Charlie Rose

BENEZRAA  06/20/2012 12:16 PM Report

SUITCASE BOMB

Below I asked what the specific mission(s) may be of the two Russian naval vessels, their 600 troops, and their air cover as they head to Iraq. I asked if now is an opportune moment to bring Russia into NATO. I asked if the Russians may be closing down their base in Tartus [and the troops and supplies sent to protect Russian assets, whether or not they are broken down].

But, it is also true that the best "gifts" may come in small packages. How much of an asset is Tartus and Syria to today's Russia? Is it sufficiently important for Russia to have a couple of small naval vessels bring a few "suitcase" bombs into Syria to deter American and European influence with respect to regime change in Syria?

BENEZRAA  06/20/2012 12:08 PM Report

TURKS AND KURDS

Within the past 24-hrs the Turks, in response to the deaths of forty Turkish security forces in southern Turkey this past month at the hand of Kurdish rebels operating out of Iraq, a Turkish helicopter raid on a Kurdish rebel camp in Iraq has killed one-hundred-and-sixty Kurdish rebels. Is this an escalation? Or will Turkey for the time being have successfully dealt a sufficient blow to the Kurds to keep the Turk-Kurd Conflict on the back burner during the present Syria Crisis?

ShalomFreedman  06/20/2012 02:13 AM Report

The most important revelation of this interview was Ajami's disclosure that the conflict in Syria is being deliberately turned by the regime into a sectarian one , of Alawi vs. Sunni. The Assad strategy for survival is to rely on his own tribal, religious group the Alawite minority that long has ruled Syria. This conflict is bound to be an extremely vicious ugly and violent one as both sides realize what will happen to many of them should the other prevail. There will be no talk of 'elections' and 'Arab springs' as the killing squads go into operation.

ShalomFreedman  06/20/2012 02:07 AM Report

Once again there is an erroneous and over- optimistic presentation of the Erdogan regime in Turkey. One would think Charlie Rose and David Ignatius would be slightly offended by the jailing of journalists in Turkey, the repression of the Kurds, the Islamization of the regime, the delegitimizing of secular forces.

As for the whole Middle East process I do not see any real movement toward the creating of democratic institutions and freedoms.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  06/20/2012 01:36 AM Report

Yes, but how do you put the army back in the barracks?

Do you remember Iraq and what happened with our brilliant move with that army?

Give the army land, discharge them and have them grow food for the people.

BENEZRAA  06/19/2012 06:43 PM Report

'CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS' OR NOT HARDLY...

Analogies ought not be pushed too far, so with that caution and having raised the idea of Syria as 'Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC)' in earlier pages, does the CMC analogy apply and if so how?

It may well be that the crisis with Russia has come and gone this week commencing with Secretary Clinton's alert on June 12 regarding the cargo ship from Russia bearing attack helicopters and other serious arms for Syria, which the Brits have sent packing back to Russia. As for the two small Russian military vessels with 600 men and serious air support w/military supplies still on their way to Syria, they may or may not be a threat, depending on their mission(s). Are the Russians ready to dismantle their naval base at Tartus in the face of inevitable transformation in Syria? Or, even without the cargo ship full of helicopters and equipment, do the Russians still have sufficient assets in the air and in the two small naval vessels to obstruct or delay regime transformation in Syria? Is this a 'Cuban Missile Crisis' moment for Obama, or not hardly? Given the mass scale of China's 20th Century expansion, China's recent naval warmongering, and China's immediate successful presence in Space, to what extent is the Russia-China relationship set in stone, or is this Syria situation perhaps the opportunity to bring both Russia and a transformed Syria into NATO along with the immediate existence of the Tartus naval base?

REMant  06/19/2012 11:27 AM Report

I think the low turnout revealed a lack of enthusiasm for a Turkey-style outcome, actually. Morsi and the Brotherhood have never been the general's enemies and even persuaded them to take the steps which allowed their sweep of the parliamentary elections. That the court found this a bit ham handed may or may not be the SCAF's doing, but clearly the generals are concerned that the Islamists not obtain too much power, which it appeared winning the presidency might do. They stripped the more radical candidates from the ticket, and now they've taken steps to insulate themselves from usurpation by a distinctly Islamist constitution, which possibility was left open by the lack of specificity of the March 2011 declaration. In the new edict the Islamists will rule domestically essentially, although their lock on the police may be questioned, while the military will rule externally, and retain the potentia absoluta. This is very much the usual outcome of such struggles, and one can look to our own frame of government to see it. It is probably the outcome the administration desired all things considered. And who can argue? We are talking about government here, not la-la land. I'd like to point out again that this revolution has gone largely the way of all others, which reformers began, mobs ruled and absolutism of some sort or other put paid to. It shouldn't be either surprising, or cause for alarm. Real revolutions occur in ppl, not at the end of the barrel of a gun.

As Ignatius revealed, the Post has been pushing "humanitarian intervention" and the removal of Assad from the beginning, tho, of course not blaming themselves a bit for what has ensued. There are those who think ppl like Susan Rice war criminals. It is, however, typically wishful thinking that any other outcome could have resulted. More likely the Marines would just have got themselves blown up, as in Lebanon. Putin appears to have simply beaten the US at its own game and got some Russian vessels on the scene first.

While in Egypt and Turkey the military is at least lauded for non-sectarianism, in Syria, where the govt also has the support of minorities, who have repeatedly reported Sunni radical massacres, it is condemned by these folks. David's assertion that the govt is behind such affairs, recalls similar charges made against the remnants of the Saddam regime in Iraq. AFAIK the Post has still not corrected itself regarding the murders in Houla since the Frankfurter Allgemeine found them to be the work of Sunni provocateurs. The only difference seems to be that instead of talking about a govt crackdown, they are now talking about civil war. Liberalism is just plain Manichean. Economic crises are always the fault of miserly, mean-spirited sorts, and war always finds villains in the piece.