Hey Grandpa. Corrupt Turkish president was able to save 40 Turkish hostages from ISIS but nobody knows what he paid for those guys' freedom. Some say he agreed allowing ISIS fighters use Turkish border to get in and out of Syria and so far it looks like this is true. What I don't understand is why Obama loves my beloved fucking corrupt Turkish Dictator Erdogan. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/isis-releases-49-turkish-hostages-report-article-1.1946495
Seems like Turkey wants it both ways. They want to remain friendly with the west but don't want to piss off ISIS. My best guess as to why Obama puts up with this bullshit is all the listening posts on Turkey's northern border with Russia. Turkey is also a NATO "Ally" whatever that means anymore. I also think they're scared that the Kurds will gain valuable combat experience and will carve out a new Kurdistan from the shared border with Syria after the smoke clears. Especially if Obama arms them to the teeth. Sad really. The next time Turkey finds itself in a jam, they're gonna come to the West looking for a handout. Lucky for them they're in such a strategic location that there is a legitimate need to deal with Turkey. No offense young one...
No offense taken Grandpa. I am a Turkish citizen but I am Kurdish. A free Kurdistan is my dream. And I am proud that Kurds are the only ones fighting ISIS tooth and nail in that region. Thank God Israel is Kurds ally. But not Obama. Sad. So sad.
Assuming she was killed I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that ISIS killed her and is blaming Jordan much the same way they gassed the Syrians a few years ago and blamed Assad.
America loves any corrupt dictator who can keep the lid on things, so far Turkey is in that column as was Egypt before the uprising. If Turks decided to riot against Erdogan the US would flip on him in a second. If the idea that ISIS had an agreement with Erdogan took root the US would flip instantly also.
This is a very interesting theory. I think the entire thing is BS, but if it does turn out to be true, what makes people think they didn't stage it to look that way? This whole thing is so screwed up man. We live in a sick sick world
I think it's at least based on media reports safe to say that the moderate Muslims in Jordan are overwhelmingly in favor of Jordan crushing ISIS. Apparently there have been some rallies over the last few days with a large group of people supporting the bombings which is a big change from a few weeks ago when many people while not supporting ISIS did not want to get involved. Now I see that UAE is also increasing their bombings as well however I do not believe that ISIS can be defeated until the Saudis not only lead the charge to root out ISIS but also begin to crack down on militants in their country. They need to do exactly what these terrorists do...threaten families , intimidate and kill any one who gets in their way. I understand that maybe it's not the "American" way of doing things but you aren't dealing with a traditional foe either, you are dealing with lunatics who only understand violence. I even read that some prominent pro al-Qaeda cleric denounced this burning as being too extreme and not something that should ever happen to any religion. Not that al-Qaeda has any room to speak about unimaginable violence but I see a struggle for relevance here and I hope that the US doesn't get in the middle of that and lets them kill each other and if Iraq has to burn more for that to happen better there than in the US.
Presidents don't matter as much as we think they do. They don't drill down the way we think they do most of the time and when they do the results are usually disastrous. The US security infrastructure is controlled by the tenured civil servants who have run it long term. Most of the time their suggestions rule the day and so we get an institutional effect that continues over the decades. Their tenure doesn't come from acts of law it comes from the fact that the bureaucracies they oversee are so complex and intertwined that very few people actually understand how things run or how to get things done. The problem with the approach is that politics creates incentives that run against best management practices and the tenured civil servants know that going along with the political mistake of the day is the best way to preserve their grasp on the levers of their service. The people who try to stop that kind of nonsense are the ones who get booted.
I don't agree with Brad about Presidents. Presidents do matter in fact. But there is also an establishment that makes sure a crazy president doesn't cause fundamental changes to the US Foreign Policy. The reason USA is a superpower because of the stability in the critical positions that determine USA's policies. By the way I wish abyzmul was available to write on this topic. He really has both experience and expertise as well as common sense. I would love to read his current Middle East analysis.
If this is true they fell down on the job in 2003 when US policy towards the Middle East changed in a way that we still haven't recovered from.
Nothing is perfect Brad. This is not a game. This is real life with different dynamics evolving and changing the game field. So they failed in 2003 but that doesn't mean they will fail all the time.
That's what I'm thinking...But man if they did that it's brutal. Man I hope she's okay. But it doesn't look good for her. Enough already of these people going over there and getting captured by these savages. They're playing into their hands and giving IS leverage
The dynamics evolving and changing over the last 10 years have been as much us as them. The mess we're in right now in the Middle East is more our problem than problems in the region because every time we change our policy we make things worse.
He's basically irrelevant to what's going on in the Middle East at this point. He couldn't extricate us from the battles there if he tried, and he did try really hard to do that in Iraq. He couldn't even leave office without saddling his successor with a status of forces agreement in Afghanistan that runs through 2017. As if Afghanistan is the key to everything going on right now... The Middle East conflict circa 2015: Afghanistan is in continuous revolt with a weak central government backed by the US. Iran is still hostile to the US because we've made no effective efforts to reconcile with them. Syria is wracked by civil war, unstable and we have no good options to intervene. Iraq is wracked by civil war, unstable and we have poor options on the table. Lebanon is in conflicts in the north, with Lebanese and Hezbollah forces fighting against ISIS and in the south with Hezbollah attacks on Israel. (The US has given a large amount of military aid to the Lebanese government, a government that is heavily influenced by Hezbollah, guess where the trickle down from that winds up?) Jordan is now coming under pressure with ISIS having achieved their goals in destabilizing both Syria and Iraq. The Yemen is in continuous revolt with a weak central government backed by the US. Egypt and the Maghreb are currently simmering quietly, waiting for something to touch them off. We can't fight and win the conflicts we're in with out current posture and we won't outright lose them either. We'll just slowly bleed in the desert into perpetuity with shocking new developments making things marginally worse over time.
