I get it right yet again
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No flies on you
We could start with dispensing our Navy boats that require oars for a start.
But why is it surprising? Trump campaigned on bringing troops home from the ME and ending this notion of the US being the worldâs policeman. After Iraq there is close to zero support among the US public for prolonged military adventures. Since Bush left office the US has been trying to exit the ME, Obama pulled the troops out of Iraq leaving a hole that ISIS filled, Trump has been fighting with the generals since 2016 to get out of Afghanistan and Syria. What they both learned/are learning is there is no good time to exit. The timing of this withdrawal is terrible but the zone Turkey is invading has been talked about for the past two years as a home for Syrian refugees (it is after all part of Syria), and clearly Erdogenâs strategy is to get rid of the refugees in Turkey.
The US really has no strategic interest in the region any longer, we are energy independent and actually a net exporter of energy, the US competes with Russia as a natural gas provider to Europe. Europe has far more interest in the region given that most of Europeâs energy comes from Russia and the ME. Again I ask the question, why isnât Europe stepping in to prevent another humanitarian crisis?
The whole place is a powder keg, you would be hard pressed to name any good guys in the region, Saudi? Israel? Iran? Kurds? Turks? The only thing they have in common is a lust to slaughter each other that hasnât changed for centuries.
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A bit like the Irish so, or something?
It happened because Putin asked Trump to pull out. Trump lying through his hole -he consulted with everyone and they were happy for him to pull out. Itâs basically very close to the nightmare scenario that was painted whenever Trump got elected of Putin calling the big shots in Washington and doing what he wants.
I think Putin probably just wants carnage in the ME because he has more skills and craft and decisiveness to capitalize from those situations than the other big powers and he seems to run less risk. He is considered to be the big winner from Syria so far.
As regards Erdogan releasing the refugees, if that happens the European left & liberals will have to take a very hard line and basically just fuck them all back out again or else the European project will fail and the far-right will take over Europe. It will be the lesser of two evils.
Putin has cultivated Erdogan a lot over the last four years, Russia and Turkey were on very bad terms as recently as 2015
Turkey isnât going to be getting anywhere near EU membership in the near or medium term future, so has effectively thrown in its lot with Russia at Putinâs encouragement
Trump as we all know is completely bought and paid for by Putin and has been cultivated as a Russian asset likely going back to the 1980s
So you have Russia, Turkey and the current US regime lining up in terms of interests in a way that wasnât there before - and all three are now common enemies of the EU and want to destroy it
All three are large countries which stand to gain from an international order where large authoritarian states can throw their weight around
All three leaders are highly corrupt and power and money obsessed
The Saudis and Israel also sort of fall into this extended authoritarian clique, Iran is a traditional ally of Russia but they obviously hate the Saudis so it gets a bit complicated there
India and Brazil are currently allies on a further flung scale and thatâs good for Putin too but they arenât really involved in this particular situation
The EU because it is larger than any of them, and is democratic, based on rule of law and integrationist, is an automatic opponent
Putin very much holds the whip hand here among these three new allies
For Russia, a whole arc of countries from the Baltic down through the rest of Eastern Europe to the Caucasus to the Middle East are strategically very important and they want to control all the countries in this arc in a similar way to how the did during Warsaw Pact times - the information war is obviously a massive part of this and has been a massive success for it
The Baltic states are already lost to Russiaâs sphere of influence, but that doesnât mean that Russia wonât try to undermine them at every turn
Georgia was the first to feel the brunt of Russian aggression - it was an easy target because it was geographically isolated from the Western order
Ukraine is a big fly in Russiaâs ointment because it wants to be an EU member and is strategically extremely important, the most strategically important of any of these states
But it too is geographically isolated from the West and Russia can effectively do as it pleases in a lot of it
For Russia, Syria was originally about keeping a reliable ally in Assad and keeping Mediterranean access for its fleet, but has expanded into a larger geo-political project in which it can keep Turkey and the US as effective poodles
And it can use it as a way to try and undermine the EU by creating a massive influx of refugees
The freeing of many thousands of ISIS prisoners, most of whom will likely try and make for Europe, is another thing Putin fancies, because it undermines Europe
Trump is very much a Manchurian candidate here and the decision to pull US troops to create this situation is ultimately not his, but Putinâs
Couple that with Trump trying to abolish the Open Skies Treaty which is designed to monitor and co-ordinate responses to Russian attacks, and it could barely be more obvious what is happening
Thatâs the reality
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Iâm with Russia on this.
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How long do you want/suggest/project/feel obliged that US Troops remain in Syria or the ME? Until all the countries and factions are friends there and are getting along swimmingly? If not that then when can they pull out?
Until a peace agreement is reached and we can be reasonably certian it will be abided by - thatâs generally what happens in war, you know
How long do you suggest US troops remain in Japan, Diego Garcia, or Australia
What are they doing there
I donât see you calling for their withdrawal
The US got itself into this situation
You and @anon7035031 were cheerleading the fight against ISIS only a short time ago
Now you seem entirely comfortable with surrendering to ISIS and allowing a genocide by Turkey to happen, merely because Trump is doing so
Yes, this is actually what you are doing now, you are trying to justify genocide based on a Russian made decision, carried out by the poodle in the White House
Itâs hard to believe that thatâs where you now are, but that is where you are
Take a step back and realise how ridiculous you look
The major problem for the EU is their dependence on Russian crude oil (30% of total imports), solid fuels, mainly coal (40%) and natural gas (40%). The EU is basically fucked without Russia, and Putin knows that. The EU in contrast has zero leverage over Russia. If Putin cut off energy supplies to the EU for the winter there would be mass civil unrest in every western European country.
Thatâs all just full of projection and assumptions of my positions, along with the usual ludicrous evidence free shrieking. Iâve zero, repeat, zero, interest in your thoughts and opinions, mate. Iâll wait to hear @Tank response.
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If there was a US government which was actually allied to the EU and proper sanctions against Russian dirty money were effected, Russia would be in an extremely difficult spot
That is currently not the case because the US is currently a client state of Russia
Brexit, which Russia actively supported, has also massively undermined UK institutions
Russia is an arch-kleptocratic regime and Putin is obsessed with the notion of regaining a Russian empire - he grew up as a Russian imperialist and considers the loss of Russiaâs empire as a historical disaster
The Magnitsky Act etc. reaffirmed the imperative for Putin to strike back against the west by trying to undermine it both from within and without
Putin has done his damedest to cultivate allies such as Erdogan and Bin Salman and install puppet regimes in the US (successfully) and Ukraine, Georgia etc. precisely because he knows that if Russia is isolated, he and it are on a hiding to nothing
Putin is a very long term thinker, and this has been his aim for 20 years
That is why he is winning - he is committed, the US on the other hand is a total mess
This is a reverse cold war - Russia is winning, the west is losing
The US is the largest economy in the world, Russia is the size of Italy or Texas. Russia poses a huge threat to Europe, and poses zero threat to the US. Russian exports to the EU are about $150B, and to the US about $10B. The threat to the US both economically and militarily is China, which you always leave out of your analysis as they are nominally leftists so inherently the good guys. It is in the US best interests to focus on China and ignore the ME, leave it to the Europeans and Russia to try and resolve without a massive regional war. I would say the chances of a massive regional war in the ME are greater than 50%, a war the US should have no interest in.
The Democratic candidate you support for US president favors halving the US military budget and withdrawing all troops. How is that going to slow or stop Putinâs march? Progressives in the US want the military cut to ribbons and zero engagement in foreign wars.
The EUâs problem is the lack of leaders. Boris the clown or Corbyn the simpleton, take your pick. Macron who married his mother. Merkel is on her last legs. Then you have the utterly useless Brussels bureaucrats. Things are not looking well for the EU, Iâve been saying it for a while.
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with China, the US are the aggressor, thereâre over there and trying to build a red line. are they still in the south China Sea?
There is that. Plus the yanks picking up the security bill.
What area are the Kurds looking to claim?
You might need to look at the map again 
And Russia has 144 million people
Texas has 28 million people
You say Russia has all the leverage over Europe yet at the same time you say its economy is nothing
You need to make up your mind because youâre all over the place here
The simple fact is that the US is currently a client state of Russia in terms of foreign policy because Russiaâs leader, who is a complete despot who is raping his own country for personal gain, but extremely smart, has installed a puppet in the White House, has cultivated Erdogan, played his military hand expertly and played his informationaal warfare hand, something youâve been completely avoiding eeven mentioning for the last three years, even more expertly
Thatâs where the leverage comes from
Now youâre trying to argue that itâs a terrible decision for Trump to pull out US troops, and then, in your next post, trying to argue the exact opposite
Itâs a terrible decision because itâs a decision that is pro-ISIS and pro-genocide
Itâs pretty easy to understand
Thatâs a map of what is loosely termed Kurdistan
Best case scenario for the Kurds at any point in the future is probably a state something similar in size to current day Armenia
And that probably wonât even happen
Greater Armenia itself was a much larger area than the current state and stretched to the Mediterranean
The current Turkish city of Iskenderun was formerly Alexandretta, which was Armenian
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You truly are a simpleton, the last throw of the rice editing a post to change its meaning. Pathetic.
The Russian economy is smaller than Italy or Texas. However, it has huge oil, solid fuels and natural gas reserves which the EU depends on. It has no such leverage over the US which is energy independent.
The US doesnât need the ME or Russia, the EU does.
These are easy concepts to understand.