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[RedKing]

In 21th century all processes are faster. Now it should be decades instead of centuries. Still sucks for the generation that lives in such turbulent times

Yes and no. Destabilizing processes are faster too. Instead of it taking years for an anti-government movement to come together, it takes like a week and a Twitter feed.

[Sheb]

Do you think people forget about the death of their loved one and forgive their enemies faster?

[burningpet]

I don't think libya can be considered a success since the end result is a country with almost no oil revenue and because of that, almost zero investment in education, internal security and its own economy. its not that it will take libya a few years to stabilize, its that it will take it a few years to become another current Iraq. its already becoming a major terrorist greenhouse and with further decline in quality of life and lack of education, this trend will just continue to rise.

Yemen is basically the same situation, being a major source of terrorists that fight in iraq and syria, and its only a matter of time before it will be ran over by the same terrorists itself.

Egypt has exactly the same regime, only with a few thousands people dead, ~50 Billion USD in lost revenues and a semi terrorist controlled state in sinai. i find it extremely hard to believe things wont escalate again in the future with such poor living conditions.

Next in the Arab "spring"/domino will be Lebanon which i am surprised still stands. i predicted more than a year ago it will fall within 6 months, but i guess Assad did manage to put out a fight in syria. if Assad steps down, it doesn't matter who or what entity replace him, lebanon will fall soon after since its economical situation is beyond bad and the influx of syrian refugees didn't help. next will probably be jordan that will see its palestine rebellion. back in the day king hussein managed to keep it down by killing dozen of thousands palestines, i am not too sure it will be able to fight off both palestines and whatever other made up "nationality", ethnicity or "idealogoy" that might join them.

Btw, one of the things that are hardly being mentioned about the "Arab Spring" is the living conditions of women in those countries. those rebellions unleashed the repressed sexual frustration of men in those countries that was obvious to anyone who ever been in egypt/jordan/yemen/libya and walked its streets (its almost the first thing anyone who've been in those countries mention, be him israeli, american or european. i have only been in egypt, lebanon and jordan, but i got the impression it was exactly the same all over the Arab ME). men in those countries turned into animals and rape and/or sexual harassment rates got skyrocketed, even without considering the cases that were done as tools of wars.

[smjjames]

So......... Any ideas on how to fix the problems of the Middle East? It's one thing to talk about the problems, but nobody seems to be able to come up with a solution that works and is lasting. At least those that have tried to do a solution have been unable to make it work or be lasting.

Plus politics keeps interfering in one way or another.

[misko27]

So......... Any ideas on how to fix the problems of the Middle East? It's one thing to talk about the problems, but nobody seems to be able to come up with a solution that works and is lasting. At least those that have tried to do a solution have been unable to make it work or be lasting.

Plus politics keeps interfering in one way or another.

Politics isn't a separate entity, malevolently cackling while showering an black tide of grime and gum. The people are divided. Very divided. And their division leads to poverty and economic strains, which furthers division. And let us not even mention Climate Change, I mean lord, if there ever had to be a more enviromentally sensitive region...

Lebanon? They have Hezbollah. Yes, if Assad fell they would see a fight for existence, but odds are it would be a literal fight, given the vengeful rebels.

[smjjames]

So......... Any ideas on how to fix the problems of the Middle East? It's one thing to talk about the problems, but nobody seems to be able to come up with a solution that works and is lasting. At least those that have tried to do a solution have been unable to make it work or be lasting.

Plus politics keeps interfering in one way or another.

Politics isn't a separate entity, malevolently cackling while showering an black tide of grime and gum. The people are divided. Very divided. And their division leads to poverty and economic strains, which furthers division. And let us not even mention Climate Change, I mean lord, if there ever had to be a more enviromentally sensitive region...

Lebanon? They have Hezbollah. Yes, if Assad fell they would see a fight for existence, but odds are it would be a literal fight, given the vengeful rebels.

I never said politics was a separate entity, just that politics can get in the way of outside governments trying to fix things, or trying to help.

As for a more environmentally sensitive region, I'd say the small islands in the pacific (or any ocean really) are the most vulnerable, but yes, they are facing water shortages in an already arid region.

And of course, theres the oil scarcity (which will be in no idea how long, within our lifetimes) which will hit the region hard. Some arab countries at least seem to be planning for it, like Dubai (which is more of a city state actually).

[Sheb]

Dubai doesn't have oil at all. They never planned for oil scarcity, because they never had oil to begin with (although neighbouring Abu Dhabi did help them generously with their oil money).

I'd say oil scarcity isn't too much of an issue in the short term, they still have reserves, and the rising price of oil will benefit them. But yeah, by and large, they're fucked.

[LordSlowpoke]

this

specifically this part

QUESTION: Marie, what impact do you see the situation in Iraq will have on President Assad in Syria?
MS. HARF: What – in what way, I guess?
QUESTION: I mean, is this going to weaken him or strengthen him?
MS. HARF: I’m not sure that I’ve looked into that or thought about that analytically that much. I think if you flip the question, I think what we’ve seen is the reason – one of the main reasons ISIL has been able to become so strong, cross the border into Iraq is because of what President Assad has done. He has allowed it to flourish, he has allowed it to create a security space where they can get arms, they can get weapons, and they can come over the border. So again, I think I would probably flip it if we’re talking about some kind of causality here.

i'm not exactly sure what i were meant to expect since this is my first time walking into a government site and reading its press conferences but if the spokesman is to be believed the us is acting like a bully beating syria with its own arm and getting genuinely upset that it is beating itself

[Sheb]

Syria != Assad. It has been Assad's strategy to beat up the moderate opposition while leaving ISIS and al-Nusra mostly alone to turn the opposition from relatively secular people the West could support to bloody religious nuts. ISIS meanwhile found it easier to attack the relatively weak FSA than the regime.

They're not allies, they're just putting their grudge aside for one moment to beat up on a third guy.

[Guardian G.I.]

It turns out that islamists in ISIS are avid users of Twitter and Instagram.

[10ebbor10]

I'm pretty sure that means we can trace them, actually.

[GlyphGryph]

Syria != Assad. It has been Assad's strategy to beat up the moderate opposition while leaving ISIS and al-Nusra mostly alone to turn the opposition from relatively secular people the West could support to bloody religious nuts.

Basically a repeat of the Russian strategy in a few of their conquered territories, right?

[Helgoland]

Syria != Assad. It has been Assad's strategy to beat up the moderate opposition while leaving ISIS and al-Nusra mostly alone to turn the opposition from relatively secular people the West could support to bloody religious nuts.

Basically a repeat of the Russian strategy in a few of their conquered territories, right?

One more reason he needs to end up in Den Haag.

[Sheb]

Russian strategy? Do you mean Tchetchenia? Because I'd argue it's different, in that Russia was never as concerned as Assad was to have his opposition bad enough that the West won't fund it or fight alonside it.

[Owlbread]

Russian strategy? Do you mean Tchetchenia? Because I'd argue it's different, in that Russia was never as concerned as Assad was to have his opposition bad enough that the West won't fund it or fight alonside it.

Actually they were. That's why they selectively killed every single decent man and moderate leader the Chechens had, but kept the nutjobs alive. Not the dangerous nutjobs of course like Basayev; they were liquidated too.