CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—As noted by Max Abrams, “Assad has strong incentives not to use chemical weapons again whereas regime change supporters have every incentive to say he did.” The leverage he’d be giving people like Nikki Haley to draw the wrath of the world down upon his head by committing internationally reviled war crimes would make it nonsensical for him to use an inefficient weapon like chlorine gas. It would be strategically disastrous, it wouldn’t profit him any, bombs work much better, and his consistent denial of using those weapons (both inside Syria and outside) would invalidate any small advantage he might get from sending a scary message to his enemies.
February 5, 2018
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WILLIAM J PASTORE—With the very word “peace” rarely in Washington’s political vocabulary, America’s never-ending version of war seems as inevitable as anything is likely to be in history. Significant contingents of U.S. troops and contractors remain an enduring presence in Iraq and there are now 2,000 U.S. Special Operations forces and other personnel in Syria for the long haul. They are ostensibly engaged in training and stability operations. In Washington, however, the urge for regime change in both Syria and Iran remains strong — in the case of Iran implacably so.
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JIMMIE MOGLIA—To suggest that Russia influenced the American electorate to vote for Trump, brings sublimity to the ridiculous. Yet even the “The New York Times,” which usually exhibits a shrewd eye to the limits within which dishonesty is the best policy, has succumbed to the temptation of promoting a legless fabrication. While the insupportably disagreeable lackeys of the information industry continue to lie without being belied, deceive without being unmasked, and wear the medals of their own crimes.
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Now let’s not forget that Turkey is a NATO member and that it houses the Incirlik airbase. However, unlike back in 1955 when Turkey was desperate to join NATO in fear of the “Communist peril”, America and NATO now need Turkey much more than Turkey needs NATO. To Erdogan, if he had to choose between the potential risks of losing Turkey’s NATO membership as against having a Kurdish state south of his border, he would choose the former.