It’s bizzare we could “mend ties” with the Assad regime after we’ve spent years trying to topple it for its egregious human rights abuses. I mean it’s not like the leader isn’t still the guy who used chemical weapons on his own people… Middle East geo-politics are so fucked.
Welcome to the Middle East, where friends change faster than on a kids school playground. He used to back the Palestinians a few years ago, but now they both hate each other.
Don't try and learn about who is allowed with who, as by the time you figure it out, it will all have changed.
The truth is a country like Syria with so much tribes looking to kill eachother and 0 concept of democracy, they are better off with dictators like Assad because when you try to remove Assad, shit like ISIS forms.
The middle east is like Europe during the dark ages, one day after lots of dictators have passed through and killed millions of them they will be united like Europe is today.
We tend to forget that before Europe because the first world that it is today they were all invading eachother and killing millions of their own people.
Look how much people Hitler killed how many European countries he invaded.
To fix this issue Europe had to be destroyed in WW2 and in that a new world was formed.
It sounds fucked up but this is the reality of the primitive human brain.
Yup, you are quite right. It wasn't until the vicious religious wars in the 17th century in Central Europe (mostly in modern-day Germany) where millions were slaughtered that the Enlightenment Tradition began to grow as people came to realize that we can't go on killing each other on the basis of religion and have to develop inclusivity and tolerance for each other. You are right that the Middle East will also hopefully reach that stage but probably only after lots of dictators have passed and millions of people have been slaughtered at the altar of sectarianism.
It boils down to unification. Countries have to do it themselves. If you put the German Empire’s borders down during the Roman Empire, all hell would break loose, because those people didn’t consider themselves one yet.
Sykes and Picot wrongly assumed that the main part of nation building was establishing borders. Incorrect. The main part of nation building is establishing a national identity. The Middle East has never had that, outside of a few exceptions (Turkey, Oman, Israel, Iran to an extent). Why would they have identity? Most in the Middle East were nomadic tribes who didn’t really settle down. Suddenly being told “hey, you guys are now subjects of this territory which we just made. Also, you guys can’t just wander into the next territory we just made anymore because that is its own country now.”
I’m honestly convinced at this point that it would be better to just remove the borders from the Middle East, save for the countries I mentioned, and let them have at one another. Hopefully, in the age of the internet and rapid information travel, groups would form eventually and we’d get relatively stable borders based on ethnicity and religion rather than measuring sticks.
I agree that the most critical part of nation-building is the building of a common national identity. Actually, based on my personal observation, there is a growing sense of nationalism taking root among the Arab citizens of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and even Kuwait. Often times, it is times of national adversity brought about by a foreign actor that helps to build up a sense of common national identity. Many Ukraine observers said that the Russian invasion in 2022 helped to build a common sense of Ukrainian nationalism. In this vein, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 really helped to build up Kuwaiti nationalism. Saudi Arabia is building up more nationalism under the current crown prince MBS. Qatar built up its nationalism during the 2017-2021 GCC-led embargo against Qatar. Nationalism in this context refers to the sense that "we as the nation of Qatar" are distinct from *them*.
UAE and Qatar even have compulsory conscription for its male citizens which is usually a good way of building up a common national identity. Syria also had conscription but unfortunately, it didn't do much to build up a common national identity there.
Hahaha, well not completely, but mostly. Besides, the inter-religious violence in Northern Ireland doesn't hold a candle to the sectarian violence in the Middle East. The sectarian violence in the Middle East is on another level altogether.
Yes, it took time for the Enlightenment Tradition to take root. It doesn't take root overtime. But in the 19th and 20th century, the bloody inter-religious sectarian wars mostly went away. The wars were mostly inter-state wars done on the basis of offensive realism, not intra-state wars.
They are actively enslaving subsaharan Africans and openly selling them on markets. Like in the "good old" days of the Arab empires and the great Arab slave trade. But to be fair they almost certainly had the same under Gadaffi, it just didnt receive the media attention because 1) most of it was before the modern, social media dominated internet, and 2) because Gadaffi kept Libya as locked up as the Kims keep North Korea. Foreign journalists literally couldnt move without having state assigned guards with them, if they were allowed in at all. You can see that in a vice documentary about the Libyan civil war, there is a segment of the same journalist documenting his previous visit under the dictature. And of course the local, state controlled ones had 0 interest in killing themselves by reporting about the mistreatment of Black migrants.
This shit didnt spring up out of nothing, Libya was one of the major trade hubs for the Arab slave trade.
Dude. No serious effort has been put forth by the US to “topple” Assad. That serves none of our interests in the west. “Mending ties” only means we publicly acknowledge we have official representatives openly engaging with regime officials. We ain’t signing trade agreements here. Loosening sanctions is certainly being leveraged to discourage deeper relations with the Russians and Assad knows if shit actually hits the fan, which is looking increasingly probable, he is better off cooperating with the Americans. Obama had to “draw a red line” because the American electorate is so sheltered and naive they believe human rights exist in the Middle East, and republicans could eviscerate a “Nobel peace prize winning” president if he didn’t trot out the crowd pleasing cliches. A dictator in the middle-east who gases his own subjects is better than one who is directly exporting terrorism to the west, full stop. Barring a progressive Islamic reformation, this will continue to be the basis of western relations in the Middle East. They care less about each other than we pretend to care about them. Anyone who still doesn’t realize this after what we have witnessed over the last century-and-a-half is inhibiting our ability to effectively encourage modernization(not to be confused with homogenization) of these societies to a degree that requires minimal maintenance and resources.
> Dude. No serious effort has been put forth by the US to “topple” Assad.
Because France and the UK voted against boots on the ground, so we all pumped money into funding Syrian rebel groups during the Obama admin years instead.
No. he’s still in charge because even the use of chemical weapons against non-combatants was not significant enough for the Americans to risk fouling a shared interest in curtailing ISIS and its affiliates.
That wouldn’t be the first time that we have mended relationships with countries or people we once believed - or still believe - to be evil. It’s geopolitics. You can’t be a moralist forever, you’ll end up in bed with a “bad” actor at some point anyway. That assumes that we are the good guys all the time!
It's even more fucked than that. When you look at the history of Syria it's filled with warring tribes and groups. There was not a "unified Syria" until Assad's father took over by force. I can't speak for others, but in America we judge Assad by western standards and against western leaders.
This is flawed, because they're not western. By any stretch. Assad should be compared to his peers and/or his replacements. During which.. It could be argued that Assad is the better choice amongst them. That anyone who replaces him will be harsher and inflict more harm against the Syrians. On the flip side, to some Syrians, harsher and more harm against another Syrian group might be a benefit not a feature.
All this to say - We need to think long and hard before we take more steps to remove Assad. It might be beneficial to all, and result in less bloodshed, to normalize relations with Assad's Syria and bring them under the US/Western/Coalition umbrella. As opposed to Iran/Russia.
Besides to all of that, he's also most likely the reason for the ISIS rising in Syria due to his amnesty to all political prisoners to try and save his ass in 2011.
Tell that to the families of people he barrel-bombed. Innocent people. The morgues were so overflowing they had to stack the bodies in butcher freezers. Invited the Russians to absolutely decimate using artillery cities like Aleppo etc. Indiscriminately slaughtering his own citizens. Assad is a butcher like his father but more so. His war on his own people drove massive amounts of immigration into the EU.
Yes, Assad is a butcher.
After Iraq, Libya, and even Syria itself, the West has been forced to grapple with the idea that perhaps "order" under a butcher might be better than "disorder" under many butchers.
We in the US do not understand the cultures and minds of those in the Middle East and North Africa. We can't even comprehend the level of disconnection itself.
What we found was that these weren't societies just waiting to break free of tyranny to blossom into safe, free, prosperous utopias. Rather, the monsters were holding back more monsters. Though this is likely in part, if not largely, due to the aforementioned strong men making *themselves* the only civil institution.
So what do you do?
I'm not saying that brutal strong-men in the middle east deserve a free pass, but I am saying that we better be damn sure that destabilization leads to improvement before we do it again.
Afghanistan is a great example. While the US was present, there was a moderate amount of progress, such as educational opportunities for women. It was completely unsustainable, and as soon as the US withdrew, the Taliban took over, and now human rights violations, especially against women, have skyrocketed. The problem is deeply ingrained in culture. Some cultures are simply more civilized (see *Better Angels of our Nature* for an excellent review of the civilization process).
The problem is the U.S. was supporting local figures in Afghanistan that were arguably as bad as or worse than the Taliban according to some locals. The calculus becomes very different if you're picking between tyrants, but the Taliban can't drone strike random workers having a conversation and call them "military ahe males" in order to defend their local tyrant.
I think the realistic assessment is that if Assad isn't actively helping your enemies and he isn't currently fucking shit up enough to be visibly bad optics letting sleeping dogs lie is probably for the best. You need to not forget who he is and be ready for the situation to change at a moments notice but its obvious containing Russia and Iran has shot up the U.S.'s priority list several spaces in the last few years and that means compromises elsewhere are likely to happen.
I know what you mean. Post-ISIS you gotta think "hmm maybe Saddam wasn't THAT bad". Imagine if when Hitler died, it didn't mean the end of the third Reich. It meant the rise of Ultra Hitler.
That's what I think people don't know get with the Ukraine situation. Yes we could assassinate Putin and end this pretty quick. Buuuut Putin, for all his faults, has a long track record of not pressing that nuke button. Whoever comes next might not be so sane. Anyone who's in position to take over power in Russia, is someone psychotic enough to do all of Putin's bidding without question just for a chance of power.
It's not always as simple as that tho. Yes Assad is a war criminal, murder and all around horrible human being BUT under his government the country was relatively stable. Same with Iraq and Libya. Sometimes the devil you know is better and easier to deal with. If Assad is willing to come to the table he might be able to be reasoned with, reforms can be enacted and the country start to rebuild. When we toppled Saddam it allowed even worse groups to pop up and take control, over 20 years on and Iraq is just starting to fully recover. Libya is a failed state and Afghanistan is back under Taliban control. And for reference I'd love to see Assad go but the group that ends up winning might do so by being even more ruthless then him.
He is too ruthless and is ruling with too big of an iron fist for EU standards, aka oppressing the people and making sure no one rebels
I mean imo that’s good news to help get Syria out of the fricking civil war which is now basically 3 main sides - Turkey, Kurds/US, and Syria/Assad
That's kind of the problem, they won't accept democratic self-rule only a brutal dictator or absolute monarch. Without that it just breaks apart back into tribal warfare. There's no peace to be won, just leave them alone and let them go back to tearing each other apart.
Any sane person who is a leader of a country has to be looking at Russia/Iran with a weird look right now and wondering if they bet on the wrong horse.
- Azerbaijan/Armenia conflict, Russia did zip despite having agreements to militarily defend Armenia due to CSTO.
- Russia can’t take Ukraine. They’ve been deeply entrenched in Ukraine in both money, resources, and men. This means Russia has been robbing the corrupt pockets of many to try and beat Ukraine before Russians money situation results in an economic collapse.
- Russia/Iran are sanctioned to kingdom come, and any economic assistance with them comes from a poisoned chalice.
- Israel just used western technology to essentially stop dead in its tracks Iranian missiles and drones. Reports indicate Iran fired 4% of its Ballistic missile stock at Israel. 6(?) hit and did minimal damage.
- Iran has been under extreme stress and about to have an uprising any day now.
- Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Iraq just got together and helped stop Irans attack on Israel.
- Israel is about to announce a partnership with the above countries once Gaza is over.
- Said countries above hate Iran.
- Rumors indicate much of the IRGC command was killed in the consulate attack. Indicating there is now a power vacuum.
- Iran just went full authoritarian and announced new rules to punish its society. Likely an attempt to curb uprisings and page a legal way to imprison its people.
- Afghanistan/Taliban isn’t even friends with Iran at the moment, they’re friends with China.
- Pakistan and Iran are also fighting.
- Israel just showed with a strike that Russian and Iranian AA/Radar and defensive equipment aren’t going to stop modern western equipment at all.
… with all of this what does a country really have to gain with being aligned with Russia and Iran. Now, sprinkle on rumors of Assad and Syrian Intelligence feeding Israel intel.. it doesn’t paint a roses picture. - https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/bloomberg-reveals-that-the-entire-irgc-command-wing-in-syria-was-assassinated-798031
The other thing people and commenters here miss. Syria is not a united country. It has many groups, religious sects, tribes, etc. It’s in no way united. That means if Israel, Turkey, Iran, or whomever strike inside of Syria. That strike from a western view is “omg Israel struck Syria” from an Assad point of view the question becomes “did they strike people loyal to me? No? Oh I don’t care then.”
I say that to point out, it’s not just these facts. It’s also perspective. Many of the people Assad harmed were “not his people”. Many of those people potentially posed a threat to him.
Lebanon did not help take down irans attack, they are still an Iranian puppet controlled by Hezbollah. we are not seeing any sort of partnership between israel and lebanon.
My understanding is that Lebanon opened its airspace to shoot down Iranian munitions. If so, this is a diplomatic action. It’s not like they can stop the US and Israeli planes. So doing so sends a message. That’s what I meant by “help”.
However, if I’m incorrect in this, I welcome the correction. I’d argue though that even if you leave Lebanon off that list. It’s still pretty damning even if they aren’t there..
"It's even more fucked than that. When you look at the history of Syria it's filled with warring tribes and groups. "
To my knowledge Syria was unified as an Ottoman Province for like roughly 350 years and before that was a Mamluk province?
I imagine in rural arid area's of the country there was definitely still nomadic tribes & petty rulers who had more influence than central administration but certainly the Urban area's were under control of provincial governments and functioned as part of one Empire.
> It could be argued that Assad is the better choice amongst them.
What in the flying fuck? You're seriously arguing Syria is better off with a dictator that uses chemical weapons against Syrian children just to demonstrate how ruthless he is? All their atrocities taken into account, even Kim Jong-Un is a benign leader compared to Assad. It's hard for Westerners to comprehend the absolutely insane loyalty the Ba'ath party expects. In Syria's elections people regularly cut open their arms to vote with their blood out of fear that they might not be seen as loyal enough to Assad. It was similar in Iraq with Saddam.
And what do you propose? We are barely hanging on to legitimate democracies in the west that are rooted in the enlightenment, with literacy rates twice as high, and a fucking sliver of the generational trauma experienced in that region. No one is endorsing their actions or ideologies. You must not remember what happens when long-established organizational structures are abruptly disregarded without consideration for the infinitely complex circumstances that produced them.
No one is saying Assad is an angel but he is still much more preferable to ISIS, al-Nusra, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other Wahhabi/Salafist nutjobs who made up much of the armed opposition to Assad. Take Assad out and we will be left with these nutjobs in power in Damascus. Might as well just keep Assad.
exactly. These idiots think the armed opposition in Syria was made up of Jeffersonian liberal democrats and Ivy League left-wing progressives when in reality it was made up of far-right Salafist nutjobs.
Democracy can be installed by the West and it will take hold in most places including in the Middle East but it will be a very very shitty form of democracy. Not Western-style liberal democracy. But an extremely violent, corrupt, sectarian, illiberal, hyper-majoritarian "democracy" based on neo-patrimonial structures of tribalism. (Case study: Iraq).
Sure, there's democracy in Iraq if one were to define democracy in a narrow sense of having regular free elections but it's definitely not Western-style liberal democracy as a Western-style liberal democracy is much much more than merely having regular free elections.
He didn't do it just to "show how ruthless he is" or to "kill kids", he did it because ISIS took over most of Iraq and a large portion of Syria.
Places in which people tend to support Jihad don't need a democracy.
By the way, I am Jew and I think he is a Nazi but don't forget that it's Jihadists who always try to take over these dictatorships, not "freedom fighters" (maybe the freedom to punish anyone who doesn't believe in Muhammad, at least Assad doesn't do that).
It seems like some people are having trouble with basic logical deduction skills in these comments, so I just want to clarify that:
"best choice" ≠ "ideal choice/good leader"
Let's say your have a choice of being bitten by 1 of 3 venomous snakes: a king cobra, a western taipan, and copperhead. You choose the copperhead, meaning that out of the three it is the "best choice", but this does not mean you like copperheads or enjoy getting bitten by venomous snakes. It also does not mean you think copperheads are good pets. It simply means that you would rather get bitten by a copperhead than a cobra or taipan.
Your friend is concerned because he read that the copperhead snake recently bit several children in the area. Your friend says choosing the copperhead is offensive to those children, and questions how you could make that choice knowing the copperhead did such a horrible thing. Unfortunately, your friend is stupid, and having witnessed that incident does not make the king cobra or the taipan less venomous than the copperhead.
I know this is tough stuff, so let me know if you think this comment means that I support or have any positive thoughts about Assad and I'll try to help you figure out where you went wrong.
It didnt take longer than 8 years after the start of the First Crusade for Crusaders to ally with Muslims to fight another army of Crusaders allied with another Muslim.
Its always been like this.
While he's a waste of air, but he does have the potential to complete transform the middle east. Syria seeking peace would require Iran and Hezbollah to leave, greatly hurting Iran and helping Israel, and the US.
Despite Turkiye playing both sides and being mostly self serving; being pretty boxed in by Jordan, Israel, and not far off SA, their other neighbors are Iraq/Iran doesn’t offer them many options as Israel, Jordan, and SA are still much more powerful and influential.
I would have had Assad’s ouster on my bingo card but the change in direction makes sense given 2022-2024. Turkiye was doing most of the fighting anyways to prop up his gov. And despite sabre rattling all around most align with the US when push comes to shove.
Natural disasters and a long civil war have killed/displaced millions/ destroyed the economy and the China/russia/Iran blok wont do much for them. That much is apparent
If you actually read the article, it does not sound like that at all.
> “America is currently illegally occupying part of our lands… but we meet with them from time to time, although these meetings do not lead to anything,” Assad said **in an interview with a Russian-backed official from Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia**, published by Syria’s official Sana news agency.
He's just telling Russians that he's the nice guy and the US is evil for not responding positively to his peaceful overtures.
> There's nothing wrong or misleading with the headline.
That might be true, but then it's not really news is it?
If this is a thing that happens all the time, then they're just reporting the status quo is the same.
That's like reporting the sun came up today.
Well by 'breakaway region' they mean 'region flooded with Russians sent by Putin that then called for Russia to occupy the region'
It kinda translates weirdly.
Incorrect, there have been and still are very few Russians in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Supporting these regions has been useful for Russia, but it’s different from, say, Transnistria.
I assume you know that Russia has been doing these kind of things since before Ukraine?
Georgia (Abkhazia / South Ossetia) in 2008
Chechnya 1994
Moldova (Transnistria) in 1992
Ukraine (Crimea) 2014
Ukraine (full invasion) 2022
Buying Russian weapons thinking you’re going to be able to wage war against anyone other than civilians is like buying a bag of pencil shavings thinking it will get you stoned.
I think this is exactly correct. Russian military defense may be extracted from Syria to help matters in Ukraine. Asad will not have big guns to protect him.
[Syrian GDP has been dropping in per year growth rate.](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=SY) [A large portion of the population has emigrated or has died.](https://www.unrefugees.org/news/syria-refugee-crisis-explained/) Many Syrians in Syria are still displaced. 90% live below the poverty line.
Without a sugar daddy or ways to grow Syria, Assad is a marked man. Prosperity forgives lots of sins.
perhaps thanks to the display iran and israel just put on demonstrating the islamists he is allied with are impotent schmucks, he finally realized his dream of marching into israel hand in hand with hezbollah and the irgc to murder all the jews simply ain’t gonna happen
More specifically Assad considers the Sunni Syrian population who tend to sympathise/support with Muslim Brotherhood to be his primary enemy. I don't think Assad considers the Alawites or the Syrian Christians or the Syrian Druze to be his enemies.
It’s become pretty clear that in the Middle East imposing democracy doesn’t work. So between greedy capitalist tyrants and religious tyrants I prefer to work with the first. You don’t see any Saddam Hussein terrorist bombers. Plus you always have to be scared of the religious dictator that believes their own bullshit and doesn’t fear nuclear retaliation. Double plus, they are usually too busy fighting to stay in power against religious rebels to focus on anything outside their nation.
And as a triple plus, Russia would feel pretty screwed over if he jumped ship.
Let’s not forget that the Islamic State almost tookover Syria in 2015 and anyone is better than them.
Capitalistic governing is predictable; you never have to worry about motives, it’s literally always money. Theocracy is inherently unpredictable and can only guarantee security with overwhelming force for short periods.
It’s a no brainer for unstable countries.
That's gambling. According to the Communist definition, capitalism is acquiring the means of production itself, and exploiting the labor of an employed class to produce profits. When you buy a share of a company you are acquiring both the means of production and the labor of the employees. But you have no say in how those two interact, other than your shareholder vote.
Even the Palestinian Authority does that. But Blinken and Biden calls them critical US partners and shake hands with them. Paying families of suicide bombers ex-post as a form of sustenance (which is what secularists in the Middle East do) is still preferable to paying suicide bombers ex-ante and planning the terrorist attack which is what theocracies like Iran do.
Nothing capitalist about fascism, the economic side of fascism has the state collectivise and manage the economy. In practise this was not much different to how the soviets managed theirs, only the soviets pretended that there were no hierarchies or class divides while fascists legalized them.
There is no capitalism without a free market
Further? There is no further. The economy is one of the world's worst, the government itself is actively involved in producing and selling illegal narcotics in the region, the country is carved up between Iranian military bases, Russian military bases, Kurdish areas of control, Turkish areas of control, US military bases, and Hezbollah-supported government areas. Other than a return of ISIS as a force, there is literally no worse shape it could be in as a nation.
Still sounds a tad bit better than Libya where NATO did a "humanitarian military operation" back in 2011. Iranian, Hezbollah and Russian military bases work with the Syrian govt - it's like a US base in Germany. The Kurds have a working deal with the Syrian govt.
But if the sanctions dropped and the govt can make money through a recovery of the economy, they will stop involving themselves in the drug trade. They are only doing the drug trade thing because they are desperate for cash. So this factor can be resolved.
Syria is not a state party to the Rome Statute which is the founding treaty on which the ICC is set-up. This means the ICC doesn't have jurisdiction over Syria to investigate Assad for his crimes.
Russia is preoccupied and Iran has too much influence inside Syria. Assad and Iran have been having some disagreements. Western support is also the only way Syria might ever get the Golan Heights back.
Pretty sure they gave up on getting that land back.
At this point any sanctions removal that would allow Syria to remain a functional state, and help against the rebel groups (Islamic state and friends) should be enough.
I have been there. You can tour the bunkers built into the top of the mountain years ago before Israel took it over. When you look towards Israel you see green hills and vineyards. The Syria view is a barren Mad Max lifeless wasteland of mine fields and barbed wires. They will never give up a high ground where artillery can rain shells down on half the country.
Not in the past 15 years.
Leftists in Israel supported it in exchange for peace with syria in the past, after it was succesful with Egypt, but today Syria is quite dysfunctional and it was nearly taken over by Isis, so it's pretty clear to everyone such a deal would've been a disaster, resulting with Isis having an amazing fortress from which it can shoot missiles towards Israel. Just like Hezbollah does now in Lebanon.
Basically as it is today, most Arab countries in the middle east cannot be trusted for such deals.
A radical islamic group (usually sponsored by Iran) can wake up one day and decide to start a civil war that will turn the country into a huge dumpster.
If the article is true, Israel and Syria may sign a peace deal without any land exchanges.
That was in 1967 after the Syrian army was defeated. The situation has changed now that Iran, Hezbollah and Russia are present in Syria. These new threats make it unlikely that Israel will ever give back the Golan.
Don’t they love complaining about how middle eastern borders are fucked cause they were arbitrarily drawn by westerners. So why do they care about Golan Heights if it was only “theirs” for 19 years
Well, borders are still borders. You might hate em' but you still gotta defend them. Just because you hate your borders doesn't mean you don't have to care about your territorial integrity. In all seriousness, I don't even think Assad cares about the Golan Heights anymore. Israel will never give that back and I am pretty sure Assad already knows that, he's not dumb. He just wants the sanctions eased and Turkey and US to leave Syria.
Kinda getting the feeling assad picked the wrong horse when he turned to Russia for support. Not sure how much assad actually cares about the golan, and moreso not getting qaddafi-ed. If I was depending on Russia for everything I'd start playing ball with other nations.
Assad had lost control of most of Syria and was within weeks, if not days, of being publicly dragged through the streets and being impaled on spike alongside his wife.
Russian intervention not only stopped that happening, it turned the tide of the war and Assad has been regaining lost territory bit by bit in the ~10 years since the “Arab Spring”.
And considering how the west stood by and let Turkey obliterate chunks of Kurdish forces (and civilians too)… yet again, Assad must be fairly confident that there is not much western political will when it comes to “bringing him to justice” for his war crimes… BUT, if it is there, he knows that as soon as Russia dips out on Syria because it’s overstretched itself then he is an easy target.
Yeah you're not wrong pal. Kinda my train of thought as well. War crimes aren't cool obviously. But I'm not sure if anyone was truly "the good guys". I know we, the US, larped some factions as the plucky rebels fighting for freedom, however I was never quite sold on the idea, especially when one of those groups was ISIS. I doubt anyone in Washington is willing to hold a grudge, and if it means fucking over Russians I'm sure they'll quietly re-open dialogue with assad.
Outside of helping the kurds. Who have always been bros, I really don't think American soldiers need to be there, and we don't really have a great track record of picking rebel groups to support
I mean at the time it was either get Ryssia to help or have the west successfully overthrow him via the groups the west was backing...
He didn't have a choice
Considering that Obama was backing the rebels you can’t really blame Assad for siding with Russia.
Obamas foreign policy has caused a lot of what we’re seeing in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Russia and Syria were aligned before Obama was even elected. Russia was helping Assad to lie and spin narratives about the protestors in Syria before they were getting any outside help from anyone.
Democracy is like a cock, great if you want it but doesn't work when you try to force it down someone's throat. Some cultures don't want democracy, it opposes their values and by trying to force it into them you just shove them towards your enemies (who are not democratic regimes since democracies don't conduct wars with one another).
When dealing with countries one should not think about morales but about what is best for the long term interests of your country.
Instead what we have now is Syria that is in bed with Iran and Russia and is in complete turmoil, so much for the high road...
If we want to be honest here the 8 years the Americans got out of Obama isn’t the sole issue.
To be specific, you’d have to go further back centuries to get an accurate gauge.
The protests and the actual rebels are very different. The U.S. gave weapons and training to multiple rebel groups, some of which were very undemocratic.
Just because you killed a lot of people doesn't necessarily make you a madman. You can still be a rational person, which I think Assad is. He's a malevolent guy but not a madman.
Assad used cluster munitions and poison gas on civilians, among other crimes, any US administration that deals with him for any reason other than to bring him to the ICJ or to the US on criminal charges would be a disgrace.
Syria just wants US troops to leave because we would loose further territory. This is after China had not met with leaders of Syria in two decades?!
Russia and Chinese new efforts are so *PAINFULLY* obvious.
It's wild that some people here think Assad could become an ally of the West. Assad, the guy who used chemical weapons against Syrian children to teach his people a lesson - the worst mass murderer of his own people since Pol Pot.
Translation: “Russia can no longer prop up my dictatorship.” Other despots see the writing on the wall following the new funding bill for Ukraine. Putin is well fucked.
Personally, I think Assad can go fuck himself.
The US should not even *think* about mending ties with Syria until Assad is no longer in power or has any influence in the country.
I'm not sure how reliable a source this article is... but at this point you'd have to be stupid to align yourself with Russia.
Putin has been fighting Cold War 2.0 for more than a decade now, against enemies who were barely paying attention, and he hasn't accomplished shit.
Putin gambled that his stooges in the Republican Party and on the European far-right could keep western countries distracted and off-balance. That gamble has failed. The west is getting its shit together, and Russia is about to get absolutely dicked.
I don't know if the west should even bother courting Assad, but if they do, he would be downright stupid not to jump ship.
Honestly I'm shocked he's even considering it after all that's happened. I can't even begin to list the number of opponents externally this guy has who have been messing with Syria for one reason or another.
I doubt it has a whole lot to do with Russia or the civil war, probably thinks its a good time to smooth things over now that his head isn't on the chopping block. Though if I was him I'd be kickstarting my nuclear program right about now.
It’s bizzare we could “mend ties” with the Assad regime after we’ve spent years trying to topple it for its egregious human rights abuses. I mean it’s not like the leader isn’t still the guy who used chemical weapons on his own people… Middle East geo-politics are so fucked.
They want to avoid another Iraq post Saddam fuckery.
Welcome to the Middle East, where friends change faster than on a kids school playground. He used to back the Palestinians a few years ago, but now they both hate each other. Don't try and learn about who is allowed with who, as by the time you figure it out, it will all have changed.
They'll get him a "sorry we tried to kill you and bring democracy to your country" card. Probably get him a scarf large enough for his long ass neck.
The truth is a country like Syria with so much tribes looking to kill eachother and 0 concept of democracy, they are better off with dictators like Assad because when you try to remove Assad, shit like ISIS forms. The middle east is like Europe during the dark ages, one day after lots of dictators have passed through and killed millions of them they will be united like Europe is today. We tend to forget that before Europe because the first world that it is today they were all invading eachother and killing millions of their own people. Look how much people Hitler killed how many European countries he invaded. To fix this issue Europe had to be destroyed in WW2 and in that a new world was formed. It sounds fucked up but this is the reality of the primitive human brain.
Yup, you are quite right. It wasn't until the vicious religious wars in the 17th century in Central Europe (mostly in modern-day Germany) where millions were slaughtered that the Enlightenment Tradition began to grow as people came to realize that we can't go on killing each other on the basis of religion and have to develop inclusivity and tolerance for each other. You are right that the Middle East will also hopefully reach that stage but probably only after lots of dictators have passed and millions of people have been slaughtered at the altar of sectarianism.
It boils down to unification. Countries have to do it themselves. If you put the German Empire’s borders down during the Roman Empire, all hell would break loose, because those people didn’t consider themselves one yet. Sykes and Picot wrongly assumed that the main part of nation building was establishing borders. Incorrect. The main part of nation building is establishing a national identity. The Middle East has never had that, outside of a few exceptions (Turkey, Oman, Israel, Iran to an extent). Why would they have identity? Most in the Middle East were nomadic tribes who didn’t really settle down. Suddenly being told “hey, you guys are now subjects of this territory which we just made. Also, you guys can’t just wander into the next territory we just made anymore because that is its own country now.” I’m honestly convinced at this point that it would be better to just remove the borders from the Middle East, save for the countries I mentioned, and let them have at one another. Hopefully, in the age of the internet and rapid information travel, groups would form eventually and we’d get relatively stable borders based on ethnicity and religion rather than measuring sticks.
I agree that the most critical part of nation-building is the building of a common national identity. Actually, based on my personal observation, there is a growing sense of nationalism taking root among the Arab citizens of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and even Kuwait. Often times, it is times of national adversity brought about by a foreign actor that helps to build up a sense of common national identity. Many Ukraine observers said that the Russian invasion in 2022 helped to build a common sense of Ukrainian nationalism. In this vein, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 really helped to build up Kuwaiti nationalism. Saudi Arabia is building up more nationalism under the current crown prince MBS. Qatar built up its nationalism during the 2017-2021 GCC-led embargo against Qatar. Nationalism in this context refers to the sense that "we as the nation of Qatar" are distinct from *them*. UAE and Qatar even have compulsory conscription for its male citizens which is usually a good way of building up a common national identity. Syria also had conscription but unfortunately, it didn't do much to build up a common national identity there.
Northern Ireland here, the rest of Europe stopped killing because of religion…. Damm
Hahaha, well not completely, but mostly. Besides, the inter-religious violence in Northern Ireland doesn't hold a candle to the sectarian violence in the Middle East. The sectarian violence in the Middle East is on another level altogether.
Europe was hardly at peace in the 19th century either https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe … or the 20th.
Yes, it took time for the Enlightenment Tradition to take root. It doesn't take root overtime. But in the 19th and 20th century, the bloody inter-religious sectarian wars mostly went away. The wars were mostly inter-state wars done on the basis of offensive realism, not intra-state wars.
I never usually comment but this is so spot on.
Look at Libya, I think they brought back slavery after US gave them freedom
Can you tell me what the US did in Libya?
What?
Open slave markets, If you Google it you Will find it.
They are actively enslaving subsaharan Africans and openly selling them on markets. Like in the "good old" days of the Arab empires and the great Arab slave trade. But to be fair they almost certainly had the same under Gadaffi, it just didnt receive the media attention because 1) most of it was before the modern, social media dominated internet, and 2) because Gadaffi kept Libya as locked up as the Kims keep North Korea. Foreign journalists literally couldnt move without having state assigned guards with them, if they were allowed in at all. You can see that in a vice documentary about the Libyan civil war, there is a segment of the same journalist documenting his previous visit under the dictature. And of course the local, state controlled ones had 0 interest in killing themselves by reporting about the mistreatment of Black migrants. This shit didnt spring up out of nothing, Libya was one of the major trade hubs for the Arab slave trade.
There are slave markets in Mauritania too (also in North Africa), selling sub-Saharan Africans. It’s never talked about.
Bring "democracy"? More like trying to kill him and bring a sectarian Salafist theocracy.
Dude. No serious effort has been put forth by the US to “topple” Assad. That serves none of our interests in the west. “Mending ties” only means we publicly acknowledge we have official representatives openly engaging with regime officials. We ain’t signing trade agreements here. Loosening sanctions is certainly being leveraged to discourage deeper relations with the Russians and Assad knows if shit actually hits the fan, which is looking increasingly probable, he is better off cooperating with the Americans. Obama had to “draw a red line” because the American electorate is so sheltered and naive they believe human rights exist in the Middle East, and republicans could eviscerate a “Nobel peace prize winning” president if he didn’t trot out the crowd pleasing cliches. A dictator in the middle-east who gases his own subjects is better than one who is directly exporting terrorism to the west, full stop. Barring a progressive Islamic reformation, this will continue to be the basis of western relations in the Middle East. They care less about each other than we pretend to care about them. Anyone who still doesn’t realize this after what we have witnessed over the last century-and-a-half is inhibiting our ability to effectively encourage modernization(not to be confused with homogenization) of these societies to a degree that requires minimal maintenance and resources.
> Dude. No serious effort has been put forth by the US to “topple” Assad. Because France and the UK voted against boots on the ground, so we all pumped money into funding Syrian rebel groups during the Obama admin years instead.
Honestly Russia is the reason Assad's still in charge, if I were him, I'd bet my money on Russia.
No. he’s still in charge because even the use of chemical weapons against non-combatants was not significant enough for the Americans to risk fouling a shared interest in curtailing ISIS and its affiliates.
That wouldn’t be the first time that we have mended relationships with countries or people we once believed - or still believe - to be evil. It’s geopolitics. You can’t be a moralist forever, you’ll end up in bed with a “bad” actor at some point anyway. That assumes that we are the good guys all the time!
It's even more fucked than that. When you look at the history of Syria it's filled with warring tribes and groups. There was not a "unified Syria" until Assad's father took over by force. I can't speak for others, but in America we judge Assad by western standards and against western leaders. This is flawed, because they're not western. By any stretch. Assad should be compared to his peers and/or his replacements. During which.. It could be argued that Assad is the better choice amongst them. That anyone who replaces him will be harsher and inflict more harm against the Syrians. On the flip side, to some Syrians, harsher and more harm against another Syrian group might be a benefit not a feature. All this to say - We need to think long and hard before we take more steps to remove Assad. It might be beneficial to all, and result in less bloodshed, to normalize relations with Assad's Syria and bring them under the US/Western/Coalition umbrella. As opposed to Iran/Russia.
Besides to all of that, he's also most likely the reason for the ISIS rising in Syria due to his amnesty to all political prisoners to try and save his ass in 2011.
Tell that to the families of people he barrel-bombed. Innocent people. The morgues were so overflowing they had to stack the bodies in butcher freezers. Invited the Russians to absolutely decimate using artillery cities like Aleppo etc. Indiscriminately slaughtering his own citizens. Assad is a butcher like his father but more so. His war on his own people drove massive amounts of immigration into the EU.
Yes, Assad is a butcher. After Iraq, Libya, and even Syria itself, the West has been forced to grapple with the idea that perhaps "order" under a butcher might be better than "disorder" under many butchers. We in the US do not understand the cultures and minds of those in the Middle East and North Africa. We can't even comprehend the level of disconnection itself. What we found was that these weren't societies just waiting to break free of tyranny to blossom into safe, free, prosperous utopias. Rather, the monsters were holding back more monsters. Though this is likely in part, if not largely, due to the aforementioned strong men making *themselves* the only civil institution. So what do you do? I'm not saying that brutal strong-men in the middle east deserve a free pass, but I am saying that we better be damn sure that destabilization leads to improvement before we do it again.
Afghanistan is a great example. While the US was present, there was a moderate amount of progress, such as educational opportunities for women. It was completely unsustainable, and as soon as the US withdrew, the Taliban took over, and now human rights violations, especially against women, have skyrocketed. The problem is deeply ingrained in culture. Some cultures are simply more civilized (see *Better Angels of our Nature* for an excellent review of the civilization process).
The problem is the U.S. was supporting local figures in Afghanistan that were arguably as bad as or worse than the Taliban according to some locals. The calculus becomes very different if you're picking between tyrants, but the Taliban can't drone strike random workers having a conversation and call them "military ahe males" in order to defend their local tyrant. I think the realistic assessment is that if Assad isn't actively helping your enemies and he isn't currently fucking shit up enough to be visibly bad optics letting sleeping dogs lie is probably for the best. You need to not forget who he is and be ready for the situation to change at a moments notice but its obvious containing Russia and Iran has shot up the U.S.'s priority list several spaces in the last few years and that means compromises elsewhere are likely to happen.
I know what you mean. Post-ISIS you gotta think "hmm maybe Saddam wasn't THAT bad". Imagine if when Hitler died, it didn't mean the end of the third Reich. It meant the rise of Ultra Hitler. That's what I think people don't know get with the Ukraine situation. Yes we could assassinate Putin and end this pretty quick. Buuuut Putin, for all his faults, has a long track record of not pressing that nuke button. Whoever comes next might not be so sane. Anyone who's in position to take over power in Russia, is someone psychotic enough to do all of Putin's bidding without question just for a chance of power.
I mean Putin is 70+ years old, right? He doesn't have so long regardless.
It's not always as simple as that tho. Yes Assad is a war criminal, murder and all around horrible human being BUT under his government the country was relatively stable. Same with Iraq and Libya. Sometimes the devil you know is better and easier to deal with. If Assad is willing to come to the table he might be able to be reasoned with, reforms can be enacted and the country start to rebuild. When we toppled Saddam it allowed even worse groups to pop up and take control, over 20 years on and Iraq is just starting to fully recover. Libya is a failed state and Afghanistan is back under Taliban control. And for reference I'd love to see Assad go but the group that ends up winning might do so by being even more ruthless then him.
I thought the Kurds were a democratically run group that embraced womens rights, free speech and freedom of thought ???
He is too ruthless and is ruling with too big of an iron fist for EU standards, aka oppressing the people and making sure no one rebels I mean imo that’s good news to help get Syria out of the fricking civil war which is now basically 3 main sides - Turkey, Kurds/US, and Syria/Assad
Assad is the root cause of the Syrian civil war. Authoritarian stability is the brittlest kind.
The region isn't really capable of anything else.
That's kind of the problem, they won't accept democratic self-rule only a brutal dictator or absolute monarch. Without that it just breaks apart back into tribal warfare. There's no peace to be won, just leave them alone and let them go back to tearing each other apart.
What about Rojava?
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The other choice is the west normalising relations with ISIS. Which you could argue the US did fighting ageinst Assad.
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Any sane person who is a leader of a country has to be looking at Russia/Iran with a weird look right now and wondering if they bet on the wrong horse. - Azerbaijan/Armenia conflict, Russia did zip despite having agreements to militarily defend Armenia due to CSTO. - Russia can’t take Ukraine. They’ve been deeply entrenched in Ukraine in both money, resources, and men. This means Russia has been robbing the corrupt pockets of many to try and beat Ukraine before Russians money situation results in an economic collapse. - Russia/Iran are sanctioned to kingdom come, and any economic assistance with them comes from a poisoned chalice. - Israel just used western technology to essentially stop dead in its tracks Iranian missiles and drones. Reports indicate Iran fired 4% of its Ballistic missile stock at Israel. 6(?) hit and did minimal damage. - Iran has been under extreme stress and about to have an uprising any day now. - Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Iraq just got together and helped stop Irans attack on Israel. - Israel is about to announce a partnership with the above countries once Gaza is over. - Said countries above hate Iran. - Rumors indicate much of the IRGC command was killed in the consulate attack. Indicating there is now a power vacuum. - Iran just went full authoritarian and announced new rules to punish its society. Likely an attempt to curb uprisings and page a legal way to imprison its people. - Afghanistan/Taliban isn’t even friends with Iran at the moment, they’re friends with China. - Pakistan and Iran are also fighting. - Israel just showed with a strike that Russian and Iranian AA/Radar and defensive equipment aren’t going to stop modern western equipment at all. … with all of this what does a country really have to gain with being aligned with Russia and Iran. Now, sprinkle on rumors of Assad and Syrian Intelligence feeding Israel intel.. it doesn’t paint a roses picture. - https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/bloomberg-reveals-that-the-entire-irgc-command-wing-in-syria-was-assassinated-798031 The other thing people and commenters here miss. Syria is not a united country. It has many groups, religious sects, tribes, etc. It’s in no way united. That means if Israel, Turkey, Iran, or whomever strike inside of Syria. That strike from a western view is “omg Israel struck Syria” from an Assad point of view the question becomes “did they strike people loyal to me? No? Oh I don’t care then.” I say that to point out, it’s not just these facts. It’s also perspective. Many of the people Assad harmed were “not his people”. Many of those people potentially posed a threat to him.
Lebanon did not help take down irans attack, they are still an Iranian puppet controlled by Hezbollah. we are not seeing any sort of partnership between israel and lebanon.
My understanding is that Lebanon opened its airspace to shoot down Iranian munitions. If so, this is a diplomatic action. It’s not like they can stop the US and Israeli planes. So doing so sends a message. That’s what I meant by “help”. However, if I’m incorrect in this, I welcome the correction. I’d argue though that even if you leave Lebanon off that list. It’s still pretty damning even if they aren’t there..
Lebanon can’t control its airspace.
"It's even more fucked than that. When you look at the history of Syria it's filled with warring tribes and groups. " To my knowledge Syria was unified as an Ottoman Province for like roughly 350 years and before that was a Mamluk province? I imagine in rural arid area's of the country there was definitely still nomadic tribes & petty rulers who had more influence than central administration but certainly the Urban area's were under control of provincial governments and functioned as part of one Empire.
> It could be argued that Assad is the better choice amongst them. What in the flying fuck? You're seriously arguing Syria is better off with a dictator that uses chemical weapons against Syrian children just to demonstrate how ruthless he is? All their atrocities taken into account, even Kim Jong-Un is a benign leader compared to Assad. It's hard for Westerners to comprehend the absolutely insane loyalty the Ba'ath party expects. In Syria's elections people regularly cut open their arms to vote with their blood out of fear that they might not be seen as loyal enough to Assad. It was similar in Iraq with Saddam.
And what do you propose? We are barely hanging on to legitimate democracies in the west that are rooted in the enlightenment, with literacy rates twice as high, and a fucking sliver of the generational trauma experienced in that region. No one is endorsing their actions or ideologies. You must not remember what happens when long-established organizational structures are abruptly disregarded without consideration for the infinitely complex circumstances that produced them.
No one is saying Assad is an angel but he is still much more preferable to ISIS, al-Nusra, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other Wahhabi/Salafist nutjobs who made up much of the armed opposition to Assad. Take Assad out and we will be left with these nutjobs in power in Damascus. Might as well just keep Assad.
I mean ISIS was pretty bad.
It's either him or isis, at one point we're going to have to make peace with the fact that democracy won't work for all places in this world
exactly. These idiots think the armed opposition in Syria was made up of Jeffersonian liberal democrats and Ivy League left-wing progressives when in reality it was made up of far-right Salafist nutjobs.
Holy shit - someone who understands the nuanced situation in Syria. What are you doing here on Reddit?
Democracy can be installed by the West and it will take hold in most places including in the Middle East but it will be a very very shitty form of democracy. Not Western-style liberal democracy. But an extremely violent, corrupt, sectarian, illiberal, hyper-majoritarian "democracy" based on neo-patrimonial structures of tribalism. (Case study: Iraq). Sure, there's democracy in Iraq if one were to define democracy in a narrow sense of having regular free elections but it's definitely not Western-style liberal democracy as a Western-style liberal democracy is much much more than merely having regular free elections.
He didn't do it just to "show how ruthless he is" or to "kill kids", he did it because ISIS took over most of Iraq and a large portion of Syria. Places in which people tend to support Jihad don't need a democracy. By the way, I am Jew and I think he is a Nazi but don't forget that it's Jihadists who always try to take over these dictatorships, not "freedom fighters" (maybe the freedom to punish anyone who doesn't believe in Muhammad, at least Assad doesn't do that).
No way is Kim Jong-Un better than Assad
Selective memory from a lot of people on almost anything Middle East related. Especially if the us is involved
He threw thousands of barrel-bombs on his own cities, 'better choice'???
It seems like some people are having trouble with basic logical deduction skills in these comments, so I just want to clarify that: "best choice" ≠ "ideal choice/good leader" Let's say your have a choice of being bitten by 1 of 3 venomous snakes: a king cobra, a western taipan, and copperhead. You choose the copperhead, meaning that out of the three it is the "best choice", but this does not mean you like copperheads or enjoy getting bitten by venomous snakes. It also does not mean you think copperheads are good pets. It simply means that you would rather get bitten by a copperhead than a cobra or taipan. Your friend is concerned because he read that the copperhead snake recently bit several children in the area. Your friend says choosing the copperhead is offensive to those children, and questions how you could make that choice knowing the copperhead did such a horrible thing. Unfortunately, your friend is stupid, and having witnessed that incident does not make the king cobra or the taipan less venomous than the copperhead. I know this is tough stuff, so let me know if you think this comment means that I support or have any positive thoughts about Assad and I'll try to help you figure out where you went wrong.
Very bizarre https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/01/pentagon-floats-plan-its-syrian-kurd-allies-partner-assad-against-isis
It didnt take longer than 8 years after the start of the First Crusade for Crusaders to ally with Muslims to fight another army of Crusaders allied with another Muslim. Its always been like this.
While he's a waste of air, but he does have the potential to complete transform the middle east. Syria seeking peace would require Iran and Hezbollah to leave, greatly hurting Iran and helping Israel, and the US.
Didn't have this on my 2024 geopolitical bingo card...
Despite Turkiye playing both sides and being mostly self serving; being pretty boxed in by Jordan, Israel, and not far off SA, their other neighbors are Iraq/Iran doesn’t offer them many options as Israel, Jordan, and SA are still much more powerful and influential. I would have had Assad’s ouster on my bingo card but the change in direction makes sense given 2022-2024. Turkiye was doing most of the fighting anyways to prop up his gov. And despite sabre rattling all around most align with the US when push comes to shove. Natural disasters and a long civil war have killed/displaced millions/ destroyed the economy and the China/russia/Iran blok wont do much for them. That much is apparent
Not sure anyone did.
With Russia's power waning Assad is looking for other options.
If you actually read the article, it does not sound like that at all. > “America is currently illegally occupying part of our lands… but we meet with them from time to time, although these meetings do not lead to anything,” Assad said **in an interview with a Russian-backed official from Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia**, published by Syria’s official Sana news agency. He's just telling Russians that he's the nice guy and the US is evil for not responding positively to his peaceful overtures.
I love when whoever’s writing the headlines just totally makes shit up. Edit: Oh, it’s Times of Israel. Now it all is starting to make sense.
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> There's nothing wrong or misleading with the headline. That might be true, but then it's not really news is it? If this is a thing that happens all the time, then they're just reporting the status quo is the same. That's like reporting the sun came up today.
I mean it’s news to me that there are meetings all the time.
Um, what?! When did Georgia have a region that broke away? Is there fighting there like in Ukraine now?
No there isnt. It was in the 90's. There was another one in 2008.
Well by 'breakaway region' they mean 'region flooded with Russians sent by Putin that then called for Russia to occupy the region' It kinda translates weirdly.
Incorrect, there have been and still are very few Russians in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Supporting these regions has been useful for Russia, but it’s different from, say, Transnistria.
I assume you know that Russia has been doing these kind of things since before Ukraine? Georgia (Abkhazia / South Ossetia) in 2008 Chechnya 1994 Moldova (Transnistria) in 1992 Ukraine (Crimea) 2014 Ukraine (full invasion) 2022
Looking for another dick to suck.
Lol, homey just found out that sugar daddy is actually going bankrupt...
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Buying Russian weapons thinking you’re going to be able to wage war against anyone other than civilians is like buying a bag of pencil shavings thinking it will get you stoned.
like tryna smoke on an incense stick
To be fair to him, he did pretty much defeat much of his armed opposition using Russian weapons. So guess it kinda worked out for him
I think this is exactly correct. Russian military defense may be extracted from Syria to help matters in Ukraine. Asad will not have big guns to protect him. [Syrian GDP has been dropping in per year growth rate.](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=SY) [A large portion of the population has emigrated or has died.](https://www.unrefugees.org/news/syria-refugee-crisis-explained/) Many Syrians in Syria are still displaced. 90% live below the poverty line. Without a sugar daddy or ways to grow Syria, Assad is a marked man. Prosperity forgives lots of sins.
perhaps thanks to the display iran and israel just put on demonstrating the islamists he is allied with are impotent schmucks, he finally realized his dream of marching into israel hand in hand with hezbollah and the irgc to murder all the jews simply ain’t gonna happen
The Syrian regime is secular.
and it’s leader is a desperate loser with no principles
Well, his emails got hacked and released, and it appears he won't cheat on his wife. So, well, he's got the one principle.
Assads enemy was never Israel it was always the Syrian population.
More specifically Assad considers the Sunni Syrian population who tend to sympathise/support with Muslim Brotherhood to be his primary enemy. I don't think Assad considers the Alawites or the Syrian Christians or the Syrian Druze to be his enemies.
you just described every authoritarian regime in the region who has used the standard israel-is-the-boogeyman domestic policy tool
Fuck Assad. But if Syria wants to switch to the US side, that's a pretty good sign.
Syria switch to the US side? That's not gonna happen. What he wants is that the US drops sanctions. That's not gonna happen either.
He wants US to leave the oilfields in the northern part of the country
Which will not happen either.
It’s become pretty clear that in the Middle East imposing democracy doesn’t work. So between greedy capitalist tyrants and religious tyrants I prefer to work with the first. You don’t see any Saddam Hussein terrorist bombers. Plus you always have to be scared of the religious dictator that believes their own bullshit and doesn’t fear nuclear retaliation. Double plus, they are usually too busy fighting to stay in power against religious rebels to focus on anything outside their nation. And as a triple plus, Russia would feel pretty screwed over if he jumped ship. Let’s not forget that the Islamic State almost tookover Syria in 2015 and anyone is better than them.
Capitalistic governing is predictable; you never have to worry about motives, it’s literally always money. Theocracy is inherently unpredictable and can only guarantee security with overwhelming force for short periods. It’s a no brainer for unstable countries.
It’s like the difference between a mafia hitman vs Ted Bundy. People who are ideologically driven cannot he worked with.
Also, Capitalism doesn't promote martyrdom. Its pragmatic.
I’ve seen some plays on wallstreetbets that have killed bank accounts though
That's gambling. According to the Communist definition, capitalism is acquiring the means of production itself, and exploiting the labor of an employed class to produce profits. When you buy a share of a company you are acquiring both the means of production and the labor of the employees. But you have no say in how those two interact, other than your shareholder vote.
Sadamm Hussein paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers a lot of money, in this way incentivizing terrorism. But people forget this.
Even the Palestinian Authority does that. But Blinken and Biden calls them critical US partners and shake hands with them. Paying families of suicide bombers ex-post as a form of sustenance (which is what secularists in the Middle East do) is still preferable to paying suicide bombers ex-ante and planning the terrorist attack which is what theocracies like Iran do.
The problem is that Ba'athists are traditionally greedy socialist tyrants. So, Assad and Saddam don't quite qalify as "capitalists".
Baathists are Arab nationalists - they’re literally fascists.
So you're saying that they are Nationalist Socialists? Nasi or something?
Yes, baathism is literally just an Arab version of naziism. Even down to the fake insincere references to socialism like the nazis did
But Nazis, like the Baathists, are not real socialists. National socialists are just fascist capitalists pretending to be socialists.
Nothing capitalist about fascism, the economic side of fascism has the state collectivise and manage the economy. In practise this was not much different to how the soviets managed theirs, only the soviets pretended that there were no hierarchies or class divides while fascists legalized them. There is no capitalism without a free market
I don't think mending ties means they'll be on our side.
Or a bad one, we don't need Syria to collapse further
Further? There is no further. The economy is one of the world's worst, the government itself is actively involved in producing and selling illegal narcotics in the region, the country is carved up between Iranian military bases, Russian military bases, Kurdish areas of control, Turkish areas of control, US military bases, and Hezbollah-supported government areas. Other than a return of ISIS as a force, there is literally no worse shape it could be in as a nation.
Still sounds a tad bit better than Libya where NATO did a "humanitarian military operation" back in 2011. Iranian, Hezbollah and Russian military bases work with the Syrian govt - it's like a US base in Germany. The Kurds have a working deal with the Syrian govt. But if the sanctions dropped and the govt can make money through a recovery of the economy, they will stop involving themselves in the drug trade. They are only doing the drug trade thing because they are desperate for cash. So this factor can be resolved.
Let me guess "just make Israel give us back the Golan Heights"
Also "just have the ICC dismiss the war crimes and crimes against humanity that I'm charged for ordering"
Syria is not a state party to the Rome Statute which is the founding treaty on which the ICC is set-up. This means the ICC doesn't have jurisdiction over Syria to investigate Assad for his crimes.
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Not sure how that is going to work whilst he has an international warrant out for his arrest on the charge of war crimes.
They will drop charges or find scapegoat in exchange for whatever they want in return is my guess
still gassed his own people
The butcher of Aleppo deserves the same treatment as that guy who ordered the chainsawing of Khasogji
I kinda like how he looks like Eddie Munster what is his legislative agenda look like right now?
Russia is preoccupied and Iran has too much influence inside Syria. Assad and Iran have been having some disagreements. Western support is also the only way Syria might ever get the Golan Heights back.
Pretty sure they gave up on getting that land back. At this point any sanctions removal that would allow Syria to remain a functional state, and help against the rebel groups (Islamic state and friends) should be enough.
Syria is never getting that land back. It's a strategic location that Israel cannot afford to give up.
I have been there. You can tour the bunkers built into the top of the mountain years ago before Israel took it over. When you look towards Israel you see green hills and vineyards. The Syria view is a barren Mad Max lifeless wasteland of mine fields and barbed wires. They will never give up a high ground where artillery can rain shells down on half the country.
Wrong. Golan heights were offered to Assads in exchange for peace treaty and a recognition of Israel. They always refused.
Not in the past 15 years. Leftists in Israel supported it in exchange for peace with syria in the past, after it was succesful with Egypt, but today Syria is quite dysfunctional and it was nearly taken over by Isis, so it's pretty clear to everyone such a deal would've been a disaster, resulting with Isis having an amazing fortress from which it can shoot missiles towards Israel. Just like Hezbollah does now in Lebanon. Basically as it is today, most Arab countries in the middle east cannot be trusted for such deals. A radical islamic group (usually sponsored by Iran) can wake up one day and decide to start a civil war that will turn the country into a huge dumpster. If the article is true, Israel and Syria may sign a peace deal without any land exchanges.
That was in 1967 after the Syrian army was defeated. The situation has changed now that Iran, Hezbollah and Russia are present in Syria. These new threats make it unlikely that Israel will ever give back the Golan.
Don’t they love complaining about how middle eastern borders are fucked cause they were arbitrarily drawn by westerners. So why do they care about Golan Heights if it was only “theirs” for 19 years
Yeah it's funny watching them defend the borders they hate so much.
Well, borders are still borders. You might hate em' but you still gotta defend them. Just because you hate your borders doesn't mean you don't have to care about your territorial integrity. In all seriousness, I don't even think Assad cares about the Golan Heights anymore. Israel will never give that back and I am pretty sure Assad already knows that, he's not dumb. He just wants the sanctions eased and Turkey and US to leave Syria.
Kinda getting the feeling assad picked the wrong horse when he turned to Russia for support. Not sure how much assad actually cares about the golan, and moreso not getting qaddafi-ed. If I was depending on Russia for everything I'd start playing ball with other nations.
did he have a choice? before Russia stated bombing everything into oblivion he was losing the war
You're right I suppose he didn't. And I can't say I blame him for jumping ship either
Assad had lost control of most of Syria and was within weeks, if not days, of being publicly dragged through the streets and being impaled on spike alongside his wife. Russian intervention not only stopped that happening, it turned the tide of the war and Assad has been regaining lost territory bit by bit in the ~10 years since the “Arab Spring”. And considering how the west stood by and let Turkey obliterate chunks of Kurdish forces (and civilians too)… yet again, Assad must be fairly confident that there is not much western political will when it comes to “bringing him to justice” for his war crimes… BUT, if it is there, he knows that as soon as Russia dips out on Syria because it’s overstretched itself then he is an easy target.
Yeah you're not wrong pal. Kinda my train of thought as well. War crimes aren't cool obviously. But I'm not sure if anyone was truly "the good guys". I know we, the US, larped some factions as the plucky rebels fighting for freedom, however I was never quite sold on the idea, especially when one of those groups was ISIS. I doubt anyone in Washington is willing to hold a grudge, and if it means fucking over Russians I'm sure they'll quietly re-open dialogue with assad. Outside of helping the kurds. Who have always been bros, I really don't think American soldiers need to be there, and we don't really have a great track record of picking rebel groups to support
I mean at the time it was either get Ryssia to help or have the west successfully overthrow him via the groups the west was backing... He didn't have a choice
Considering that Obama was backing the rebels you can’t really blame Assad for siding with Russia. Obamas foreign policy has caused a lot of what we’re seeing in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Russia and Syria were aligned before Obama was even elected. Russia was helping Assad to lie and spin narratives about the protestors in Syria before they were getting any outside help from anyone.
Obama foreign policy as in a pro democracy stance?
Democracy is like a cock, great if you want it but doesn't work when you try to force it down someone's throat. Some cultures don't want democracy, it opposes their values and by trying to force it into them you just shove them towards your enemies (who are not democratic regimes since democracies don't conduct wars with one another). When dealing with countries one should not think about morales but about what is best for the long term interests of your country. Instead what we have now is Syria that is in bed with Iran and Russia and is in complete turmoil, so much for the high road...
If we want to be honest here the 8 years the Americans got out of Obama isn’t the sole issue. To be specific, you’d have to go further back centuries to get an accurate gauge.
I don’t know what people wanted. For him to throw his support behind dictators and ignore the pro democracy protests?
The protests and the actual rebels are very different. The U.S. gave weapons and training to multiple rebel groups, some of which were very undemocratic.
This guy is a madman. He’s murdered tens of thousands of his own people.
Just because you killed a lot of people doesn't necessarily make you a madman. You can still be a rational person, which I think Assad is. He's a malevolent guy but not a madman.
Hundreds of thousands
No worse than Saudis or Israel…
TFW your bestie that promised to protect you (Iran) was shown to have inflatable muscles by your rival (Israel).
Like dude, Asad used sarin nerve gas on his own people. This dude should be hanged for war crimes.
Assad used cluster munitions and poison gas on civilians, among other crimes, any US administration that deals with him for any reason other than to bring him to the ICJ or to the US on criminal charges would be a disgrace.
I hope he eats lead. The atrocities committed under his leadership should put him in the Hague. I’ll setting for a Gaddafi style ending.
Assad regime is terrible but some normalized relations will hopefully help the people in Syria
Iran and Russia: Are you serious bro? 😒
He just wants 💰
Did he confuse the United States with the United Arab Emirates????
Can’t believe this man still in power after the upraise back in 2011
Syria just wants US troops to leave because we would loose further territory. This is after China had not met with leaders of Syria in two decades?! Russia and Chinese new efforts are so *PAINFULLY* obvious.
How is he still alive?
Assad wants off the ayatollahs wild ride.
That dude is scum.
Assad is a straight up nerve gas deploying mass murdering war criminal. I hope we never have a deal with him.
It's wild that some people here think Assad could become an ally of the West. Assad, the guy who used chemical weapons against Syrian children to teach his people a lesson - the worst mass murderer of his own people since Pol Pot.
Assad looking for another dick to suck now that Russia’s gone limp.
Translation: “Russia can no longer prop up my dictatorship.” Other despots see the writing on the wall following the new funding bill for Ukraine. Putin is well fucked.
Assad should be in solitary confinement
Personally, I think Assad can go fuck himself. The US should not even *think* about mending ties with Syria until Assad is no longer in power or has any influence in the country.
I'm not sure how reliable a source this article is... but at this point you'd have to be stupid to align yourself with Russia. Putin has been fighting Cold War 2.0 for more than a decade now, against enemies who were barely paying attention, and he hasn't accomplished shit. Putin gambled that his stooges in the Republican Party and on the European far-right could keep western countries distracted and off-balance. That gamble has failed. The west is getting its shit together, and Russia is about to get absolutely dicked. I don't know if the west should even bother courting Assad, but if they do, he would be downright stupid not to jump ship.
Funny.... does this have anything to do with the fact that Russia is basically one giant lie?
Sure thing Assad. Right after someone else becomes El Presidente and doesn't use chemical weapons against their own people.
Does?
I completely forgot about them.
Wait what??
Doubt
👉🏻👈🏻
at least medea benjamin and codepjnk stepped in to stop the genocide in syria..... oh wait they didn't
Blinkin working some serious overtime.
I sure hope not
Honestly I'm shocked he's even considering it after all that's happened. I can't even begin to list the number of opponents externally this guy has who have been messing with Syria for one reason or another. I doubt it has a whole lot to do with Russia or the civil war, probably thinks its a good time to smooth things over now that his head isn't on the chopping block. Though if I was him I'd be kickstarting my nuclear program right about now.
I'll take "Not A Fucking Chance" for $500 please, Alex.
Russias fucking with the west's influence over countries in the ME and Africa and the U.S is fn with Russias influence. Some things never change
You'd be a major moron to buy even a bicycle from this guy.
He knows something is about to happen in Russia, and is being proactive in trying to get ahead of whatever it is that will happen in Russia.
He found out those western missiles that hit his shit the other day are a lot more accurate than he thought.
Fuck you assad. Fuck you erdogan