Syria

[Sarmatian]

Where is Lemur with his blame Obama .gif? Declaring our support for the rebels was quite possibly his worst foreign policy decision as of yet, a completely unprompted blunder that is only being compounded by his lack of willingness to follow through on it. I cannot imagine why he would choose to come out so publicly and subject the US to such a difficult and unnecessary test of our national prestige versus China/Russia. This is a chosen battle, not one thrust on us, and our chosen team is being led and manned primarily by the same Muslim fundamentalists we've spent billions fighting for over a decade. And we haven't even begun to fully understand how this decision will play out in the greater Sunni-Shia conflict. Where once we had an enemy in Sunni Islamists, now we have invited and justified Shia retaliation by essentially choosing sides in a conflict that has been ongoing far longer than the US has been in existence among a group of peoples with a very long memory and a propensity to hold centuries-old grudges. It boggles the mind.

I'm torn on Syria. Assad, a stable, secular, and largely benevolent authoritarian, is clearly the preferable choice in this conflict. And yet, now that we've thrown our lot in with al-Nusra, they had better win the damned thing. The only thing worse than throwing our lot in with the Sunni Islamists is throwing our lot in and then losing, and yet Obama seems unable or unwilling to follow through on his promises of support. Every city, town, and neighborhood Assad's forces retake is a new and enduring display of US weakness in the region and on the world stage.

I think calling Assad benevolent is pushing it quite a bit, and he obviously isn't stable. He is secular, though, that I agree with, and that is a priority of mine when assessing Middle Eastern politicians.

Why did US support the rebels is a good question. Rebels aren't really better than him in any was. They also won't be able set up a stable government, they're far from benevolent and they aren't secular, so they're the worse option in my book.

The only reason I can think of is that Assad is a "Russian man", but that's Cold War reasoning that shouldn't have that much effect on US foreign policy now.