dagblog - Comments for ""The Blob Is Lying About Trump’s Sudden Syria Withdrawal""

Syrian Military Police is

artappraiser — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 06:28:56 +0000

In reply to "The Blob Is Lying About Trump’s Sudden Syria Withdrawal"

Syrian Military Police is carrying out raids across Damascus arresting men wanted for military service https://t.co/wTWJFQ3Jb9 The regime recently expanded the age range of those wanted for reserve duty to include those born in 1972 or later (so even 47-yos can be taken)
— Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) January 27, 2019

Video showing massive number of Syrian men arrested in the last 2 days in Damascus and taken to military service. pic.twitter.com/6eBePGDQAF
— Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) January 28, 2019

VOA News - Experts Fear

artappraiser — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 04:51:14 +0000

In reply to "The Blob Is Lying About Trump’s Sudden Syria Withdrawal"

VOA News - Experts Fear Terror Group Consolidating Power in Syria (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham [HTS], an al-Qaida-affiliated group) https://t.co/imxLKU64Vl
— Small Wars Journal (@smallwars) January 26, 2019

Pentagon official tells WSJ

artappraiser — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 06:32:45 +0000

In reply to "The Blob Is Lying About Trump’s Sudden Syria Withdrawal"

Pentagon official tells WSJ they don't take orders from Bolton!

Pentagon moves forward with US withdrawal from Syria.

"We don't take orders from Bolton" says a Pentagon official. https://t.co/07Cepcm9Lz
— Negar (@NegarMortazavi) January 11, 2019

I want to be careful with how

artappraiser — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 06:27:27 +0000

In reply to "The Blob Is Lying About Trump’s Sudden Syria Withdrawal"

I want to be careful with how I phrase this, but Pompeo's Cairo speech was one of the worst foreign policy speeches I've witnessed from a senior U.S. official. It was cynical, petty, incoherent, small, and, well, silly
— Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) January 10, 2019

Also: the U.S. is not, and hasn't been, "a force for good" in the Middle East. It has been much the opposite—one of the major obstacles, and at times even the primary obstacle, to the region's progress and development
— Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) January 10, 2019

He is Senior Fellow @BrookingsInst; Contributing editor @TheAtlantic; Author #IslamicExceptionalism. Find my books here: https://amzn.to/2RpBpVt I saw his tweets because The Guardian's Julian Borger retweeted thread, who is an old timer now on foreign policy and diplomacy.

Edit to add another:

“That they think that anyone still wants to hear about Barack Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech-get over it. You own the issue now, you own the policy. People want to know what you are going to do, not what you think Barack Obama did wrong.“ -⁦@j_feierstein⁩ https://t.co/0QWmHqC8qz
— Tamara Cofman Wittes (@tcwittes) January 11, 2019

US troops are both staying

artappraiser — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 19:11:09 +0000

In reply to "The Blob Is Lying About Trump’s Sudden Syria Withdrawal"

US troops are both staying and leaving, in case anyone was confused https://t.co/rfh5AUUH2m
— Josie Ensor (@Josiensor) January 10, 2019

I think well said (from guy

artappraiser — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 23:15:33 +0000

In reply to thanks for pointing that out

I think well said (from guy who is "Head of Output @ BBC Arabic"):

Bolton’s visit to Turkey brought US Turkish relations back to where they were on Dec 14 before Erdogan picked up the phone to call Trump. It was a weird episode & the first ever US action in the Middle East that results in the Secretary of Defence becoming collateral damage
— Mohamed Yehia (@yeh1a) January 8, 2019

Bolton just gonna go his own

artappraiser — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 21:32:39 +0000

In reply to thanks for pointing that out

Bolton just gonna go his own way, going to continue to ignore the presidential babblings, either he will convince the powers that be (whoever those are, nobody knows) to go his way or git fired?

Bolton and the Deepening Iran Obsession

By Daniel Larison @ The American Conservative, Jan. 8

John Bolton has added a new hard-line Iran hawk to the National Security Council. Curt Mills reports on the hiring of Richard Goldberg from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD):

“Regime change has become a loaded political term,” Goldberg has said in congressional testimony, rejecting comparisons of Iran hawks to those who pushed the U.S. into war in Iraq, even though the two groups have heavy overlaps. “We need to look at more of a Cold War-era policy. What was the Reagan administration’s victory policy, rollback policy toward the Soviets? We definitely wanted behavioral change.”

Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the “Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction” Bolton is promoting the fiction that there are Iranian WMDs to be countered. The lie that Iran seeks such weapons has been at the heart of opposition to the JCPOA, and Bolton is happy to keep promoting that lie for as long as he can.

As Mills notes, he was doing just that during his recent visit to Israel when he said this:[....]

thanks for pointing that out

artappraiser — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 17:43:48 +0000

In reply to I read some of the comments

thanks for pointing that out as I didn't think to. Here's the new news, he snubs Bolton publicly in Parliament on the Kurds:

Contradictory U.S. policy on Syria boomerangs on Bolton as Turkey's president says "it is not possible for us to swallow" the mixed American message. A Turkish newspaper says the president refused to even meet Bolton @carlottagall https://t.co/w3esBIPQrp
— rickgladstone (@rickgladstone) January 8, 2019

in the Turkish media, a "soft coup against Donald Trump":

Ouch. As Bolton flies home from Turkey with no Erdogan meeting, the lead editorial in the pro-government Daily Sabah: "A soft coup against Donald Trump" - https://t.co/SXNgVlaUmA
— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) January 8, 2019

more detail:

BREAKING: What Turkey is reacting to: @AmbJohnBolton delivered “non-paper” from admin w 5 core conditions for US w/d; and also said Erdogan NYT op-Ed wrong and offensive, per officials
— Margaret Talev (@margarettalev) January 8, 2019

I read some of the comments

ocean-kat — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 07:23:21 +0000

In reply to Crikey!

I read some of the comments on the op-ed and they made all the arguments as to why it was propaganda and why we shouldn't trust Erdogan to get the job done.

Crikey!

artappraiser — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 06:52:59 +0000

In reply to "The Blob Is Lying About Trump’s Sudden Syria Withdrawal"

Crikey! Well, at least he didn't Tweet it.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan - NYT Op-Ed - Trump Is Right on Syria. Turkey Can Get the Job Done. https://t.co/xmguqKfLbt
— Small Wars Journal (@smallwars) January 8, 2019