Among the many nut cases roaming the world of American
punditry, there seems to be at least one sane person, and he turned out to be
not a professional pundit but a novelist and a military historian who engages
in punditry only when he feels he must.
His name is Caleb Carr, and he wrote: “Let Europe lead the
war in Syria ,”
an article that also came under the subtitle: “History counsels caution for
American troops.” It was published in the New York Daily News on November 28,
2015. Not to mince words, Carr starts the article by making clear that “a
proposed American-led ground action in Syria [is] potentially disastrous.”
He alone knows why he felt compelled to write that article
at this time, but we can guess the reason when we look at the desolate
landscape of punditry that extends before our eyes; a wasted vast land that
must have cried out for Carr to tidy up and organize. To get a sense of how
barren that landscape has been and still is, we may look at the Max Boot
article that came under the title: “How to defeat ISIS,” published two days
earlier in the Pittsburgh Tribune. Also, two days before the Boot article,
there was the John Bolton dissertation that came under the title: “To Defeat
ISIS, Create a Sunni
State
While the Boot article is an invitation to repeat the
tragedy that was the Second Iraq War, the John Bolton article is an invitation
to repeat the tragedy that was the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Here is how Boot ends
his article: “The U.S. needs
to make clear its intent to topple Assad along with ISIS … Until that happens,
the U.S. can continue to
chip away at the edges of ISIS … This is an
evil that cannot be contained. It must be defeated.”
This being what the Americans said about Saddam before
invading Iraq and destroying it to topple him, we must expect that if America
takes the Boot advice and tries to topple Assad, the calamity we see unfold in
the Levant at this time will not only double; it will amplify exponentially.
As to the John Bolton dissertation, he starts it like this,
“the basic question: What comes after the Islamic State?” And he sets out to
answer it. He says that after determining what sort of governance will be good
for the people of the region – without asking them – America must launch “a
vigorous military campaign to destroy the Islamic State.” He later explains
that for this to happen: “American ground combat forces will have to be
deployed.”
This done, he wants the world to understand that “Iraq and
Syria as we have known them are gone … emerging is a de facto independent
Kurdistan … The best alternative to the Islamic State in Northeastern Syria and
western Iraq is a new, independent Sunni State … It is Sunni-stan … This is not
a democracy initiative but cold power politics.” What else could he have said
that would have defined the epitome of cynicism more aptly?
But for that to happen, he goes on to say: “we and our
allies must empower viable Sunni leaders.” It's not the ideal thing to do but
the best that can be done under the circumstances. He explains: “Once, we might
have declared a Jordanian 'protectorate' in an American 'sphere of influence';
for now, a new state will do.” In fact, this would have been the American way
to duplicate and inflict the fateful Sykes-Picot Agreement on the region.
And so, we ask: Can the Bolton approach solve the problems
of the Levant ? Or will it repeat the old
history, and pave the way for another regional calamity to plague the world a
century from now? Bolton seems to try
answering that question, but he does it in such ambiguous way, you can swear
that a Jew must have been whispering in his ear.
Look what he actually says: “Turkey
would enjoy greater stability, making the existence of a new state tolerable …
The Kurds have finally become too big a force in the region … They still face
enormous challenges, especially with Turkey . But an independent
Kurdistan could work in America 's
favor.”
He could not have been more ambiguous than that. And he
could not have been more myopic – looking as he does for a way to serve America in the
midst of a tragedy of epic proportion.