RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mattis-and-syria-get-a-grip-on-the-hysteria/

Three, earlier this year Mattis was the subject of a lot of curious stories quoting appraisals of him as “bulletproof,” given that despite his numerous disagreements with Trump (reportedly on getting out of the Paris climate accord, moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, quitting the Iran deal, transgender soldiers, etc. ), he still was seen as invaluable to the president, who had given him, according to Washington conventional wisdom, unusual latitude and exemption to focus on rebuilding the military and reestablishing deterrent policies.
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Four, earlier this year Trump had promised to put troops into Syria to finish up destroying ISIS for “six months.” So his deadline was not really much of a surprise, although most had thought, given the success of the mission, that a continued presence would be in the country’s and the administration’s interests. And now we will see what happens, and pray that the Kurds and free Syrians can survive, while Russians, the Assad regime, the Turks, ISIS remnants, and the Iranians and their terrorist surrogates all fight over the carcass of Syria.

Fifth, on matters of entering or leaving the Middle East, U.S. strategists in the cases of Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq must develop a more coherent rationale to justify long-term occupations — to convince Americans that these increasingly numerous and optional interventions (whether six months or 18 years) enhance U.S. strategic advantages, and in cost/benefit analyses are worth the human and material costs of maintaining them. So far, we rarely receive any real information on what the actual ends are, and whether the means to obtain them are sufficient or justifiable, at a time of $21 trillion in national debt and a seeming absence of gratitude from those we seek to help.

Four, earlier this year Trump had promised to put troops into Syria to finish up destroying ISIS for “six months.” So his deadline was not really much of a surprise, although most had thought, given the success of the mission, that a continued presence would be in the country’s and the administration’s interests. And now we will see what happens, and pray that the Kurds and free Syrians can survive, while Russians, the Assad regime, the Turks, ISIS remnants, and the Iranians and their terrorist surrogates all fight over the carcass of Syria.

http://carolineglick.com/pros-and-cons-of-the-us-pullout-from-syria/

President Donald Trump’s sudden announcement Wednesday that he is removing U.S. forces from Syria shocked many. But it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, because the move is consistent with key aspects of Trump’s military and foreign policy.

Trump promised to bring the 2,000 U.S. Special Forces home from Syria in April. When his announcement sparked opposition from the Pentagon and from key allies, Trump said that he would give the Pentagon six months to complete its mission to defeat so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) forces in Syria.

Seven months later, he announced the troops will be coming home.

Trump’s decision will have negative consequences. But it will also have positive consequences. Only time will tell if the positive implications of the move will outweigh the negative ones. But it is important to set out both to consider the wisdom of his decision.

On the negative side, the most immediate casualties of Trump’s decision are the Kurdish-dominated People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia. The YPG has been America’s partner and its ground force in the U.S.-led campaign against IS in Syria. YPG forces are the only forces on the ground in Syria that are loyal to the U.S.

At the same time, the U.S. partnership with the YPG has raised the prospect of a war between the U.S. and Turkey. Turkish dictator Recip Erdogan. Erdogan threatened last week to launch an offensive against the YPG forces. He spoke to Trump on Monday. Trump reportedly decided to announce the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria on Tuesday.

Also during the course of their discussion, Erdogan reportedly agreed to cancel his order of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system and to purchase a package of U.S. Patriot missile systems valued at $3.5 billion instead.

https://www.bizpacreview.com/author/samantha-chang

Iran increased its defense budget 145% using the cash infusion from Obama’s disastrous Iran Nuclear Deal.

Former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes — one of the architects of the disastrous Iran Nuclear Deal — now says he’s worried about a possible US war with Iran after Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned, citing policy differences with President Trump.

Twitter torched Rhodes over his ironic observation, which spotlighted his comically shocking lack of self-awareness.

“No Ben, the $1.5 billion you and your overlord, Obama, gave to Iran makes war more likely.”

“No more so than the ‘deal’ you and your former boss made with them, not to mention the Pallets Of Cash you sent them.”

The US is now indirectly a leading sponsor of Islamic terrorism — thanks to the disastrous Iran Nuclear Deal signed under former President Barack Hussein Obama.

Under the Iran Nuclear Deal, Iran — the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world — promised never to acquire nuclear weapons.

In the lopsided agreement, Obama lifted economic sanctions that had crippled Iran’s hostile regime financially for decades, unfroze $150 billion in assets, and gave Iran $400 million in cash in the dark of night.

Shortly afterward, Iran increased its defense budget 145% and is using the billions of dollars that were unfrozen under the Iran Nuclear Deal to build up its weapons stockpile and foment terror worldwide.

https://bit.ly/2AeO6ez

Few people are as perspicacious in understanding Mideast woes and policies as Yoram Ettinger. Among the wise men he mentions, only J.B. Kelly really understood and exposed the role of militant Islam and jihad that drives so much of the violence in the Middle East including the Arab wars against Israel.Too often Professor Bernard Lewis air-brushed it especially when he was so enthusiastic about Camp David and the Oslo Accords. ….rsk

Western policy in the Middle East – from Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, through Jordan, Egypt and North Africa – has largely failed due to a multitude of erroneous assessments made by well-intentioned policy-makers, researchers, academicians and journalists.

The track record of past blunders

For example, the State Department “wise men” opposed the 1948 establishment of the Jewish State – which they viewed as a potential ally of the Soviet Bloc – contending that it was doomed militarily, demographically and economically. In 1977-79, the US foreign policy establishment courted Ayatollah Khomeini and deserted a critical strategic ally, the Shah of Iran, assuming that Khomeini was seeking human rights and peaceful-coexistence. In 1981, the US punished Israel – militarily, economically and diplomatically – for destroying Iraq’s nuclear reactor, which spared the US a potential nuclear confrontation in the 1991 Gulf War. Until Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the US showered the ruthless Iraqi dictator with intelligence-sharing and commercial agreements. In 1993 and 2005 the US embraced the Israel-PLO Oslo Accord and Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, maintaining that they would advance peace, while in fact they fueled Palestinian hate-education and terrorism.

The 2010-11 eruption of the still-raging Arab Tsunami was greeted as an “Arab Spring,” “Facebook Revolution” and “Youth Revolution;” supposedly, leading Arab societies closer to democracy. During 2009-11, the US sacrificed pro-US Egyptian President Mubarak on the altar of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the largest Sunni-Muslim terrorist conglomerate. In 2011, the US led the NATO toppling of Libya’s Qaddafi – who previously surrendered his infrastructure of weapons-of-mass-destruction to the US and systematically fought Islamic terrorism – contending that a post-Qaddafi Libya would be more democratic and pro-Western. In 2018, Libya is one of the largest platforms of Islamic terrorism. In 2015, the US led the JCPOA accord with Iran’s Ayatollahs, which provided the inherently anti-US rogue regime with an unprecedented tailwind to topple all pro-US Arab regimes, intensify terrorism in the Middle East and Africa, and try to push the US out of the Persian Gulf.

Notwithstanding the failure of all well-intentioned US initiatives to advance Israel-Arab peaceful-coexistence, the US may introduce another peace initiative, overlooking the face that the only successful peace initiatives were directly negotiated between Israel-Egypt and Israel-Jordan. And the list goes on….

Assessing the track record of past blunders

Such a track record provoked systematic criticism by “The Gang of Four,” who were the leading experts/authors on the Middle East: Prof. Elie Kedourie (London School of Economics & Political Science), Professor P.J. Vatikiotis (London School of Oriental and African Studies), Prof. Bernard Lewis (Princeton University) and Prof. J.B. Kelly (University of Wisconsin). Their criticism, which has been in publication since the 1960s, has been resoundingly vindicated by the Arab Tsunami, which has traumatized the Middle East, and threatened the West, since 2010.