[andyt]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

The problem with not reading the article though is you become experts in something that was never said.

For example Krauthammer said nothing about Kurd's chasing "ISIS all over traditional Sunni territory".

This was the thesis of the OP article.

"It’s time for a new strategy in Iraq and Syria. It begins by admitting that the old borders are gone, that a unified Syria or Iraq will never be reconstituted, that the Sykes-Picot map is defunct.
We may not want to enunciate that policy officially. After all, it does contradict the principle that colonial borders be maintained no matter how insanely drawn, the alternative being almost universally worse. Nonetheless, in Mesopotamia, balkanization is the only way to go."

He's suggesting backing friendlies to create their own geographical power bases. He mentions Sunni militias that were friendly with the American regime, and the Free Syrian Army’s Southern Front, backed by and trained in Jordan.

The Sunni militias are now joined with ISIS. That's how ISIS was able to grab so much territory without resistance. They got fucked over by the US supported Shia govt in Baghdad, so good luck with that theory. You'd have to give those militias something very solid for them to want to play along, doubt if Baghdad would want to co-operate with that.

I say let ISIS form a Sunni state, which it effectively already has. then you can attack them face on like any other nation. Help the Kurds and Baghdad contain them until it's time to hit ISIStan. Then maybe you can find friendly Sunnis to form the new govt of whatever it's called.


As for the Free Syrian Army, fuggetaboudit. Seems like a choice between propping up Assad or letting the whole deal fall completely apart.

Actually the whole region is just an internecine mess, probably best to just contain it as best as possible and let those people exhaust themselves in slaughter, then see what's left over to work with.

[andyt]

What we have to remember is that the people in charge aren't stupid. Doesn't matter right or left, they have far more information, far more elements to consider than we do. Anybody who puts forth some simple plan for fixing the region might be a real genius, but probably is just being a real idiot.

[Thanos]

Yeah, Balkanization is terrific until someone dumb enough comes along and gets ensnared in it as deeply as they have in every other quagmire that's ever existed, ranging from Serbia to Vietnam to Iraq. Too bad the last ten-odd years consisted of propping up a Potemkin village of a central government in Baghdad with the promise that creating a unified Iraqi state was as easy as sunshine and lollipops. Wrong! Balkanization is the key to final victory! Eastasia is not the enemy! Oceania is!

With this record of near-constant ideological failure the only safe bet now is to automatically assuming that anyone who keeps making suggestions is either merely incompetent, churning out assembly-line shit merely as a job because they're getting paid a lot of money per-word for their 'expert' advice, or just outright lying. At what point do the people who still have a few intact brain cells to rub together quit listening any more to the idiots who keep pushing this crap?

[N_Fiddledog]

Yeah, I don't seem to be able to explain what was in the article clearly and you seem to be missing key facts. For example the Free Syrian Army, is not Assad's army. They're defectors.

I think if you guys are going to argue with it, you're going to have to read it. Here ya go.





"There is a military strategy against Islamic State - this is it

By Charles Krauthammer



Forget supporting Baghdad and training its army; we must provide massive assistance to our real allies who can win on the battlefield




It’s time for a new strategy in Iraq and Syria. It begins by admitting that the old borders are gone, that a unified Syria or Iraq will never be reconstituted, that the Sykes-Picot map is defunct.

We may not want to enunciate that policy officially. After all, it does contradict the principle that colonial borders be maintained no matter how insanely drawn, the alternative being almost universally worse. Nonetheless, in Mesopotamia, balkanization is the only way to go.

Because it has already happened and will not be reversed. In Iraq, for example, we are reaping one disaster after another by pretending that the Baghdad government -- deeply sectarian, divisive and beholden to Iran -- should be the center of our policy and the conduit for all military aid.

Look at Fallujah, Mosul, Ramadi. The Iraqi army is a farce. It sees the enemy and flees, leaving its weapons behind. “The ISF was not driven out of Ramadi. They drove out of Ramadi,” said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Our own secretary of defense admitted that the “the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight.”

We can train them forever. The problem is one of will. They don’t want to fight. And why should they? They are led by commanders who are corrupt, sectarian and incompetent.

What to do? Redirect our efforts to friendly forces deeply committed to the fight, beginning with the Kurds, who have the will, the skill and have demonstrated considerable success. This year alone, they have taken back more than 500 Christian and Kurdish towns from the Islamic State. Unlike the Iraqi army, however, they are starved for weapons because, absurdly, we send them through Baghdad, which sends along only a trickle.

This week, more Kurdish success. With U.S. air support, Syrian Kurds captured the strategic town of Tal Abyad from the Islamic State. Which is important for two reasons. Tal Abyad controls the road connecting the terror group’s capital of Raqqa to Turkey, from which it receives fighters, weapons and supplies. Tal Abyad is “a lung through which [the Islamic State] breathed and connected to the outside world,” said Kurdish commander Haqi Kobane.

Moreover, Tal Abyad helps link isolated Kurdish areas in the Syrian north into a contiguous territory, like Iraqi Kurdistan. Which suggests that this territory could function as precisely the kind of long-advocated Syrian “safe zone” from which to operate against both the Islamic State and the Bashar al-Assad regime.

More good news comes from another battle line. Last week, the Free Syrian Army’s Southern Front, backed by and trained in Jordan, drove the Syrian government out of its last major base in eastern Daraa province, less than 60 miles from Damascus.

These successes suggest a new U.S. strategy. Abandon our anachronistic fealty to the central Iraqi government (now largely under Iran’s sway anyway) and begin supplying the Iraqi Kurds in a direct, 24-hour Berlin-style airlift. And in Syria, intensify our training, equipping and air support for the now-developing Kurdish safe zone. Similarly, through Jordan, for the FSA Southern Front.

In theory, we should be giving similar direct aid to friendly Sunni tribesmen in Iraq whose Anbar Awakening, brilliantly joined by Gen. David Petraeus’ surge, utterly defeated the Islamic State progenitor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, in 2006-07. The problem is, having been abandoned by us once, when Obama liquidated our presence in 2011, why should the Sunnis ever trust us again?

As for the Iraqi army, we can go through the motions, but the best we can hope for is wobbly containment, ultimately guaranteed by Iranian proxies. Not a happy prospect, but the best that we can do having forfeited our dominant position in Iraq in 2011.

At the time, Iraq was a functioning state. That state is now gone. We should not expend treasure or risk blood trying to resurrect it. Our objective right now is to defeat the Islamic State and to ensure the fall of the Assad regime. That does not require an American invasion. It does require recognizing reality and massively supporting our few genuine allies on the ground.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter testified that we won’t quite meet our objective of training 24,000 Iraqi troops by this fall. Why? A recruitment problem. Iraqis don’t seem to want to join. We are 17,000 short.

It’s a fool’s errand anyway. If we need to pretend to support the Baghdad government, fine. But our actual strategy should be to circumvent it and help our real allies carry the fight."

[Thanos]

One of the better questions of our time will be why anyone associated with PNAC still hasn't been exiled to St. Helena, much less why there's still so many out there that are still so willing to listen to anything they say.

[N_Fiddledog]

Thanos Thanos:

One of the better questions of our time will be why anyone associated with PNAC still hasn't been exiled to St. Helena, much less why there's still so many out there that are still so willing to listen to anything they say.

I had to do a little reading around to find out what was getting you so worked up.

I don't usually visit the deep end websites of leftist conspiracy theory, but for you I went there. Man...those guys are out there, I say that, and I've visited Info wars, so I know out there.

$1:

Charles Krauthammer's job is to continue PNAC's vision and get us to attack Iran on behalf of Israel, and let me also be clear to you conservatives - Charles Krauthammer is not for YOU, he's a FAKE conservative and would have more of our boys in the military die for Israel and would be PRAISING Obama if he attacks Iran:

Really? The Jews again? It never even occurred to me that Krauthammer might be Jewish, but yeah apparently he is. Oh oh, those Jews are trying to get the Americans to Nuke Iran again.

We know that cause...well cause Jews, right?

Oh, and the Jews needed a "Pearl Harbor" you see. That's why 9/11 was so convenient. * Hint, hint. *

You don't need a link.

Turn away. Go back to the light.

[Thanos]

If you automatically go to the assumption that anyone who wants to pursue more failed war in an unwinnable cause is some kind of lefty then you fail right there. I don't want more of our people to die for 'something' that turns out to mean absolutely nothing. What the hell do you want anyway?

[N_Fiddledog]

Thanos Thanos:

If you automatically go to the assumption that anyone who wants to pursue more failed war in an unwinnable cause is some kind of lefty then you fail right there. I don't want more of our people to die for 'something' that turns out to mean absolutely nothing. What the hell do you want anyway?

No, I was being kind by saying "Left". The truth is in order to discover the full supposed horror of Pullitzer prize winning journalist Charles Krauthammer's tenuous connection to the PNAC I had to go deep into the Progosphere.

And it wasn't so much about the peace as it was about the hate, when I finally hit paydirt and discovered what was so supposed to be so terrifying.

[Thanos]

I don't know what to say if your first impulse was to look up the 'lefty' response. I was hoping more for the human response, where we don't have to do anymore Highway Of Heroes moments or late-night flights into Andrews AFB when no cameras will be around to capture the flag-covered coffins coming off of the C-17's and Herc's.

That is my sole interest in all of this, that no more of our people end up dying for this utter nonsense. I'm tired of all the dog-and-child-greeting videos on YouTube that sidetrack this idiocy into mere hominess instead of the think-tank generated obscenity that it really is.

[N_Fiddledog]

No that's cool. If you're finished with the attempts at defaming the journalist we can move on.

So basically this is about a viable military strategy to use against ISIS.

Krauthammer suggests letting the sick dog that was represented by the manufactured borders of what was Iraq die. As an alternative he suggests supporting the power centers of the dispute that are friendly to the West.

You appear to be suggesting no, just walk away from the whole mess.

I prefer Krauthammer's strategy. In general the strategy of dealing with bullies by walking away sounds good, but it doesn't work in reality.

Better to think of a viable offense, to deter aggression. Obliterating the enemy works, but failing that Krauthammer's strategy might be a good place to start.

[Thanos]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

No that's cool. If you're finished with the attempts at defaming the journalist we can move on.

He's not a journalist. He's a think-tank armchair general

$1:

So basically this is about a viable military strategy to use against ISIS.

There isn't one, anymore than there's a strategy against punching water in a swimming pool.

$1:

Krauthammer suggests letting the sick dog that was represented by the manufactured borders of what was Iraq die. As an alternative he suggests supporting the power centers of the dispute that are friendly to the West.

And how many years did these types support the 'strong central Iraqi government' as the solution to everything. And none of them are 'friendly to the West'. There's only a gradient of lethal vs less lethal.

$1:

You appear to be suggesting no, just walk away from the whole mess.

There is no solution. All words are wind.

$1:

I prefer Krauthammer's strategy. In general the strategy of dealing with bullies by walking away sounds good, but it doesn't work in reality.

Schoolyard analogies are one of the many marks of a failed mind and a failed ideology.

$1:

Better to think of a viable offense, to deter aggression. Obliterating the enemy works, but failing that Krauthammer's strategy might be a good place to start.

Shock & Awe 3.0. No more successful than the previous versions.

[Jabberwalker]

Thanos Thanos:

It's the same damn thing over and over again. All that ever changes is the locations.

We are a deeply flawed species, probably one with a short tenure.

[2Cdo]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Thanos Thanos:

It's the same damn thing over and over again. All that ever changes is the locations.

We are a deeply flawed species, probably one with a short tenure.

I agree. Can't see use having a 150,000,000 year long run like the dinosaurs.

We'll barely make a fraction of that.

[andyt]

Thanos and Fiddle are both behind the times. PNAC is now the Foreign Policy Initiative, with the same suspects running it, and Krauthammer on the board. So same shit, different pile.

[N_Fiddledog]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Thanos Thanos:

It's the same damn thing over and over again. All that ever changes is the locations.

We are a deeply flawed species, probably one with a short tenure.

As a species perhaps, but if our solution as a society is "there is no solution, so let's open the doors and wait to see what the barbarians at the gates will do" our destruction as a society is insured.