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It takes a "highly inclusive" definition of honesty to spew an appeal to political nuance out of one side of your mouth while simultaneously claiming that because this guy comes from a particular political/religious background he must be bad news. Clearly he's done a lot to stabilize the situation and consolidate power. That necessitates some degree of competence and flexibility to work with potentially conflicting groups and individuals beyond "off with the heads of everyone who doesn't believe what I do" type ISIS crap.
Regardless of how bad this guy's politics are I see no reason to care that some sandbox on the literal other side of the world, one that is particularly irrelevant to the economic interests of my nation, is headed by bad people with values I disagree with.
Of course the US peddles war. That's part and parcel with being the global reserve currency.
If some half baked islamic fundamentalist theocracy crap is the price of local stability that sounds pretty cheap to me, and it probably sounds even cheaper to the people who've had to live with the instability. If Europe has a problem with that in their back yard they can whack him and they can own the quagmire.
>That necessitates some degree of competence and flexibility to work with potentially conflicting groups and individuals beyond "off with the heads of everyone who doesn't believe what I do" type ISIS crap.
Well, about that. I have not seen a single man sentenced to death after Islamic law for any of the crimes they committed last year. He might not pull the trigger himself any longer, doesn’t mean he’s less responsible for the ISIS shit happening under his reign.
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/syrian-forces-massacr...
>If some half-baked Islamic fundamentalist theocracy crap is the price of local stability, that sounds pretty cheap to me, and it probably sounds even cheaper to the people who've had to live with the instability. If Europe has a problem with that in their back yard, they can whack him and they can own the quagmire.
Fair point. But at how many innocent souls do you draw the line?
I'm perfectly happy to concede that this guy and his cronies are "bad" and rule with an iron fist and that will cause much bloodshed and suffering. But who isn't in that region? A brutal dictator or theocracy is still better than a slow burn (so like car bombs and AKs not ATGMs and DShk's) religious or civil war.
I don't think the US should be picking sides in these things except in the most obvious and undeniable cases of national interest (and even then I'd rather not, see for example Vietnam). Sell arms to everyone with the money or nobody. My default position is that American interests are best served by commerce, all dollars are green no matter who you are.
We have common ground and both agree that this is a baddie. I am happy with that.
The rest is just a difference in problem solving.
How do we deal with the baddie?
We both can put a steak on the grill and have awesome steak, even if we would call each other crazy for how the other one might do the grilling.
I am happy I don’t have to make the decision how we deal with the baddies. Something we probably can agree on as well. It’s always easy to mess with the coach if you’re just standing at the sideline with nothing to lose.