The Largest US Foreign Policy Blunder Since Vietnam Is Complete: Iran Readies Massive Syrian Ground

[FlatBaroque]

Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge

The Largest US Foreign Policy Blunder Since Vietnam Is Complete: Iran Readies Massive Syrian Ground Invasion

On Thursday, in “Mid-East Coup: As Russia Pounds Militant Targets, Iran Readies Ground Invasions While Saudis Panic”, we attempted to cut through all of the Western and Russian media propaganda on the way to describing what Moscow’s involvement in Syria actually portends for the global balance of power. Here are a few excerpts that summarize what’s taking shape in the Middle East:

Putin looks to have viewed this as the ultimate geopolitical win-win. That is, Russia gets to i) expand its influence in the Middle East in defiance of Washington and its allies, a move that also helps to protect Russian energy interests and preserves the Mediterranean port at Tartus, and ii) support its allies in Tehran and Damascus thus preserving the counterbalance to the US-Saudi-Qatar alliance.

Meanwhile, Iran gets to enjoy the support of the Russian military juggernaut on the way to protecting the delicate regional nexus that is the source of Tehran’s Mid-East influence. It is absolutely critical for Iran to keep Assad in power, as the loss of Syria to the West would effectively cut the supply line between Iran and Hezbollah.

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of what appears to be going on here. This is nothing short of a Middle Eastern coup, as Iran looks to displace Saudi Arabia as the regional power broker and as Russia looks to supplant the US as the superpower puppet master.

[Hortensis]

1. Perhaps check the Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy sites for more professional

Last edited Sat Oct 3, 2015, 03:29 PM - Edit history (1)

viewpoints. Russians are not happy about possibly being dragged into another middle east "Afghanistan," their version of our Viet Nam. In any case, the advanced but economically perilous theocratic nation of Iran strongly supports the Assad family of Syria because their religion is very similar to Shia. Russia is a long-term ally of Iran, though hardly friends. In welcoming Russia, these nations are also doing their traditional thing of playing off outside aggressors and trying to keep any one from getting too powerful in the middle east.

Please note that we are in fact very busily engaged in and WINNING economic wars against Iran and Saudi Arabia, both of which depend almost totally on oil revenues for their national wellbeing, and against Russia, which also depends on oil to, among other things, pay off rivals to Putin's power. The U.S. is currently effectively energy independent and the world's largest producer of oil and gas.

Not launching a potentially dreadful and tremendously expensive ground war in Syria, that would win no gratitude (quite the contrary!) or friends or and lose many, is hardly a giant blunder of OURS.

[GP6971]

2. Not the most reliable source. n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. But Reuters and WSJ are also citied in Durden's article.

And have been printing info about this for some time now.

Dismissing Durden as a source does not dismiss what other sources,, most news sources btw, are reporting, which is Iran/Russia and even China have been working together to get out of the Petro dollar and to secure pipelines and oil/gas sources for their benefit.
THAT is the story, and an important one.

Putin's speech to the UN last month made it abundantly clear what he was thinking.
I doubt many here have even read it.

Link, here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/28/read-putins-u-n-general-assembly-speech/

[FlatBaroque]

20. The fury with which the Statists pounce on any foreign policy

information that falls outside of the sanctioned narrative, is in direct proportion to the accuracy of the information presented.

[Ghost Dog]

36. Thanks for that link, dixiegrrrrl.

When there's a lot of psyops going around...

[dixiegrrrrl]

38. you are welcome....

This old tired game of condemning sites instead of addressing the topic fails because it assumes that people do not have the ability,
or desire, and intelligence to read links or more than one site to verify/balance information.

I post a lot, and I trust members here ( except for the obvious trolls) to read not just the post but also the links.

[Ghost Dog]

45. ... Or condemning people instead of addressing the topic...

A fine, quite clear in diplomatic terms, address to the UN assembly, although the translation needs cleaning up. To quote from opening and closing passages:

... When the U.N. was established, its founders did not in the least think that there would always be unanimity. The mission of the organization is to seek and reach compromises, and its strength comes from taking different views and opinions into consideration. Decisions debated within the U.N. are either taken as resolutions or not. As diplomats say, they either pass or do not pass.

Whatever actions any state might take bypassing this procedure are illegitimate. They run counter to the charter and defy international law. We all know that after the end of the Cold War — everyone is aware of that — a single center of domination emerged in the world, and then those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that if they were strong and exceptional, they knew better and they did not have to reckon with the U.N., which, instead of [acting to] automatically authorize and legitimize the necessary decisions, often creates obstacles or, in other words, stands in the way.

It has now become commonplace to see that in its original form, it has become obsolete and completed its historical mission. Of course, the world is changing and the U.N. must be consistent with this natural transformation. Russia stands ready to work together with its partners on the basis of full consensus, but we consider the attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the United Nations as extremely dangerous. They could lead to a collapse of the entire architecture of international organizations, and then indeed there would be no other rules left but the rule of force.

We would get a world dominated by selfishness rather than collective work, a world increasingly characterized by dictate rather than equality. There would be less of a chain of democracy and freedom, and that would be a world where true independent states would be replaced by an ever-growing number of de facto protectorates and externally controlled territories.

What is the state sovereignty, after all, that has been mentioned by our colleagues here? It is basically about freedom and the right to choose freely one's own future for every person, nation and state. By the way, dear colleagues, the same holds true of the question of the so-called legitimacy of state authority. One should not play with or manipulate words.

Every term in international law and international affairs should be clear, transparent and have uniformly understood criteria. We are all different, and we should respect that. No one has to conform to a single development model that someone has once and for all recognized as the only right one. We should all remember what our past has taught us...

... Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, it was on the 10th of January, 1946, in London that the U.N. General Assembly gathered for its first session.

Mr. Suleta (ph) (inaudible), a Colombian diplomat and the chairman of the Preparatory Commission, opened the session by giving, I believe, a concise definition of the basic principles that the U.N. should follow in its activities, which are free will, defiance of scheming and trickery and spirit of cooperation.

Today, his words sound as a guidance for all of us. Russia believes in the huge potential of the United Nations, which should help us avoid a new global confrontation and engage in strategic cooperation. Together with other countries, we will consistently work towards strengthening the central coordinating role of the U.N. I'm confident that by working together, we will make the world stable and safe, as well as provide conditions for the development of all states and nations.

/... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/28/read-putins-u-n-general-assembly-speech/

[Jesus Malverde]

56. People attack the source

When they got nothing to refute the content.

[Recursion]

3. Didn't Zero Hedge say the Iranian bourse pricing in Euros was going to lead to the end of all life

within the first half of 2010?

[Zorra]

4. The oligarchy is getting the eternal war for profit that they had Cheney,

Bush, and the PNAC steal an election and destroy Iraq for.

[Octafish]

32. It seems they're doing everything possible for the Big One.

Some days, it seems President Obama and John Kerry are about the only ones in authority standing in the way of World War III.

[spanone]

5. .....says one guy on the internet

[Brother Buzz]

8. Says one guy that needs to hide behind a pseudonym - Tyler Durden

Tyler Durden is the pseudonym for Zero Hedge's key author(s) used to hide their identities.

[Tarheel_Dem]

40. If this had been written by Alex Jones, it probably would be hidden & this guys sounds 10x nuttier.

Zero Hedge[1] is a batshit insane Austrian economics-based finance blog run by a pseudonymous founder who posts articles under the name "Tyler Durden," after the character from Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. It has accurately predicted 200 of the last 2 recessions.

The only writer conclusively identified is Dan Ivandjiiski, who conducts public interviews on behalf of Zero Hedge.[6] The blog came online several days after he lost his job at Wexford Capital, a Connecticut-based hedge fund (run by a former Goldman trader). And chose his pen name from a nihilistic psychotic delusion.

Ivandjiiski's history is a little odd, since he moved to the United States from Bulgaria to study at the University of Pennsylvania in order to pursue molecular biology (then go on to med school). Instead he took a job as a junior investment banker at Jefferies & Company in Los Angeles, and continued in finance. It is interesting to note that in 2005, while working for Miller Buckfire, he was barred from working in the broker-dealer business due to insider trading amounting to $780.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge

[Octafish]

6. A Useful Prep-Sheet on Syria for Media Propagandists

by GARY LEUPP
CounterPunch, OCTOBER 2, 2015

State Department talking points on Syria for cable news anchors:

* Keep mentioning the barrel bombs. Do not mention how their use was pioneered by the Israeli Air Force in 1948, and how they were used by the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam in Operation Inferno in 1968. Keep repeating, “barrel bombs, barrel bombs” and stating with a straight face that the Syrian regime is using them “against its own people.” Against its own people. Against its own people. Against its own people.

* Keep mentioning “200,000.” (The UN estimates that 220,000 have been killed in the conflict since 2011.) Declare like you really believe it that this is the number of civilians the Syrian government of Bashar Assad has killed during the war. (Do not be concerned about any need to back the figure up. No one is ever going to call you on it publicly.)

Do NOT mention that around half of the war dead (estimates range from 84,000 to 133,000) are Syrian government forces waging war against an overwhelmingly Islamist opposition, and an additional 73,000 to 114,000 are anti-government combatants.

Do not discuss these figures because they would call into question the claim that the Syrian government is targeting and killing tens of thousands of civilians willy-nilly. (If feeling any qualms of conscience, recall Karl Rove’s immortal dictum that “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”)

* Keep mentioning the “Arab Spring” and how in 2011 Syrians peacefully mobilized to challenge the regime were violently repressed. But don’t dwell on the Arab Spring too much. Realize that the State Department was actually shocked by it, particularly by its repercussions in Egypt, where democratization brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power before the U.S.-backed military drowned its opponents in blood.

And recall but do NOT mention how in Bahrain, peaceful demonstrations by the majority Shiites against the repressive Sunni monarchy were crushed by a Saudi-led invasion force tacitly supported by the U.S. And NEVER mention that the bulk of the peaceful protesters in the Syrian Arab Spring want nothing to do with the U.S.-supported armed opposition but are instead receptive to calls from Damascus, Moscow and Tehran for dialogue towards a power-sharing arrangement.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/02/a-useful-prep-sheet-on-syria-for-media-propagandists/

[NuclearDem]

7. Maybe Leupp should stick to interracial intimacy in Shogunate Japan.

[Octafish]

9. You sound scared of sex, NuclearDem.

Leupp is a first rate scholar.

[NuclearDem]

28. Suggesting someone might be discussing things outside their speciality makes me scared of sex?

Brilliant!

[Octafish]

30. Oh, I see. I have to answer to your deflection. What's that called?

Time waster.

[NuclearDem]

33. Leupp's area of expertise is shogunate Japan, with quite a bit of attention on sex and

and intimacy. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this, and from what I understand, he's very knowledgable in that area of study, but that doesn't make him as uniquely qualified to comment on the FSU and modern Middle East that the people who link to his articles would have us believe.

[Octafish]

37. Are you afraid of Leupp?

Is it his ideas?

Reuters headline, April 9: “Ukraine sets sights on joining NATO.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026510415#post32

[NuclearDem]

43. You have an odd definition of afraid.

Critical thinking is not fear. Given your posting history, I can see why you would confuse the two.

[Octafish]

44. So why not refute what he has to say, instead of attacking him personally?

I know some pharmacists who write about therapy. Their work is valid.

As for who possesses the better handle on the situation, please feel free to compare any or all of my posts to yours. I'm open to discuss.

For some reason, mentioning what makes you scared hit a nerve. I'm not all that interested in discussing that.

[FlatBaroque]

18. Brilliant line of attack

[NuclearDem]

31. Am I missing some special insight a specialist in shogunate Japan

would have on the modern Middle East or former Soviet Union?

[FlatBaroque]

10. Thank you. I was hoping you would see this

It sometimes seems overwhelming trying to cut through the propaganda.

[Octafish]

19. Henry Kissinger holds a lot of responsibility.

Debacle, Inc.

How Henry Kissinger Helped Create Our “Proliferated” World

By Greg Grandin
TomDispatch, Sept. 28, 2015

The only person Henry Kissinger flattered more than President Richard Nixon was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. In the early 1970s, the Shah, sitting atop an enormous reserve of increasingly expensive oil and a key figure in Nixon and Kissinger’s move into the Middle East, wanted to be dealt with as a serious person. He expected his country to be treated with the same respect Washington showed other key Cold War allies like West Germany and Great Britain. As Nixon’s national security adviser and, after 1973, secretary of state, Kissinger’s job was to pump up the Shah, to make him feel like he truly was the “king of kings.”

Reading the diplomatic record, it’s hard not to imagine his weariness as he prepared for his sessions with the Shah, considering just what gestures and words would be needed to make it clear that his majesty truly mattered to Washington, that he was valued beyond compare. “Let’s see,” an aide who was helping Kissinger get ready for one such meeting said, “the Shah will want to talk about Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, the Kurds, and Brezhnev.”

During another prep, Kissinger was told that “the Shah wants to ride in an F-14.” Silence ensued. Then Kissinger began to think aloud about how to flatter the monarch into abandoning the idea. “We can say,” he began, “that if he has his heart set on it, okay, but the President would feel easier if he didn’t have that one worry in 10,000 [that the plane might crash]. The Shah will be flattered.” Once, Nixon asked Kissinger to book the entertainer Danny Kaye for a private performance for the Shah and his wife.

The 92-year-old Kissinger has a long history of involvement in Iran and his recent opposition to Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, while relatively subdued by present Washington standards, matters. In it lies a certain irony, given his own largely unexamined record in the region. Kissinger’s criticism has focused mostly on warning that the deal might provoke a regional nuclear arms race as Sunni states led by Saudi Arabia line up against Shia Iran. “We will live in a proliferated world,” he said in testimony before the Senate. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed co-authored with another former secretary of state, George Shultz, Kissinger worried that, as the region “trends toward sectarian upheaval” and “state collapse,” the “disequilibrium of power” might likely tilt toward Tehran.

Of all people, Kissinger knows well how easily the best laid plans can go astray and careen toward disaster. The former diplomat is by no means solely responsible for the mess that is today’s Middle East. There is, of course, George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq (which Kissinger supported). But he does bear far more responsibility for our proliferated world’s disequilibrium of power than anyone usually recognizes.

Some of his Middle East policies are well known. In early 1974, for instance, his so-called shuttle diplomacy helped deescalate the tensions that had led to the previous year’s Arab-Israeli War. At the same time, however, it locked in Israel’s veto over U.S. foreign policy for decades to come. And in December 1975, wrongly believing that he had worked out a lasting pro-American balance of power between Iran and Iraq, Kissinger withdrew his previous support from the Kurds (whom he had been using as agents of destabilization against Baghdad’s Baathists). Iraq moved quickly to launch an assault on the Kurds that killed thousands and then implemented a program of ethnic cleansing, forcibly relocating Kurdish survivors and moving Arabs into their homes. “Even in the context of covert action ours was a cynical enterprise,” noted a Congressional investigation into his sacrifice of the Kurds.

Less well known is the way in which Kissinger’s policies toward Iran and Saudi Arabia accelerated the radicalization in the region, how step by catastrophic step he laid the groundwork for the region’s spiraling crises of the present moment.

CONTINUED...

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176049/tomgram%3A_greg_grandin%2C_henry_of_arabia/

Thank you for the kind thoughts, my Friend. The people interested in sideshow should be obvious to those who care about democracy, but when today's real money's involved, we no longer rebuild our former enemies. It's all disaster, all the time for Kapital.

[pampango]

46. I do like the picture this paints.

* Keep mentioning the barrel bombs.

Don't deny Assad uses them to terrorize civilians. Just point out that he did not invent them.

Of course, he did not invent the use of secret police, torture, execution and poison gas either. That understanding did not seem to pacify the Syrian people in 2011.

* Keep mentioning “200,000.”

Just point out that a civil war was not inevitable and that 200,000+ have died in it.

* Keep mentioning the “Arab Spring” and how in 2011 Syrians peacefully mobilized to challenge the regime were violently repressed. But don’t dwell on the Arab Spring too much. Realize that the State Department was actually shocked by it ...

Don't deny that Syrians mobilized peacefully to challenge a dictator and were violently repressed. Just point out that the US government was surprised by it hence was unlikely to be behind it.

Great points. Thanks for posting it, Octafish.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

11. Fucking worthless Zero Hedge that's never been right about anything. Nice try hiding the URL. nt

[FlatBaroque]

12. Says Zero Hedge right on top of the post

Maybe you missed it. Steam coming from the ears may have shilded your eyes from properly seeing the post.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

14. My steam-obscured view nothwithstanding, why did you post anything from that shit rag? nt

[FlatBaroque]

15. Good bye

[ChisolmTrailDem]

16. That's what I thought. A non-answer from a disinformationalist. Weak and cowardly. Anything

you post from now on should be subject to scrutiny.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

24. I have a lot of respect for you Octafish and I usually follow you and your information. However, I

am not sure how to take this post.

I hope you're not saying anything with it that would tarnish my support for you.

[Octafish]

26. I feel the same toward you, ChisolmTrailDem.

It's that I don't understand the anger toward FlatBaroque over Tyler Durden. I'd hoped to defuse things.

Now, if I wanted to be a crap artiste I'd have written, "John Ashcroft, is that you?"

I'll delete out of respect for you, my Friend.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

27. Just so you and dixiegrrrl understand, I spent a period of years reading that website and two things

emerged: One, Tyler Durden is not one person and, two, that site let me down 90% of the time and by the time I realized I'd been being duped, my entire mindset had been skewed. The only time they were right about anything was when they covered actual news events as they were happening or when they pivoted off of or elaborated on the work of others. The rest of the time they were dead wrong. Many times they just made shit up. Many times they engaged in prognostications that had me prepping (as in I became a "prepper", spending money I didn't have in the process) for financial collapse - that never happened to the TEOTWAWKI degree they predicted. So, taken all together, I decided to chuck "Tyler Durden" and Zero Hedge altogether.

[Octafish]

29. Thank you for the heads-up.

Did not know any of that, ChisolmTrailDem. I'd read and quoted articles from there for years, appreciating the news that I wasn't getting from CIABCNNBCBSFakeNoiseNutworks, I won't give the same credence to Tyler and Zero Hedge from now on. And I will certainly continue to make clear, as FlatBaroque did, where my posts are coming from.

Something else: I've been noticed over the years that when someone brings in a source that's not "reputable," the messenger gets the business. One example is Webb and his Dark Alliance story. The film is named "Kill the Messenger." Same thing happened before, when Oliver Stone was filming "JFK," the press started to destroy the film and the director before a script had even been finalized.

I don't like seeing it on DU, where some give the business to those with whom they disagree. Seeing one DUer tell another DUer they're going to be monitored sets off an alarm as I've become a lightning rod for MIRT team removal. It seems that whenever I get a post, like yesterday, when someone says something nice about what they've read, the person gets the ziggy. That is why I leap to the defense of my fellow DUers. Each day, there aren't as many as there used to be.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

34. Just be discerning with regard to Zero Hedge as a reliable source. It can be an entertaining site

but their prognostications almost always fail to work out, in my experience (which, admittedly, ended in 2010 or so). If they've gotten better since then, I haven't been there to see it.

I am very well aware of your legacy on DU and the campaigns against you by the subterfugists and shadowy figures on this website over the years. Indeed, i've been watching (and at times commenting) for a very long time now.

[Ghost Dog]

41. Thank you, Octafish.

.

[dixiegrrrrl]

21. Attacking the source instead of addressing the facts does not promote discussion well.

Durden links to Reuters and WSJ and many other news sources in his writing on this topic.
So, what do you think of Russian involvement in Syria/ME?

[ChisolmTrailDem]

23. You do know that Tyler Durden is a catchall nick that is used by all the contributors to that site?

Last edited Sat Oct 3, 2015, 01:36 PM - Edit history (1)

You don't seem to know that.

Also, I spent YEARS reading that worthless website. I have every reason and right to discount it as a source, just as DU does, to discount any other unreliable source.

[wordpix]

13. Vietnam = ground troops + draft; Iran= no such thing

No way Iran is a Vietnam-type blunder

[n2doc]

25. Does this blunder center around W's invasion of Iraq, or Poppy Bush's Desert Storm?

If not, fuck that shit. I am tired of seeing people in safe places calling for American Soldiers to die in yet another futile war.

[Blue_Tires]

35. Zerohedge? FFS...

I guess an InfoWars or Breitbart URL would have been too obvious

[Ex Lurker]

39. I am completely okay with Russia and Iran being dragged into this quagmire

Russia's military can in no way be described as a juggernaut, BTW. They will struggle to meet the logistical requirements of this operation. They also don't appear to have brought any combat search and rescue capability along. While the Syrian opposition doesn't have much in the way of air defense, Russia's slipshod maintenance procedures make operational aircraft losses a realistic possibility. One wonders what the pilots think about that. One also wonders if we would send our PJ's to go rescue a Russian pilot down in hostile territory, how that would look to the Russian public, and how Putin would try to spin it.

[moondust]

42. Wrong.

Last edited Sat Oct 3, 2015, 04:04 PM - Edit history (1)

President says this is not "some superpower chessboard contest" and he won't be drawn into a "proxy war" with Russia over Syria.

Russia and Iran have always been there in the background supporting Assad, just not with a big visible presence. Now that Assad is starting to run out of gas his buddies are stepping up their support. They probably would have done so years ago if they felt it was necessary.

As always, warmongers and simpletons on the right like to pretend it's just another tough-guy contest and Obama is losing. Ho-hum.

Let the Saudis do their own dirty work.

[pampango]

47. More Putin is brilliant, Obama is an idiot. Does Trump post here? n/t

[lovuian]

48. Russia bombing in Syria

Su-34 bombers destroyed an ISIS hardened command centre near Raqqah using a concrete-piercing bomb BETAB-500. The direct hit of the aerial weapon at the mountain facility caused detonation of explosives and multiple fires which completely destroyed the object.

Whose supplying Isis? the Russians needed a bunker buster to destroy their so called base or was this our rebel base we supported

so confusing for the outsiders who are Isis positions and who are US rebel supported bases
no matter whose base this one is a goner

[malaise]

49. The largest blunder was Iraq

by a distance.

For the record the US does not own the planet - there are other interests and for most of us ordinary folks, we'd like a better balance of power.

[FlatBaroque]

51. I think you hit the nail on the head

Most people want a balance of power including the Russians, but our Neoliberals and Neocons believe that the US should dominate all parts of the planet. The world was not perfect but it was less in shambles when there was a balance of power.

[Samantha]

52. Absolutely - I was headed to the bottom of this thread to post exactly that (nt)

[malaise]

54. What I don't get is why some folks believe the US can fugg things up and then

the rest of the planet must pick up the pieces - like the millions on the run since the mess in Iraq. The neocons would be surprised how many people on the planet welcome the Russians. Many despise them but know that this planet desperately needs a balance of power to rein in the neo-cons, warmongers and their tools.

[randome]

50. So we blundered by 'allowing' Putin to invade? Interesting perspective.

Or did we blunder by 'allowing' Iran to let nuclear arms inspectors in? No, still can't see it.

What did we do wrong, exactly?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[Jesus Malverde]

53. I suspect that this alliance and it's timing after Iran sanctions are lifted

Is not a coincidence. Thats some 3d chess.

[Jesus Malverde]

55. The money shot from the article

The US, in conjunction with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, attempted to train and support Sunni extremists to overthrow the Assad regime. Some of those Sunni extremists ended up going crazy and declaring a Medeival caliphate putting the Pentagon and Langley in the hilarious position of being forced to classify al-Qaeda as "moderate."

Those cheering for the al-Qaeda Jihadists, calling them moderates and rooting for an islamic state to replace the secular socialist state of Syria. They are at odds with the facts on the ground and seem to be repeating DOD talking points.