Is Trump really the anti-aggressor some voted him in for?

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The thing that sucks is we have a leader who the people of that country have been fighting to remove, failing abjectly with significant aid of Russia to keep Assad propped up. They'd need to figure out how to diffuse that one because it hurts every day not just for Syria itself and its neighboring regions but it's also a significant driver of the refugee crisis and Europe getting overrun with refugees by way of places like Lesbos.

I generally don't favor us playing nation-building games either but we've gotta figure out if there's any way that the standoff can be resolved aside from US, China, and Russia getting goaded into some type of WW3 scenario. I'm not sure if I want to say much more than that aside from perhaps open up a side discussion here perhaps - ie. what do you think Putin is trying to do with specifically backing Assad and do you think Assad himself is a necessity or just someone aligned with Russian interests? I'd really worry if it's the former because it would signal that the current chaos is actually their aim rather than just an incidental cost.

Whether its a democracy or a much more liberal dictator - something has to give in Syria.



It's probably best that they tune that criticism out as much as they can and focus on workable solutions. Our country is a bit basketcase right now and they can probably write off a fair amount of it to the current climate.


I think we really have the view, particularly on the neoconservative level (and I agree with them up to this point) that if there's chaos and ideological fascism in the middle east it demonstrates repeatedly that it will spill out over here and in Europe even more so. Really any time this kind of activity is going on over there it has a cost to us. If we intervene then we've historically wanted to at least get partial reimbursement for our efforts, in Iraq we wanted to work that out in terms of oil.

People can argue how much of it is our desire to stabilize the region to lower national security threats and how much of it is about oil, or if someone wants to down the Noam Chomsky rabbit hole how much they want to try interpreting as western imperialism. For as much as I don't think we want it to be ideologically about oil, we're somewhat forced to admit that without it our economies would collapse so it's closer to a grim necessity than a fetish.


I won't deny the possibility that he could do a good job, I won't even deny that within the five or six square mile whorehouse that is Washington DC he's literally the best choice that could have been made in comparison to the alternatives. What I would say is it's damn inconvenient that he comes with that label; that could be circumvented if he behaves with broader interests but it'll compound the penalty if he doesn't.


I think we'll have to play a much more active game of chess with them and be political frenemies. Putin's clearly a gangster though and while we'll really want to work with him to try and diffuse the situation in the middle east we can't tolerate it if he decides to make a run on Eastern Europe and we'll want to do a lot to try and manage his motivations to keep him away from attempts to reuptake the satellite states.


Truthfully I don't know enough about Xi Jinping and his administration to have a grasp on what kinds of carrots or sticks we can put in play to get them to be a more philanthropic actor on the world stage. I do think if they can do one thing it would be to use their activities in Africa as a place from which to make the spread of political Islam through the African continent more difficult and do so through their infrastructure building and also through aiding basic education where they can.

For someone not keen on Trump you seemed to have abandoned your principles awful quick. Why are you doing all this cheerleading for him now that he is in power? Shouldn't you be making sure he doesn't warmonger himself?

Now you decide to be a pragmatist. If you were a pragmatist you would realise that the 1947 plan was the best deal the Palestinans ever had in their entire history as it was the first chance of sovereignty in an equally divided area, with equal access to the sea and east, with no one side controlling the centre. Instead you support the policies that has brought them nothing but misery. When in fact you can go back centuries and they never governed themselves, be it Ottoman empire, Byzantium, Fatmids, Romans, etc.

In terms of population they would have controlled an are bigger then Lebanon with 2/3ds of people in it. But no you are an idealist except when it comes to Trump.

That said the last thing the region needs is this sort of US Policy, that encourages settlements. The US needs to stand back from that conflict it is not even in its national interest, in fact it run counter to it. The Isrealis and Palestinian side need to be stonewalled, and their politicians sanctioned until they are serious about peace. Only they can make it happen they are far to many foreign envoys.

Yes sanctions do sometimes work, South Africa is a key example of how they can work. However there is too much taking sides here, that is only fueling the neurosis.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 19 Dec 2016, 4:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I'm not doing any cheerleading. He's in now so it doesn't matter, now I will criticise him when need be. I have no idea what he's going to do at the moment to be honest.

You're spouting Israeli propaganda. If some colonists come to your country and then offer you less than half the land even though the invaders are only a small percentage, you would have to be a masochist to accept. If you knew anything about the subject you would understand that partition was just the first step to taking all of Palestine. And no, the Palestinians have supported the two-state solution since the mid 70's, but it has been blocked by the US and Israel.

Israel won't let there be peace, they will never give the land back. Did people not take sides during the apartheid period in South Africa?!

I actually know a fair bit about both. Nice try. Nope, I'm not spouting Israeli propaganda. I understand well the neurosis that drives conflict like this. There is very little unique about that situation in history. Nation were formed in the past out of situation like that, at a certain point fair or no fair land was divided and this lead to stable nations. The Laventine Arabs in the region were no less subjugated under the Ottomans, Fatimid, Byzantium, Roman. In fact in many respects more so.

It is sadistic to wish to continue suffering of the Palestinians, which is what the righteousness of both sides does. The idea that the Palestinians haven't also undermined their own chance of sovereignty is dishonest. Israel has also done so, but we know what happened when settlement were pulled out of Gaza, the standard of life didn't go up. You can argue about the blockade, but Hamas much like the North Korean government need there to be a state of war. I'm against settlements, but Hamas doesn't exactly give confidence withdrawal will develop into stable nations.

You are talking about "half" the land like it was a well defined territory. It was part of trans-Jordan, and Egypt. Also there wasn't a homogeneous people, sorry but that is true it is historically accurate. Even the term Palestine was what the British called it (I don't defend the British mandate). Yes you could argue that there was local cultures, but you also had other groups like Bedouin or Druze, who don't necessarily identify the same way.

Yes, Israel won't give the land back, it is not that surprising really. At the time of the plan, Palestinian had not only land in their own territory, but the right to live in Israel. Then Arab nations attacked. You are within your rights to argue that the expulsion of many Arabs from Israel was wrong, and you have a point. However the order of events is important.

It was also not a question of there being not enough land, as there was plenty of land. The population density was low.

Yes the Palestinians are more ans more squeezed and maybe this is not good, but baiting Israel isn't going to work out as we have seen.

The reality is some of the neurosis comes from a culture of conflicts in the region that goes back centuries, not just this current conflict. You only have to look as the surrounding conflicts. Sectarian tensions have to exist in the first place to be 'stirred up'.

South Africa is quite a bit different from that situation. I see more similarity between Apartheid Homelands (grand Apartheid) and Indian Reservations in the US than the middle east situation. I was born there and my father met with leaders in the anti-Apartheid movement. Sanctions were key in ending apartheid. Although US wasn't a leader in the drive to end Apartheid, the eventual US sanctions did make a differnce. They don't always work.

They will work on Israel. They are unlikely to work on Gaza/Hamas, and I think they will have some effect on the West bank leadership. They need to be targeted of course.

I think that sanctioning the Isrealis and PLO if they don't talk and meet regularly would be effective, and a humane approach to resolve this. It would need some international agreement.

We do agree that there is too much interference in the actual process, this pressure need to be external. Mediation is not what is needed, they need to get serious about resolving this together.

Look. I have read a lot about the conflict and you have obviously read a lot regarding the Israeli side. Why botther wasting your time? And why bother wasting mine? You are repeating tripe about Palestinians not existing that was debunked in the late 1980's and Israeli propaganda about them being attacked in 1948 when they were desroying villages, mass murdering, raping and forcing people away in 1947.

I want to know where you have learnt the nonsense you just wrote? I mean talking about Hamas shows you have no idea.

You haven't countered any arguments you seem to be avoiding the issue.

I didn't say the Palestinians didn't exist, I said there wasn't a homogeneous group called the Palestinians and there wasn't a set national identity or territory. This is historical accurate. They were no more Palestinian as they were Jordanian. These were lower Levantine Arabs of various tribes and identities. The word Palestinian comes from the British based on a roman province, based on the Hebrew word Philistine which was used to describe a couple of different cultures. The cultural identity of Arabs comes from Arabia. Yes Palestinians are Semitic peoples, however there is more than one way they could grouped an defined.

There have been many Semitic cultures, over the centuries. Have you studies classical civilizations? Palestinians are no more Philistine than they are Canaanite.

Are you a supporter of Hamas then?

Or is your point that the Israelis supported it in order to undermine the PLO in the 80s. As I already know that, that was pretty stupid of them.

Palestinian identity is pretty shaken too, there are less an less Christian Palestinians living in the region these days. There are less an less Arabs that don't share a particular brand of Sunni Islam. This is becuase this sectarianism counts for more in the middle east. Solidarity is pretty superficial and is based around which group they hate the most.

Cause it gets boring. You are just reproducing debunked Israeli propaganda.

You are saying Palestinians aren't a people, and this is an Israeli tactic to dehumanize them. Even if it were true, which it isn't, it wouldn't justify all the crimes against the Palestinians. The most laughable thing is that the victims of Israeli propaganda question whether Palestinians exist, when the Palestinians have been living in Palestine for hundreds or thousands of years, and they accept Israelis as a people when they are mostly made up of Europeans, Americans and with Jews from other states in the Middle East.

No I don't support Hamas, they are the enemy Israel wants. Hamas aren't the problem, Israel are. Even Hamas have agreed to settle the conflict, which enraged Israel and lead them to the massacre in 2014. The sanctions need to be put on Israel, not on Hamas or the PA. Were sanctions put on the ANC?

Trump is a piece of s**t I thought this was already established.

Genocides have happened since the holocaust, yet for some reason that is to go to when talking of genocide, what about all the more recent genocides? Also Israel just deliberately increased tensions by re-affirming Israel is in fact a religious nation that sees people of the Jewish type to be more valuable than Arabic citizens which as can be expected has caused even higher tensions among Isrealies and Palestinians. So thus more blood-shed doublessly due to Israel sending heavy military platoons to desolate areas so they can shoot women, children and men and such and say it was justified because some Palestinian terrorist fired a tiny rocket that did some structural damage at Israel. My question straight up is why does Israel authorities and military act like nazis when it comes to Palestinians..arent they people to?

Bit of a bump there Sweetleaf!

The claim was ridiculous at the time - Trump was walking around asking why he couldn't nuke the EU and people were calling him "the peace candidate" - and it's only proven more ridiculous in the time since.

Trump has the mind of a powderkeg. This is one of the reasons why the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI don't care for him too much. They were afraid of the implications of him being able to push the "nuclear button."