Outside the Beltway

Picturing the Syria Strike Force

· Sunday, September 1, 2013 · 7 comments

SyriaStrikeForce

I found this infographic from RIA Novosti of the strike force that could potentially be arrayed against Syria sufficiently interesting that I thought I’d pass it along. You can click on it for a larger version. It’s attached to an op-ed by Simon Saradzhyan, researcher at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Here’s a snippet:

To avoid a disastrous mission creep Obama, as President, should do everything he can to resist the pressure that neocons and interventionists in his own camp are ratcheting up – and limit the use of force in Syria..

Atrocities by the Assad regime make it unfathomable to follow the advice that is given in conflict resolution textbooks written by realists, i.e. that the quickest way to end a conflict is to side with the strongest side. That doesn’t mean though that the US cannot agree to a negotiated post-Assad arrangement, in which “his” forces, such as the Alawites, get fair representation.

The Russians are consummate foreign policy realists and that’s very much the “conflict resolution textbook” they’ve been following.

FILED UNDER: Middle East, , ,
Dave Schuler
About Dave Schuler
Over the years Dave Schuler has worked as a martial arts instructor, a handyman, a musician, a cook, and a translator. He's owned his own company for the last thirty years and has a post-graduate degree in his field. He comes from a family of politicians, teachers, and vaudeville entertainers. All-in-all a pretty good preparation for blogging. He has contributed to OTB since November 2006 but mostly writes at his own blog, The Glittering Eye, which he started in March 2004.

Comments

  1. dunce says:
    Sunday, 1 September 2013 at 22:26

    It is none of our business, it is not our conflict to resolve. i do not care how muslims kill each other, i only care about the slaughter of the Christians caught in the middle of a muslim on muslim war. Attacking anyone in the country will not save one christian.

  2. legion says:
    Monday, 2 September 2013 at 03:06

    @dunce: I’m not interested in entering a war we have no concept of how to win, but that’s from concern over _all_ human lives. If the only lives you are interested in protecting are Christian lives, then you sir have exactly zero understanding of anything Jesus ever taught.

  3. edmondo says:
    Monday, 2 September 2013 at 09:11

    Here’s what we are trying to help:

    http://rt.com/news/syria-rebel-massacre-aleppo-627/

    http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Syrian+Rebel+Video+Execution&qpvt=Syrian+Rebel+Video+Execution&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=6529637CD40F7F1443CE6529637CD40F7F1443CE

    http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/15/world/meast/syria-civil-war

    Yeah, this makes total sense.

  4. john personna says:
    Monday, 2 September 2013 at 12:09

    @dunce:

    Radio reports are that Syria’s 1 million Christians are fleeing the civil war.

    I assume you chose your name to somehow parody that …

  5. john personna says:
    Monday, 2 September 2013 at 12:11

    BTW, I think the infographic suffers visually from the “big ship, small oceans” impact. As if 4 or 8 ships fully occupy a sea.

  6. Dave Schuler says:
    Monday, 2 September 2013 at 13:12

    @john personna:

    It’s better than anything I’ve seen so far in the Western press.

  7. Matt Bernius says:
    Monday, 2 September 2013 at 16:21

    @john personna:
    I guess. Though one could also argue that it also suffers from suggesting that a single fighter jet is larger than all of Cyprus or Isreal.

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