[quote=Airforceone]
JoyV wrote:
So you think a mere 2,000 military personnel have held Iran and Turkey at bay? So are today's Iranian forces and Turkish forces so extremely less competent than the VietCong were that withdrawing 2,000 of our military personnel over several months will result in the genocide of the Kurds and of Israel? If that were all it would take to end Israel, I would think the liberals and progressives would be dancing in the street. They go on and on about Israel being guilty of war crimes, being Nazis, and perpetrators of genocide.
As for the Kurds, the left has changed their stance on them time and again. They waver from calling them heroes to terrorists. Today the left does not hold them in as high esteem as they do the Palestinians, even though they have far more "right" to an autonomous state. Unlike the Palestinians, there is plenty of evidence of the Kurds inhabiting the middle east for at least 4000 years. Hopefully, with our slow pullout, there can be some contingency plan for seeing the Kurds aren't left.
Do you have any idea what the hell your talking about. You got a GD freak in the White House that is taking the credit for eliminating ISIS or containing them. It was Obama who made an agreement with the Kurds that the US would supply them with arms and training and it worked. ISIS is now contained but not eliminated. Now that POS is walking away from the Kurds because Turkey which Trump has family financial interest in a Tower.
When I say ignorance to facts you show your at the top of the list. There is also a Kurdish-Turkish conflict it’s an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and various Kurdish insurgent groups which have demanded separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan. But Trump with Financial interest in Turkey now opens the door for Turkey to take over a Kurdistan.
And yes the US maintaining a relatively small military presence in Syria very low level of casualties while the Kurds did all the ground fighting. They not only stopped ISIS they have them contained the job is not done yet.
And yes with a small military presence in Syria and the strong military presence in Iraq the Iranians and the Turks will not take that on.
So to fill in The blanks a US withdrawal from Syria means ISIS now can regroup and re-Emerge. Iran now will gain a stronger foothold in Syria by financing the buildup of ISIS. And now all those Kurdish forces now have no choice but to align themselves with Assad. That leaves Assad and Iran as the winners. Trump will now have his war when Iran starts its buildup of forces on the Israeli border and the US will be compelled to help Isreal.
Damm do any of you Trump not believe what Mattis as Secretary of Defense and Matt McGURK have done in the Middle East. And you believe a POS pathological lying real estate agent. The countries that are happy that the US is leaving Syria are Iran, Russia, and Turkey so spend some time to understand why
So you think a mere 2,000 military personnel have ... (
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ISIS was not defeated by the Kurds--although they did help. It was due to a coalition of 79 countries, as well as inherent weakness within ISIS itself. Add to that Trump's unapologetic approach to dealing with terrorism, and willingness to take a hard stand including airstrikes; and ISIS was doomed both from without and within.
The defeat of Isis did not come easily, three inherent weaknesses of its project always made it likely in the long term. First, Isis needed continual conquest to succeed: victory was a clear sign that the group was doing God’s work. Expansion also meant new recruits to replace combat casualties, arms and ammunition to acquire, archaeological treasures to sell, property to loot, food to distribute and new communities and resources, such as oil wells and refineries, to exploit.
But once it had occupied its Sunni-dominated heartlands, further expansion was unlikely. If it was easy to sweep aside a border of a shattered state such as Syria, the frontiers of stronger states such as Turkey, Israel and Jordan proved resistant. There was no way even Isis, a Sunni Arab Muslim force, was going to fight its way deep into Shia-dominated central and southern Iraq.
Second, the violent intolerance of dissent and brutality by Isis towards the communities under its authority sapped support. One reason for the rapid expansion of Isis was that Sunni tribal leaders and other power brokers in Iraq and Syria could see significant advantages in accepting the group’s authority. Its rule brought relative security, a rude form of justice, and defense against perceived Shia and regime oppression. And assent to Isis takeover also ensured, or at least made more likely, their own survival.
With a weakened Isis unable to offer anything other than violence, the defections started and rapidly snowballed. A collective yearning to restore the military, political and technological superiority over the west enjoyed by Islamic powers a millennium ago – or the conviction that the end times are near – proved insufficient to convince communities to fight and die for the Isis cause. At the very end, the hospital and stadium in Raqqa were defended by foreign Isis fighters. Any remaining Syrian militants had surrendered days before.
Third, Isis took on the west. This was a conscious decision, hard-wired into the movement, and not taken in self-defense as some have suggested. The first terrorist attackers were dispatched by Isis to Europe in early 2014, before the US-led coalition began airstrikes. The combination of western firepower and funding for local forces has repeatedly proved a potent one in Pakistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Libya, Mali and elsewhere. Outright victory against jihadis is difficult to achieve, but militant organisations targeted by the west are usually forced at the very least to abandon territorial gains, particularly urban centers.
https://www.state.gov/s/seci/c72810.htm https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R43612.pdf