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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31541 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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So apparently Syria is collapsing. Jihadists are near the capital and Assad is nowhere to be found. It looks to be so over for the Assad region.

Since this is the culture war thread, here's what Donald Trump had to say on X.

Opposition fighters in Syria, in an unprecedented move, have totally taken over numerous cities, in a highly coordinated offensive, and are now on the outskirts of Damascus, obviously preparing to make a very big move toward taking out Assad. Russia, because they are so tied up in Ukraine, and with the loss there of over 600,000 soldiers, seems incapable of stopping this literal march through Syria, a country they have protected for years. This is where former President Obama refused to honor his commitment of protecting the RED LINE IN THE SAND, and all hell broke out, with Russia stepping in. But now they are, like possibly Assad himself, being forced out, and it may actually be the best thing that can happen to them. There was never much of a benefit in Syria for Russia, other than to make Obama look really stupid. In any event, Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!

Cicero he ain't but I'm glad that this viewpoint represents the new foreign policy thinking. The U.S. doesn't need to have a finger in every pie. The international reputation of the United States was never higher than before WWII when we were mostly an isolationist country. In the decades since, we've spent trillions on our foreign misadventures and have only enmity to show for it. The Middle East is not "strategically important" anymore either, and we don't need to "contain" Russia or Iran in that area. Most countries are neither our friends nor our enemies so we should just stay out of their affairs.

Marco Rubio who is the new foreign policy minister doesn't really represent something new.

If you look at Trump's appointments and their rhetoric it is more like he is putting a MAGA lipstick on the same old neocon zionist policy. I don't see any indication that Trump's agenda will be to abandon the middle east.

Also, Trump's rhetoric on Syria have been quite contradictory. Both talking about the red line and in the past blaming Obama for the rebels. The USA, turkey and Israel supported and are to blame for the civil war in Syria. The Turks did it to gain mercenary forces, to fight the Kurds and to gain more land. The Israelis did it to weaken Iran allies and to gain more land. There were also other parties involved like Quatar which also helped the rebels and coincently the Qatar Turkey pipeline that Assad rejected would pass through Syria.

So why is the USA doing regime change in the middle east? It is mainly in service of expanding the power and influence of Israel and maybe some part of it has to do with weakening Russia and possible friendly countries. At least with Syria. There has definitely been a march on institutions of Zionists and pro Israel extremists and the Jewish lobby which includes both donors and organizations is powerful and American politicians are even transparently ridiculously servile to Israel in their over the top rhetoric. In a manner that exceeds say the Reagan administration under which Netanyahou also thought the Israel lobby was powerful.

Trump is just rhetorically all over the place, but it seems that for the most part he aligns with the neocon agenda even if sometimes his rhetoric was against them when he criticized them. Now, I would prefer he wouldn't align with the neocons but I have to call it as I see it.

Suffice to say letting the Jihadis loose, allowing Erdogan to expand his empire, and use mercenaries which he also used on Armenia and might also use against other countries in the future, and all of Israel's conduct, new land grabs, and the whole Syria, Libya and Iraq policy, cannot at all be defended from an ethical point of view. Even from a sheer benefit point of view for the USA, it is significantly questionable. But American + others aligning with it involvement in the middle east has been one of the biggest crimes in the 21st century so far. What has transpired has destroyed very large number of lives, leads to significant reduction of Christian communities, has costed enormous amount of money and played its role in large migration waves that have been destructive to european countries.

Israel is invading Syria through the Golan heights "to establish a buffer zone", so far unopposed (?).

THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!

Says the president-elect of a country whose air-force has been flying air missions in Syria in support of groups on its own terror list.

As in, you can't claim bombing missions against Syrian Arab Army and its allies while it's fighting Al-Qaeda remnants are anything else but actually air support for those terror groups, nasty resistance fighters, whatever. Flying CAS for headchoppers.

In the decades since, we've spent trillions on our foreign misadventures and have only enmity to show for it.

I have traveled to a lot of places across the globe and the overwhelming sentiment I've received is "America fuck yeah". Whatever enmity there is seems largely restricted to either cultural/political (relative-)elites and some parts of the Arab world over Israel.

Moreover, the meme of widespread animosity against America is the indirect product of anti-American cultural project. The US remains one of the most sought after places to immigrate.

I do actually want to agree that from a practical perspective many of these misadventures were totally useless! But that's just on a geopolitical plane. We spent trillions (and our own soldier's blood) for nothing. But don't get sucked into the "America bad hurf" meme on the side.

US is prosperous, prosperity is desirable, hardly a reason to pat yourself on the back. If you blur the distinction between the country and the empire, of course the enmity will be diluted.

Prosperity is downstream of what I'm talking about here.

Could you elaborate on what you are talking about?

US prosperity is downstream from the cultural and social mores that much of the world widely admires.

That’s one hypothesis. The other, less flattering hypothesis, is that US prosperity is downstream of your ancestors conquering a massive continent full of natural resources, plus being the one left standing when your rivals annihilated each other in two world wars.

Either is possible, but it seems wise to beware the flattering option precisely because it’s more seductive.

In particular, it leads to the conclusion that foreigners and immigrants admire you for your culture and wish to uphold it. Europe fell for the same trap - people don’t come to Britain because they admire British Values, they come because they want a share of Britain’s prosperity relative to the third world.

Or perhaps you should beware the option that flatters your ideological commitments. It's equally as convenient/inconvenient to admit that America really does do things well, it just depends where you're standing.

It's very convenient for Americans to pretend that we're successful because of our unique national ideals and character. And it's very convenient for Europeans to pretend that it's all just a historical accident.

Fair, but at least I have been an economic liberal. My current ideological commitments come in large part from observing that economic liberalism != prosperity. At best, it’s a prerequisite.

And going back to the original point, it’s important to realise that most pro-Americans don’t believe it. I’ve known some immigrants who were very pro free market but most are not. They want American power and prosperity not American values. Nobody gave a damn about British values once we lost the empire. Likewise people only started treating China and Japan with respect when they became rich.

It’s kinda both though. Just being the owner of land with resources doesn’t make you a rich country. And being on land that doesn’t have those resources doesn’t make you poor. Russia has a lot of oil and mineral wealth. Nobody wants to live there. Hong Kong and Taiwan are both pretty small countries, but they’re wealthy. Thus I submit to you that America is not successful just because of our land. A good bit of our success is due to our people and the values they hold. Things like productivity and meritocracy, traditional morality, innovation and adoption of technology, freedom from government interference.

It also probably doesn't help that Russia is really fucking cold.

nobody wants to live there.

Wrong, I'd like to live in both Moscow or Sankt Petersburg, and probably wouldn't mind many other places.

Natural resources are not a primary or even secondary predictor of national production. This is a silly leftist meme.

Per OEC, the US's largest commodity export sector is "mineral resources", almost entirely in energy (oil, coal, etc.). The US is underperforming as a primary producer for regulatory reasons, but there isn't much under the ground that can't be found in North America.

I don't see how natural resources can be as unimportant as you're claiming. You need something to work with in order for your nation to produce shit. That means either you need the materials yourself, or some other resource you can trade to those who do have the materials. Of course natural resources can't be the only factor, history shows that sometimes people with more resources wind up losing. But to say it isn't an important factor at all ("not a primary or even secondary predictor") seems like it's going too far in the other direction.

National resources aren't the most important thing but they're certainly important. It doesn't hurt that Saudi Arabia has a gazillion barrels of crude. Back in the 1930s they were almost totally irrelevant, oil put them on the map. Nor is the US disadvantaged by having enormous reserves of oil, coal, iron and fertile soil.

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That’s clearly part of it but America also has an entrepreneurial spirit that Europe does not. By 1990, Europe had almost caught up to the United States. But since then the US has grown and grown while Europe has stagnated. That has nothing to do with WWII and everything to do with Europe’s self destructive socialist tendencies.

since then the US has grown and grown while Europe has stagnated

I'm perfectly willing to blame at least half of that stagnation on US foreign policy specifically. Not just because the American defense umbrella allows for shambolic spending on social concerns instead of industrial and research concerns, but primarily because they engaged in very specific direct and indirect actions to prevent European economic activity outpacing that of the USA. And they did so in conjunction with the USSR, ironically enough.

I don't blame the Americans for wanting to stay on top, nor am I deluded enough to think that Europeans are blameless, but the idea that Europe's incapable of embracing entrepreneurship is silly given that it was the literal birthplace of the industrial revolution.

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Wholly willing to believe that culture has an effect, or that culture and prosperity can interact in positive or negative loops.

But I think the point still stands that people are willing to imitate American culture for precisely as long as they think it will make them rich, and that the ‘liberalism reliably causes prosperity’ thesis is not as strong as people sometimes make it out to be.

On a separate point, Britain still has a pretty entrepreneurial culture - we make lots of startups. But almost all of them go to the USA. Partly because of regulation, but also because that’s where all the investor funding is. Prosperity begets prosperity. Poverty begets cautiousness.

On a separate, separate note I think Europe’s 1990s prosperity was a dead cat bounce, caused by opening the country up to wild financialism and selling off everything to wealthy foreign buyers. Not all of it - beating socialism and the unions clearly had an effect. But not nearly enough to become America.

Canada and Mexico have many of those same advantages but are still less prosperous than the US.

Maybe. My impression is that Canada is colder, more impassable and has less resources than its more prosperous cousin, but is still reasonably ok. And that Mexico is largely arid and not over blessed with natural resources. Someone with more geographic knowledge is welcome to jump in.

But look at Britain or Western Europe. You can say that they fell into disrepair as they became less liberal, or you could say that people were less willing to tolerate a liberal culture as they became less prosperous.

The sentiment among Christian Syrians when I visited a decade ago was "we're worried America will get in solved and make things even worse." They seem to have been more correct than not.

Thank you, USA.

Based.

Is it realistic to hope that this can/will open a path to the repatriation of Syrian refugees/“refugees” currently in Europe? Like presumably a great many Syrians who fled the country did so because they were either direct opponents of the Assad regime or were otherwise threatened by Assad’s rule specifically. With a rebel Sunni-led government transitioning into power, will this be seen as plausibly obviating those asylees’ original claims?

There's a mention within the webpage for this study (the study itself does not give definite total numbers) saying that 'As of December 2022, approximately five million Iraqi nationals have returned from abroad', though that may include refugees from near abroad (other Middle Eastern countries, that is), and some number of them have probably emigrated again.

Turkish government has immediately made announcements to the effect but I have dim hopes of even Syrians in Turkey leaving. The ones in Europe look basically impossible without a very radical shift

It would be politically interesting to show that look, even if their home country stabilizes, these “refugees” will never ever leave once they are here

I think we always knew that. The anti- side knew that they would become a permanent welfare underclass, and the pro-side thought they would become vibrant and diverse 'new-Europeans'.

It's so insane. It's like the European elites looked at all the problems America has with its black underclass and thought to themselves "I gotta get one of those".

Blame Disney. Making Gypsies hot exotic innocents who deserve pity made all criticism of domestic underclasses impossible to maintain without cries of 'racism', a charge that magnified its weight from the 1960s till now. Guy Ritchie making Travellers hot probably didn't help either.

On a more serious note, the Europeans successfully kicking Irish Travellers and Gypsies out of cultural capitals and into third rate cities (Marseille always had a reputation and right now Malmo is its own meme) probably had a great deal to do with the acceptability of a postracial European polity. Out of sight, out of mind. Some places being perennial shitholes regardless of foreigner presence probably contributed greatly to the presumption that shitheads are race-agnostic, blinding polite society to the racialized nature of shitheads till it became too late.

implying [from a European perspective- they still think they're sovereign, how cute] American fifth-columnists haven't been planting those ideas in European elites for the past 80 years

Europeans are a conquered people (their massive civil wars in the first half of the 20th century saw to that) and naturally align themselves with Imperial aesthetics. Sure, there's the whole power dynamic divide and conquer thing, but that's downstream of there being no real European elite other than that which is legitimized by the Americans.

I think greentexting like that is kind of confusing and the same point could be made without it.

Uh, elites are largely unaware of the problems of the black underclass aside from poverty porn handwringing about the pernicious effects of racism on the community.

If they do not know the problems of the black underclass, then how do they know what to censor? Like the man inventing excuses for the dragon in his garage, they must have a model of black dysfunction hidden somewhere in their brains; otherwise, would not know which thoughts are dangerous. Hence "the woke are more correct than the mainstream"; when a progressive complains that coming down on crime will affect black people the hardest, it is because he realizes on some level that blacks are much more criminal than whites.

From 1984 by George Orwell:

Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word "doublethink" involved the use of doublethink.

Yeah, if they are aware of problems with blacks, european elites chalk them up to the legacy of slavery, american racism, lack of welfare, excessive police and carceral state – all mistakes they could never make. Their superiority complex is hilariously mirrored in american elites view of the european muslim and roma underclass – the europeans obviously don’t know how to integrate people, they don’t have the wonderful american civic tradition, they lack the welcoming culture and ritual turkey-killing, etc.

they don’t have the wonderful american civic tradition

But when they do have this tradition, they can be blamed because their tradition is more aggressive and assimilationist than the US, so maybe that's causing the backlash

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I have never met an American who had anything nice to say about gypsies if they knew what gypsies were. Ironically I've heard more eastern euros come to their defense than Americans.

American elites, or at least blue tribe elites, do seem to legitimately actually believe that Arabs could be integrated if Europeans were more welcoming. To be fair, there's also a huge contingent of Americans who believe 'what do you expect? Muslims are violent savages' and while there's not a ton of true elites in that category, it gets surprisingly close thereto.

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It's so insane. It's like the European elites looked at all the problems Americans have with its black underclass and thought to themselves "I gotta get one of those".

The American elites don't have to deal with the problems of a black underclass. On the other side in the ledger, empires as far back as the Babylonians realized that ethnically divided provinces were easier to rule.

On the other side in the ledger, empires as far back as the Babylonians realized that ethnically divided provinces were easier to rule.

I'd imagine that only applied to remote parts of the empire that are ethnically distinct from the heartland. Close to home, I'm pretty sure you'd rather your territory be ethnically unified to lower chances of rebellions/separatism.

Ethnic rebellion and separatism are rare. The Ottomans successfully played divide and rule for centuries.

The more members of the ruling ethnicity are around, the more credible competitors there are.

This is the problem a lot of ethnonationalist philosophy suffers from, it starts from the assumption that ethnos is primary. If I'm the Ottoman emperor, am I making moves to maximize the odds the empire stays together, the odds a Turk is on the throne, the odds a member of the dynasty is on the throne, or the odds that I and my immediate descendants remain on the throne? All can be in conflict on the margins.

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Clearly elites are protected from the worst results of their bad decisions, but I don't think it's some conspiracy to divide the working class.

A better explanation is that it comes from social signalling, where high status people can signal their abundance by not being concerned with petty things like crime and taxes.

As societal wealth gets higher and higher, the signalling required to separate oneself from the commoners gets more expensive. A high end watch is not going to cut it. You need luxury beliefs, the more extreme the better. Among these luxury beliefs, one of the most common is a hatred for white people and the belief that countries need to be reformed by importing large numbers of non-whites. If they are criminals and layabouts, it's actually better because it destroys the existing society more effectively. The signal is clear: "You worry about crime and your community all you want. Your worries are low status. I have so many resources I'll be fine whatever happens."

I've been meaning to write a post about the irony of dirt-poor post-grad white men being the most motivated regime propagandists on Twitter; compensating for lack of real status by signalling luxury beliefs as hard as possible.

The guys who were sneering hardest at every concern about inflation, crime, and woke discrimination were the ones getting mugged on their way to teach a graduate seminar in European history for $14.50/hr, because they'd watched all the tenured positions go to Queer Black History profs.

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People who fear their neighbour are wont to beg for the elites to protect them from him.

The EU could come to a deal to return them, but it would undoubtedly be blocked by the ECHR. The ECHR ruled that deportation to a country where any part is unsafe (construed extremely broadly, including for ‘human rights’ reasons) is illegal. They’re not going to allow deportation to Syria in any case, and wouldn’t whether under Assad or HTS or (likely) anyone else.

In addition, many Syrian migrants in Western Europe have already received asylum / permanent residency, many are already citizens.

What prevents the EU from just ignoring ECHR if enough countries wants it?

The entire European project is based on obeying signed treaties, protocols and contracts. There's little concrete beyond this mutual structure to hold it together (after all, it doesn't have a military). If countries start to renege on them, the fear is that the whole project starts crashing.

ECHR is however, obviously destructive and acting against interests of particular countries and Europe as a whole. If European politicians can't perform one act of statesmanship and dissolve it, what then ?

The constitutions of many EU countries and established law. Of course every law can be overturned and countries can withdraw or simply ignore the ECHR, but domestic courts (eg in Italy) can prevent or stymie this. It turns into a long, protracted legal battle that outlasts any rightist government.

domestic courts

And herein lies the problem. Courts in Western EU countries are more loyal to Brussels-aligned worldview than anything else (ETA; anything else includes, the intent and letter of laws and treaties). During nearly all of the post-Lisbon treaty years, until 2020, everyone understood that the EU treaties did not permit the EU bonds. In one night, powers that be noticed the treaties are only worth the paper they written on, as nobody really understands what is written on them [1]. Consequently, they could re-interpret them as they pleased, and the EU "recovery" package (NextGenerationEU) was born. Some legal crickets remain, and are loudly ignored ("it does not appear completely implausible that the measure could be based on Art. 311(2) TFEU", the great legal standard of constitutional thought in Germany as it relates to the EU law.)

Similar re-interpretations of treaties have not proven possible (and I predict, will not prove possible) against mass migration. By iron law of bureaucracy, the EU bureaucracy exists only to make the EU bureaucracy more powerful, and by extension, serve interest of the social class of people who fill its ranks. For this class, mass migration is not a concern. Their vision of EU is a multicultural, multiethnicity realm. Import of new peoples is not at odds with the vision, and along the way found a way to make Bertold Brecht poem true -- with mass migration, the government may have found a way to dissolve the people and elect another.

[1] Unlike the US constitution, which generally defines the institutions and their powers, the EU treaties are written in vague legalese fluff. Compare:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; [...]

Art 311 of TFEU

The Union shall provide itself with the means necessary to attain its objectives and carry through its policies. Without prejudice to other revenue, the budget shall be financed wholly from own resources. The Council, acting in accordance with a special legislative procedure, shall unanimously and after consulting the European Parliament adopt a decision laying down the provisions relating to the system of own resources of the Union. In this context it may establish new categories of own resources or abolish an existing category. That decision shall not enter into force until it is approved by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.

The US constitution grants the Congress power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to borrow money on the credit, and so forth. TFEU grants a "system of own resources of the Union" "without prejudice to other revenue" and way to establish a new categories of them, which apparently also included ability to borrow money on the credit of the European Union.

Very very loud leftist politicians.

Yes.

Conditional on there being relative stability in any of the major cities (Aleppo down through Damascus), there is a non-trivial chance that an aid-for-acceptance swap will occur, in which external backers (Turkey / the EU) offer much needed financial / civil governance assistance in exchange for whoever is holding the area to accept returnees. The benefit to the local authorities is not only the assistance in rebuilding what they'd want to rebuild anyway (including housing to absorb more than just the returnees), but the 'import' of a tax and recruit base.

This will be less viable in the areas where there is significant fighting, but with the collapse of the Assad government it's uncertain how much Iran can, or will try, to force a fight. Beyond that, the actual ability of internecine militant conflict is unclear.

The factors that enabled internecine fighting between militant groups in the civil war phase were the presence of a unifying opponent to justify mobilization in general and tactical alliances in particular (Assad as the unifying enemy), the inflow of resources to fight and compete over (foreign aid to groups opposing Assad), and the lack of clear leading groups (mutual relative weakness supporting existential struggles). The later in particular was a goal / function of Russian airpower, which prioritized consolidating / less radical power groups in order to keep the rest fragmented and present Assad as the only alternative to ISIS.

With Assad's fall, those factors have substantially changed. There isn't a single unifying interest to drive mass mobilization, the interest external states have for flooding the anti-Assad movement with weapons has changed now that there is no Assad, there are indeed dominant groups whose clear strength facilitates detente rather than existential struggle, and there isn't likely to be a Russian (or American) air campaign deliberately trying to crack coalitions.

In all likelihood, Syria will be a complete mess, so no hope of that from me.

Obviously no because the Syrian refugees in Europe are economic migrants. European countries are not even deporting rapists and other criminals. Why would they deport people because of a regime change in their home country? Those Syrian refugees and their descendants are there for good. Future anthropologists will study the demographic transition which is very similar to how Corded Ware culture replaced Bell Beaker culture - except that this latest demographic replacement happened more quickly.

Asylum was just a fig leaf in the first place. Refugees are supposed to go to the first safe country, not the place with the most generous welfare benefits and strongest pro-outgroup bias.

Refugees are supposed to go to the first safe country

Is this actually a law or part of a treaty?

No. The system that the 1951/1967 Refugee Convention was supposed to be setting up was one where refugees were registered in the first safe country they reached, and then where they ended up was determined by negotiation between the UNHCR and the receiving countries.

"Refugees are supposed to stay in the first safe country" is not law - it is arguably implied by the clauses in the convention saying that refugees can't be prosecuted for illegal immigration when they cross from a dangerous country to the first safe country.

Refugees are supposed to go to the first safe country

To be fair the vast majority did go to Turkey.

...and those that left for Europe have demonstrated that they don't respect the law.

Countries can set whatever immigration/refugee targets they want, but their selection procedure shouldn't be "whoever is most willing to lie and cheat". They may not have written that policy down anywhere, but that's what happens when you don't enforce the rules.

The more relevant migrant flows wouldn't be from Europe to Syria, but Turkey to Syria, in turn enabling Europe to Turkey (which already occurs in substantial amounts).

Turkey not only has the far greater number of Syrian refugees, but those who did just go to the first safe country. These are a electoral burden, and facilitating their return was a policy goal of Turkish-Syrian relations for a good part of the last year, and Assad's refusal to engage on that was part of the Turkish support for the coalition that just took most of the major cities in Syria.

If/when Turkey pressures its recent partners to accept back Turkish-based refugees in exchange for continued reconstruction / reconsolidation / resist-other-rivals aid, that will create two opportunities for the Europeans. One is leverage the opening for their own aid-for-reacceptance bargains (as countries being willing to accept deportees is one of the big obstacles Europe has to deportation), and another is to make renewed deals with the Turks to accept the European-reached migrants, a deal more possible when Turkey has reduced its own refugee burden.

Likelihood of genocide towards the mostly Assad-supporting minority groups? Alawites and Christians seem very vulnerable to militants with a serious chip on their shoulder.

I will be very surprised if there are any non-Sunni groups left in parts where they aren’t a solid demographic majority. And even in those areas they will survive likely only due to the communities organising for self-defence and Turkey’s control over the new Syrian government.

On Wikipedia (for what that's worth) the page for HTS says they've made some gestures towards tolerance for Christians and Druze.

If you can't trust those guys, whom can you trust?

If you can't trust those guys, whom can you trust?

Putin? ISIS? Bill Clinton?

Why is it America's responsibility to protect these groups?

You know what? Just once, I'd like to see Germany or France have a go at it.

Since that will never happen, more optimistically I'd hope the Alawites and Kurds can coordinate for their own defense in areas where they have a demographic plurality. Not sure about the Christians...

What did I say that sounded like ‘it’s America’s responsibility to intervene for humanitarian reasons’?

What did I say that sounded like...

Not sure about them, but I read your comment as a rhetorical question, not a request for information. My reading was:

  • (First comment): Trump wants isolationism.
  • (Imagined bridge): This is bad because...
  • (Your comment): It will increase the risk of genocide.
  • (Imagined conclusion) Therefore, we shouldn't do it.

leap_to_conclusion_mat.gif

You’ve been warned five times for this lazy chan impression. Stop it.

Sorry, I can't tell what you're trying to say. Your link appears to be broken, therefore I couldn't possibly draw any conclusions about your intentions.

Could you clearly and explicitly lay out every step of your reasoning, as is the standard in every discussion?

I think they meant to reference this https://tenor.com/bj47U.gif In the yeschad.jpg style to humorously say you shouldn't jump to conclusions, because they thought you were jumping to conclusions. Their mistakes were map instead of mat and confusing interpretation with jumping to conclusions.

American government supported the "moderate" head-chopper rebels, so responsibility would be under "you broke it, you bought it" clause.

No. Syrians have agency and are responsible for their own country.

This blinkered thinking would lead to permanent US involvement in Syria.

More importantly, the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics is evil and you should be feel bad for espousing it.

It's "blinkered thinking" to think that a country has responsibility to limit damage it causes abroad? Nobody made US get involved under Obama but it did.

We limit damage by staying out.

You are justifying involvement today because of involvement (however minor) that occurred a decade ago. The same logic could be used to justify more involvement a decade from now, etc...''.

It didn't just occur a decade ago. US aircraft were even bombing Syrian army after Allepo was taken over.

It's "blinker thinking" to think that a country has responsibility to limit damage it causes abroad?

It is when you project damage it didn't cause onto the tab out of American ethnocentricism and a dismissal of the agency and ability of other actors.

It may be self-validating in a way to believe American power is central to the cause and outcomes in other conflicts, but the Americans were never the biggest player in the Syrian civil war, or the most decisive, or the most responsible. Americans are not the hyperagent of the Syrian Civil War. Americans were never the hyperagent of the Syrian Civil War.

'You broke it, you bought it' depends on 'you' actually being the agent to break it. 'You' did not.

Current sentiment online seems to be positive- Kurds and Christians seem generally pleased with the current shakeup, reports of minor rapport-building.

At this point, it seems to be a waiting game.

What are the likely consequences re: Israel should the Assad regime collapse?

For all his faults, at least Assad has refrained from mounting direct military attacks against Israel; moreover, unlike Lebanon, Syria TTBOMK does not harbor quasi-state paramilitaries that attack Israel. And all this is despite the cozy relationship between Assad and Iran, and the Golan Heights hatchet remaining pointedly un-buried!

Do we know anything about which rebel group is likely to end up on top if Assad gets the boot? I could imagine the US foreign policy blob backing “moderate rebels” in order to win some leverage over them and their Israel policy if and when they take control of Syria (because that’s worked out so well for us before). But I am extremely skeptical that any new regime can keep as tight a lid on anti-Israel kinetic actions as Assad has.

The successor regime, assuming there is one and it’s not just a Libya-style power vacuum, will have much bigger problems to worry about than Israel(as Assad did).

The Israelis had a pretty cordial relationship with ISIS, see https://www.newsweek.com/israeli-defense-minister-i-prefer-isis-iran-our-borders-417726

The love-in was reciprocated, I don't recall any ISIS attacks against Israel.

They want anyone but Assad and thus Iran. And they mean anyone. Assad also wanted the Golan Heights back, as would most strong Syrian governments regardless of who is in charge. So a weak and divided Syria is what Israel wants to see.

They want anyone but Assad and thus Iran. And they mean anyone.

The monkey’s paw, the devil you know, etc. etc. Though since we’re talking about Israel, perhaps the parable of the golem is more apropos.

Well it's certainly yet another challenge for Israel to worry about.

But if the Syrian jihadis enjoy living they'd be smart to consolidate their gains. Israel was able to surgically eliminate almost all of Hezbollah's leadership and I expect they'd do the same to the Syrians should they get feisty.

I worry more for the Alawites in Syria who will be at the mercy of these barbarians from the East. Perhaps they will be able to coordinate defense, I don't know. I assume other religious minorities have already fled, but any that remain would also be in harm's way.

It could go either way, depending on the new management. Assad is friendly with Iran and he has allowed Iran’s paramilitary proxies to roam free throughout the country. Getting rid of Assad in favor of Sunni rebels will sever Iran’s access. Even if the rebels are jihadists there’s a good chance they decide that they have enough on their plate already, and avoid antagonizing Israel permanently, or at least for the next five years or so. That’s the approach ISIS took, so it’s not an absurd idea that the Syrian rebels might do that too.

Assad is friendly with Iran and he has allowed Iran’s paramilitary proxies to roam free throughout the country.

This is true, but AFAIK no Iranian proxies have staged attacks on Israel from within Syria, right?

That would be incorrect.

Iran has been running supplies to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syria, with Syrian locations serving as the operational stockpiles and planning centers. This was the key supply route for the Hezbollah rocket campaign that led to the recent Hesbollah-Israel conflict.

Huh, I didn’t know that, but it makes geographic sense. Thanks for explaining

No problem.

For elaboration- most weapon shipments go by sea due to the bulk shipping costs, and Syria was a preferable point unloading to Lebanon for a variety of reasons. In addition to the increased difficulty of smuggling through Lebanese ports where non-Hezbollah factions (such as Israel) would increase the risk of exposure compared to the more supportive Assad, the 2020 Beirut port explosion (where a warehouse of amonium nitrate created a city-shaking explosion) made arms shipments through such ports politically risky as well. One of the theories of the amonium nitrate explosion is that it was part of a Hezbollah stockpile, and while Hezbollah has denied that, being caught with major weapon shipments through ports would have been a significant risk.

As a result, post-2020, Iran relied more on the Syrian route.

Not directly, but most of Hezbollah’s arms shipments have to go through Syria to get to Lebanon.

We should be thankfull that Iran has helped Syrians defend themsleves and that we haven't gotten a complete genocide of Christians and others who represent the last vestigates of Greek civilization in the middle east. Iran has been hugely beneficial in Iraq where they helped the Iraqis end the occupation and then fight ISIS. In Syria they helped fight off jihadists attacking Syria for years.

The stability that Syria provided for the past 8 or so years has been highly beneficial and it is a great shame that we are losing it.

DO NOT GET INVOLVED!

US obviously is involved, has been for more than a decade. The proxies are remote enough for this to be an opportunity to throw a bone to the part of his base that wants less adventurism/imperialism. Trump is still a philosemite and for hostilities with Iran.

This current offensive doesn’t seem US-driven. Turkey has some involvement but even they appear surprised at the pace. It seems Assadist morale has been totally hollowed out and the SAA’s mostly Sunni fighters (Alawite men having suffered insanely high casualty rates over the last 14 years) didn’t care to fight.

The offensive is Turkish driven in the sense that Turkey facilitated the initial setup and possibly the timing. What seems to have surprised everyone was the shock and military collapse on the Syrians.

The best I can figure, the shock-effect of significant UAV use in Aleppo sparked a disorganized retreat to Hama that led to significant vehicle losses (something like 150 vehicles, including tanks, running out of gas), which weakened the Syrian forces enough to more or less keep retreating and not contest Hama. This and some other optics led to a doom loop of non-resistance, which led the Aleppo offensive to gain momentum rather than use up its resources and culminate.

The current questionmark is Homs, which controls access to Damascus and could functionally bisect the Assad regime.

The pro-russian military OSINT bloggers/shills complain about this retreat that every Arab army sucks. This is probably not wrong though.

What’s Turkey’s beef that led to them playing chicken (by proxy) against the SAA? Pure Sunni vs. Shi’a/Alawite sectarianism, or does it go deeper than that?

Deeper.

Part of it is Sunni vs Shia split. The Syrian civil war was mostly a Sunni uprising, because the Assad dynasty survived by brutal suppression of the Sunni majority. This dynamic was made worse by the Iranian intervention, and efforts of the Iranians to proselytize and establish Shia communities in/as regime strongholds.

Part of it is Erdogan's Arab Spring-era desire to be a middle eastern leader of religious-democracy. Erdogan was a rare supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt when it was a thing, and had ambitions of a sort-of raising Turkey as a middle eastern leader through blending Islamic democracy. This didn't really last, but it was active nearer the start.

Part of it is Turkey's Kurdish concerns. Syria's north and east is highly Kurdish, with groups there supporting Kurdish sectarian terrorists who attack into Turkey proper. The lack of Syrian prevention was always something of a sore / a leverage point of Assad against Turkey, but the de facto autonomous states the Kurds secured during the civil war has been a significant Turkish concern.

Part of it is refugee resettlement politics. Many of the refugees who fled Syria stayed in Turkey, where they became substantial burdens far in excess of what the Europeans politically buckled under. The Turkish desire is to return Syrian refugees back to Syria, and this may have been an objective / hope of the Aleppo offensive. Turkey had desired Assad to take them back after the 2020 ceasefire, but Assad basically refused because he wanted them to be Turkey's problem rather than his own.

Part of it is regional power politics. The Turks are one of the regional major powers, but their presence and influence in the middle east has long been limited by Syria. Not because Syria is itself a major power, but because Assad invites in the Iranians (who are a regional power rival) and Russia (who is a different sort of regional power rival) in part to counter Turkey.

Part of it is Russian strategic competition. While Russia helps Assad, Turkey supporting the anti-Assad forces is a way it can indirectly poke the Russians and remind them that their interests need to be taken seriously, and not just the Syrian interests either. Regulating support for the militants is thus a form of leverage vis-a-vis Russia.

There are more, but this should be demonstrative.

This is pretty accurate in general but I also want to note that Turkish foreign policy was controlled by different groups back when we got so deeply entangled in the civil war (ie former PM Ahmet Davutoğlu and very CIA-aligned Gülen movement). There was a strong expectation of West getting directly involved and Assad collapsing very soon. This pretty much only didn’t happen because Obama

I’m not sure the current Erdoğan government members would have acted the same way 10 years ago when the uprising started. But they inherited the situation and need to continue state policy.

This is a fair enough point. Erdogan himself hardly inherited, but there was substantial government composition evolution (including his own viewpoints, informed by the previous eras) that I agree he probably wouldn't make the same policy decisions as awhile ago.

So like, what happens to Syria once Assad is gone?

Sunshine punctuated by light showers of rain genocide.

More civil war.

He's not even the last Syrian party standing, let alone the last party altogether.

Who knows. It's probably not good but there's no clear path to a good outcome that can be reached via more U.S. involvement.

Last war ended with 12 million refugees and over a million comming to Europe. The wave of jihadism that came with a country in the vicinity of Europe becoming a terrorist haven also created massive blow back. There is some chance that Europe simply won't let the jihadists take over this time. Assad is hugely beneficial for Europe.

Quite the opposite. Under Assad, the Islamists and broader Sunni population fled to Europe. If the West had helped the Islamists win, it would be the Christians and Alawites who would have fled to Europe.

I had the thought that maybe the US should back Assad militarily in exchange for kicking out Russia and Iran and recognizing Israel. Who says no to that arrangement?

Alternatively, the US stops occupying Syria's oil and minds its own buisness.

The US produces 130x as much oil as Syria.

No one cares about Syrian oil. If their production went to zero tomorrow the oil price wouldn’t even go up.

It matters because it is one of Syria's main revenue sources. Losing it puts Syria in a permanent state of crisis.

The Iranians had IRGC stationed throughout his country including in Damascus, he wasn’t in a position to tell them to leave.

What’s the steelman for why the US historically was against Assad?

Geopolitical strategy. The US has Israel and Saudi Arabia as it's dominant regional allies.

Supporting the Sunni rebels is popular with Saudi Arabia, both it's government and it's people.

Syria was USSR aligned during the cold war and kept up Russian connections after.

The Ba'ath parties that ruled Syria and Iraq started out as the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, which wanted to set up a Soviet aligned mega state in the Middle East. That didn't pan out.

Basically Syria has always ended up on the other side of US alliances in the Middle East.

Divide and conquer. The US has a long history of supporting jihadists and trying to undermine stable states in the region. The Iraq war wasn't nation building, it was nation wrecking. The goal was to turn the middle east into a buch of small clan structures consistently stuck in internal fighting. Assad provided a stable state which was difficult to dominate. Now we get the destruction of christian culture in the region and a flood of migrant to Europe.

That isn’t a steelman. That’s basically “the US is dumb” which I agree but trying to see the other side.

Assad was an enemy of Israel and the Gulf Arabs, and a friend of Iran. The US is an ally of Israel and the Gulf Arabs, and an enemy of Iran.

[edited to past tense. Welcome to the dustbin of history, Assad]

Perhaps but in a material way? Is he really worse compared to the new regime?

Is he really worse compared to the new regime?

In the limited way relevant to US interests, very much so. In the language of the Cold War, Assad is their son-of-a-bitch, whereas the factions taking over are our sons of bitches. (I do not claim that the new regime is better than Assad for the civilian population of Syria, although it could be).

  • The Syrian Free army (now controls northern Damascus) is an actual US client group, which allows the US to use the territory it controls to spy on Iran and launch airstrikes against ISIS.
  • The Southern Operations Room (now controls southern Damascus) is a coalition of militias which worked with various western and Gulf Arab countries until we stopped throwing good money after bad and decided (wrongly, as it turned out) that Assad had beaten them.
  • HTS (controls Aleppo, Homs and Hama) is a coalition of jihadi groups some, but not all, of which used to be affiliated to Al-Quaeda. They have been co-operating very closely with Turkish-backed secular groups to the point where they can probably be considered as part of the Turkish client faction. Turkey is, of course, a NATO member and western ally.

I think they have a lot of faith in democracy solving problems, and the new state more accurately reflects the makeup of the people.

Countries don't generally pull 180° switcheroos like that simply because it would make all their other allies go "Hey, wait a minute...", especially when it would mean backing a losing horse like here.

It's still possible that Assad can pull off a rabbit from the hat and save his skin, but I just have to say that this whole process makes the whole "Lion of Damascus / Can't Mossad the Assad / Curse of Assad" memery seem, after the fact, rather cringe and, dare I say, Reddit (sure, a lot of it was jokes, but a lot of it wasn't). The great opthalmologist of Syria was, after all, just a paper tiger with little evident support beyond the minority demographics, if that, and a modest amount of pressure from a faction led by a guy who (unconvincigly) refers to Acemoglu on media makes the whole apparatus collapse like a house of cards.

Doesn't really look very good for the general pro-Russian camp that a major ally/prop of Russia would go out ingnomiously like this - kind of like Yanokovych, in the ends, forgotten by everyone basically the moment he left Ukraine, without support even among the antimaidan militants that Strelkov would later use as tinder for his Greater-Russia project.

Doesn't really look very good for the general pro-Russian camp that a major ally/prop of Russia would go out ingnomiously like this -

The same happens to America's puppets like South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. If they aren't themselves chased out, the moment they turn their backs it all collapses like a house of cards.

South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan

One of these things is not like the others.

Did anyone other than Erdoğan (and Netanyahu) politically survive Assad from his original set of enemies though?

The guy who was VP of the United States when the Syrian civil war started is still (just) alive and still (technically) in high political office.

Perhaps the unexpected Zerg rush of HTS was all Biden’s doing to beat the curse

The dictator and the guy who's been in and out of power since the nineties. Obama wasn't removed politically; he was term limited out and if he had been able to run in 2016 he would have stood a very good chance of winning.

Pretty big achievement for any leader to survive politically for 13 years, no?

Good point, although that memery has outlived its usefulness/relevance for years at this point, as Kamala lost the election, Biden is a lame duck and Trump isn't an interventonist. If the regime does indeed fall in the near future, it'll happen with negligible input from the US or Israel or the UK.

Hey hey, Yanukovych got a last gasp of almost-relevance when he was staged to swoop into Kyiv in the initial Russian invasion as a new government.

Assad is considerably less likely to be relevant like that, though. His minority power base is even smaller, and he doesn't have the narrative impetus of reversing an American effort.

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