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Indeed, the elephant in the room is Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Both have a significant interest in the removal of the Ba'athist government from Syria, and they ha
by ihsw 11y ago
Indeed, the elephant in the room is Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Both have a significant interest in the removal of the Ba'athist government from Syria, and they have both expended significant resources in achieving this goal (officially or otherwise).
Resources which Isil has benefited from handsomely, and in fact the only reason Turkey and the KSA are currently engaging Isil directly is because of the domestic threat posed by homegrown Isil cells. While the West is equally guilty of this abject laziness and callousness, Turkey and the KSA have contributed far more to the global jihadi movement than any other organization since Isil announced independence in June 2014.
- forgotpwtomain 11y agoFrom my understanding Turkey had a basically "hear no evil, see no evil" policy for anti-Assad rebels and arms-shipments across their border and the US encouraged this(!). As for Saudi Arabia, their government is just about as bad as Assad on human rights - which of course doesn't prevent the US and US politicians from being very cozy with them as long as it serves their geo-political agenda.
- ihsw 11y agoHonestly, regarding Saudi Arabia, I think their strategy is to buy as much equipment as possible so that the West has no choice but to prop up the House of Saud. Why do they have no choice? Well, if the House of Saud falls then the weapons would reach the hands of jihadist terrorists before you can say "9/11," and the Royal Saudi Army has a very large stockpile of all of the best hardware you can buy with petrodollars.
- lifeisstillgood 11y agoAn airforce able to rival the Marines does not "fall into the hands of terrorists". Saudi Arabia wants to be a regional power and wants to back that up with force. Oh and suppress domestic unrest.
- jqm 11y ago"As for Saudi Arabia, their government is just about as bad as Assad on human rights" They are a whole lot worse.
- dsfyu404ed 11y agoIt's hard to be worse than mustard gas...
- jqm 11y agoDid Assad actually use mustard gas? Is stockpiling mustard gas better or worse than stockpiling nuclear missiles? Just things to think about. As for human rights... KSA is considerably worse than Assad.