"We’re Already Seeing a Preview of the Mess That..." Topic

… Will Follow ISIS's Defeat in Syria.

"Turkish-backed rebels fought with U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters north of Aleppo on Monday. It's not an isolated incident—there has been sporadic fighting between the two groups for months—and the violence feels like a preview of the next phase of the war in Syria.

Since the outbreak of the war, Syrian Kurds—long marginalized and discriminated against under Bashar al-Assad's government—have carved out a semi-autonomous region in Northern Syria. The main Kurdish armed group, known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, has also emerged as the main and most effective U.S. ally in the fight against ISIS. (Technically, the U.S. is working with the Syrian Democratic Forces—an umbrella group that includes both Arab and Kurdish forces—but the YPG is widely acknowledged as the dominant partner in that arrangement.)…"
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Amicalement
Armand

As soon as ISIS is out of the picture, all those groups will again be at each other's throats, and then Turkey will find a way to exploit that chaos to take large sections of territories for itself (in behalf of Syrian Turks, of course).

Dan

Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Yemen … who knew that removing a dictator could result in something even worse and more chaotic?

And for several years now, some people have come to think that Syria will turn out differently somehow, despite having more factions than all the other examples combined.

Dan

Ethnically, "Syria" is a crossroads of many separate groups, and has been for as long as history can show. It's like a bridge between lower Asia and the Levant. Anciently, every army which passed on its way to Egypt or Mesopotamia passed through Syria, and nothing in that regard has changed. The resulting "melting pot" has laid conflicting claims to the territory. My focus is the Crusades. And during that roughly two centuries, you added Europeans to the mix of Armenians, Kurds, Arabs, Turks and a mixture of Semitic peoples, each one warring cousins to the others. Religion just makes it that much messier.

And so!, I return to my agenda, if I were in charge of policy for Syria and the Mideast at large: let them have "cake". They don't share it well and never have But they can eat it together. "We" will stand a long distance off and watch for any future incidents of them not remaining in their own yard. If they come out we slap them back to where they belong. This is something that every one of them understands: ultimatums from a position of power. It is a policy in a foreign language to "progressives", who have zero business being in the military. A progressive in the military is like handing national defense to an anger management teacher whose only skill set is talk, talk, talk. To them, "talk" will solve all problems in the world. Meanwhile some of the people they are talking to are killing other people while pretending to listen…….

Yeah, it's not much of a melting pot when you can still see all the ingredients separately, not melting, blending, or becoming part of each other.

Dan
PS. It's barely even a mosaic, now that the lead (Assad) is being scraped off little by little. It's becoming just a pile of scrap glass, but with each piece trying to recapture some past glory and trying to destroy all the other pieces in the pile:

I also advocate a policy of containment. To say more would only get me into the DH.

are we sure than a post ISIS Syria will still be against Kurds?…Assad it's a very balanced and brilliant leader and, despite all the rubish that we read, have the inteligence and the tradition of respecting minorities and human rights..like he did and still does by saving all the Crhistian minorities…maybe a post ISIS Syria…with the western allies abbandoning the last terrorists disguised as "Syrian Democratic Forces" and the Russia monitoring on the spot an acceptable degree of peace could be reached..

Dude…! (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Yemen … who knew that removing a dictator could result in something even worse and more chaotic?

And for several years now, some people have come to think that Syria will turn out differently somehow, despite having more factions than all the other examples combined.

Bingo, we have a winner. And what did the USA get out of all this besides a loss of blood and treasure? Just say 'no' to the global interventionists.

Agreed! No more "nation-building" and no more toppling of dictators, just to see them replaced with intolerant fundamentalist regimes or see those countries end up torn apart by sectarian warfare and those looking to renew centuries' old ethnic feuds.

Dan

if I were in charge of policy for Syria and the Mideast at large: let them have "cake". They don't share it well and never have But they can eat it together. "We" will stand a long distance off and watch for any future incidents of them not remaining in their own yard. If they come out we slap them back to where they belong.

The Brits basically tried that back in the day with the Northwest Frontier (what we call Pakistan today). But pretty much every summer, they had a punitive expedition marching through the area slapping the bandits back to where they belonged.

So I'm not sure it'd be an improvement over our current situation.