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Saddam Hussein was a brutal despot who also kept his own country’s factions from waging war on one another.

It didn’t turn out well when we took him off the board.

And the same in Libya.

The Libyan war is just some bullshit to keep oil prices low, its very close to being a manufactured situation

Same could be argued about the last 100 years of the region. West doesn't give a shit about these countries as long as they keep selling oil (in dollars).

West propped and props up Islamism (and other tyrannies) to prevent nationalisations of oil resources. Seems to be mostly working as intended.

Wasn't a large part of that caused by the de-Baathification of the government and security forces?

And Iranian / Syrian funded militias.

You might remember that the US royally fucked up the process after taking him off the board.

Both Syria and Lebanon have managed, in the past, to work out a way for their various regions and tribal/ethnic groups to co-exist.

>It didn’t turn out well when we took him off the board.

No? The post-invasion process turned into a simmering insurgency followed by a loose civil war, but since then and so far, Iraq has stabilized into a more or less functional state in which investment is growing and living standards are again moving upwards. I don't see how the automatic response of "it didn't turn out well" applies. The shaky morality of a historical decision (invasion and toppling Saddam in this case) doesn't necessarily translate to a bad outcome in the long run.

It's naive to think that peace and stability will suddenly prevail in Syria. The situation will likely follow the Libya model: total chaos, worse than when Gaddafi ruled. HTS are wolves in sheep's clothing, and they wear this disguise only to convince the world that there is no need to form another anti-terrorist coalition. They learned lessons from the collapse of ISIS. All the organizations that once had a common enemy in Assad will now seek to seize power and begin fighting one another.

It’s equally cynical to presume that it won’t. People can only tolerate so much violence and this civil war has been propped up by external powers for over a decade.

Regardless, HTS isn’t the group that captured the capital so I don’t know why everyone is so focused on them right now. They got the ball rolling with their November 27 offensive and captured Hama but they’re still restricted to the northern provinces.

While on the topic of ISIS, I don’t think it’s the rebels we should be worried about. ISIS would never have become what it was without the former Ba’athist officers from Saddam’s regime building out its command structure and military. It’s the disaffected Ba’athists from Assad’s regime that we should be worried about.

Any regime change that involves freeing many thousands of women and children from prisons notorious for torture and mass-executions seems like a decent one! The future is uncertain, but it's not like "everyone chills out and gets into their hobbies" was an option -- it's gotta be one of the most war-ravaged places to exist in human history.

Have you heard of a thing called, Islamic State? They had a thing for creative murder. Aside from the usual behadings, they came up with things like pushing homosexuals from buildings in the public and alike. They are also now free again.

HTS has cut off ties with ALQaeda and IS since almost 10 years.

A) in the open

B) they released all prisoners now. And at least some of them were part of ISIS.

The majority of them (at the Saydenia) are political imprisoned citizens.

Well, technical IS supporters (who did not participated in killings themself) are political imprisoned citizens as well.

The point is, that no matter what they did, they are all free now.

What are you trying to state? There's a small number of citizen IS supporters and they're now free, along with all others who showed opposition to the regime. Ok. So what? Please don't use a general understanding of the patterns in the region to extrapolate wild takes when you don't know the specifics of each country and their people. Syrians are not Afghans are not Libyans are not whatever, as much as the west would like to portray them.

"There's a small number of citizen IS supporters and they're now free"

If their numbers are so small, why was the IS a global problem then, a couple of years ago?

10 years ago. They were a problem because they used American cars, clothes, weapons and media.

Ah, so you claim they were a american controlled group?

While the US spend lots of effort on hunting them?

Keeping the flames high, to play firemen?

I don't think that there was a need of more flames, for that theory to be plausible. Occasionally some western weapons likely did found their ways towards IS as well, but they rather captured the bulk of it. Or do you have other sources?

Afghanistan is the obvious example, among many. Beyond that, American interventionism has fueled extremism in the region for decades. This is not a wild take, but one agreed upon by scholars.

I mean, unlike another nation south of them, at least for now, they didn't destroy Christian churches (the opposite in fact, rebel-controled territory rebuilt Christian churches), and let Christian orphanage/school stand without expropriation under false pretense.

How it will develop has yet to be seen, but I'm hopeful.

How is this an answer to the op's statement?. Assad was a war criminal just like his father. Remember the Hama 1982. Son followed dad by killing thousands, torturing and displaced millions. West will support and try a rosy picture of so called secular totalitarians as long as it fits to their agenda.

It is an answer to the claim, that freeing everyone is always to be considered a good thing.

Freeing all the political prisoners, yes, I support that. I am not a fan of Assad.

But also all the IS militants who while being free, made a competition, of who can be the most cruel?

I am sceptical. And also about where those people will end up. And they are more than a handful.

>Any regime change that involves freeing many thousands of women and children from prisons notorious for torture and mass-executions seems like a decent one!

Overthrowing Gaddafi didn't make Libya a better place. Now it has open air slave markets, amongst other loveliness.

Slavery was common place during the Gaddafi era as well.

American education tends to concentrate on American history of slavery, so many American are ignorant about just how widespread slavery was/is in the Islamic world and how many Muslims until today consider it a regular institution explicitly endorsed by God.

I certainly wouldn't like to be a black manual worker in any Arab country. Even if you aren't a formally legally enslaved person, you will be treated as one.

Or any other place from Asia, ie nepalis or philippinos are treated absolutely horribly in many rich middle east places. That culture, barring exceptional ethical individuals, has nothing in common with modern western values.

The vast majority of Syrian refugees are going to try their best to stay in Europe because why would they want to leave to return to devastation and ruin (aside from forced deportation).

This might surprise you, but most Syrian refugees didn't go to Europe. Turkey has 3 million, for example.

Plus a lot of people who tried to pass themselves off as Syrians aren't Syrians at all.

The asylum claim processing authorities were a bit overwhelmed, but soon learned to ask questions such as "can you tell me in which city you used to live, what was the name of the mayor, what was the closest mosque/church, your address, your school" etc. Few of the fake ones could answer such probing in a satisfying way.

Most Syrians I know have unbounded love for their country and their people. You'd be surprised by the number of people who are not motivated purely by financial gain.

>Assad wasn’t really a stabilizing force

Questionable statement.

Syria has (had) a secular government that allowed Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Druze Muslims, twelvers, and Kurds to live there. The status quo for the region is theocratic iron fist of a particular Islamic denomination, with all others persecuted.

Not to mention, Assad is a Ba’athist (as was Sadam) which by definition is all about Arab unity.

Which Sunni warlord group should we hand the country to now? Do you think things will be better? Can you name a single Syrian political figure or interest group (don’t Google!) that you would propose lead the country? Be honest with yourself.

>Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have he chance to return home and rebuild now

They’re not going back.

> a secular government that allowed ... to live there.

"live" is a strong word to use there.

Syria wasn’t a particularly shitty place before all this began in 2013.

It was under a repressive dictatorship with crumbling infrastructure. Sure, it can always be worse, but the people deserve and are capable of so much better.

"Sure, it can always be worse"

Yes, I would argue the islamic state was indeed worse. And so far I see nothing preventing them or a similar force taking hold again. I mean turkey is the moderating factor here and turkey under Erdogan has gone the authorian islamic way since a while.

Drawing analogies between Erdogan and the IS is wild.

Where did I do that?

I said I am sceptical for the outcome, if Erdogan is the moderating factor. Or do you think, he cares much for human rights and democracy?

That is far from saying he is like IS.

Well his son made hundreds of millions / billions from selling directly oil from ISIS held lands, since nobody else wanted to deal with them. His daughter personally built and supervised hospitals in Turkey specifically built to treat wounded ISIS fighters. These are verified public informations, although they obviously deny it.

Erdogan is as much pro-ISIS as one can be. Maybe just a political game during complex conflict to fight against US-supported kurds at all costs, maybe not. We don't know.

I was giving you the benefit of doubt all this time, but your comments about my country confirms to me that you're misinformed. For all I hate Erdoğan and his attempts to undermine democracy, and I want to see him gone sooner or later, Turkey is as much an Islamic authoritarian state as USA is a Christian authoritarian one under the rule of Trump. There seems to be a tendency to exaggerate the realities on the ground for some reason, and I suspect this is fueled by bots.

I said going the authorian islamic way, not that you are already a califat. Sorry for the missunderstanding, I am aware that turkey is all in all still quite democratic and secular and we seem to both not like the direction Erdogan is heading. My point was, Erdogans influence over the SNA is not comforting me.

Btw. I just read, a pro SNA news source:

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/russia-astana-format-meeti...

It seems the war will continue.

Why are you relating authoritarianism with "Islamic way" or even the Caliphates? I've never seen anyone make this claim before, which is, to be honest, quite absurd.

Edit: Also your linked article no longer reflects the current stance of Russia.

That link I gave is propaganda BS. It claims the syrian army gave the terrorists( SDF) control over the new areas, while in reality they fought with US support against iranian and syrian regime militias. So that iran could not send support without fighting their way through it, maybe a turning point in this war.

It was just to illustrate that Erdogans goals are not peace, after Assad is gone.

That's all well and good. Could you please reply to my other question? I'm very curious where this notion is coming from.

The claim that Erdogan is more open towards being a sultan and open towards more influence of Islam into the government?

The sentence "I said going the authorian islamic way,", implies that there is an "authoritarian Islamic" way. What is that? Because it sounds like you're implying that the religion has intrinsic authoritarian aspects to it.

"Because it sounds like you're implying that the religion has intrinsic authoritarian aspects to it."

No, it implies the focus on the authorian aspects of Islam, just like certain groups in the US would like a authorian christian rule of law.

The issue is that in the West people hear one of Erdogan's pep-talk speeches against Israel on CNN and assume that he means everything.

They don't know that Turkey has been delivering oil to Israel all the time and that Israel is in favor of the current events in Syria.

If all of Turkey, the U.S. and Israel support the Syrian rebels, we may assume that the goal is to install a U.S. friendly government (perhaps supervised by Turkey) and have more buffer states against Iran.

Yes, it must be much better now after all the devastation. Same with Lybia, much better place now, no?

Why do you insist that it will go the way of Libya? The rebels are calling for a peaceful and democratic transition of the government and the protection of all minorities. They've stopped using Islamist rhetoric for almost 10 years. This is as good of a regime change in Syria as it gets.

There is no counter-example of thriving democracies developed after western regime change projects. On the other hand, there’s Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

Tunisia

It is not a democracy https://time.com/7020023/tunisia-kais-saied-democracy/

I don't know what the future will bring, I said it in retrospect of the last 15 years.

That feels like a claim that might be news to the residents of Madaya, Yarmouk, Douma, and Idlib, right?

>Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have the chance to return home and rebuild now. That’s great news.

Just because they might have chance to return home and rebuild doesn't mean that they will. Somalis arrived in the 90's, and they never returned back there except for vacations.

Um, did Somalia actually get much better since then ?

What indication is there that the forces opposed to Assad will make syria better? Everything I've seen points to Libya all over again.

There's not likely to be much to go back to for most of the people who've left.

The case for refugees isn't "their country is bad". It is "they are fleeing war".

If it was the former case, then approximately 7b people would be valid refugees.

Isn't there an ongoing civil war in Somalia?