Senate The Middle East Discussion Thread

Holy crap, Wocky. I think the main thing that you are still overlooking is that we weren't really serious. Do I have to repeat that? We weren't really serious. And in addition to not being serious, we weren't being serious about something that doesn't even exist. All I was doing was poking fun at countries that have "republic" in their name when they are the farthest from. There aren't right or wrong answers. There isn't a grand conspiracy. If you want me to say you're right, then you're right about whatever it is you're supposed to be right about. If it helps, I'd also say that you can be the subject matter expert when it comes to naming conventions for countries that don't exist. If anyone has any questions about naming other non-existent countries they will come to you first and not just throw out such names willy-nilly in the forum.

Imagine if we were critiquing the movie Man of Steel, and I said "Man of Steel, more like Man of Insomnia..." (bum ching!) The last thing I would expect you to do is reply with a diatribe "proving" that insomnia isn't even in the title, and how I can't read, and how I'm wrong to confuse insomnia with steel. Yeah, I know insomnia isn't actually in the title. It was just a joke, and I think you missed the point. Besides the bad pun, no one else is arguing anything.

This is so basic it seems silly that I have to type it out. I honestly don't know what more to say.

 

Personally, I think that Jesus Tapdancing Christ should be the default reference.

 

motorboating conveys more of an action focus though.

 

Just for clarity, then, when you said "that last part is sarcastic" you weren't trying to distinguish it the final dependent clause from the rest of this paragraph? You actually meant the entire post was "sarcastic?" What was the idea here again?

Because it really looks like you were trying to indicate that as opposed to the last part, your first sentence with a factually incorrect explanation for Iran's usage of the word "republic" was to be taken literally.

 

I don't know, but I think I need a shower.

EDIT: Oh sure Jello. Thanks for getting a post in there first, making my reply seem weird.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27834462

Iraq's Grand Ayatollah, a Shi'a, has sent a call to arms for all Shi'a to fight ISIS.

 

Where did you find that beautiful work of art?

 

on the one hand its cool that the ayatollah watches archer, but on the other hand im concerned that he thinks its real

 

So, Kurdistan is going to be real I guess.

 

I keep skipping across this thread title reading it as "Extremis"; the story from Agents of SHIELD.

 

FYI, when CNN and to an extent MSNBC was covering the Iraq crisis on Friday, this was what Fox News was covering as breaking news:

 

So what's the point that Jabbawocky's trying to make? That ISIS can nakedly display its undemocratic uber-Taliban agenda and still manage to get support from Iraqi Sunnis? That can be more or less chalked up to Maliki's attempts to marginalize the Sunni minority, as well as that war going on next door in Syria, can it not?

 

Those statements aren't really mutually exclusive though.

As for wocky, I don't think he was trying to make a point, just call it like it is. ISIS *is* openly undemocratic and uber-Taliban, and it is still getting some Sunni support.

 

lol Obama America. First they rule out sending combat troops into Iraq, now 275 "military personell, combat equipped" are going back in to protect American property et. al? By any chance is their commanding officer named Leonidas?

 

It's pretty standard for a country to send a small force to protect its citizens in a country racked by strife. It's also pretty standard to not classify those forces as combat personnel (because they ostensibly won't fight except in direct self-defense and defense of the people they're supposed to protect). The best choice the President can make is to not intervene at all, but I would be SHOCKED if there was a "limited" bombing campaign. Don't want to send a carrier to the Gulf for no reason, do we?

 

Iran doesn't want the US in Iraq, claims the war with ISIS is not along sectarian lines, and three border towns between Iraq and Syria are now under ISIS control.

I've got to say, unless there's some very quiet negotiations going on between the US and Iran, this thought bubble from the current Ayatollah in Iran has all the credibility of an Iraqi Information Minister's PR release. Iraq sure as hell seems to be mobilising militias along sectarian lines to meet ISIS, and I don't quite get how the US, having built or bought a Shia government in Iraq, wanted to create a Sunni insurgency to overthrow it? But then, I wonder if Iran indeed is calculating that a fragmented Iraq on its border is actually better for it strategically than a US-backed and well-organised Iraq on that border. If so, that's a frightening gamble to take. Even if out of all of this Iran winds up the strongest power left in the Middle East, it's still not well-armed or well-organised, and the estimates of Sunni numbers there are said to be a lot higher than the 10% or so Iran officially admits to. Possibly Iran is trying to distance itself from a hint of US cooperation because you'd think that's verboten in both Shia and Sunni circles in Iran.

At the end of the day I still would have to say that US pullout is the only rational course available now. In the Middle East you are dealing with a transformational ideology that will only be contained when its adherents are fighting each other rather than the West. The loss of control of the border between Iraq and Syria is deeply disturbing, too: it raises the pan-national image of ISIS even further than it already was.

 

Yeah I don't put a lot of stock in his statements in that article. Anyone saying flatly "This is ALL sectarian" or "This is ZERO sectarian" isn't to be trusted imo.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27990478

So ISIS just won that battle.

 

It's also a bit silly for Kerry to demand Iraq sudden hey-presto itself into a functional democracy before military aid is offered in circumstances where (a) ISIS is likely to be knocking on the PM's door in a couple of weeks and (b) Iraq's government appealed directly to sectarian issues in order to get enough troops, er, militia, to fight ISIS.

Why is it so hard for the US to start levelling with people along the lines of "Well, it's time to admit we learned precisely zero lessons from Vietnam, and it's about to happen again over there, so we're not throwing any more good money after bad."?

 

I get that American wars of imperialism are inevitably compared to Vietnam, but this situation is nothing like what happened in Vietnam. The North was a recognized state, the NVA was a powerful military, the North had significant support in the South, both sides had a common cultural identity (more or less), etc. ISIS won't be able to take Baghdad, much less unify Iraq (and/or Syria) under their rule.