Steve_McGarrett
Gold Member
- Jul 11, 2013
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Yes. Is this his opinion because it's the best solution or because it is the Russian solution?
For more than four years, President Bashar Assad’s army – aided by Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards – has been slaughtering men, women and children in Syria. Some estimates say over 400,000 have been killed by chemical weapons, barrel bombs thrown from helicopters and bombs delivered from fighter planes, mostly directed against civilian targets. And the world stood and watched.
The Islamic State group then entered the fray, killing or enslaving all who were not Sunni Muslims and decapitating people in front of television cameras. Assad and ISIS were getting away with murder, and the world stood and watched. The European Union busied itself discussing whether goods produced in Judea and Samaria should be labeled in European stores. Commentators debated whether it was better to support Assad or ISIS. Until more than a million refugees fleeing for their lives began reaching the shores of Europe and ISIS terrorists massacred 130 civilians in Paris.
Then the world finally woke up. C’est la guerre, invoked French President François Hollande. If Assad’s murderous rampage had been stopped in time, and if ISIS had been crushed when it began establishing itself in Iraq and Syria, many lives would have been saved and the refugee crisis would have been averted. But in this world, 70 years after World War II, you can still get away with murder – as long as it is being committed in some seemingly far-away place and does not directly affect you.
What accounts for the world’s indifference, if not callousness, to the loss of life someplace else? I suppose it can be blamed, at least in part, on the unfortunate end result of the United States’ intervention in Iraq in 2003. Lives and treasure were invested, and the final result was chaos, internecine strife and the rise of Islamic State.
read more: The man who's an even bigger danger than ISIS - Opinion
“An extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities. That’s a real problem that Muslims must confront without excuse,” Obama said in just his third such message from his inner sanctum in the West Wing. “Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and al-Qaeda promote - to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity,” he said.
Obama also warned strongly against casting the war against the Islamic State as a clash of religions, saying ISIS uses that notion as a potent recruiting tool and warning that doing so risks alienating critical allies inside Islam. “If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism, we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies rather than push them away through suspicion and hate,” the president said.
Obama also offered a full-throated defense of his strategy for confronting ISIS in Iraq and Syria at a time when solid majorities of Americans of all parties doubt that the U.S.-led campaign is on track for victory. Recent terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California have fueled those concerns, including among Democrats. “Here’s what I want you to know: The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it. We will destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us,” Obama promised. “So far we have no evidence that the killers were directed by a terrorist organization overseas or that they were part of a broader conspiracy here at home,” Obama said. But, he emphasized, “this was an act of terrorism.”
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This indicates that Iran is increasingly relying on the deployment of IRGC members instead of the elite Quds Force. So far, more than 100 IRGC fighters including top generals have been killed in the Syrian war. It is the task of the Quds Force to conduct extraterritorial operations and foreign military missions. It has an estimated 15,000 fighters, while IRGC has over 100,000 members and it controls the paramilitary Basij militia with over 350,000 active members and reservists.
It follows that, after the nuclear deal, significant transformation in Iran's military is actively occurring, which suggests a manifestation of Iran's military empire across the region, more aggressive foreign policy and a reassertion of Tehran's regional supremacy.
While Iranian leaders project that they are fighting ISIS, Iranian forces are not anywhere close to an ISIS stranglehold. Instead, they appear to be battling Syrian rebel groups, including the Free Syrian Army, to force them to retreat or prevent them from capturing more territories in Aleppo, Latakia and Damascus. Iran is increasing its boots on the ground in those cities, fearing the fall of these strategic locations to the hands of opposition.
Domestic view of Iran's intervention
In the sense that the last time we did regime change we got Iraq and regional chaos, I think it's worth considering. Devil you know and all that.