Thanks, Obama! Now, in addition to screwing up Libya, which was once a fine little place to live, you've screwed up Syria and their neighbors.
Do I see a pattern here? Did someone mention "Afghanistan"? What's next?
Do I see a pattern here? Did someone mention "Afghanistan"? What's next?
> There are some in the Bush administration who hope that the fall of Saddam Hussein will be followed by a "democratic domino" effect across the Middle East.
> ...Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary... has said that Iraq as the "first Arab democracy" would "cast a very large shadow, starting with Syria and Iran, across the whole Arab world."
> ...specifically mentioned Syria, which according to CIA reports to Congress has a chemical weapons programme. Although not formally a member of the "axis", Syria is, in the eyes of officials like John Bolton, very much a candidate.
Classicists and grand strategists tend to view history in cyclic terms, with long-running conflicts echoing through the centuries.
We've been "intervening" in the Middle East long before Obama.
Iraq and Afghanistan—either one, on its own—surely did more direct harm to America itself, however, but in sheer foreign-policy terms? Our actions in Syria look really bad from that perspective.
I write that as an Obama voter, and Iraq war protester.