This

The battle for Kobane/Ain Al-Arab between the Kurds and ISIS took place from Sep. 2014 until January 2015. In the fall of 2015, ISIS and the Syrian rebels (many of which were aligned with islamists like the Al Nusra front, an Al Quaeda offshoot) looked poised to be able to bring down the Assad regime, which was in retreat and disarray. It was then, in the fall of 2015, when their Russian allies started deploying ground troops and jets to Syria and swung the war in Assad's favor. The war was more or less decided before the American Nov 2016 election. None of this had anything to do with Clinton or Trump.



Agreed with the bolded. For various historical reasons, which go beyond the scope of this thread, Turkey cannot possibly allow the Syrian Kurds to establish an autonomous Kurdish state along its border. It's unfair to the Kurds, but that's how it is.


Nonetheless, the US could kick Turkey out of NATO if they attacked US soldiers. They could unleash the mother of all sanction regimes on them. Their economy is in a very precarious position anyway. A sizeable presence of US troops in the region could have deterred Turkey from this invasion.


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Which brings me to the next point:




For a myriad of reasons, Turkey wants to launch this invasion and create a security zone on its southern border which cuts the potential Kurdish state in half and cripples it, and which could serve as a relocation zone for the Syrian refugees that Turkey wants to get rid of. As I said above, I think that a sizeable presence of US troops in the region could deter this plan. But that's the point: the incentives for this plan on Erdogan's/Turkey's side wont go away, so US troops would have to be stationed there indefinitely. There would be no peace or state of stability to look forward to. Keeping the US troops in there would just delay the inevitable. It would definitely not be a limited intervention. Instead, it would be the Afghanistan situation all over again: spend a fuckton of money and lives on maintaining a fake peace which will fall apart as soon as the US troops withdraw, without making any progress during the deployment.


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Overall, I'm torn on Trump's withdrawal decision itself and on Erdogan's plans. What's obvious, however, is that the way Trump arrived at this decision, how he enacted and communicated it, was moronic, incompetent and dangerous.
I'm not sure if the decision itself is a blunder, but the rollout definitely was a botch. A big one. And at a moment where Trump cant really afford it. So sad.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 9 2019 06:53pm

Who are you talking to

you are so clueless, it's almost amusing. like someone doing a book report on something they haven't actually read. kurds already ARE a significant minority in eastern turkey, despite countless efforts to exile, kill, and disenfranchise them.
also, it's very much a false dichotomy you're trying to create in your post. there is not just one alternative to not doing erdogan's bidding and betraying the only reasonable faction in the region. suggesting it would inevitably lead to a major conflict with turkey is completely ignoring the leverage they realistically have, and overestimating their current regime's stability. if you genuinely believe they'd risk a military confrontation over that, just because the half-wit erdogan yet again managed to play trump like a fiddle, you might want to consider listening to some actual experts on the region, and not the propagandists who find 'perfectly valid' reasons for whatever emperor bonespur decrees.

it's amazing how stupid you have to (pretend to) be in order to defend his decisions...

Hillary was a hawk. The hope by the rebels was that if she won, she would continue to support the rebels but even consider toppling Assad. Her winning would of changed the calculus.

No, it would not. The Assad/Russia/Iran alliance had already won the war before she could have gotten into office, and there was already a big Russian military presence established in Syria.

Supporting the rebels at this point would have been useless, and an invasion with the goal of overthrowing Assad would not have been possible without getting into a war with Russia. And let's not even begin with how such a war would have played with voters at home.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 9 2019 08:14pm

I don't think so. Her actions as potus could have really changed the long term outcome.

This is what she was saying in 2017:



Then:



Like i said, if she would have won all signals point to that she would have extended this war.

I honestly think if the no-fly zone would of happened this war would probably still be raging on. I think without the Russian Airfoce pulping targets, Assad would have really struggled to clear our those rebel & ISIS areas.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Oct 9 2019 08:44pm

They didn’t fight in Normandy though.

Ukraine better find those Biden documents soon lest Trump pulls U.S. support for them... I imagine Putin would like to create a “security zone” of his own, and Ukraine technically didn’t fight in Normandy.

Agreed. Those selfish pricks didn't help us when we needed them so why should we help them?

The Kurds stand on their own two feet. They were basically hired mercenaries the US used. What is the US to do with them? Invade a country, make a safe space for them, and then act as law enforcement forever? No, no, no. The Kurds can choose their own path. The US should get out of the Middle East.

This post was edited by NatureNames on Oct 10 2019 12:01am