Lite reflektioner runt eländet i Syrien är alltid nyttigt att ta till sig. Här är en känd Twittrare som har god inblick i bakgrunden till konflikten:
EHSANI2
@EHSANI22
EHSANI2
@EHSANI22
Thread on #Syria Here 👇https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1233416218541002754.html
Will Be Based on Extensive Conversations with Former Administration Official
I Will offer 6 broad counter arguments to the ...
Countless number of observers / reporters / Think Tankers
who have long argued along same line as @shadihamid below
Shadi Hamid
✔
@shadihamid
1. What we are witnessing in Idlib is "one of the worst humanitarian emergencies" of the 9-year Syrian civil war. More than 3 years after the end of President Obama's tenure, Syrians are still paying dearly for his administration's inaction and indifference
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1233145364464775191.html
2-Let’s start with the obvious
First duty of a sovereign is to his people. In this case, that would be the American not the Syrian people, who decided to rise against their leader
Americans didn’t enable Ba'ath authoritarianism
#Syria was on the other side in the Cold War
3-Second, although it is staggeringly obvious that US military power exceeded that of #Syrianarmy
Issue for the U.S was whether intervention would protect or advance a strategic interest
#Syria, however, lay well outside the boundaries of US interest
4- Since #Syria lay well outside the boundaries of US interest
Any outlay of blood and treasure for the purpose of influencing the outcome of a civil war in Syria would not be matched by any benefit
Syria was simply not perceived in Washington as vital to US interest
5-Third, obviously US had capability to declare & enforce a no fly zone
But equally obvious is that by entering war as combatant on rebels’ side, U.S Would have taken ownership of somebody else's civil war
Swiftly raising Petraeus's , "tell me how this ends?" Famous question
6-Fourth, the US had just obligated $4-6 trillion and lost thousands of lives doing just this sort of thing in #Iraq and #Afghanistan
Resulting, in the case of Iraq in a reversal of US strategic interest in the region,and in Afghanistan no result at all
7-And, #Iraq, in particular, paid a heavy price for the two US invasions & decade of sanctions levied on that country in the 1990s.
So notion that the US would wade into #Syria ‘s civil War with better results is one only for those willing to live in a parallel universe
8-Fifth, despite all the above factor,
Let’s not forget that
The Obama administration did give liberal intervention a go in #Libya
And we all know how that turned out
It was, as it were, the deception that proved the rule
9-Sixth, the Obama administration, at least according to reporting in the NYT, WP, WSJ
instituted the largest secret operation in modern times -- reportedly $1 billion/year -- to arm and train Syrian rebels with the objective of weakening the Assad “regime”
10- This effort to weaken the Assad “regime” and incentivize it to negotiate with the rebels had two principal effects:
It empowered the radical wing of the armed opposition;
And
Triggered Russian intervention on the regime's behalf
11- Let us look at the Europeans
According to @shadihamid , one of the ways that Obama failed strategically was not to have protected the interests of European allies who were swamped by Syrian refugees
But, here is what Europeans had ==>
12- Let’s not forget
The #UK has 15 deployable combat brigades
#France has an expeditionary military force
#Germany has troops serving in far flung locations such as Afghanistan
Together, they had the combat power to seriously damage if not topple the Assad “regime”
13- European countries not only had the combat power to seriously damage if not topple the Assad “regime”, but they also had wealth of colonial experience in the Middle East to apply to the task of bringing order to a post conflict #Syria
Yet they did virtually nothing
Why? >
14-European nations didn’t nothing
Because they fully understood that military intervention would have entailed costs that exceeded by far the challenge of a migrant surge from the Levant or #Turkey
15-Given the inaction by European capital
It is therefore unclear why the US should have undertaken these enormous costs to relierve allies of a burden that they themselves didn't perceive as necessitating military intervention in #Syria
16-Lastly, any political scientist will tell you that
The decision to fight for a cause that is not in the nation's strategic interest -- but rather out of a humanitarian impulse -- is fundamentally a political decision
17- In cases where strategic stakes are perceived to be small, timeframe for victory is long $ the costs are high
Political support for action tends to fade pretty fast, leaving administrations in the awkward position of trying to get out of a war under difficult circumstances
18-In truth, Obama’s only mistake may have been to take sides at all
Pressure to “do something” from allies was intense
The action that did follow weakened the state and created the very void that radical jihadists were more than happy to fill
19-Let’s remember
#Idlib was taken in early 2015 by a group led by #Nusra #AlQaeda
It was called The Army of Conquest at the time
Operation to take the province was started with two fighters from Jund al-Aqsa who blew themselves up near #SyrianArmy checkpoint
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Senast redigerad av arbetet 2020-02-29 kl. 09:21.
Senast redigerad av arbetet 2020-02-29 kl. 09:21.
