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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| U.S. Options in Syria Don't Include Ground Troops |
| 2017-04-11 |
| By Spengler Writing in the Washington Post, neo-conservatives Reuel Gerecht and Ray Takeyh wrongheadedly propose to send U.S. ground troops to fight Iran and its proxies in Iran and Syria: It is way past time for Washington to stoke the volcano under Tehran and to challenge the regime on the limes of its Shiite empire. This will be costly and will entail the use of more American troops in both Syria and Iraq. But if we don’t do this, we will not see an end to the sectarian warfare that nurtures jihadists. We will be counting down the clock on the nuclear accord, waiting for advanced centrifuges to come on line. As with the Soviet Union vs. Ronald Reagan, to confront American resolution, the mullahs will have to pour money into their foreign ventures or suffer humiliating retreat. They're nuts. The last thing the US should do is commit ground forces. It isn't Iran that we would be fighting: It's an international mercenary army that already includes thousands of fighters recruited from the three million Hazara Afghans now seeking refuge in Iran, from the persecuted Pakistani Shi'ites who comprise a fifth of that country's huge population, and elsewhere. ...The manpower pool from which these fighters are drawn is virtually bottomless. The war has already displaced half of Syria's 22 million people, and Iran plans to replace Sunnis with Shi'ite immigrants in order to change the demographic balance. The Sunni side of the conflict has become globalized with fighters from the Russian Caucasus, China's Xinjiang Province, as well as Southeast Asia. The U.S. State Department last year estimated that 40,000 foreign fighters from 100 countries were in Syria; Russia cited a figure of 30,000. Whatever the number is today, it would not be difficult to add a zero to it. Russia and China, as I explained in the cited Asia Times essay, blame the U.S. for opening the Pandora's Box of Sunni radicalism by destroying the Iraqi State and supporting majority (that is, Shi'ite) rule in Iraq. Sadly, they are broadly correct to believe so. Thanks to the advice of Gerecht and his co-thinkers at the Weekly Standard and Commentary, the Bush administration pushed Iraq's and Syria's Sunnis into the hands of non-state actors like al-Qaeda and ISIS. A seventh of Russia's population is Muslim, and 90% of them are Sunnis. China has a restive Muslim population among the Uyghurs in its far West, and all of them are Sunnis. Moscow and Beijing therefore support Shi'ite terrorists as a counterweight to Sunni jihadists. A Eurasian Muslim civil war is unfolding as a result. Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum thinks America should let Sunnis and Shi'ites exhaust each other. If it were just Syria, that would make sense, but the Syrian conflict is the nodal point for a much larger and more dangerous conflagration. If the 300 million Muslims of Southeast Asia were to become involved, the consequences would be horrific. ...Gerecht and Tayekh want the U.S. to back the anti-regime forces whom Obama left twisting in the wind during the 2009 demonstrations against Iran's rigged elections. That is the right thing to do. The Trump administration should create a special task force for regime change in Iran and recruit PJ Media's Michael Ledeen to run it. Iran is vulnerable to subversion. With 40% youth unemployment and extreme levels of social pathology (the rate of venereal disease infection is twenty times that of the U.S.), Iranians are miserable under the theocratic regime. But I don't know if that will work: Iran gets all its money from oil, and the mullahs have the oil, the money, and all the guns. If we can't overthrow the Iranian regime, we will have two choices. The first is to bomb Iran -- destroy nuclear facilities and Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps bases. That risks war with Russia and China. It is an option, but a dangerous one, and not anyone's first choice. We could have done this before Iran became a Russian-Chinese ally. The second is to cut a deal with Russia and China: We muzzle the Sunni jihadists whom we (or our allies like Saudi Arabia) supported, and Russia and China cut Iran off at the knees. I sketched out such a deal in August 2016. It won't happen easily, or any time soon, because Russia and China are not sufficiently afraid of us to want to come to the table. Russia would demand other concessions (e.g., recognition of its acquisition of territory by force in Ukraine). As the use of poison gas despite past Russian assurances makes clear, one can't trust the Russians unless, of course, they really are scared of us. So it all comes down to Grand Strategy: Russia and China must be frightened of America's prowess, especially in military technology. A Reagan-style effort to established unquestioned U.S. supremacy in military technology is the Big Stick we require. Tomahawk missiles are not a Big Stick. They speak loudly. Trump was magnificently right to send the signal to Moscow and Beijing, especially (as Secretary Tillerson said) in the light of Russia's duplicity or incompetence in the matter of Syrian poison gas. Now we need to get to work. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #14 I'd like Trump's bandwidth to be refocused on national renewal. I'm more than fine with action that advances and safeguards national interest -- and I know enough to loathe the Assads -- but I'm not seeing the concrete benefit to us here. It's not as if we have limitless resources to spend on "wars of choice". And if we collapse under the weight of debt and the Deep State, what good are we to anyone, anyway? |
| Posted by: charger 2017-04-11 18:29 |
| #13 Success in the middle east means a semi-brutal occupation/colonization lasting decades. The voters in the West will no longer tolerate that kind of stuff. So knowing that, the government should plan accordingly. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2017-04-11 18:03 |
| #12 Chickenhawk is not the word I'd use. How about frivolous? We send our troops into these little wars for reasons that have nothing to do with our national security. Our guys get killed and wounded. It cost taxpayers a fortune. The results are disastrous. We want a strong military so we can be secure, not so we can meddle in the affairs of piss ant countries like Syria. You call Iraq a success? Afghanistan? Libya? Syria will be no better. Exactly what is to be gained there? Stay the fuck out of it. If you really want a war, how about going after the real threat which is Iran? |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2017-04-11 16:32 |
| #11 Neo-conservatives as in students in the McCain-Graham School of Warmongering? If these idiots want a war so badly they should feel free to go over there and get their own butts blown off. But leave the American military and taxpayers out of it. The chickenhawk argument is BS. We pay and equip soldiers to fight our wars for us, whatever we decide are appropriate. They don't get to choose any more than Chicago cops get to decide whether they want to out on foot patrol, or firefighters get to decide if they want to fight a given fire. If they're not happy with their assignments, they can quit once their contracts are up - it's not like someone forced them to sign on the dotted line. Soldiers are instruments, not drafters, of policy. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2017-04-11 15:55 |
| #10 We don't need ground troops in Syria to topple Assad. Air support will do it. We're not doing it because we don't want to topple him. The strongest rebel forces in Syria are jihadists of various flavors. We don't need them in power. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2017-04-11 15:50 |
| #9 That's right - work smarter, not harder! Yep. Besides, all our regime-changers are busy working on regime-changing America at the moment. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2017-04-11 13:55 |
| #8 ...and when is the word 'neo-conservative' and its derivatives gonna go out of style? That word has annoyed the ever living shit out of me since I first saw it. |
| Posted by: Raj 2017-04-11 13:45 |
| #7 Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum thinks America should let Sunnis and Shi'ites exhaust each other. That's right - work smarter, not harder! |
| Posted by: Raj 2017-04-11 13:30 |
| #6 neo-conservatives Reuel Gerecht and Ray Takeyh Neo-conservatives as in students in the McCain-Graham School of Warmongering? If these idiots want a war so badly they should feel free to go over there and get their own butts blown off. But leave the American military and taxpayers out of it. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2017-04-11 13:25 |
| #5 Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum thinks America should let Sunnis and Shi'ites exhaust each other. Yeah, put me down for that one. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2017-04-11 10:59 |
| #4 The second is to cut a deal with Russia and China: We muzzle the Sunni jihadists whom we (or our allies like Saudi Arabia) supported, and Russia and China cut Iran off at the knees. Rather: they drop Iran, you drop Saudia |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-04-11 08:58 |
| #3 But I don't know if that will work Besoeker |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-04-11 08:57 |
| #2 The Trump administration should create a special task force for regime change in Iran and recruit PJ Media's Michael Ledeen to run it. Iran is vulnerable to subversion. 'Regime Change'... yea, that's the ticket. Worked well in Cuba, Vietnam, Somalia, Libya, The DRC, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nicaragua, etc. [sarc tag added for g(r)om] |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-04-11 08:26 |
| #1 You don't think we've already had Special Forces on the ground for well over a year? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-04-11 08:17 |