"US in Syria 2018 - how likely?" Topic

My favorite instructional tool for dealing with that area is Runciman's History of the Crusades.
Open any book at random.
The last time I tried that exercise, I found three Christian factions, not counting Armenians or Byzantine. Then there were 3 flavors of Turk, a Jewish state somehow clinging on, two Shiite factions at odds with each other, and one or two Sunni regimes not yet mentioned. Oh yes. Druze. Are they Yazidis? And of course Kurds.
It made no sense then, it makes none now.

But never fear! Every American president since Rutherford Hayes has picked a faction to back, sometimes more than one who were at odds with each other.

I remember reading a Persian quip once. "When the Shah goes mad, he invaded Dagestan."

Why are we there? Cynics in 2002 said it was to seize oil. How did that work out?
But we are now energy independent, thanks to fracking, in essence thumbing our nose at OPEC. So what are our actual concerns there? Keeping the Czar from getting a warm water port? Let Disraeli and Gladstone worry about that.
I'm done wasting American lives and treasure there.

Having said that, I would say that the odds are about even.

He whose name must be mentioned won't need a "Wag the Dog" scenario. Reasons to get involved will always miraculously pop up.

75th Ranger Regiment has been there for some time, "deconflicting" the Kurds and the Turks. Mostly preventing them from killing each other.

@Queen Catherine: Yeah, that sounds like the wedge for expansion. But I sure as hell hope not.

I'm all for letting the lunatics kill each other, with the occasional smackdown administered when they expand their killing outside their sandbox.

I also favor using Runciman. One of the miscellaneous factoids that I remember from reading it is that almost every truce or coalition (i.e., what our diplomats call "permanent" solution today) collapsed within 15 years, most within 10 years.

Rick

Runciman is almost like a "Distant Mirror" (a la Tuchman). The Mideast then is essentially as the Mideast now.

What that means is that we should stay far away from involvement. Too late for that! We can always pull out, of course, with the resulting flack aimed at the POTUS. That is probably the single reason why the current POTUS (whenever) does not simply decamp from existing wars when he takes office: fear of the press.

If we stay in Syria and increase the presence there, it will be to finish the job. The Russians won't stop us. Once the job is finished, whatever that means, we will leave a strong military presence in Syria or close by.

now that the Russia had entered the game…and, contrary to US and others , have clear ideas about who are the good boys and who are the bad ones…US presence with their shy support to the supposed to be syrian patriots which in fact are a proxy of ISIS..has become totaly useless if not obstructive for those who are making the job..Russia

No need for westerners to go there.

I've been advocating for a "line in the sand" policy vis-a-vis any foreign threats for years. Interventionist policy should be as simple as "a clear and present danger". Beyond that is imperialism or to use the euphemism, "nation building".