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Total Members Voted: 23

[Vilanat]

Re-ordering of the middle east? sounds interesting. what do you suppose should happen to re-order it? who goes where?

[Helgoland]

What should happen? Wrong question. What could reasonably be achieved? Better question. Mostly it would entail devolution of powers to more local entities, similar to what happened in Kurdistan. Also we'd need a method to dry up funding for terrorists, mostly by giving the various regional powers better ways to exert their influence than giving weapons to the suicide squad du jour. The first point would go a long way towards that goal as well, I think: Ethnically sort-of homogenous entities are bound to be more stable than states solely held together by an iron fist. And if Iran is re-integrated into the international community, if it is presented with incentives to work with the European countries on a level playing field, it will have much less incentive to destabilize the region they way it's doing now.
Example: If all relevant players (except for Assad) had known in 2012 that their interests in Syria would be respected in a potential diplomatic solution, we wouldn't see Iranian and Hisbollah forces fighting alongside the ophthalmologist's forces against Islamists like Al-Nusra who are at the very least tacitly supported by Turkey and the gulf states.

[Vilanat]

It's the same question bar semantics.

Regarding the partition of Syria - If you'd check the Middle East thread you'll see that this is basically what i suggested, and indeed, basically what is inevitably going to happen despite our opinion of it. will these solve the Middle East problems? obviously not. Syria is but one country in the Middle East and not even a one who propagate the larger conflict in it so it's definitely not an answer to my question, but a mere small part of it.

Why would Iran be willing to give up Syria for Sunni Islamists? time warp us to 2012. why would Iran agree to partition Syria for proxy groups of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey just so it could be patted on the back by the West? and what  "All relevant players had known that their interests in Syria would be respected in a potential diplomatic solution" even means? That every time a country we want to foster has their eye on another country we should just let it take control of it or parts of it? why limit it to Syria? why not say the exact same thing about Iran? Let's assume i think the Kurds should have parts of Iran as their State and i think the Azeris should have control of their own parts where they are the vast majority. why would Iran agree to that? how is that different to Syria? why not give the Kurds parts of Turkey? what about Yemen? should we give it to Iran because we think it's a potential ally? Baharain?

Turkey has been regarded as an important ally and potential EU member and had no problem destabilizing Syria, funding ISIS, bombing Kurds and allowing millions of refugees to cross into Europe. why would Iran behave any different?

[penguinofhonor]

You can't break people down into small enough groups to eliminate conflicts like these. If you create a Kurdish state and conditions get shitty enough, tensions will rise and conflict can break out across some other social division. Maybe Kurds of different religions will start fighting more. Will more dividing and subdividing help that?

Ethnic/religious divides often frame how a conflict plays out rather than causing that conflict initially. The Middle East has a significant history of different religions and cultures coexisting peacefully under the same government - why can't they do it again? I think these kind of "solutions" paint the region as primitive and unable to handle diversity like Western countries can.

[Helgoland]

Ya, it's more about getting rid of this pseudo-imperial mindset where a place either belongs to us, or them, or someone else entirely. Stop this vying for influence, and replace it with a more productive sort of competition. Germany and France don't conduct covert operations to keep Belgium in their sphere of influence, right? Why should they? Getting the various (big, relevant, and not earmarked for eradication) players in the middle east into a similar state looks like the only long-term solution to me.

In other news: Turkey shout down a Russian drone or something similar. I only have a German source, though.

[scrdest]

Germany and France don't conduct covert operations to keep Belgium in their sphere of influence, right?

If they are covert operations, you wouldn't exactly know about them. Well, at least not as them being German or French operations.

[ragnar119]

In other news: Turkey shout down a Russian drone or something similar. I only have a German source, though.

Yes, this is correct. They shot down a drone made in Russia. But as Syrians and Russian are using generally similar drones, its not sure which it was. But official Russian stance is that their all drones are operation and in tact, so this is probably from Syrian government.

There was also news few days ago that Turkey shot down Russian Mig 29, but it was false report, and Russians dont have any Migs 29 in Syria, only Syrians has them I think

[ragnar119]

Israeli passengers at Ben Gurion Airport allegedly attacked the crew of their flight to Paris on Thursday when they saw that a Czech airplane leased from a Czech airline (Travel Service) would be making the journey instead of Arkia, an Israeli airline

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4712053,00.html

[nenjin]

The travelers refused to board the plane because of the current security situation, saying that they would only agree to board with an Israeli team.

So the security situation with the Palestinians means they can't fly a Czech airline? Ooooooooooh k. Nothing irrational or reactionary about that.

[scriver]

Until further notice I am going to assume that was one group of dunces travelling together though.

Because come on.

[Vilanat]

You can't break people down into small enough groups to eliminate conflicts like these. If you create a Kurdish state and conditions get shitty enough, tensions will rise and conflict can break out across some other social division. Maybe Kurds of different religions will start fighting more. Will more dividing and subdividing help that?

Ethnic/religious divides often frame how a conflict plays out rather than causing that conflict initially. The Middle East has a significant history of different religions and cultures coexisting peacefully under the same government - why can't they do it again? I think these kind of "solutions" paint the region as primitive and unable to handle diversity like Western countries can.

Well, currently they can't as evident in Syria, where a Sunni-Alawite conflict is a recurring theme and not just something that suddenly came into existence in 2011. I also think you can break countries to achieve relative peace if you break them into homogeneous enough parts. will it mean those country will forever be peaceful? absolutely not, but i think it is a right step in this direction. strong nationalistic identity, like the Kurds definitely have, is a good method to surpass other differences like religion.

Ya, it's more about getting rid of this pseudo-imperial mindset where a place either belongs to us, or them, or someone else entirely. Stop this vying for influence, and replace it with a more productive sort of competition. Germany and France don't conduct covert operations to keep Belgium in their sphere of influence, right? Why should they? Getting the various (big, relevant, and not earmarked for eradication) players in the middle east into a similar state looks like the only long-term solution to me.

In other news: Turkey shout down a Russian drone or something similar. I only have a German source, though.

I wonder, who exactly you refer to when you write the "Big, relevant and not earmarked for eradication" players in the Middle East?

[Ukrainian Ranger]

In other news: Turkey shout down a Russian drone or something similar. I only have a German source, though.

I am rather interested what Russia will do if Turkey\Israel will shoot down their fighter jet.

My bet is that Putin will simply pretend that nothing ever happened. After all it is easy to hide death of pilot from Russian public.

[Vilanat]

Israel will never shoot a Russian fighter jet and have began mutual exercises to make sure they wont do so even by mistake. Turkey will not shoot a Russian fighter jet because they don't have the guts, nor sufficient reason to do so. Russia is probably the only legitimate force in Syria right now. well, maybe the Iranians too.

[ragnar119]

Israel will never shoot a Russian fighter jet and have began mutual exercises to make sure they wont do so even by mistake. Turkey will not shoot a Russian fighter jet because they don't have the guts, nor sufficient reason to do so. Russia is probably the only legitimate force in Syria right now. well, maybe the Iranians too.

Yea. All other forces are actually illegal there, including USA/West coalition bombing, and they are actually breaking the international law, as there was no permission from United Nations Security Council. But this is unfortunately not the first time it was broken, by west and east also, and probably not the last one.

[Sergarr]

In other news: Turkey shout down a Russian drone or something similar. I only have a German source, though.

I am rather interested what Russia will do if Turkey\Israel will shoot down their fighter jet.

My bet is that Putin will simply pretend that nothing ever happened. After all it is easy to hide death of pilot from Russian public.

My bet is that Syria airspace would become... highly unwelcome for Turkey/Israel aircraft. There are enough anti-air assets there to make sure that any stupid stunts like that are going to end badly for the perpetrators.

Not that we would see that, since presence of those anti-air assets would deter the probable suspects from doing this.