That there is no shortage of religious basis for organizing war in the region, including in Syria. And there will be cause to motivate organization (climate change refugee issues, for example).
If one wants war, as the US does, one can find a religious basis for this. This is a regular exercise. In Ukraine, the main point was support of Bandera fascism, but even there they tried the religious card too, using a split between two orthodox factions.
No, I don't. Bolton is part of a more radical faction of globalism - he wants the US to rule the world directly, by open use of military power. The Obama faction wants the US to rule the world using UN, human rights propaganda and so on as a propaganda cover.
I'm against US world rule, covered or uncovered by propaganda. Both factions use military means, against both factions you have to rely on your own force, else you are dead like Ghadafi. The Bolton faction prefers open wars, the Obama faction, once they like to cover their means, prefers terrorist wars. Both are thugs and villains.
I support a completely different political direction - isolationism. The only known US politician clearly supporting this is Ron Paul. So, this direction is rather weak.
The only point where I see some reason to support Bolton is that his faction will help to destroy the cover the Obama faction uses. And without this cover, the US world rule will be essentially dead in short time.
The hard question is about the danger of a nuclear war US-Russia. Here, the situation is less clear than it looks. Of course, one position is quite plausible - those who prefer open war will be more likely to start a nuclear war against Russia. That's a natural and simple position, but is it correct? That's not that obvious. The most dangerous thing is that the decision makers don't know what they do. That they think they can win a nuclear war, and therefore start it. But who is more probable to know the real situation about a nuclear war? Those who care a lot about military means to rule the world, and despise diplomatic means, or those who prefer "diplomatic" (terrorists) means?
The scenario toward the nuclear war is in any way one of unwanted escalation, with the US crossing all red lines of Russia playing chicken games. The most likely Syrian scenario: Another US fake gas attack, all the Western media crying that now the US has to bomb Syria, the Russians telling the US that in case of such an attack the attacking ships will be targets of Russian counterattacks. Up to this point, both factions already have escalated, both have received the corresponding statement of the Russian military.
The next step is that the US, playing a chicken game, ignores this and attacks Assad. The Russians do what they have promised, two US ships sink. Who is more likely not to escalate further toward a nuclear war?
The information that further escalation will be fatal for the US is more likely to be present in the pro-war faction because they have cared about these questions, they will know the situation much better. And the political pressure in favor of an escalation will be much less for the Bolton faction. For the Obama faction, the loss in the next election would unavoidable. For the Bolton faction, this would be less clear, the other side could not really say "we would not have sucked, we would have retaliated". For Trump, the political pressure would be the lowest one - he tells Bolton "you are fired" and blames him for suggesting this escalation.
To summarize, there are arguments in both directions, and it is hard to say which faction is more likely to escalate toward a nuclear war. But I tend to think that, given that the main danger is the nuclear war, it is better to have a faction ruling which is competent in military but incompetent in "diplomacy" (terrorism) than a faction competent in terrorism but incompetent in the military.
Given the actual situation, one wonders why Trump is now again (after a quite long time saying "we want to stay forever") talking about leaving Syria. One (admittedly highly speculative) hypothesis: It was the Tillerson/McMaster faction which supported "staying there", while the Pompeo/Bolton faction knows that playing chicken with Russia is not a good idea, and it is better to leave.
Maybe. Then again, especially if it marks the beginning of atrocities, maybe not.
And which was also true of Russia a year or so ago - they won, more or less. This is good?
With "atrocities" you mean the Western claims about horrible bomb terror against the poor civilian in East Ghouta? Let's see at the numbers.
According to the SOHR (a NATO propaganda organization) we have:
the rise of civilian death toll in the Eastern Ghouta, where it rose to 1544, the number of the Syrian civilians whose death was documented by the Syrian Observatory in the Eastern Ghouta, including 316 children and 193 women, who have been killed since the 18th of February 2018, by the aerial, rocket and artillery shelling
Think about the numbers. An aerial, rocket and artillery shelling can hardly differentiate between male and female civilians. And in a society where fighting is the job of males, there will be, among civilians, more women than men. So we have 193 adult females, but 1544-316-193=1035 adult males, among them at most 193 civilian males, thus, at least 1035-193=842 adult fighters against at most 386 adult civilians. And even if we count all children as civilians, forgetting that many militant fighters are aged below 18, this gives 842 fighters against 702 civilians, thus, a majority of fake civilians.
So war will continue, and the Kurds will suffer, after the US leaves - if it ever does.
You missed the context of the line you quoted - in that context, it was presupposed that the US does not leave. Without the US, the other players will give up in quite short time. As mentioned yesterday, there have been already several villages given up without any fight. The Kurds will suffer only if they don't give up. They will get a nice partial autonomy offer if they give up.
That will also work against Russian and Assad and Turkish bases.
The US has tried hard, but yet without success. The Syrians, as well as the Turks, have learned to live with such dangers. Don't forget that killed soldiers cause much larger problems in the US than in those countries.
