Hi ttbn,

Are you referring to the invasion of Iraq ? Yes, I agree, up to a point: al Qa'ida did exist then, and following a very long succession of Islamist movements going back to at least the eighth century invasion of Spain by very devout and newly-converted Berbers, al Qa'ida was already by then, spreading to Algeria and Somalia. The removal of Saddam simply removed a nationalist, or a national-fascist, rival of Islamism and provided an opening for Islamism across the region.

Try this thought experiment: imagine that, after 9/11, Bush had had the sense to realise that Saddam, although a proto-fascist, was not at all an Islamist, i.e. he was by no means the main enemy: fascist nationalism and Islamism are usually deadly enemies in the Middle East.

So imagine if Bush had sucked up to Saddam, provided him with weaponry, flash uniforms, had done deals, given him and his cronies buckets of money, whatever: in other words, brought him on side [hindsight is such a great teacher, isn't it ?}, as one more dictator like Assad or Mubarak to use as a bulwark against Islamism: democracy could wait until Islamism had been eradicated (at least for a while) and then the US could turn on its allies.

On that logic, yes, the US and its allies now should temporarily support Assad against a worse enemy, ISIS. For everything, there is a season.

The Russians are going to keep bombing the daylights out of the in-between rebels, as long as they are anti-Assad. Could they be persuaded to either withdraw or do a deal with Assad, and both/all turn their efforts against ISIS ? Is that too difficult ?

On the scale of things, Islamism is a worse enemy than fascism or semi-fascism, it has to be dealt with first. God, I'm disgusted at myself for writing that. But you don't fight two powerful enemies at once, you ideally should choose the worst to eradicate, first. Just hold your nose.

Joe

why don't we send all the Greens, getup crowd and feminist to Syria holding up signs saying we know Islam is a religion of peace and that Mohammed was a great example to live by.

Hi runner,

Brilliant idea !! Perhaps, once in Raqqa, the Get-Up people could campaign for homosexual rights (as long as they stayed away from tall buildings), the feminists could demand the right to reclaim the streets (as long as they stayed inside), and the Greens, once they have occupied the best coffee shops and imported sufficient kale, could demand that ISIS reduce its carbon footprint, all that machine-gunning of Yazidis and child-suicide-bombing.

One problem might be that, if they ever found that it wasn't to their liking and tried to get back to bourgeois racist Australia, by that time their citizenship may have been revoked.

No worries; they could always migrate to Hamas-controlled Gaza and campaign for homosexual and women's rights and against Israel to their hearts' content.

Thanks, Runner, keep fighting :)

Joe

I am with Mhaze on his Middle East Wall. It will get to this
eventually as the realisation comes to the politicians that we are in
a war that has been reoccurring every hundred years or so for the last 1400 years.

Turkey is a problem as it is a NATO member but common sense, in view of
its recent religio/political stance, should perhaps no longer belong to NATO.
Austria, with a history of Islamic invasion by Turkey, has said it
will veto Turkey as an EU member.

Including Turkey inside the "wall" would simplify the isolation.
There will be complaint by business because of the reduction in trade.
Regarding oil, they will want to sell it and we can buy it out the end of a pipe.
Operation of the Suez canal could be a problem but we must accept
that there will be some disadvantages. However as the canal is a major
money tree for Egypt some arrangement regarding transit should be possible.

This all seems way out there does it not ?
These steps are really very mild when you think of what has been
enforced in any other war.
Realism is the only way forward and wishful thinking will lead to disaster.

I'm worried that WW3 may already be in play.

I don't know how true the reports are about 'Operation Northern Thunder' with Saudi Arabia and Turkey planning an invasion of Syria with 350,000 troops, 20,000 tanks 2,450 aircraft and 460 Helicopters, but all I can say is that anyone who wants to start a war with Russia is clearly not capable of rational thought.

We're lead by idiots, who support US foreign policy in the M/E who support Saudi Arabia, Wahabbism, and by default Al-Qaeda.
This is the sad truth.

Russia is the good country in all of this and I'm sick of them being made the scapegoats for failed covert US 'regime changes' and US interfering in other peoples countries.

The US keeps invading and destroying nations and I'm yet to hear one single valid moral reason for any of it.

You all need to wake up, these fools are going to take us to nuclear war. I don't want to sound all doom and gloom but this is what our leaders are doing and we all need to be prepared for whatever comes next.

It seems there is now precedent for New Zealand to supply weapons to the Australian Shorten Labor opposition to destroy the Turnbull coalition government.

I repeat what I have asked previously, what has Syria's Bashar al-Assad been convicted of?