Interventionistas Outraged Over Trump's Syria Withdrawal: "We Took The Oil. We’ve Got To Keep The Oil"
1
April, 2017
Regime
change advocates, neocon beltway hawks, and all
the usual armchair warrior zero-skin-in-the-game think tank
interventionistas are in continued meltdown mode after
Trump confirmed plans to withdraw American forces - some 2000+ troops
and personnel - from Syria. On Friday the president told senior
White House aides that US
forces will be exiting Syria after
public comments made earlier.
In
statements carried by Reuters, Trump
said, “Let
the other people take care of it now. Very soon, very soon,
we’re coming out. We’re going to get back to our country, where
we belong, where we want to be.” As
we noted last
week,
the timing of Trump's dramatic Syria turn corresponded with news
of an American soldier killed in Manbij in northern Syria
(killed likely
by an IED alongside
a British coalition soldier overnight last Thursday).
Perhaps
to be expected, the weekend editorials and cable news pundit
shows reacted
in disbelief
and horror -
with charges of "chaos" at
the Trump White House over Syria policy,
and claims that "ISIS
will come back" if
America leaves. Nevermind the fact that Trump himself while on the
campaign trail in 2016 stated in public
speeches and
in a tweet (and
linking to a declassified
intelligence memo)
that US
support to jihadists in Syria under President Obama is
precisely what fueled the rise of ISIS in the first place.
:
Image
source: AM Greatness.
CNN,
for example, painted
a picture of mass revolt among the ranks of military officers and
career State Department officials, asserting
that,
"Any decision by Trump to pull out of Syria would also go
against the current military assessment, a fact that left some
national security officials concerned about the impact of a
withdrawal, another senior administration official told CNN."
No,
there's no "chaos" when it comes to Syria policy at the
White House -Trump is doing exactly what he pledged to do while
previously on the campaign trail,
and he's further continuing what he started when he nixed
the CIA's regime change program last summer.
CNN has been running this chyron for days. It’s intended to suggest that presidents should never question the national security state apparatchiks who demand a permanent US military president in the Middle East, and that America’s invasion of Syria is just.
But
it's funny and very telling how brazenly honest interventionistas and
deep state bureaucrats suddenly become in their motives whenever
Trump speaks truth on Syria. Consider prominent Washington
Post columnist
Josh Rogin, who the day after Trump's announcement of leaving
Syria lamented
while quoting a pro-regime change activist, “We
took the oil. We’ve got to keep the oil.”
That's
right, the mask of pseudo-humanitarian high-minded noble ideals comes
off (the Josh Rogins of the world care nothing about actual Syrians),
and we learn that it's actually all about...
Oil!
Oil! Oil! Iran! Iran! Iran!
Trump doesn't seem to care about U.S. national security interests in Syria. So somebody tell him by pulling out, he is giving Iran all the oil washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogi…
Map
source: WINEP
No
more pretense and the slick language of R2P
military intervention for
the sake saving civilians in Syria... Rogin's op-ed is aptly
titled, In
Syria, we ‘took the oil.’ Now Trump wants to give it to Iran.
Rogin,
like other interventionistas, has no more cards to play, thus we
find these
straightforward admissions in his column:
Perhaps he would back off his urge to cut and run if he knew that the United States and its partners control almost all of the oil. And if the United States leaves, that oil will likely fall into the hands of Iran...
Control over oil is the only influence we have in Syria today...
“We have this 30 percent slice of Syria, which is probably where 90 percent of the pre-war oil production took place,” said David Adesnik, director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “This is leverage.”
Astoundingly,
these words are still being published 15 years after the myriad lies
of the Iraq invasion ...no shame, no regrets. And a host of other
mainstream journalists in New York and DC greeted Rogin's column as
"refreshing" and respectable "essential reading"
(as if it's not the same pro-regime-change script which has dominated
talking points for years).
Meanwhile,
a well-known Syrian-American
Middle East analyst and
actual expert on Syria effortlessly
shreds Rogin's supposed "realist" points with ease (Rogin
likes to think of himself as a foreign
policy 'realist'
...he's no such thing):
Whenever one thinks Syria analysis has hit bottom, nonsense like comes along to remind us otherwise. Josh Rogin's piece makes a set of outrageous observations that has become a mainstay of Syria’s war coverage over the years. Let’s establish the facts first.
Iran’s expansion that Josh Rogin wants to “counter” did not start with Syrian war but started in the aftermath of the ill-advised Iraq invasion that opened the pandora box which we are still dealing with today (Birth of ISIS is another). Interventionists have a short memory.
Syria’s alliance with Iran did not start with the Syrian war.It was cemented after Damascus decided to side with Iran during its war with Saddam’s Iraq in early 80’s. At start of Syrian war, Tehran decided to pay back the favor and came to Assad’s aid when no one did.
What Josh Rogin still can’t comprehend is that countering Iran is positively correlated with ending the Syrian war and not by adding more fuel to it. Iran’s influence grows when Damascus is threatened and not the other way around.
Syria is not Saudi Arabia. Even before the war, it’s oil production was mere 150K barrels a day. This is a drop in the ocean when it comes the regional oil producers. Asking Trump to grab the oil shows total lack of understanding of scale or strategic importance.
Indeed, by grabbing what little oil Syria has all you are doing is giving Iran and other allies of Syria more leverage. The more Syria can stand on its feet the less it needs those allies like Iran that you want to counter.
Whenever one thinks Syria analysis has hit bottom, nonsense like 
comes along to remind us otherwise. @joshrogin piece makes a set of outrageous observations that has become a mainstay of Syria’s war coverage over the years. Let’s establish the facts first ===> twitter.com/joshrogin/stat…
comes along to remind us otherwise. @joshrogin piece makes a set of outrageous observations that has become a mainstay of Syria’s war coverage over the years. Let’s establish the facts first ===> twitter.com/joshrogin/stat…
So
it's not only his conclusions, but every assumption of Rogin and his
ilk concerning the Middle East is simply
dead wrong. But
at the very least these moments serve to remind us of what morally
corrupt failures the Washington class of inverventionistas have been,
and that it's certainly
not their own skin in the gamewhen they
argue for "taking action" whether
in Syria or other parts of the world (the establishment political and
pundit class is all too willing to send the sons of othersto
die in foreign quagmires with dubious aims).
Finally,
it should be noted that Josh Rogin published his piece the same
day Master
Sgt. Jonathan J. Dunbar died in Syria (identified
by the Department of Defense on Saturday). Rogin
is ultimately arguing that more Americans must stay in harm's way for
"control
over oil... the only influence we have in Syria today."
* *
*
With
that, we'll leave off with the following excerpted wisdom from Nassim
Nicholas Taleb's Skin
in the Game:
Control
over oil is the only influence we have in Syria today...
“We
have this 30 percent slice of Syria, which is probably where 90
percent of the pre-war oil production took place,” said David
Adesnik, director of research at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies. “This is leverage.”
Astoundingly,
these words are still being published 15 years after the myriad lies
of the Iraq invasion ...no shame, no regrets. And a host of other
mainstream journalists in New York and DC greeted Rogin's column as
"refreshing" and respectable "essential reading"
(as if it's not the same pro-regime-change script which has dominated
talking points for years).
Meanwhile,
a well-known Syrian-American Middle East analyst and actual expert on
Syria effortlessly shreds Rogin's supposed "realist" points
with ease (Rogin likes to think of himself as a foreign policy
'realist' ...he's no such thing):
Whenever
one thinks Syria analysis has hit bottom, nonsense like comes along
to remind us otherwise. Josh Rogin's piece makes a set of outrageous
observations that has become a mainstay of Syria’s war coverage
over the years. Let’s establish the facts first.
Iran’s
expansion that Josh Rogin wants to “counter” did not start with
Syrian war but started in the aftermath of the ill-advised Iraq
invasion that opened the pandora box which we are still dealing with
today (Birth of ISIS is another). Interventionists have a short
memory.
Syria’s
alliance with Iran did not start with the Syrian war. It was cemented
after Damascus decided to side with Iran during its war with Saddam’s
Iraq in early 80’s. At start of Syrian war, Tehran decided to pay
back the favor and came to Assad’s aid when no one did.
What
Josh Rogin still can’t comprehend is that countering Iran is
positively correlated with ending the Syrian war and not by adding
more fuel to it. Iran’s influence grows when Damascus is threatened
and not the other way around.
Syria
is not Saudi Arabia. Even before the war, it’s oil production was
mere 150K barrels a day. This is a drop in the ocean when it comes
the regional oil producers. Asking Trump to grab the oil shows total
lack of understanding of scale or strategic importance.
Indeed,
by grabbing what little oil Syria has all you are doing is giving
Iran and other allies of Syria more leverage. The more Syria can
stand on its feet the less it needs those allies like Iran that you
want to counter.
EHSANI2
@EHSANI22
Whenever
one thinks Syria analysis has hit bottom, nonsense like ��comes
along to remind us otherwise. @joshrogin piece makes a set of
outrageous observations that has become a mainstay of Syria’s war
coverage over the years. Let’s establish the facts first ===>
https://twitter.com/joshrogin/status/979856522753789953 …
5:01
AM - Apr 1, 2018
61
46
people are talking about this
Twitter
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So
it's not only his conclusions, but every assumption of Rogin and his
ilk concerning the Middle East is simply
dead wrong. But
at the very least these moments serve to remind us of what morally
corrupt failures the Washington class of inverventionistas have been,
and that it's certainly
not their own skin in the gamewhen they
argue for "taking action" whether
in Syria or other parts of the world (the establishment political and
pundit class is all too willing to send the sons of othersto
die in foreign quagmires with dubious aims).
Finally,
it should be noted that Josh Rogin published his piece the same
day Master
Sgt. Jonathan J. Dunbar died in Syria (identified
by the Department of Defense on Saturday). Rogin
is ultimately arguing that more Americans must stay in harm's way for
"control
over oil... the only influence we have in Syria today."
*
* *
With
that, we'll leave off with the following excerpted wisdom from Nassim
Nicholas Taleb's Skin in the Game:
“What
you had historically is warmongers were warriors.And
he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword… Now suddenly–and
that’s only recent–we developed all these weapons and
technologies and stuff like that, so
you can have people cause wars and not be exposed. And
not only that, but as was Bill Kristol… he’s a prime example.
The
people who caused the war in Iraq… absolutely no cost to them. Or
a cost that’s very small, very tiny reputational cost… And then
after they cause a war in Iraq–and
of course we have a disaster–they will intervene again… in Libya
and of course in Syria.
What
happens with these people is that given that there is no skin in the
game, there’s no learning… In
the real world, these people should be dead, because basically, if
you cause a disaster… so many of them would be… pruned out that
way instead of letting others die.”
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