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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   32093 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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