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Notes -
So, why does the Western multi-national coalition want al-Assad dead or dethroned? Since the WMD narrative fell apart for Iraq and I believe the chemical attack narrative was a false flag by rebels, there has to be something more. But I never see these rationalist or rat-adjacent spaces talking about it.
It’s accepted truthiness among the alt-right and conspiracy spaces that Gaddafi was killed for trying to make a pan-African state backed by a gold Dinar. Is it something like that?
I thought I sent this response yesterday, but…
Why do you think the chemical attacks were a false flag? I would expect that to be less likely than the regime, which is known to target civilians, known to have the relevant weapons, and known to control the most likely launch sites.
Anyway, if you’re going to oversimplify geopolitics, might as well go all the way: Assad is on the naughty list. The most important predictor for Western attitudes towards a given dictator is whether he looks amenable to negotiation. Assad got a reputation for not playing ball.
I could get into the “he said” / “they said” of it all, but for me the bottom line was the timing. Trump was planning on pulling out. That’s exactly the wrong time to do a chemical attack..
The response to the Douma event was American cruise missiles hitting an airbase after clear warnings to evacuate. To his credit, Trump walked the fine line between retaliation and no response, and the feeling among his fans on The_Donald was that he knew it was not Assad but had to do something after having mocked Obama’s “red line” backdown.
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