Oppose the Saudi-Israeli Cabal
Back Assad, says Pat Buchanan.
The Enemy of Our Enemy
Patrick J. Buchanan | LewRockwell.com
January 11, 2014
Back Assad, says Pat Buchanan.
The Enemy of Our Enemy
Patrick J. Buchanan | LewRockwell.com
January 11, 2014
...
From Israel’s vantage point, the overthrow of Assad would mean the isolation of Hezbollah, which would no longer receive weapons from a Syrian regime that Hezbollah had fought to keep out of power.
But what about America’s point of view?
“Sooner or later,” The Washington Post writes, “the United States will have to face the threat to its vital interests emerging across the Levant.”
But, with due respect, there are no U.S. “vital interests” in the Levant.
For the first 150 years of our existence as a nation, the Levant was ruled by Ottoman Turks, and then by the British and the French under the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.
What difference did it make to us who ruled Damascus or Beirut?
...
While a victory for the rebels might fit well with the agendas of Riyadh and Tel Aviv, it might also mean a massacre of Alawites and a mass exodus of Christians. At best, it would bring about a regime along the lines of the Muslim Brotherhood government that lately ruled in Cairo. At worst, it could bring to power a regime dominated by Sunni jihadists.
The greatest threat to U.S. interests there is not autocrats, Sunni or Shia, interested in getting rich, but radicals with the mindset of suicide bombers taking over a state and spreading revolution down the Gulf.
War is the clear and present danger, and peace the necessary condition of securing those interests.
The defeat of ISIS in Anbar and Syria and peace in the region should be our primary goal. And if Iran is willing to assist Damascus and Baghdad in defeating al-Qaida, Iran should be treated as a temporary ally in a common cause.
...
From Israel’s vantage point, the overthrow of Assad would mean the isolation of Hezbollah, which would no longer receive weapons from a Syrian regime that Hezbollah had fought to keep out of power.
But what about America’s point of view?
“Sooner or later,” The Washington Post writes, “the United States will have to face the threat to its vital interests emerging across the Levant.”
But, with due respect, there are no U.S. “vital interests” in the Levant.
For the first 150 years of our existence as a nation, the Levant was ruled by Ottoman Turks, and then by the British and the French under the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.
What difference did it make to us who ruled Damascus or Beirut?
...
While a victory for the rebels might fit well with the agendas of Riyadh and Tel Aviv, it might also mean a massacre of Alawites and a mass exodus of Christians. At best, it would bring about a regime along the lines of the Muslim Brotherhood government that lately ruled in Cairo. At worst, it could bring to power a regime dominated by Sunni jihadists.
The greatest threat to U.S. interests there is not autocrats, Sunni or Shia, interested in getting rich, but radicals with the mindset of suicide bombers taking over a state and spreading revolution down the Gulf.
War is the clear and present danger, and peace the necessary condition of securing those interests.
The defeat of ISIS in Anbar and Syria and peace in the region should be our primary goal. And if Iran is willing to assist Damascus and Baghdad in defeating al-Qaida, Iran should be treated as a temporary ally in a common cause.
...
