Hey Canem Malum,

I don't know the answer to that question;
But I found these articles of the same leaders supporting the ousting of Assad and Ghaddafi.

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2019/01/01/how-the-war-party-lost-the-middle-east/
http://www.france24.com/en/20160311-obama-cameron-sarkozy-libya-mess-gaddafi-france-uk

What made them go from openly opposing multiculturalism, to supporting the cause of the resulting migrant masses that soon followed?
Something doesn't seem right.

Individual- Thanks mate I stand corrected. Stupid of me to think anything else. ;)

Armchair Critic- Sorry I reached my 20 post maximum- so I couldn't reply.

Comment- "Something doesn't seem right"

Answer- Yes- I agree. But not sure why. I suspect you do... To tease out the issues.
There's the "Lockerbie disaster" issue with Gaddafi, but he was also a Communist, Nationalist.

The Syrian's are Ba'athist which identifies with Socialism, Nationalism, Secularism.

Perhaps it's the Nationalist Socialist bit that conflicts with certain elements in the Socialist Elements in the US. Strange how close ideologies often conflict. Also anything Nationalist/ Localist is likely to conflict with anything Globalist such as International Socialism or International Capitalism. Interesting that the Socialists supported the anti-globalist Wall Street protests (anti-global-capitalist protests)- this is what Deneen calls "supporting your own form of Liberalism".

Similar things happened during the Iraq Gulf War(s)- when Sadam Hussein was removed both chaos and immigration ensued. Ironically the Ba'athists being Secularists are probably closer in ideology to the West than the Persian's as well as historically being Western allies.

There's the oil of course- critical for global business- but damaging to the environment. The reliance on oil only increasing with world population increases. The problems with our energy infrastructure cannot be (but often are) underestimated- as Elon Musk says "we have to solve this problem"- but though I respect Musk's work- I have to side with the Malthusian view in this case that "the power of population is too powerful for technology". The only fix is one that fixes the population. But this is a "necessary but not sufficient condition".

Even with a population fix a technology fix will be required to address the various energy supply issues.

So in summary- the issue seems to boil down to a combination of- Globalist Ideology both in the Social and Market sense (both Democrats and Republicans)/ and Energy-Mining Politics.

Saying it another way- the elites appear to be influenced by the Liberalist Ideological/ Resourcing/ Unlimited Growth (which themselves conflict at some levels) but the hidden opposition (and the wider conflict) is the public and their nature and the wider natural context. At some stage you'd suspect that nature would have to win out- but I could see mankind and nature itself becoming twisted and unrecognisable from the conflict.

So finally- it seems that the conflict comes down to Liberalism against the Conservative Property of Nature Itself- nurture against nature- change against stability- chaos against order. ;)

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that again Armchair Critic the solution is unashamed Conservatism over Liberalism. :P

"It's all a ... joke. God help us all." Edward Blake- Watchmen.

Armchair Critic- "What made them go from openly opposing multiculturalism, to supporting the cause of the resulting migrant masses that soon followed?"

Answer- I'm still not satisfied I answered your question.

The problem??

They didn't seem to see the second order effect coming.

Perhaps the leaders are torn between the public and ideology.

There appears to be an underlying issue with the way problems are analysed without factoring contradictions. Maybe leaders should be "project managers".

In another perspective- with statistics and maths modelling interesting (incorrect) results can occur with a failure to recognise dependent variables.

Perhaps these are the reasons for the apparent contradictions with the leaders. But this is rightly or wrongly the nature of democracy- leaders need to rely on advisers and the public- who have their strengths and weaknesses.

The solution??

Perhaps this is what Alexis de Tocqueville means by "Democratic Despotism"- with mass democracy there seems to be "a loss of the empirical" inherent in smaller more local forms of government. It relates to the "too big to fail" issue.

There are some streams of society that seem to have turned against the concept of democracy- because of structural issues- I wasn't sure what they meant by it- but with research I've learned that they seem to believe that by keeping things local society can function using public consensus- meetings and such- sort of a conservative form of anarchism.

In such a regime you could imagine that there could be concensus within families- given the concensus within families- a small number of families could cooperate on larger projects.

This seems to be similar to the pre-industrial model of society- given it's been tested before it should work- but it's been tried and failed before. Not sure why? Perhaps through lack of discipline. Some religious communities function well on this model.