In the international arena, the Rolling Stones were right. You can’t always get what you want. President Assad of Syria was a bad leader. His regime jailed and tortured opponents. When a revolt against his government broke out, he had no compunction about using cluster bombs and poison gas.
On the other hand, he stopped using poison gas after international pressure, and his opponents morphed into ISIS.
The U.S. is backing some rather ineffectual rebels. We don’t coordinate with Iranian opponent of ISIS, because Republican Congress members see Iran as an implacable enemy. We don’t want to support Putin’s efforts on behalf of Assad because we worry about Russian influence in the Middle East.
My take on this is that Assad is better than ISIS in the same way that Stalin was better than Hitler. Churchill, when asked about the alliance with Stalin, said he would make an alliance with the Devil to defeat Hitler. Assad and Putin may be devils, but they are better than ISIS.
Agreed. We can thank Bush-Chaney Presidency for thee destabilization in the middle east. Although Hussein was a tyrant he at least kept the area in check.
ReplyDelete