian influence in the region is a motivating factor but Iran has always had influence in Syria, as has Russia. I'm also sure Russia still values a Mediterranean port though taking back control of Crimea has eased that urgency a little. With all these actors accomplishing nothing but devastation, it only serves the arms industry and the contract warriors. No one has a solution and it seems no one but the poor average Syrian person left in the country is even interested in a solution.
7
Hi Tom,
Many of us have stood in the same area on the Golan Heights as you did recently.
You failed to mention that the Mullocracy in Iran harbors no ill intentions to anyone in the region. After all, Obama purchased "peace in our time" via the Iran nuclear deal and paying ransom for American hostages. Now, the Iranians are totally on board and are not interested in nuclear weapons or ushering in the age of the Second Mahdi. There will be peace.
You also failed to note that Obama permitted the Russians to establish a military base in Latakia because Hillary wished to "reset" our relations with them. Also, why does the US need fear more Russian "influence" in the Middle East? It's not like they are trying to "interfere" in the Middle Est in the same way they do in US elections. Now, meddling in our elections really, really gets me mad! Don't cross my red lines!
The actual "flashpoint" today is the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capitol. I mean, where do the Israelis get off telling us what their own capitol is? And we are recognizing it? The real story you missed is Zionist influence on the US congress.
But the Times did cover Zionist influence on congress during the Iranian nuclear deal by printing a graph on page one describing the Jewish population in districts whereby pressure could be nefariously applied to force votes against the Obama legacy foreign policy achievement.
Anyway, war in the region is as ridiculous as North Korea launching on Hawaii.
4
Is it fair and accurate to think of the jihadi as,"Dogs of War."?...guys who can and will do nothing else?
Unfortunately not even a quantum computer can calculate "stupidity" - to use our commander in chief's favorite word. Sanity applied to this region of the world is oxymoronic, and will never happen.
In spite of all the damage done by cruel stupidity I find it amazing that there are doctors, medical personnel and the white helmets sacrificing themselves against stupid. I think they realize NO ONE is responsible or humane enough on ANY side to help and defend them. Sad and tragic!
2
Yes. I think Albert Einstein once said, "There are two things that are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I am not sure about the former."
Thomas, first a thanks for owning up to your support of the Iraq invasion, acknowledgement being the first step towards penance and change. I would like to point out however, why does everyone dance around the real issue, you especially, America is immersed in the wars of the Middle East for currently one reason only, Israel. There was at one time the holy trinity of Israel, The Royal Saudis and Big Oil but as the Saudis changed their game plan and began throwing crumbs to their citizens to stave off revolution and big oil found much easier and cheaper venues to practice their craft of extraction from Mother Earth(namely fracking in North America) that leaves tiny Israel the sole reason for America’s involvement to the tune of trillions of taxpayers dollars, ten of thousands of lives lost, millions of lives ruined and the destabilization of Europe by Merkels generous but misguided opened door policy. There is perhaps hope on the horizon from the only people who can solve the issues in the Middle East, the Jews themselves, a great first step was taken yesterday with the indictment of Netanyahu, if Israel can rid itself of the Likud party and America can rid itself of the influence of A.I.P.A.C. and other neon cons who would have us involved in wars for Israel until they are the last man standing in the M.E. there may be hope yet. The days ahead will be interesting as Bibi will seek support from his allies in America, this would be a good time to send Kushner packing as well.
16
The war in Syria will be the excuse to keep two terrible leaders, Netanyahu and Trump, in power. No one would ever think of impeaching either of them if they're embroiled in a conflict purportedly defending us. George W. Bush did it; Netanyahu and Trump can do it, too. nd Donald Trump will get his "victory" military parade as George W. did on the aircraft carrier. Get ready for a greater conflict of political srvival. ,
3
A mess no doubt....but with some potential for a central leader vs. what has happened in Libya. Putin went crazy when our coalition attacked Libya because he knew it would become state which had no control over its territory. ISIS and who knows what else has filled the vacuum. My sense is he saw Syria in the same light. He felt that while he didn't want to own it, he certainly didn't want a lawless country relatively near his border which would become a breeding ground for those who see fighting as their only livelihood.
When we hear Palestinians (Fatah or Hamas or ISIS, etc) call for yet another "day of rage", it should be obvious that this is their chief export. Any solution to Syria and the ME at large must include JOBS. A lot of whose side one fights for is who pays more. Perhaps a different source of income may be the best way to solve the endless struggles in this god-forsaken neighborhood.
With all of these "power players" busy promoting their own interests we forget the people who pay the ultimate price...the people of Syria who have suffered years of conflict, death, destruction, starvation, dislocation and loss of hope for themselves and their children. No wonder those that can, try to leave. Give a little thought and sympathy to those people as we get ready to go shopping at the mall or relax by our pools or plan our next vacation. After all...out of sight, out of mind.
A question for you Tom:
With Israel in yet another time of mortal danger, who is a better leader for it now than the vastly experienced Mr. Netanyahu?
What's that you say? There is none?
2
Russian, the US and Assad will all regret allowing Iran to get a toehold in Syria. The US enabled Iran through its feckless lack of a strategy during the Obama administration, continuing into the current dysfunctional foreign policy. The nuclear deal, regardless of how you feel about it overall, took pressure off Iran and returned billions of $ that are funding the regime's adventures in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. Iran will try to Lebanonize Syria through its proxy Hezbollah, increase the quantity and quality of weapons in the region and provide leadership through their Quds force officers on the ground - and in the process marginalize Assad, who never had the stomach to go to war with Israel. But Iran/Hezbollah have no such restraint. Russia will find itself as marginalized as the US, unable to control events in Syria.
There used to be a saying in Israel - "No war without Egypt, no peace without Syria" because Assad (and his Dad) were too smart to vex the Israelis to the point of direct armed conflict after the disaster in the early '80s. That equation is changing and increasing the risk of expanding, devastating conflict in the region.
What a disgrace to humanity this bunch is.
1
Friedman hasn't seen a US soldier he didn't like and that clouds his judgement as he takes everything they say at face value.
Russia and Iran are perfectly prepared to "own" Syria and be responsible for helping it get on its feet again. It is the US that is only bent on destruction and not prepared to take responsibility. Not to mention Israel that seems to consider it its birth right to bomb neighboring countries - citing vague "threats".
Friedman's article becomes false news when he claims that Russia is after Syria's oil. Syria produces hardly enough oil to fulfill its own needs. So while some Russian oil companies have gotten contracts in Syria that will never offset the money Russia is pouring into Syria.
Possibly the biggest risk factor in Syria is US Special Forces general Jarrard. The man seems to have no idea of de-escalation and proportional violence.
6
Mr. Friedman, you should have said a word about
Syrian people who are paying a heavy price for
the shenanigans of all these countries. All these
countries are happy to destroy Syria, kill Syrians
because their own countries are not suffering.
4
My own firsthand experiences in Syria since 2011 have given me the only answer I can share with people when they ask, "What is going on there?" Mr. Friedman sums it up again: it's complicated. What is not complicated is that to a person, every Syrian I have spent precious time with over small cups of tea and coffee says all of these foreigners should mind their own business and get out. Let the Syrian people decide what is best for their country.
42
They say that until their side starts losing, then all of sudden they want help -- arms, troops, air cover - from whoever will provide it.
Conflict leads to war. The situation in Syria is very critical. I wonder, how do people survive there. The Turks don’t want a war with America. America doesn’t want a war with Russia, nobody wants war but Syria never stops.
goo.gl/1aC85p
2
This whole mess is uncanny.
It reminds me of Ezekiel Chapter 38, where it is prophesized that a northern kingdom, (Gog and Magog; Russia?) and nearby nations (Syria, Iran, Hisbullah of Lebanon?) will amass their armies to attack Israel( all of whom despise Israel) and start the final Armageddon!
This critical boarder situation (Israel/Syria), with the availability of the most destructive weapons to all arties (including nuclear tipped rockets by Israel and Russia), could easily spell , what the Tanakh calls 'the End Times"
Uh, call me crazy there Tommy, but one way to de-escalate might be to remove American "contractors" from the equation. You know, bring 'em home and leave Syria to the Israelis, Russians, Turks, whomever, since it's NOT OUR PROBLEM?
Just sayin'
8
The USA should leave Syria.
4
As I understand it, when Israeli air strikes on Iranian positions in Syria came dangerously close to Russian forces, Putin called Netanyahu and told him to "knock it off." And Neanyahu did. So now Putin is the principal power broker in the Middle East while his poodle in the White House plays golf.
6
Like you said at the end...Beirut 2.0....no...jump to 5.0
“The Iranians and Hezbollah will most likely continue to prod and poke Israel, but not to such a degree that the Israelis do what they are capable of doing, which is to devastate every Hezbollah neighborhood in Lebanon...”
The blatant lies are so tiresome. Anyone who can read and follows these things knows that Israel is the party which in the last six years has repeatedly prodded and poked Hezbollah and the Syrians with multiple air strikes against arms depots, convoys and missile-launching sites in Syria. Israel arrogantly gives itself the right to violently prod and poke its neighbors as it wishes. Few of these incidents have been met with any retaliatory response from the victims, who for the most part have sucked it up.
As to Hezbollah or Iran launching the same kind of incursions against arms depots or missile-sites within Israel? How many, Tom? Zero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_involvement_in_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa...
Feb 14 07:23am ET
4
And of course the people of Syria suffer and die.
7
All these players fighting; and for what? It's become mindless. War is always a beastly affair but what Friedman describes is beyond that point. There's something that has gotten lost in all of this. That something lost is the question, the focus, on what is happening to the average man, woman and child on the ground in this "conflict zone?" A zone they call their home?
All of them caught in the cross-fire of a proxy war they did not start, do not want, and have no representation in. Is their sole role to die, collateral targets in a hell they do not deserve? Is this what humanity has become in the 21st Century? Mindless (insane?), high-tech, monkeys killing each other, and for what? Nothing? This is tragic on a biblical scale. If we have any sense at all it just needs to stop.
John~
American Net'Zen
36
There is nothing left in Syria but blown up buildings. The devastation is unconscionable. Mothers, fathers & children blasted from their homes. Proxy war is foul, inhumane, & disgraceful to all actors. How in this world will Syrians ever be able to pick up the pieces?
1
......standing on the Syria-Israel border on the Golan Heights...... This sentence is so funny, and almost ridiculous, that it is hard to believe it. This is Syrian territory occupied by Israel in 1967. A place Israel feared because Syria "could look to easily down on Israeli lands". It is been a coward's action to annex it.
7
There is a common denominator to all of these messes. Israel and Saudi Arabia have been getting by on the cheap while the United States blunders around trying to protect our so-called good friends. The situation would have stabilized long ago if we left these remnants of European colonialism find their own level of mutually-assured destruction.
9
Isn’t that what Obama did in essence, & it hasn’t worked out that well.
Just another in a long list of Obama foreign policy failures--Syria, Iraq, Libya, Crimea, China's aggression in the South China Sea, Eastern Ukraine, Yemen, North Korea, enabling Iranian aggression, relations with Israel, relations with the Sunni Gulf States, children flooding our southern border, refugee crisis in Europe (because of failures in Syria), etc., etc.
6
They’ve all learned — Russia from Afghanistan, Iran from the Iran-Iraq war, Israel from south Lebanon, and the U.S. from Iraq and Afghanistan — that their publics will not tolerate large numbers of body bags fighting any ground war in the Middle East.
I watched a Frontline program titled Exodus about Syrian refugees. THAT is what the "public" will tolerate!!! Please Frontline, show me no more of those images, tell me no more of those stories..."I can't handle the truth."
7
Such a waste of resources and human life orchestrated by politicians more interested in playing board like war games than engaging in a purposeful process of problem solving.
5
These Participants are all led by "macho" men or to use another phrase, ignorant fools. There will be much strutting and primping but little substance, compromise, indeed. Some body bags, some lost military hardware, and much-lost monies. Not to worry, America just increased their military spending so we can flush that down the toilet, as well.
The only wise man was Mr. Obama, he knew a quagmire and recognized that there would be no exit.
9
Dear Thomas Friedman
You lost me at this statement, "In 2003 I wrote a column in the run-up to the U.S. toppling of Saddam Hussein, which I supported."
I was not reading The Times in 2003 except I followed the news about the egregious Judith Miller issue. Even I knew the Iraq invasion was wrong and I am not an insider. Everyone who knew better, you among them, are complicit to varying degrees.
Yes, we know the idiocy of the Syria quagmire. But the military leadership once unleashed always wants to fight wars. A sedentary group of armchair warriors is just as happy sending in "volunteer" American soldiers to fight for causes no one understands. After all, they are mostly poor Americans. Expendable, right?
If you are a right-thinking commentator, you would advocate America in disengaging from these unwinnable wars, declared and undeclared. We cannot win an ideological war. Have we not learned anything from the Vietnam experience?
I am going to ignore your columns on these subjects in future.
12
This article makes it sound like the primary concern in Syria is the possibility of starting a wider conflict between militaries like Iran, Israel, and Russia. There’s no mention that the innocent average Syrians are being mass murdered by this war, and PRIMARILY at the hands of the Assad regime and his Russian/Iranian/Hizbollah backers. Thomas Friedman takes an academic interest in the international game of diplomacy and jockeying for position, the “realpolitik” unfolding in Syria. His style of writing and verbal gymnastics may be amusing and indicative of his high IQ and mastery of the English language. But the article plainly ignores that for the people of Syria trapped underfoot, this is not a game. Just like Aleppo in 2016, the people in Ghouta outside Damascus and in Deir Ezzor are under a total siege and being bombed from the sky by Assad and Russia. Let’s not forget that any time we talk about Syria. And let’s not forget the millions of refugees in abject conditions in the Middle East and Europe, and the hundreds of thousands murdered, tortured, sexually assaulted, and otherwise brought to misery because Assad and his supporters made it so.
11
I am shocked you wrote a column and did not blame trump for this mess he inherited from Obama
2
Which he inherited from Bush II who inherited it from Bush I. In reality, the people who live there created this mess in the wake of the Ottoman (Turkish) empire, and they are incapable of creating a more forward looking and progressive society, one without the cangue of Islam hanging around their necks.
Who inherited it from George W Bush, don’t forget that.
hey republican, you are forgetting that whole mess started with your boy W. Bush. Iraq did not attack USA. Bush did the dumbest thing and we are all paying for it now. He broke it he owns it, well he is retired now but we all own it now.
Syria is a composite State made up of a Sunni Arab majority of 57% The rest were in 2010 Alawite 13% Christian 12%, Kurds 10% (mostly Sunni), Druse 3%, Shi'a Muslim including Ismaili 3% and 3% mo more Turks who are Sunni. Too bad Syria is not 25% Christian as it was in 1920: Orthodox, Syria Orthodox, Catholics and Church of the East. Society is organized by religion and ethnicity. the Rojava State in the northeast is trying replace this centuries-old primary way of organizing society with common citizenship. However it will be difficult because Muslims when in the majority claim an area as the House of Islam and relegate all others to tolerated second-class and the Arab language has become equated with Islam. Until the mentality changes I would hold your breath. The minority groups sided with Assad because he did not allow the Sunnis to dominate. If all Syria was Catholic (I am not) it wouldn't have problem. Like my response to a great Turkish Tour guide who asked me, "You believe Turkey will be part of the EU?" I said, "Turley would have joined 15 years ago if you were all Catholics." Go figure.
Maybe Mr. Friedman has it upside down. Maybe the big powers are already stuck in quagmire dynamics, too risk averse for decisive action, and too afraid of losing influence to pull out. And the real winners are the "clients" milking the big powers to underwrite their agendas.
1
gotta use those weapons !
1
The "Cantonisation" od Syria has long been an Israeli strategy supported by the US. What is the US doing there at all? Answer: it's who they are and what they do. The shortest answer is that they're also making a mess out of it, as usual.
7
Sounds a lot like Europe before the outbreak of World War I, which got started “by accident”.
1
After reading this column by Mr Thomas Friedman and after reading several of the comments, I have decided to dig my bunker deeper and deeper below the frozen Iowa soil. Mr Thomas Friedman is in part right and in part wrong. Which part of his reporting is right and which is wrong I do not know. If history tells us anything, it whispers dig deep and dig long. From my bomb shelter far below the frozen earth of rural Iowa.
1
There s black gold in those Golan Heights. Both Syria and Israel want it. Of course things will come to a head eventually. Quicker if we pull out of Syria, a place where we originally wanted a pipeline to run through ourselves to undermine Russian sales.
1
There is more water there than oil, and the water is more important to the region.
Obama did next to nothing to stop Iran and Russia from getting a foothold in Syria.
3
Please explain in a few words just why Obama should have gotten the USA into yet another mid-east quagmire that has existed there in one form or another for centuries. But please read a couple of history books first, so you will know what you are talking about.
interesting omission of one very involved nation in paragraph three...
Well, that sure untangled things.
1
Please ote that the Golan heights is legally a part of Syria (or may be Iraq) that Israel occupied in its earlier war. Israel does ot respect any international order unless it is allowed to occupy the whole territory that it claims to be biblican Jewish promised land. Yes, I have seen the Golan Heights - it is across the lake (sea?) of Galilee. The natural border is the lake shore. Israel has no business to claim Golan Heights as belonging to Israel. Israel has n more right to Golan Heights than Rusia's right to Crimea.
1
Well Wonderfool; how about a bit of context. Israel won the 1967 War against an array of Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Jordan among others) intent on "driving the Jews into the sea". Syria consistently used the Golan Heights to shell nearby Israeli towns and villages.It was a huge tactical military advantage to the Syrians.Israel drove Syria from the Golan in the 67 War. They never claimed it as part of biblical Israel, but will never give it up again to the Syrians simply because doing so would leave Israel vulnerable to constant attack. With the large Iranian presence in Syria today, giving up the Golan Heights would be suicide.Probably as Mr Wonerfool has prayed for.
Too right...Syria (Iraq, Turkey & Israel) is the most dangerous potential blow up in the world. Think like Oct 62 style, all over again.
Americans have never come to grips with the real outcome of that eye to eye. The Official story- they blinked. Actual outcome- Hands Off Cuba or WWIII (then the Soviets built their satellite dish so Cosmos could keep a real time eye-in-sky on our silos).
We use our air power to wipe out "200 Russians"...ok, how do they shut down our airpower then? Close Iraq's airspace for starts. Put a gun to Turkey's head to shut Incherlick. Clear Idlib, liquidating that redoubt.
Then unleash a full out assault on the area in question.
What we here need to do is deal with the question- why do we think "we" have any territory in Syria? The idea that one way or the other we hold a bargaining card for some eventual settlement is tantamount to England sending troops into NC in 1864 to prop up the losers for some "settlement".
The proper analysis in Syria is that the Syrian government's military held firm and would have always prevailed against an enemy in enclaves, lacking free logistics flow, and under complete air control of the Gov.
The foreign proxies and money sent in were only partly offset Russia, Iran, etc.
So, why are rushing back to the future...in Oct 62?
2
The Syrian Civil War has become a proxy war for Russia and America. They provide air support for their proxies, while exploiting the mutual animosity of the various actors on the ground in their struggle for a pyrrhic victory without reward.
What should be particularly alarming is the emergence of civil wars that lead to proxy wars, which can lead to greater wars between world powers enmeshed in their struggles.
Proxy wars are fraught with risk for the combatant proxies on the ground, as well as their sponsors. The first two Balkan Wars set the stage for WW I, while the Spanish Civil War was fought by proxies for the great world powers prior to the beginning of WW II.
Our military is depleted after 15 years of war without end. We divert American treasure to military quagmires instead of infrastructure and education, while China expands its influence in Africa and promotes their "One Belt, One Road" program.
For his part, Putin has succeeded nicely in a game of global geopolitical chess and destabilization of Western democracies. His cyberwar of misinformation and disinformation has threatened elections in the UK, France and Germany. Meanwhile, populist authoritarian strongmen head the governments of Turkey, Poland, Hungary. Western European democracies have witnessed the rise of far-right populists in ballots.
Syria is just one of the worms in the can we opened in 2003. Indeed, Syria is just one tile in a global jigsaw puzzle with no apparent American solution.
47
The most dangerous place in the world right now is the white house.
We are providing an example of breakdown without breakthrough, or rage and otherblaming and kleptocracy. We were supposed to be the nice kids on the block.
I'm not saying that we have bombed our cities to cinders, or each other's, but I am saying that giving up on the effort to find the best in ourselves and each other is making us lower than animals.
It's a metaphor, people, and I know it's actually provably wrong. But as a parable the pursuit of evil in high places moving into the most powerful office in the world is truly dangerous.
The rot in our souls shows us as lower than animals.
8
Where were you during the Obama administration? Please, put your recollection hat on. No, Trump was never my choice for the leader our country deserves. But then, we have had a succession of so-called leaders that we did not deserve. Start with Clinton, proceed to Bush, then to Obama (Mr. Red Lines in Syria himself), and now to Trump. Until we become less partisan and more willing to look at one really big picture of how we got to this mess, we can set ourselves up for more distress.
Blaming Obama is easy as people's memories fade. But here's a simplification:
We went in boots and all in Iraq
We tried to help in Libya
We stayed out in Syria
Result: death, mayhem, a bloody mess
The only foreign interventions that heal and make friends are things like the earthquake relief we provided in the Himalayas.
We cannot control, but we can try to be wise. I miss Obama, and I remember him well. Democrats who hate on Obama should look at Trump. Republicans who love Trump are their own and the rest of our worst enemies, encouraging the lowest of which humanity is capable.
1
The only thing Obama did that appears to have been wrong was to have too much respect for experience and expertise as represented by the establishment. He began to wake up to the wrongness of this towards the end, but he put up with unified opposition from day 1.
Syria's Christian community is ancient, if small, and that explains why Russian Cossack contingent got involved. The Christian community has remained loyal to Assad's government, fearing whatever may follow would be worse for them. This affinity with Russian Orthodoxy is a partial explanation for Russia's having waded into the mess in the first place.
In this way, Syria's conflict closely resembles the long Lebanese civil war and can only be resolved through some kind of inter-communal truce and complex bargain with strong protections for all minority communities: above all the Allawites, but also Christians and Kurds.
2
Neither Iran or Hezbollah wants any conflict with Israel. Hezbollah has fortified much of Southern Lebanon with tunnels and bunkers and they gave the Israelis a bloody nose several years ago, but they are more than just a terror organization. They govern Southern Lebanon and realize that any conflict with Israel would threaten the existence of their plenary power there. Iran has absolutely no military capability to threaten Israel other than obsolete missiles and their proxy Hezbollah. The dead giveaway was yesterday when Iran's president,Hassan Rouhani, gave a speech marking the 39th anniversary of Khomeini's revolution before thousands, and made no mention of the Israeli attacks in Syria.I looked at the official Iranian newspaper and there was no mention of the "drone", the F-16 shoot down, or Israel's response. There was a minor reference to it as a Syrian problem. Iran wants this crisis to go away.
3
In just three weeks children born the day we invaded Iraq will be a quarter century old. We are still there. And we are in Afghanistan. Syria. All over Africa. Asia. 700 military bases spread all over the world. Enough. Let the people in the Middle East, Africa and Asia solve their own problems. Give the Israelis all the military aid they need and our best wishes and bid adieu to our force commitments. Will it never end? Do you still wonder why "America First" struck a chord with scores of millions of American voters?
10
No wonder we need more billions for our military.
How nice! A replay of the Great Game of the nineteenth century. I suppose the US is just replacing Britain in its struggle with Russia.
This is folly and the article ignores the suffering of the people of Syria who all bomb and none want to take in. Weep for the people who cannot escape and would have nowhere to go if they could. One more tinder box; one more show of aggression; one more example of man's inhumanity to man.
When will the people of the world shout Enough! Enough of wars! Enough of suffering. Enough of destruction. Enough of male egos.
"When everyone is dead, the Great Game is finished. Not before." - Rudyard Kipling
1
Thomas L. Friedman, from time to time I complain that too many comments next to a column consist of bald assertions without the slightest sign of a basis for the statement.
Today you join the assertion crowd with this masterpiece: "Russians just want to siphon off as much oil as they can from Syria, and use it as a base and an ego booster, without clashing with anyone..."
Give us the data, pre-war data on Syrian oil production compared with Russian.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
3
I'm surprised Tom Friedman was so easily fooled by spectacle of the athletes from North and South Korea marching together in a phony display of unity to kick off the Winter Olympics. This isn't going to last. The minute the closing ceremonies are over and the Olympic flame is extinguished hostilities will resume between North and South Korea again. This is just a temporary truce for the sake of a major sporting event that's all.
1
What about the Olympics ever lasts? After a handful of athletes' mugs are on cereal boxes for a few months, we quickly forget The Big Marketing Event that has become elitist and scandalized. The sponsors thank you, though. It's all about them and the mileage media realize from people who have talked themselves into feeling the spirit of the games - those people in a bubble.
He didn't say it wasn't temporary. Just used the word "now" meaning at this instant in time. I thought it was pretty clear.
"Each party wants to maximize its interests ..."
And what is our interest outside of fighting ISIS? Why are we now fighting the Syrian forces, effectively helping ISIS and other terror groups?
and Israel is using the long arm of its air force.
"This way Iran can control Damascus and use Syria as a forward base to put pressure on Israel but pay “wholesale,” not “retail....
The Iranians and Hezbollah will most likely continue to prod and poke Israel”
There's zero evidence that Iran is interested in putting pressure on Israel. This is a narrative invented by Israel, who is, well so upset because of an alleged drone violating its areal territory. That coming from a country that violates Lebanese and Syrian areal space weekly if not daily, is the height of hypocrisy. How would Iran benefit from triggering a conflict with Israel? An utterly ridiculous concept sold by the same people who sold us "Saddam is a threat to Israel" nonsense.
"..It means none of the local parties has enough power, resources — or willingness to compromise — to stabilize Syria "
Sure they do. Russia, Iran and Syrian government were on their way to stabilizing Syria back in November when Israel started having a hissy fit. Not because it feels threatened, but because it wants a government in Syria that will agree to give up the Golan for good. That's why so many must die!
Friedman writes that "Israel knows that its high-tech corridor along its coastal plain would be devastated by Iranian rockets coming back", were it to target Iran directly.
There are two problems with this idea;
1. Israel's high-tech corridor is not made up of a bunch of huge headquarters the way tech giants in America all have giant campuses that can be taken out with precision missile strikes. Israel's high tech industry is spread out in office buildings all around the Tel Aviv metro area. And conventional missiles can destroy at most a single building at a time.
2. Even a single Israeli missile hitting Iran would be one too many for Iran, as getting hit by the "Zionist Entity" would be a blow to Iran's pride that it would want to avoid at all costs. For this reason Iran would never expose itself to being hit by an Israeli missile.
If there is any 'good' news for the planet in Mr. Friedman's report, it is that the smoothie-blender that is Syria is grinding up lots of volunteers, many of whom are young, child-producing, religiously deluded, testosterone-overdosed males of highly questionable intelligence and (obviously) minimal future. Their contribution to the gene pool will not be missed nor added to the excess of humanity whose very existence is contributing to global warming and the destruction of the environment that supports us all. This article should be required reading in every high school in America, to prepare students for the day when the military services send in their recruiters to wrap young people in the flag, which will make it a lot easier to slip their corpses into a body bag for the trip back from places like Syria. Our tax dollars at work.
1
It isn't possible to kill them all. Like a hydra, killing one creates even more. This bloody-minded idea is not just wrong, it is evil.
Insightful article - thank you Thomas!
Amazing, not really, how Friedman doesnt discuss how we arrived at this position. Obama red line anyone?
3
We were already involved in 2 wars in the Middle East- thank you President Bush!
How many wars do we need to be in?
We need to get out of the Middle East and take care of our own people.
You can send your portion of Medicare and Social Security to pay for this.
Very concerning. No one wants a war, just like no one wanted the First World War. Internal distractions aside, we are faced with impending danger and a powder keg where the United States is in effect an absent Superpower
2
No one wanted the WW1 that they got, but many wanted war they expected to be quite different. Therein lies the real lesson of danger for the middle east and for Korea.
Friedman’s story advances that the US and its Mideast and NATO partners are absolved of creating the situation—it’s all Iran’s and Russia’s fault.
From the start of the Syrian War, proponents pushed for direct involvement. Anything less than overt action was criticized. As we supplied “non-lethal” aid, our allies aided and abetted outside jihadi forces to overthrow the Syrian government—Friedman’s “rebels.” Al Qaeda and ISIS dominated the field and was supplied with advance arms, money, and manpower. Israel openly provided help in medical treatment of rebels as well as providing a safe haven.
Recently, Ambassador Ford admitted that we spent $12 billion on undermining Damascus. Our humanitarian aid never was spent on the majority of Syrians living government areas. And this does account for CIA expenditures.
Neocon agenda has resulted in the Afghanistan quagmire, shattering of Iraq, and now Syria. This has opened the fear of Iranian expansion, reignited the Kurdish-Turkey war, places Iranian presence on Israel’s border, endangers Lebanon, does nothing to alter Iranian-Saudi struggle for the Persian Gulf, entails direct American-Russian clash, and the refugee problems that some use for propaganda reasons.
Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, etc. are outcomes of badly advised foreign policy. Unless and until there is a major change in the direction of our foreign affairs, we are going to “own” a lot more.
1
A useful analogy is a demolition derby where points accrue on a sliding scale. A fender here, a bumper there are the residuals of contact conflict.
Asymétrique strategies where assets and interests are kluged together provide the hairpin trigger for unintended consequences. It is those unknown unknowns that are the wild card.
“As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know”. - Donald Rumsfeld
The only thing worse than fighting a war quickly is fighting a war slowly. I guess the question we need to ask is this: What is the United States' strategic objective in Syria? Originally, we were supporting the overthrow of Assad and the establishment of another pro-western democracy in the Middle East. Russian and Iranian interests obviously put an end to those lofty ambitions. So what are we doing now?
Perpetuating an end to violence is clearly not on the list. To me, the essential purpose of each major power is simply to refuse the advantage to other powers. There is no singular goal and therefore there is no end game. We're fighting a battle of negative denial rather than positive obtainment. That's a good way to have an intractable war. The avoidance of ownership is the enabling element but the lack of defined purpose is the root cause.
I'm less confident the war will remain strictly unconventional though. The US just bought $85 million in new artillery shells. They must have some purpose in mind for their use. I can only think of three potential places and one of them is Syria.
25
We now have a government that has explicitly backed out of "nation building", that is, repairing any of the vast damage done in our violent forays into the world. The people of Syria have gone home to obliterated Mosul, and no one anywhere is proposing how to make restore a reasonable level of living to them. My plan: Every bomb dropped and bullet fired should cost (at the very minimum) a deposit of money into a fund run by—I don't know, the Dalai Lama?—to be used later to at least rebuild these places we destroy. No one could ever pay to rebuild the lives destroyed. What a shame.
Who is going to mediate this, when most of the major players in the world are the ones needing mediation? The UN? Someone needs to step up and do their best. Or maybe citizens of each of these countries might begin to take their rightful place as the rational core -- not demonstrating for a moment, but engaging in carefully devised passive resistance? It's hard, to be sure. But why not try?
The first step is to stop reporting on Trump's lunacy, and pretend he is not there.
And think of the lives and money being wasted in this -- in a part of the world that needs to focus on building its economy and providing for its people.
Someone needs to put together a huge package of financial investment that shows the way to the future where people are not desperate and where there is a place for active young people to focus their energies, not on war and religious zealotry, and where life is not a zero-sum game.
Stop looking at the future as a dystopia -- that does not serve as a warning; it just encourages desperate end-of-days actions.
Present the future as a hopeful place -- not a Rodney King "why can't we all just get along," which actually wouldn't be a bad mantra to begin with, but realistically as a place where people can find work, pay for the basics of life, enjoy their families, educate their children, and play sports, picnic, and visit friends on the weekends. Too American middle class? Or simply a universal goal of most of us humans? Reassert everyone's humanity!
1
"the Russians just want to siphon off as much oil as they can from Syria, and use it as a base and an ego booster"--Friedman
Considering the fact that Syria's oil production remains at a small fraction of where it once was--something like 14,000 bbl/day, down from an all-time high of 600,000 bbl/day--and Russia's is coming in at over 10,000,000 bbl/day, I don't think this explanation holds much oil.
Strategically, the benefits of restoring Syria's oil sector don't really seem to outweigh the costs Russia would incur. Ask yourself: How does Putin benefit from spending hundreds of billions of Russian rubles to boost oil production in Syria? Does restoring Syrian oil production help Putin make more money from his own country's oil exports? Does a stable Syria and thus a more stable Middle East improve the global market for Russian oil?
On the other hand, if Putin can merely stabilize Syria to the point where he can keep his puppet Assad on the throne, pump enough oil to pay the bills, and continue to use Assad's regime as a front to allow Russia to destabilize the region, Syria remains a dangerous and destabilizing presence in the region.
27
It is utterly dishonest of Mr Friedman's not questioning why on earth the US is doing in Syria in the first place after disastrous Iraq war?
It is equally, if not worst, shameful for Mr Friedman to, once and for all, explain to his readership, why massacre in Syria is still continuing its barbaric path on innocent Syrian people after seven years if it was not for the US meddling to open up venues for 'greater' Israel, while supporting (mostly proxies) disintegrating the whole MENA (as it was planned under 'Greater Middle Eastern' plan' by Neocons in he first place and is still the US modus operandi in the region.
While the US might look 'successful' in its chaos theory of disintegrating once powerful nations into chopping blocks and each side is at some form of conflict with each other, the entire region, with exception of some Kurdish enclave under terrorist PKK/YPG cluster, public opinion of the US is at all time low.
No good will come out of this public opinion while China and Russia are playing themselves for the long haul.
1
We wouldn't have to worry about the Iranians if we hadn't given them 1.8 billion to fund their terrorism.
3
We were far more urgently worried about them before the nuclear deal.
And while America, Russia and the local powers play their game, Europe is left with the flood of refugees, whom our leaders were foolish enough to let in.
It's about time that the West accepts that Assad won and helps him to restore order, so we can finally send all the Syrians back home. I don't really care about anything else, the people in that part of the world are hopelessly messed up anyway.
2
Brings to mind Italy after 1494, I think...
"There's something very 21st century about this war" in which a host of powers — US, Israel, Iran, Russia, Turkey — provide air power and put their proxies, contractors, and mercenaries on the ground to claim a piece of the action so that their leaders can posture about it at home. To the Syrians the war is devastatingly real, but to the “warring” parties it’s a public relations war. Obama was the only world leader mature enough to back away from the high-school lunch table dynamic of this multilateral, counterproductive intervention in Syria's tragedy, and he’s still being pilloried for it by a lot of experts who should know better by now.
65
Obama was the person in charge, ostensibly. Why should he not be slammed?
1
Precisely. So many people saying "Obama should have intervened" out of one side of their mouths while saying "it's a quagmire we shouldn't be involved in" out of the other. Taking the long view has never been Americans' strong suit, but I am thankful to Obama for not getting us any deeper into the Middle East militarily. While we all sympathize with the Syrian people's desire to be rid of the Assad regime, the hot mess that is Syria today was predictable to anyone with any knowledge of the region and current events who cared to focus on facts rather than ideology.
1
Wars have political objectives, and now the only country in the war that has succeeded in its strategic goal, disabling the threat of Syria’s leader Bashir Assad, seems to be Israel. There is no way that Assad can any longer subsidize a Palestinian independent state, which leaves the Palestinian political front mostly with no visible patron to fund negotiations with Israel. The Palestinian Authority, since the collapse of Assad’s control of most of Syria, has about as much negotiating leverage with Israel as the Dakota Sioux have with our Bureau of Indian Affairs. Neither Iran nor Hezbollah are able to do more than fight a rear guard retreat from Syria. And without Russia’s aid, Assad will disappear.
Friedman does not mention who will defend Palestinians besieged in the PA territories from the land grabs of Israeli settlers and the Netanyahu government? The other side of the coin here is that as a weak PA will never be able to conclude any peace deal, so there is always the danger to Israeli individuals from a simmering hostility in terrorism anywhere. Very sad!
Syria was not supporting the Palestinians. That was at various times Iraq, various petro-states, and Iran. Israel's conflict with Syria is separate, with a focus on the Golan, Southern Lebanon, and just an organized state on its border.
The Palestinians did not seize Syria’s Golan Heights territory, a bone of contention still between Syria and Israel as Syria has never—-Never—-relinquished its claim to the return of its territory seized by Israel. And during and since the Arab wars with Israel, Syrian diaspora in the States, given a choice to support Israel, or the Palestinians, have always chosen the Palestinian Arabs, no matter who else supports them. See Syria’s position at the United Nations on the Palestiniana and Israeli conflict.
1
Why do the Russians need to go into a chaotic war zone "to siphon off as much oil as it can" when they are producing about 10 million barrels a day in their own country - a rate about the same as Saudi Arabia's oil production.
8
Allan B*** You are right ... the Russians don't need Syrian oil. That is a dumb statement in the article. They are there for strategic & stability reasons. And I think were invited in by Assad.
2
So who’s going to play the part of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo?
Decreeing that everyone involved in the Syrian conundrum is 'loss adverse' is like saying when you're in the eye of a hurricane that the winds have lost their fight.
In fact, no one really knows what Putin's up to. Has he been suckering Netanyahu while planning to help Iran and its confederates take down Israel? If he did manage to mortally wound the Jewish state, he could claim to be the honorary caliph of all Islam, which would certainly be a wonderful balm for the former KGB man's long-wounded pride.
Mr. Friedman unaccountably ignores far more obvious visions--ones that are entirely based on faith--which is odd, because the Mideast is the world's premier victim of religious enthusiasm.
Starting out as a parrot of Khomeini, Khamenei has been preaching for decades that the return of the Mahdi and the Last Judgment impend, and former president Ahmadinejad was particularly forward at the altar of this cult, a cult that usually demands the death of Israel as a precondition of apocalyptic bliss.
Now that Khamenei is so advanced in years, he has an ever more powerful motive for reclaiming Jerusalem for Islam, and he may be so certain of acting on God's orders that he'll take great risks to maximize his chances of success.
Other religious fantasies abound (see ISIS, which was almost entirely fueled by them). We are not talking about a notably rational region of the world here, and to call it 'loss adverse' represents a memorable failure of imagination.
2
To cut to the chase - upon reading the strife-ridden history of Syria, and upon recognizing that its oil reserves are dwindling and its water shortages becoming more acute, it is clear that the ONLY so-called strategic interest here for the US is Israel's security. Is that sufficient reason to undertake such risk? Donor money says it is, but it would be interesting to know whether US voters feel the same. Of course, US voters are mostly oblivious to all this, so money sets the direction. As with everything else. That's called democracy, American style.
5
PKK is a terrorist organization as recognized by both the US and EU.
PKK has been waging terrorist activities against the security forces and civilians in Turkey for the past 30 years. General Secretary of Nato,Jens Stollenberg, recently remarked:
“No NATO ally has suffered more terrorist attacks than Turkey, and, of course, they have the right to address these security concerns,”
SDF and YPG are all branches of the PKK as openly admitted by themselves and accepted by US. US has supplied SDG (and naturally the PKK) with arms in recent years to fight IS and build a 30,000 border security force between the Syrian-Turkish border. Even after IS is practically defeated US allocated $ 550. million to SDG in 2018.
Would US sit back and watch a terrorist organization build an enclave within an unstable country at the border of US ?
1
I think it is high time that Israel really solved the mid-east problem once and for all - by exploding one or more of its nuclear weapons in the neighborhood, though, of course, it might lose some of its precious citizens.
But if that is the price for peace in the neighborhood, it should face up to it and do what needs to be done.
So what you are saying is all these parties, in effect, use undocumented immigrants to do their dirty work for them. So....it's kind of like working at a Trump property. Advertise for workers in the darkest of places so you don't have to hire the natives. Why not skip all of the fighting and just put a big Trump sign at every border? You can always declare bankruptcy if it doesn't work out. And walk away leaving someone else holding the bag.
1
The first casualty of war is always the truth...
Therefore, I don't trust anything I hear or read about Syria. A lot of players have skin in this game and they're all keeping their cards close to the vest.
Is the Syria situation complicated? Sure, but a little voice inside my head tells me there's a much bigger game afoot than the flow of oil, ethnic/religious hatred or political influence.
2
What Friedman plays down, and also other articles I have read recently is the concern we had ( and have ) for ISIS and other 'terror' groups. Israel doesn't care about ISIS, they are concerned with Hezbollah and Iran having to much power near their border. We originally went into Syria to go after ISIS. And with the help of Iran we have basically decimated & scattered them. It's time for us to get out. Leave Syria to Assad, Iran & Russia. The Saudis probably want us to stay. Iran does want to be the power player, but really they just want a stable country next door, and can you blame them. I read that the Russians told Israel to cool it and calm down last week. Otherwise things might have really went off the rails and blown up into a full scale war with Iran. We should pull back, leave some forces in Iraq in case. This is situation is way to complicated and dangerous, and we have pretty much accomplished what we set out to do. Assad isn't going anywhere. And just by the way. Friedman still thinks the Iraq invasion was a good idea. He also refuses to see that the destruction of Iraq is probably the biggest reason Syria is in chaos today. This situation is alot like the foolishness and confusion that started WW1..... Time to leave ...
3
Israel should be much more concerned with ISIS and the offshoots of al Qaeda. They ultimately seek to embed themselves in the Palestinians, to turn the West Bank into something like Iraq or Pakistan.
The US has three allies in this mess - the Kurds, the Saudis, and the Israelis. A bonus is that these three groups support each other.
Trying not to offend much less take on the Turks is a wasted exercise. Erdogan is trying to punch above his weight and his real beef is with the Kurds.
Russia is trying to pull a Vietnam by arming the Syrians while trying to figure out how to get out of Dodge. Sending the Russian people information/disinformation about Russian casualties would be a sweet revenge.
The Syrian government and most of the militias (who switch sides every week or so) couldn't manage a lemonade stand.
Let's pick the winners and let the others pound each other into dust. Patience is the name of this game.
3
This grossly underestimates Turkey. Turkey could settle this quickly any time it is willing to pay the short term price, just as Syria settled the Lebanon Civil War with overwhelming power.
Trump's loyalty to his pal (paymaster/blackmailer?) Putin vs the Kushner's (and so his antipathy to Putin ally Iran) is an interesting dynamic. His admiration of Turkish autocrat Erdogan vs US military preference for the Kurds (Turkey's enemy) is another interesting dynamic. But chaos/confusion has always been Trump's forte.
1
So who was Obama's muse in Syria?
This opinion dehumanized the wars - they are treated as an abstraction- not the destruction of a society. The bombing of civilians, the hundreds of thousands of families living in darkness and surrounded by death. Like the Iraquis - the Syrians lost their country while Russia, the US, Turkey, and Assad locked in a power struggle. Qatar, Yemen, and the Palestinians- starvation, disease, and horror. Who is standing up for these people? The title of this opinion exemplifies the world’s indifference to millions of people struggling to survive. Social media enabled these tragedies and media and social leaves them to suffer.
6
Thank you, Tom, this helps illustrate a mos complex situation. Somebody's going to make a fortune creating a new board game called "Syria" which will become the "Risk" of this century. Is this why Trump wants the huge military expenditure buildup?
Right!
This isn't a 3-D battlefield; it's a multi-dimensional battlefield.
This is easy to disentangle. Just "follow the money", It ends not with dead soldiers, but international arms merchants and industrial manufacturers.
1
The United States understands this region not at all. We do not understand clans, factions, ethnic hostilities, religiously motivated actors except in limited ways.
2
The US? Who is that?
The White House is clueless. Congress simply does not care, doing domestic political calculation. The State Dept has experts, and right now nobody listens. The American public has been fed so much misinformation their opinions are more fantasy than understanding, though those who try can dig out what the State Dept doubtless knows if anyone cared to listen.
Syria is a problem that no one, no single country, can solve. But, it must be and can be addressed. What is called for is a radical measure of putting Syria under UN protection. A UN-imposed no-fly regime would deny rights to fly over Syrian territory to any military aircraft, including of the government. A UN command with authority over government forces and peacekeeping forces could stabilize the situation, if major powers presently involved in the conflict would so permit and withdraw their forces and their support for any groups presently involved in the struggle. The EU with Japan, China and others could provide reconstruction aid timed with progress in stabilizing the country. Political reconciliation under a UN framework guaranteed by the major powers could lead to a government of unity within a few years.
Short of a global solution the death and destruction will continue at great cost to the people of Syria, their neighbors, and to the EU.
16
The UN is designed to prevent cross-border aggression, not internal strife.
The UN that you envision would never have been "born", so to speak.
1
The political analysis however accurate of the "situation" runs the risk of sanitizing the death, destruction, starvation, alienation and dehumanization of countless human beings. War is humanity at its worst.
1
In retrospect the Middle East wars have been good for the U.S. It has served the military well, afterall they need to justify the exorbitant cost of their armaments, keep their 4star generals happy, and it keeps the unemployment rate low in the public sector. It also serves as good place to test new weapons. And think of the loss of people. These countries can't feed their populations nor provide jobs, so what better way than to trim the excess. Syria will be the real loser, and probably Assad is already picking a place to retire with his $B of foreign aid. No one alive today will ever see Syria returned to its prewar days. And as to the innocent people in those countries, they played a major part in allowing it to happen. It is a continuation of the ancient days of history, where the only chapter you could read was one war after another, one dictator following another. Nothing changes for them until they realize life will get better when they make it so, because praying won't create change.
Fed up with any war .
It just makes the military industrial complex rich and deprives humankind the right to peace and normalcy .
Religion is just an excuse , just follow the money.
3
I thought as Friedman stood on the Golan Heights he would say this used to be Israel's most stable and peaceful boarder. After all, despite three Israeli invasions of Lebanon, three savage bombardments of Gaza that can hardly be called wars and a 50 year occupation of the West Bank, the Golan remained peaceful.
And then, the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel thought it would be a good idea to weigh in on the Syrian civil conflict and overthrow the Assad government.
Never mind that the same approach toward Iraq and Libya had inflamed the entire region and produced nothing but chaos. If at first you don't succeed...keep pretending as if you did.
But Friedman's reference to the Korean DMZ is relevant. Despite being the most dangerous and highly militarized border in the world, it has remained largely peaceful. And Israel could have similar guarantees of peace.
All they have to do is withdraw from Palestine and recognize the Palestinian state, just as they they have recognized Israel. Then enter into a mutual defense pact with the US, as the South Koreans have, and allow the Americans to deploy a few thousand troops to Palestine. The PA has already in principle agreed to this.
The Palestinians will have their state. It will be de-militerized as the Israeli's have always insisted and the US would guarantee the peace just as they have in Korea. This makes a lot more sense than ratcheting up another war along the Syrian boarder.
I was right. Kim is actually very predictable. He is having a great life every thirty-something guy dreams about. Throwing away for what? A total destruction by the US force?! In fact, Kim just wants some reassurances so he can enjoy his life for the next 50 years. The nuclear weapon thing is really not the critical issue involved. Before Trump, nuclear weapon made whole lot sense. With Trump, it has become a liability. Trump does not pretend to care about domestic issues in Korea. Why should US cares about life in NK when US has its own issues to worry about?! Kim got it so wrong. He can have his party every night as long as he is not a threat to US. Under this new world order, nuclear weapon becomes toxic! US should talk to NK and make it crystal clear to them. Give up the weapons. The alternative is a total destruction.
Regarding to Middle East, US should arm Israel but don't be directly involved. It is messy and there is no solutions!
Nice piece. Just a couple of additions: Need to stress that as Russia is subcontracting Cossacks, The U.S. is subcontracting YPG Kurdish fighters (terrorists according to U.S. senate hearing minutes), to fight its war, alienating a 50 year NATO ally, and in broader perspective, Israel is subcontracting The U.S. to fight her own war (the famous concept of "Israel's security").
1
If Mr. Friedman can quote WaPo, so can I.
"Raqqa is a warning to be careful about destroying the ruling order, anywhere, without knowing what will come next. Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps making this point — the United States was reckless to encourage the overthrow of authority in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya without better planning for the “day after” — and he’s probably right. Too often, the vacuums have been filled by warlords, foreign mercenaries and death cults." - David Ignatius in WaPo today.
If you do something over and over again, it can only be intentional.
5
Look at a map of Russia and that might explain her interest in Syria and Iraq. Look at the same map and that might explain why the United States might be better off allowing Russia and Iran the task of sorting out the power sharing in both countries that will have to precede peace.
We clamor about Russia's Cossack mercenaries in Syria, but were perfectly comfortable with Blackwater, our private army in Iraq. When will we learn to keep our military assets out of the internal conflicts in other countries. We seem never to have learned the lessons of our disastrous interventions in the past, like Vietnam, Cuba, Iraq or Libya.
Now we are caught playing cat and mouse in Syria. Good luck at sorting out power sharing in that civil war. How easy it was to shout Assad, or Hussein or Gaddafi must go. How hard to bring peace and order to broken countries once we do. If the Russians want to try and resolve the conflict and restore peace in Syria, then let them try and wish them luck, but bring our troops home.
5
Mr Friedman, with due respect, you were wrong, dead wrong, in your support of the Iraqi War in 2003. And you and Gen Powell, were wrong, dead wrong, in you pithy attempt to sum up the consequences of our involvement in starting the war: "We break Iraq, we own Iraq.". No, you/we DON'T 'own' Iraq. The Rule should have been stated as follows: 'you break Iraq.....chaos, which you might not be able to control, will rein in the Middle East for decades.'
The Russians watched with appropriate horror as American backed (inspired?) efforts helped overthrow Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and finally, attempts to do the same in Syria. There the Russians, wisely, perhaps, drew the line and said "Assad won't fall'. He has not.
We should simply get out of the region. If for no other reasons than we proved, again and again, we have no comprehension of the dynamics and history of the region.
4
By Friedman's definition, I guess we partially own this mess. We certainly helped to create the situation by our tactical and arms support of those intending to overthrow the Assad regime, not to mention our complete destruction of stability in the region created by the Friedman-cheerled war in Iraq. Yet, I have never seen Friedman or anybody explain just how or why a new leadership in Syria will make America safer or more secure. It would be nice to learn why we are involved at all, beyond feeding the profit needs of our military contractors and arms suppliers, at the expense of hundreds of thousands of innocents who have been killed and maimed. Nobody in the region is going to thank us, respect us, or like us more after whatever happens next----and many will learn that the US is one of several forces that brought needless death and destruction to their homes and families.
62
Why are we there? I believe it is related to an organization called ISIS. We used Kurds to fight them and now we protect those Kurds.
I would have to agree with Tom on this one. It truly is the most "messed up" place in the world right now, with a nod to Somalia and Yemen. Unfortunately we have exactly the wrong people on our team in charge.
4
"There is something very 21st century about this war"
Such qualification does mean nothing. What is worse, it ignores the Middle East history.
One century ago, the Western European powers assaulted the weakened Turkey and "stabilize" the entire region through colonization.
Maybe, one century ago another columnist wrote about 'a very 20th century war".
The reality is instead quite simple and very realist international relations topic.
In 2003, the unipole USA started its own war for resetting the ME geopolitics. It began with Iraq and afterwards decided to go on with Syria, hoping that the hostile local tribes had capacity to defeat the regime. Unfortunately, the latter could not achieve their job. In the meantime the Assad regime was assaulted by ISIS and Kurds. Russia run to help Assad and succeeded to avoid a complete fall.
The current situation can be likely defined as an impasse with Israel tempted to achieve the uncompleted work to "kill" the Syrian regime and the American military occupying Syrian territory to defend the allied Kurds and still hoping to eliminate Assad.
2
Essentially Thomas has described a stalemate. Looks reminiscent of the trench warfare of WWI . Much death and destruction, little strategic advantage. Sadly ,as usual, it will be the tens of thousands of civilians that will form most of the heaps of bodies.
Some things never change. As the late Lee Kwan Yew observed “man is a vicious animal”.
So many foreign players playing their power like a chess game, using the Syrians as the pawns.
Perhaps the mushroom clouds are already forming on the horizon in that area, as the ultimate ending.
2
Re a "battlefield that requires a quantum computer to sort out the myriad number of actors, shifting alliances and lines of conflict."
I took a political science class in high-school and the teacher had a keen interest in the Middle East. He tried to explain the situation to us 17 year olds. It was more confusing and difficult to grasp than my calculus class. It just seemed like a big, huge mess.
That was before quantum computers were even dreamed of and Nixon and Kissinger were trying to sort out the Middle East.
It was a mess then, it was a mess before that, it's been a mess ever since and it's hard to believe it will ever be anything but a mess.
If it weren't for humanitarian reasons we should just pull out and let them duke it out themselves.
1
Mr. Friedman, please consider also France as aspiring member of the Syrian Club. Makron just issued a red line regarding the use of chemical weapons there. I assume that after the next chemical attack in Syria France will take a life time to make sure it happened and who was responsible for it.
Additionally one has to consider that the whole Syrian issue, regardless how complex it is, will become irrelevant as soon as a direct conflict between Iran and Israel will brake out. Israel has a narrow time window to stop Iran, fore it can not afford loosing time and resources to fight Iranian proxies.
1
France originally governed Syria. Until recently, the Bank of France ran the Syrian currency. France sees itself as the original Syrian Club, and all others as late comers.
A rentier war for all the players, for that is what it seems they are doing: playing at war. So much fun to be had! It is also classic Carl Von Clausewitz war: War being just an extension of politics. We are such delightful creatures, we humans.
7
Diplomacy seems to have been lost in the wind, especially in the US. Trump and team are focused on forcing rather than convincing through diplomacy. Doesn't really work as we can see.
Netanyahu is using the chaos to shore up his chances to stay in power. His legal troubles may just overtake him as we hope Trump's will do for him.
7
Our increased budget for the military will give the U.S. military more money to waste in this area of the world. Directed by the Trump train, which is about to wreck, our military may again be used for political gain by an administration that can't think straight.
Our military is the best in the world 10 times over and is filled with patriotic men and women who will follow the president as directed regardless of the cost to themselves. They deserve better!!
12
Interesting that the central cause of this horror - Assad - is not mentioned at all. The Syrian people rose up originally against that oppressive family and its iron hold on their lives. A brutal crackdown was the response; Russia, true to form, supports the oppressor. Yet, at this point, he is really a minor player in a cast of hundreds.
Having been to Syria, which was a beautiful and intriguing country, and having more recently worked with Syrian refugees, my heart breaks for the ordinary people who suffer so horribly, but can do nothing about it.
45
Thank you for expressing what I and I'm sure many others were thinking while reading this article that so aptly expresses the stupidity of war among powerful idiots.
Friedman speaks of the DMZ between the two Koreas and the conflict in Syria as dangerous war zones where war can erupt at any moment.
However there is one very important factor that Friedman overlooked or forgot about. And that is the idea that parties don't go to war against each other because they like each other and get along is a relatively recent development.
Throughout history the one and only calculation that military powers took into account over whether to go to war with their neighbors was whether there was a good chance they would win. And the fact is that the countries in Europe only decided to come together as one after they learned in a very hard way that no country can defeat the others through war.
And so the same holds true both in regard to the two Koreas, and in regard to Israel vs Iran and their proxy Hezbollah in that both sides understand that they do not have the power to defeat the other.
In fact war does not break out between 2 parties that are arch enemies and have both been building up their forces so that they both have equal power so that no party can outright defeat the others. War, for the most part, breaks out between parties that have not been preparing for war for decades. What triggers most wars is a new unforeseen conflict where each side believes it can utterly and totally defeat the other side.
8
The situation in Syria is complex, more so than the situation in Yemen, but both have a common element: the Saudi-Iranian conflict.
The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran is often described as a conflict between Sunni and Shia. Unfortunately, religion is being used by those who control power in both nations to justify their various military adventures.
The US and Russia have both been suckered into a proxy war by their client states, and they have in turn involved other nations (such as Turkey and Israel) which have their own agendas.
In an ideal world, the US and Russia would realize that they are mutually trapped in a quagmire and try to develop a plan to get both themselves and their "allies" out of this mess.
Unfortunately, getting all of the parties to disengage and then rebuild Syria has the risks of unraveling the various alliances and revealing the rot inside Saudi Arabia, the USA, Iran and Russia.
My fear is that the tragedy will continue for years, if not decades.
14
With multiple powers involved in Syria and waging war through proxies avoiding escalation beyond bearing the Syrian civil war does not only reveal the unstable pattern of the emerging multipolar world but also the futility of wars in future as these are going to be a losing proposition to all the stakeholders leaving none a winner at the end.
24
This is a war of exhaustion. The participants will keep on fighting until they realize that there is nothing to gain there. Turkey is not going to get rid of the Kurds, nor are Iraq and whatever government takes over in Syria. The US will not gain influence over the area. Israel will not get a submissive Syria, no matter who wins. Russia will eventually realize that there are consequences to victory.
All of them will be confronted with the wastefulness of their deadly games.
38
But the arms manufacturers love it.
There is one major motivation for the Russian presence and actions in Syria that is rarely or never mentioned: simply to engender strife and civil upheaval and prolong the war, because that continues to generate flows of refugees to many countries (except of course Russia itself). This refugee flow has undeniably proven to be an extremely effective weapon against the opponent that Putin is most concerned about: a unified and socially/economically progressive Europe.
97
Excellent point, AJ. One that US policy makers seem to have not yet grasped.
It is only Europe who does not want to see this
After the Olympics are over, North Korea will still pose a grave danger. But there is only one major player we need to talk to in order to defuse tensions: China. There won't be a conventional war, and no one wants a nuclear war.
In Syria, we have many major players, already in a conventional war, with the U.S. poised to develop low-yield nuclear weapons, and no end in sight to the conflict.
We have no business in Syria, except greed fostered by the military-industrial complex. We need an exit strategy before we get further entrenched in any way. We should be spending our money in the U.S. (infrastructure, anyone?) Syria is another fool's errand we cannot afford.
Refer to Star Trek's "A Taste of Armageddon" to see how a proxy war of the future might play out, with drones, clones, robots, and mercenaries as players. Such a war will always come back to haunt you. The best way out is not to get into the war in the first place.
For the U.S., Syria is another avoidable war, just like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Have we learned anything yet about such wars? Apparently, we're about to find out, again.
56
How can Turkey still be a NATO member? The US is fighting Turkey's proxies in Syria and vice versa. Even Trump acknowledged the mutual defense provision of the NATO treaty. If Turkey is attcaked by one of the Syria players, should the US, France, Italy, etc. come to Turkey's defense?
4
The Kurds are not attacking the Turks, the Turksare attacking the Kurds. They are also posturing in the Aegean. They have dillusions thjat they are a major power.
It should, but many people ignore the fact that the nature of the aid provided under the NATO treaty is completely up to the provider. So if the US aid to Turkey amounts to 10 soldiers sent to guard US embassy in Istanbul...well, that satisfies the letter of the law.
The US relationship with Turkey is far larger than just Syria. It extends back in time to the Korean War, in which Turkey provided more troops than any other friend, by a wide margin.
Many commentators just now are strongly anti-Turkey for a variety of reasons, but those tend to focus on just a few issues that are actually lesser parts of the relationship in the longer term. In particular, it tends to reflect the animosity between Turkey and Israel, which simply does not matter to the US, and issues of domestic government, which the US overlooks in far worse cases such as Egypt and Saudi and Pakistan.
One's mind drifts to thoughts of 1914; the Balkans. War among the great powers seemed inconceivable.
21
In 1914 many Germans felt time pressure to do a great power war before Russia became too powerful from its massive military modernization drive.
Meanwhile France felt time pressure to do a great power war before it became too weak from its perceived decline in population -- it had already shifted its draft to a three year service requirement and had just made that an effective army enlargement.
Many Russians were also pushing a major war sooner than later, fearing internal developments they though war would stop.
While Austria-Hungary did not want a major war, it wanted an early war to settle things in the Balkans, as it conceived a Fourth Balkan War following on the three wars there since 1911 and the Italo-Turkish War.
The thesis that war was unwanted projects backward from what the war proved to be. Nobody wanted that. They all expected a very different war. It was the usual hope for a short victorious war to end troubles, not a long ugly one to overwhelm with even worse troubles.
2
The only people who wanted WWI were the Kaiser and a certain Serbian anarchist, yet millions died.
So, Tom, given all this, how do we determine if we have achieved success in this mess? Has anyone even defined success for us? My guess is that the president, who claims to know more than his generals, couldn't even articulate who we are fighting for, let alone what we are fighting for. Nonetheless, he would have us believe we need more money for the fighting.
Syria is just another black hole of military spending. We can't afford the efforts in Afghanistan @ $3 billion per month and now we're in Syria. How about just upgrading Amtrak and we call it a day?
100
The US is in the Middle East for two reasons: one, is at the behest of Israel - to support and protect Israel at all costs; and two - a distant second - is to protect the flow of oil to the rest of the world, especially to the US. This is how the US defines success in the Middle East.
The US does not care about Syria or Lebanon, and the only reason we are still supporting Iraq is because, as Tom says "You break it, you buy it".
1
Moreover he's spending us into bankruptrcy. Cutting taxes, hyper spending on the military when we are already spendinfg more than the next 10 nations combined. Juicing up the economy like a jealopy at a stock car race so he and his hideous friends (the GOP) can get reelected. Spendiing on full employment; that's smart; even the craziestr Keynesian would suggest such follly. Inflation means the fed ups interest rates. Increasing rates scare Wall street. The party's over.
1
While the description of how the various powers are tip-toeing around one another and 'renting this war" is informative, I cannot help reacting negatively to Mr. Friedman's 'cutesy' tone that ignores the magnitude of the human tragedy taking place. Best estimates indicate there have been over 400,000 deaths, untold injured, 5,000,000 Syrian refugees living abroad and 6,000,000 internally displaced.
36
See this is the problem with elite realists like Tom, and Fareed Zaharia, and Richard Haass, etc. They all think this is a “Great Game” and it is disgraceful.
2
[The “good news,” sort of, is that because everyone is so “loss averse” in Syria, it’s less likely that any party will get too reckless. ]
Unfortunately that supposed prudence hasn't stopped our country from being tricked into the very high-loss, low-gain Iraq War. The news media could fake an episode of amnesia by egging on another Mid East invasion.
The other parties involved, don't appear too concerned with wanting Syria to become stable and to want to end the civil war. Actually, what may be unsaid is that some may actually prefer Syria to keep burning as a consolation prize, since this could also serve their national interests.
Syrian regime change in order to promote western values never made any realistic, humane sense back when Al Qaeda, ISIS and other religious extremists were fighting on the same side as us. Logically, it has not been hard to dismiss that as just another pervasive bait-n-switch lie concerning Mid-East regime change.
1
Perhaps it was just a slip of the keyboard but Mr. Friedman should know better than to refer to the Golan Heights as being located on the Syria-Israel border. The Golan belongs exclusively to Syria; it's been occupied by Israel since 1967 in much the same manner as the West Bank and Gaza.
In other respects, I'm in agreement that this region is a conflagration just waiting to happen. There are absolutely no good actors here (except possibly the Kurds), with tens of thousands of civilians caught up in the cross-fire. Assad is one of the most singularly repellant tyrants on the face of the earth but, somehow or other, he's managed to survive all these years with the help of Russia, Iran and the running dogs of Hezbollah. He has no support from anyone else but, apparently, not even the Saudis or the Jordanians care enough about Syria's persecuted Sunnis to do anything much to alter the dynamics of the situation. The U.S. blew its big chance to help out with a no-fly zone during the Arab Spring and before Russia and ISIS got involved (not Barack Obama's finest hour). At this point there's nothing much to do except steer clear of the whole mess. Someone is going to get burned very badly here and there's no good reason for it to be us.
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When peace comes to Syria then Israel can contemplate returning the Golan Heights to whoever happens to be ruling there. Until then, there is nary a chance that Israel will contemplate turning the Galilee and beyond into sitting ducks for the various forces of evil on its borders: "the Syria-Israel border in the Golan Heights".
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As self-appointed World's Policeman, the U.S. must bloody its hands. It's just what we do. Honor, pride, tradition, power = cashflow.
Stu -- I agree, except that the Kurds are split up into fragments, including generally good actors, generally bad actors, and many being manipulated and deluded with outsider promises (mostly lies, probably) aimed at their emotions and very unlikely to produce anything but dead Kurds.
Syria no longer exists. It's gone. What we call Syria is just a zone on a map. That zone has become a strategic chess piece. All of the the external forces that fighting there are not trying to create, or preserve anything. They are jockeying for strategic advantage. The armies fighting there are positioning themselves for the next war, not to win this one.
It's this next war that we should be worried about. With the proliferation of thousands of missiles possessed by all sides, the loss of life will be quick and catastrophic. The lethality of the armaments sold to all the parties involved has risen sharply over the last decade. Selling these nations weapons is a big export business for the US, Russia and China. We make money off of their strife.
What Mr. Friedman writes is terrifying, but he doesn't know what the CIA knows. He doesn't know what the Kremlin and Moosad know. To top it off, we all know the Trump White House is too dysfunctional to mount any kind of strategy. So that cauldron boils.
It will eventually boil over.
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What can be said about Syria is that we may have adopted Russia’s strategy. So long as we keep the fighting IN Syria, and don’t actually do it with our own soldiers, while keeping our airmen adequately protected, then just about the only ones dying (other than Kurds) are Muslim jihadis and Assad’s forces – every imaginable kind of Muslim, including Iranians (!).
No harm, no foul.
Russia originally developed this strategy, coming to Bashar al-Assad’s assistance putatively to protect its Black Sea naval base at Tartus and to honor an old relationship but really to kill Islamist extremists in Syria by the thousands instead of needing to kill them in the Russian Federation. Heaven knows how many thousands of Russian Federation Islamist extremists made the manageable land-journey to take up jihad in Syria, and it has become an extremely convenient and concentrated killing field that should pay immense political dividends back home with reduced need for pitched violence.
Trump appears to have co-opted the strategy, recognizing its brutal but practical application of realpolitik.
It’s too early for Tom’s advice that “you own it, you fix it” to apply: too many jihadist bodies remain to be piled-up, not least the remnants of ISIS and, as far as Putin is concerned, ANY Muslim combatant. But he’s right that we should get ready for more news from Syria.
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Unhappily, it's not just Muslim jihadis and Assad's forces- there are a great many civilians in that area and they're not being spared. They're also running out of places to run TO, especially given that The Donald isn't willing to let any of them come here.
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The following was intended to be the conclusion to my comment, which I got tired of waiting to post. Stu will find problems with it, as well.
***
Israel’s real interest? Apart from checking Iran, the fewer Islamist extremists alive, the less likelihood that the dwindling support for Gaza’s Hamas will be strengthened to save them from slow economic asphyxiation.
Check back in four-to-five years, after Russia has made fully operational its vastly upgraded naval facilities at Sebastopol and other bases, allowing it to risk Tartus by largely abandoning Assad to his fate – and by that time Assad may be beyond any tribal danger. Enough jihadis may have been killed by then that Putin (and perhaps we) can afford to think about “fixing” Syria. Don’t be surprised, though, if we all just abandon it to its tribal fate.
THIS “rental” could be argued to be well-priced.
***
stu -- I guess you missed the reflection on realpolitik. By whatever name, I'm sure that it's been around since the first human civilization, and a comment that "it still isn't 'right'" won't stop Putin from killing as many Islamist jihadists as he can away with.
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"The “good news,” sort of, is that because everyone is so “loss averse” in Syria, it’s less likely that any party will get too reckless. "
That is only a hope, unpredictable scenarios can happen anytime as long as this war continues. U.S. and Russian air forces could engage each other accidentally or be drawn into conflict by a third party. Iran can threaten or attack US forces. Two years ago, the Turks shot down a Russian fighter jet that barely crossed into Turkish territory, mishaps like that can happen and end up in WW 111. This Syrian war is one of the most complex, complicated and inherently dangerous war. Sooner it ends, better for the world.
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"the Russians just want to siphon off as much oil as they can from Syria, and use it as a base and an ego booster, without clashing with anyone"
That completely misunderstands the Russians. Syria has very little oil, less than it consumes itself, while Russia is one of the world's major producers that is short of markets more than oil. There is no oil to siphon off, nor any need for Russia to do so.
Russia is not fixated on a base in Syria. That is projecting American ideas and priorities onto the Russians. They have always had a "base" in Syria, that they neglected, made no investment in, and allowed to silt up and rust. They've never used any bases in Syria except to do what they are now doing in Syria.
Ego boost? Russia got that from Crimea. They get none from Syria. The Russian public fears such a war.
So why is Russia there? Because the jihadi war is just a few hundred miles overland from their own restive Muslim regions in which they recently fought difficult wars. They are containing it there, so they don't have to contain it at home (again).
Such a total misread of a major player like Russia suggests this column is not entirely reliable. It projects American ideas as if others think like us. They don't.
The conclusion is also wrong. Syria is very unlikely to reach a power sharing accord like Lebanon did. Lebanon had a long history of power sharing among three major groups, while Syria has always been a top down very heavy handed dictatorship.
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Mark Thomason, thank you for correcting Friedman's statement about Russia and oil; it didn't pass my smell test, but I don't have the facts in my memory bank to refute it. You do. I hope you teach Government or International Relations or Modern History somewhere up there, for you really know a lot about that area, in fact, you know too much to be just another garden-variety commenter.
And Friedman's statement that Russia is "much weaker than they look" is so ambiguous and fuzzy that it's hard to know what to think. But it's just an opinion piece, not a guiding military strategy.
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Actually Mr Fiedman is substantially correct.
While "Russia" per se does not need Syrian oil per se, various Russian players do - in particular the organization behind Wagner PMC group, while directed from Kremlin, is substantially funded by private individuals and therefore would be highly motivated to capture a region projected to generate 1-2 million dollar per day in oil sales.
Russia is strongly interested in maintaining a foothold in Syria and it's bases in Tartus and Khmeimim are the anchors on which said foothold is resting. The neglect should be properly attributed to the period in Russian foreign policy when ME was a very low priority.
The effect of Crimea annexation has largely dissipated by now, and just as a shark must move forward Putin must generate shiny new achievements to burish it's foreign policy credentials - especially since domestic economy remains lucklaster to say the least. The Syrian intervention - both low cost and highly public - fits this requirement.
Lastly, the Syrian war is not a major contributor to militancy in Russia. Of much greater effect are smoldering insurgencies in Russia and it's near abroad - Dagestan, Uzbeikstan and to lesser extent Afghanistan. ISIS and Syrian Al Queda successors were minor players in Russian jihadi scene to being with, and remains so today. If Russia had stayed out of Syrian conflict, it would not have harmed it's security a single bit.
2
Terrific analysis of both the situation in Syria and the column.
2
Very optimistic. In 1914 also there were countries who did not want war, but felt they were forced into it. Some of them had for the previous few years been "risk averse".
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Mr. Friedman, of all people, should drop the fallacy of a Syrian 'civil war', since it's very well known that Syria arrived at this point only as a result of foreign intervention designed for regime change. Tens of thousands of foreign jihadist fighters, supported and paid for by the US and its allies (Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others) were imported into Syria to do the dirty deed of ousting a largely secular, western educated Assad and replace him with what? Yet another hard core religious regime? The only solution in Syria is for all unwelcome, uninvited foreigners to leave, and write checks to rebuild Syria. They have no business being there, and from the start, never had a good deed in mind.
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Sorry to disabuse you but it really is a civil war- or, at least, it started off as one. During the Arab Spring Bashar-the-Butcher-Son-of-a-Butcher sent his goons to a number of Sunni-dominated towns and cities to quell non-violent demonstrations and they proceeded to do so in the most sanguinary ways possible. The U.S. did nothing and ISIS arrived from Iraq to fill the void. Things have only gotten worse since.
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And as long as we put neocons in elected offices instead of in jail, the destruction of many for the benefit of a handful will continue.
1
Stu -- It was a civil struggle for about a year. As it transitioned to war, it was no longer civil. It was outsiders who came in with money and guns and fighters to make it a war, and for their own purposes.
The initial civil violence used weapons seized from the Syrian Army, and that was not enough to support a real war for any serious period of time. It just kicked off the opportunity that was then exploited by outsiders.
At the same time, the civil action moved from secular students and their like to Sunni jihadi radicals and their like, a transition not just in people but in fundamental cause. The students went home, and many then left the country.
Those who remained often supported Assad, against the even worse alternatives. Secular Sunnis generally support Assad, and are part of his regular army and the base population which he governs. This is characterized by the secular Sunni merchant and middle class of the capital.
2
"It is a multidimensional battlefield that requires a quantum computer to sort out the myriad number of actors, shifting alliances and lines of conflict."
Meanwhile, our own Very Stable Genius concern of the week is that poor Rob Porter has a "Great Career". Talk about underpowered.
We so need an upgrade.
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I thought his son-in-law was going to solve the middle east, while finding a cure for cancer.
4
The worst part is that Hafez Assad the Syrian dictator, who is at the root of all this, is still in power.
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Hafaz al-Assad died on June 10, 2000. He is no longer on power but in the grave. He was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad. And he is still in power because Mr. Obama failed to make good re "red line" threats.
5
His son took over, but with the same supporting cast and the same ideas. His son was at first more mild and near ineffectual, which might have seemed moderate, but then events drove him to his most radical supporters.
His father would have been more cunning in all that has happened, and in practice more ruthless, though his ruthless might have been better judged for success at keeping power.
If it wasn't so tragic, it would be a Seinfeld episode.
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Proxy wars! I guess now that Africa is no longer "fun" the action shifts to the Middle East. After all the "superpowers" need to be meddling somewhere, otherwise no one would acknowledge their existence.
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You mean to say that these "superpowers" want to be present so that weapons they manufacture can be sold to peons willing to die for some idea.
That same rot happens in certain cities in the US with the blessing of the NRA but, in the Middle East and elsewhere, is where the true professionals arm dealers operate on much grander scales.
You probably could compare the death toll in a US city versus a Middle-East country and correlate the NRA profits with the arms merchants profits.
You probably could match that ratio by just dividing the cost of a jet-fighter with the cost of a ghost gun (I just learned about ghost guns today so I am trying to show off).
I wonder if sometime in the future a civilization will land on a planet in a solar system and repeatedly stumble on the remnants of devastated cities, a la Syria. If we are not careful that planet could be the one we are on right now.
4
Africa is still a lot of "fun." How to deal with the population explosion in Nigeria and other nations. Famine. Climate change. Boko Haram?
Of course other nations would acknowledge superpowers without their meddling. They have all the money. Or most of it. The eight richest sociopaths in the world, six of whom are Americans, have more wealth than the bottom half of the planets population. That will get your existence noticed every single time.
Turkey is focused on fighting the Kurds, is supporting certain rebel groups the US abhors -- though it is nominally allied with the US against ISIS, and remains neutral toward Assad in Damascus.
Russia is focused on supporting Assad, nominally fighting ISIS, bombing Sunni rebels, and, nominally, neutral toward the US.
The US is focused on fighting ISIS, supporting Kurds and other insurgent groups in their fight against Assad, and, nominally, neutral about Turkey's January invasion of the YPG's canton.
Hezbollah is focused fighting Sunni rebels opposed to Damascus, nominally neutral toward Russia, Turkey, and the US, and enduring repeated Israeli airstrikes.
Iran is focused on supporting its Hezbollah allies and funding Assad in his fight against Sunni rebels, openly hostile toward Israel, and nominally neutral toward Russia, Turkey, and the US.
Saudi Arabia is focused on supporting Sunni rebels fighting Damascas, ostensibly allied with the United States against ISIS, openly hostile toward Israel and Iran, and, nominally, neutral toward Russia and Turkey.
Sunni rebels receiving US support are actively fighting ISIS, Assad, and each other, most are nominally neutral toward Turkey (except for those receiving Turkish support to fight the SDF-YPG and, of course, the YPG, whose canton the Turks just invaded), and enduring repeated Russian airstrikes.
I'm starting to go cross-eyed, but its easy to see why the de-confliction lines are in jeopardy. Diplomacy is warranted!
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Not a bad summary, except that it's the rebels, dominated by ex-al-Q'aida, who are fighting ISIS nominally, with the more extreme rebels going back and forth between ISIS and HTS, the former al Q'aida franchise. If you actually follow the complex military details, it's been mostly the Syrian regime and their foreign supporters cleaning out ISIS strongholds, not YPG and definitely not the Sunni rebels, their blood brothers. ISIS originated as a split from what is now called HTS, the main Syrian rebel organization, after all. Of course, both the rebels and the Syrian government are quite eager to take advantage of any blows ISIS inflicts on what they consider their real enemies, each other.
3
A correction. ISIS did not originate in Syria. ISIS was conceived and created in US prison Camp Bucca, in Iraq by Sunni officers from Saddam Hussein's disbanded army. Nine of the top commanders in ISIS were all Iraqi officers. They then spread their activities into Syria, when chaos broke out there, after the Arab Spring.
2
Thank you, sir!
Finally, it is all clear to me - now I understand who is fighting who in Syria and for what. Friedman certainly make it as clear.
1
Sounds like it's evolved into a circular firing squad by proxy. It won't be long before Trump starts taking credit for it.
9
There may come a time that no one will want to travel alone to the Israel. Thinking that they may not see the light of day, again. Just like going off to war because of the American Troops and Vietnamese Civilian deaths all in one place like Vietnam War in the 1960's. America was a lot safer back then than now after 9/11. Fighting wars at home not so pretty a picture.
The millions killed in the Vietnam War was not so pretty either, but as long as we're safe, right?
Today or in the 1960's? Vietnam is not the United States. Millions? Not so sure about your comment.
Tom, as usual you are letting Israel off easy. They have been bombing targets inside Syria and don’t even deny it. They are more provocative than provoked, it’s a dangerous game they are playing.
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That's right. The hate for Israel by the Left is so hot that they ignore Russia's and Iran's provocations. THey prefer the dictatorships of the Middle '
East to Israel democracy albeit imperfect.
5
The danger is in not retaliating; more Israeli's would be murdered. Peace would come if their enemies disarmed.
2
Tom Friedman is not letting Israel off easy. Strategically, Israel’s bombing inside Syria is logical. They have bombed weapons convoys that supplied Hezbollah, as well as a missile and chemical weapons factory, in addition to the control center of the recent Iranian drone. Israel has made it clear that they will not allow Iran to gain a strong foothold in Syria, on their border, and will prevent Iran from arming Hezbollah with newer technology missiles. Israel has also made this point in a recent meeting between Netanyahu and Putin.
Iran is the one who is playing a dangerous game and acting as a provocateur towards Israel, while using the Syrian conflict for cover. Iran has been quite clear about their intentions for Israel’s future. Should Israel do nothing instead, until they are attacked?
1
Nightmare fuel!
1