Putting the shoe on the other foot

Let’s play make-believe for a minute.

Pick a random country half way around the world; it’s not important who, exactly, but let’s just say Mongolia for the sake of argument. Now imagine that Mongolia has very poor relations with the United States, would like to see it’s government toppled, and influence the U.S. toward installing a more Mongolian-style government.

In order to accomplish this goal, Mongolia has started a program to arm, train and advise anti-government insurgents in the United States. Thanks to its good relations with Mexico, Mongolia has managed to traffic arms and troops across the southern border and set up bases for the rebel groups it supports in the desert of New Mexico. The anti-US rebels, with Mongolian special forces embedded among them in an advisory role, begin to carry out attacks against American troops and law enforcement. Eventually their area of control expands until the insurgents are occupying a significant amount of territory within the borders of the United States, from which they continue to attack Americans.

Eventually the U.S. government gets tired of this and launches a counter-attack against the insurgents. Thinking it would be a simple stand-up fight, the American troops are caught off guard when Mongolia launches air raids from bases in Mexico and repels the U.S. assault, killing scores of American soldiers in the process.

Mongolia then announces to the media that it has acted in self-defense, and that the Americans were being aggressive and provocative for attacking Mongolia’s special forces and it’s allies (on U.S. soil).

Would you believe that the US is the aggressor in this scenario? Would you agree that Mongolia acted in self-defense?

No fucking way.

Anyone in their right mind would reason that 1) Mongolia was openly acting in an attempt to overthrow the U.S. Government, 2) their special forces and proxies were occupying U.S. territory, and 3) the U.S. military was responding to attacks upon Americans and defending the sovereignty of the United States; therefore, the Mongolians were the aggressors and it was the U.S. that was acting in self-defense.

Now let’s switch things up. Suppose the actions are the same, but change “United States” to “Syria” and change “Mongolia” to “United States”.

So I ask again: why does the American (and Turkish, and Israeli, etc.) military get to invade Syria, train and arm rebels who aim to overthrow the government, carry out attacks on the Syrian army, occupy swathes of Syria and say that they’re off-limits to the country’s own government…and then claim self-defense when government forces respond to defend their sovereignty? It’s completely illogical and, frankly, fucking ridiculous.

The American military has no right to be in Syria.

It has no right to “defend” itself against the Syrian government, in Syria.

Invaders and occupiers do not have the right to claim “self-defense”.

The only reason ISIS even exists is that the U.S. and other anti-Syrian governments stoked an insurgency that could weaken the government’s authority, but was too weak to exercise any authority of its own, thus creating a power vacuum. Want ISIS to stay defeated? Leave Syria and let its government reassert its control over the country.

Peace isn’t profitable

Another round of UN-sponsored peace talks aimed at a political settlement to the war in Syria ended in typical fashion:

1. Opposition says “we won’t talk about anything else until you agree that Assad steps down, immediately.”
2. Government tells the opposition to go fuck themselves.
3. Opposition blames Government for not being “serious”.
4. Nothing changes and everyone goes back to doing what they were doing.

What the opposition is demanding, in essence, is that the government forces accept defeat as a precondition to any negotiations. This might make sense if the balance of forces were stacked in favor of the opposition and the government, facing an inevitable loss, wished to use what strength they had remaining as leverage at the negotiating table.

The roles, in this case, are reversed, however. It’s the opposition that is on the back foot and on the brink of defeat. Given that the eastern portion of the country has largely been liberated from ISIS, the Syrian government has the ability now to bring the bulk of its forces to bear on the other rebel groups.

In other words, the cost to the opposition for repeatedly coming to the table with the same non-starter precondition is likely to be complete annihilation.

Why continue to beat this dead horse? The opposition still has bargaining chips. The government would likely make some sort of concessions to avoid the further bloodshed and destruction required to liberate Idlib province and root out the last stubborn pockets of resistance around the country. Why isn’t the opposition bargaining in good faith for reforms that would result in more liberties, competitive elections, etc.?

I can only speculate but I can think of two reasons.

First, because the opposition is not interested in liberty and democracy. These are buzzwords thrown about to make them more palatable. The fact that they’re bankrolled by some of the most oppressive governments who rule some of the most backwards countries in the world — the type that make Assad’s Syria look like a beacon of freedom — and are sharing the foxholes with Al Qaeda, et al. should make it obvious that they are not fighting to make Syria better. They’re fighting to make Syria worse.

Second, because the ones negotiating are not the ones who are going to do the dying. The would-be new aristocracy of Syria that’s been groomed by the Saudis and their ilk are not going to suffer. They’re going to live abroad on the Gulf monarchs’ dime while their country is destroyed. The gulf theocracies, European “human rights” bleeding-hearts, and of course the Trump regime know the opposition is not going to win the war. But they’re willing to keep the money going as long as the opposition keeps on fighting. You see, if the war ended today and peace broke out in Syria, who would bleed Iran and Russia? The opposition’s backers are using them for no other reason than to be a thorn in the side of their geopolitical opponents. And the opposition’s aristocracy knows which side it’s bread is buttered on. They can keep living lavishly abroad as long as they keep sending their followers into the meat grinder.

What other reason could their be for their reluctance to actually negotiate in good faith, despite their obviously impending defeat? The opposition’s “leaders” will keep doing their masters’ bidding, because if they actually made peace, the gravy train might stop.

Peace isn’t profitable.