Play World of Warships here: wo.ws/3p6cXha Thank you World of Warships for sponsoring this video. During registration use the promo code WARSHIPS to receive a huge starter pack including a bunch of Doubloons, Credits, Premium Account time, and a ship! The promo code is only for new players who register for the first time on the Wargaming portal.

That summer I was stationed on a US Navy ship watching missiles being loaded while spending long hours preparing navigation charts to get within firing range of Syria. Our operation was canceled the night before we were to depart and I never knew why. I'm glad you covered this.

US: intervenes in a conflict “why would they do this?” US: doesn’t intervene in a conflict “why would they do this?”

The definition of damned if you do, damned if you don’t when it comes to US interventions

If the Iraq and Afghanistan quagmire hadn't happened, maybe the US could've intervened. But Syria's civil war might not have happened with the vacuums created by the US intervention in the area. Damn if you do, damn if you don't.

I remember for a year the world screaming "omg why isnt the US doing anything? They need to help" Then, soon as the US laid boots on the ground the world started screaming "omg why is the US there? They're not the world police!"

See: early 90s US failures in Somalia and resulting inaction during the Rwandan genocide. I did my dissertation on it. It's always very complicated but it was definitely better to go in to act in the present than be paralysed by the past & potential futures. But instead the US will keep swinging from isolationism to interventionism without any real overall strategy or moral compass

"Superpowers don't bluff". Wow. That was a surprisingly powerful line from now Sec State Anthony Blinken. A superpower that bluffs is a superpower that is weak on soft power. Look at how Russia's nuclear saber-rattling doesn't even bother us anymore.

As a non-American, this is really a "Damned if you do, Damned if you don't" moment. No other way of saying it. I can't really blame Obama for not going gungho in Syria lest it will just incur to anti-Western outlooks of these countries. In the end of the day, properly implementing said intervention is the key. Though let's be honest, a solution which may work in Afganistan and Iraq may not work in Syria, something that works in Syria may also work in Iraq but not Afganistan... Benefit of hindsight, I guess.

You mentioned Iran's proxy wars in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. I'd really like to see a video about this.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Salam, dear Simon, thank you very much for this channel and the informative videos that you constantly upload for us. I have a request: can you cover the Lebanese civil war (the first sectarian war in the 20th century in the Middle East) and the Afghan civil war in the 90s (often very much ignored compared to the Soviet and American invasions)?

1:35 - Mid roll ads 3:15 - Chapter 1 - Night of horror 7:20 - Chapter 2 - Ghosts on interventions past 11:00 - Chapter 3 - Putin's game 15:05 - Chapter 4 - Beneficiaries 19:05 - Chapter 5 - A brighter future ? 23:05 - Chapter 6 - You break it, you buy it

This is the catch-22 of America. If we get involved somewhere it’s “American imperialism” and “warmongering” and blah blah blah. But if we don’t get involved somewhere, everyone else is like, “Where are the Americans? Why aren’t they doing something?” We just can’t win lol

Problem with being the world's police force. Damned if you do damned if you dont.

Short answer:No. Long answer:Nooo.

Ah! See, here, this is a video with good ad placement! Other ones have been very abrupt and jarring recently, but this one is at a natural pausing point! More like this please!

Very disappointed a very key point was left out: Russia had been selling advanced military equipment to Syria for years, including advanced anti-air radar systems, along with advanced missiles tied to the radar systems, advanced anti-air guns, and more. They also were sending military advisors to train the Syrian military, and early rumors of Russian special forces carrying out attacks to support Assad. If Syria didn't have advanced military equipment from Russia and Russian advisors and troops on site, there would have been air strikes and a no-fly zone. When the second report came out verifying further chemical weapon attacks, Russia had increased its presence in Syria, and was known to have troops providing direct support. Whatever the upsides of an intervention may have been, the downsides of hitting Russian troops was so much worse. That was the real reason behind the American rush to Russian diplomacy efforts - a solution to the problem that didn't potentially end in a series of escalating attacks between the Russia and the USA. You can focus on the costs to Syria because there was no international action all you want - and there is good reason to do so. But the costs to Syria are relatively small compared to the costs to the world from a USA-Russian war. Did it make America look bad? Sure. Was there a high cost to Syrians? Absolutely. Was there a good chance for serious escalation of the conflict outside of Syria to the rest of the world if NATO attacks were shown to kill Russian "noncombatants"? Would that have looked even worse, and had worse consequences? Absolutely. Morally, the duty to not act when acting could lead to much worse outcomes beyond the narrow scope of a specific conflict. The most likely scenario for a NATO-Warsaw Pact war in the late 1970's-1980's was a proxy conflict in a third world country (like Syria) led to direct casualties for one side, with reprisals and escalation of attacks to follow. Sure, NATO is a more dominant power, and the conventional forces of Russia couldn't win against the might of NATO. But just because Russia couldn't win doesn't mean they couldn't make sure everyone loses.

My position on this ten years ago as an 18 year old kid was "no more interventions." It'll be interesting to see if my opinion changed with experience and hindsight. Looking forward to this one!

Sometimes it’s just picking between two shitty answers and hoping to God it’s the lesser of two evils

The US should not directly intervene in any foreign conflict ever again. 20 years in Afghanistan to replace the Taliban... with the Taliban!

I like how this video came out not only 10 years after the almost intervention but also right as Asad rejoins the Middle East IC during the Arab League Summit that is happening now.

I'm a regular Crooked Media listener. And a Whistler-holic. Hearing Simon reference a quote from Ben Rhodes was a real crossover episode experience for me.

While I won’t say definitely that The United States should have invaded Syria, I will say that would have at least made more sense to invade Syria instead of Iraq. They didn’t even try to rename Iraq to Babylon, truly a missed opportunity.

We should have intervened. The FSA was a coordinated aligned opposition group that had support of locals. We could’ve knocked out Assads teeth from Airstrikes alone and would’ve allowed the FSA to take Damascus and end the regime. Based on their level of skill and alliance with the Kurdish Peshmerga,they likely would’ve been able to exert dominance over any warring factions. I still believe 10 years later that we made a mistake handing control of the situation to Russia. I loved Obama but when he said “chemical weapons are a Red Line for us” and then proceeded to do nothing I lost an amount of respect for him. We looked weak,and that one little talk tough and back away frightened moment is the juncture where Putin started getting bolder about his plans. He annexed Crimea 10 months later because he saw that we weren’t willing to get physical over Syria,we would surely watch and frown disapprovingly at Putins antics.

In my humble opinion, military interventions, although helpful in dealing with the immediate problem, undermine something important: it is the people of a country that should solve their problems, not a foreigner army. Now, arming the population brings another can of worms on its own (the Taliban are a good example), but I believe it is better in the long run. It's only when people solve their own issues that they can progress.

2 videos! What joy

Love this 'what-if' analysis of past geopolitical events, very thought provoking! 👍🏻 Please make more! 😁

It’s complicated

Looking at Simon’s different levels of beard across the channels is quite intriguing 😃

I don't think there were any easy answers to Syria. But I will say that even if the US didn't get involved the nation still would have been destroyed with all the other actors involved.

If one is capable of feeling pride and honor in the accomplishments and successes of others one is also capable of feeling shame and despair in their failures and atrocities.

Haha that illusion of “Putin is a chess master” quickly dried up

I wish this video went into more details, specifically about Trumps withdrawal from Syria and the backlash. I believe that this further harmed our credibility because we abandoned our Kurdish allies

We don't intervene we get criticized, we intervene we get criticized. What do you want from us?

I remember there was a media blackout on Syria and I had to switch over to the French news to even find out what was the basic story going on in Syria. Back then, the way the internet was set up, you had to put in the country’s code to switch over to their pages. Thankfully, someone had sloppily translated from French to English so I could make out the articles. What I read was absolutely shocking. French troops being attacked as they tried to hospitalize civilian victims by the Russians. Or at that time they accused the Russians. I’m still of the opinion they were right. America was completely in the dark. However, this was also during a time where we were told that we were winning in Afghanistan and doing great things in Iraq. Libya was also confusing and mostly went unreported. I think Simon’s assessment here is the most fair and realistic one to date after being unprepared for the French realism (pictures) that hit me back in that day.

I have a funny feeling that US will no longer spread democracy after countries replaced the dollar lol

Very interesting concept

One of the best videos ever made!!!!! The truth is stuggering!!!!

I'm learning more about world conflicts from this channel than any news channel

It doesn't matter what the US does, we will always be criticized for it.

Hey warographics team! Awesome work as always. Any interest in doing a video on the east Timor genocide? Would be interested in seeing a video on this

You don't draw a line in the sand if you aren't prepared to follow through.

From the wise words of Negan: "Not making a decision is a biiiig decision."

Very timely piece. Fascinating in light of Assad being laundered and brought back in to the Arab Fold., Simon.

Simon I for one desire more Pirate Impressions!

leave it to a british man to seriously ask: should we have invaded and tried to destroy a country that has done nothing to us??

Coalition forces, including US troops, have been deploying to Syria since 2014 as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. Tens of thousands of air strikes have been launched during the campaign. US and Syrian Democratic Force troops were attacked by Wagner Group (Russian contractor) and pro Syrian government forces in 2018 at the battle Khasham.

It kind of sucks to be one of the few countries that actually care about people not just talk but actually acting. We can’t be everywhere.

We were worried about it becoming another post-war Iraq. Instead we let it become another Saddam-era Iraq.

Cool. Now do "Why the Arab League and Gulf States didn't intervene in Syria in 2013".

The US should have intervened 'correctly' in Syria, just like the US should have intervened 'correctly' in Afghanistan. There are an infinite number of ways it could have gone wrong, and about three where it goes right. There are places I wish we were intervening right now, if only I could be certain we'd do it right.

Gotta love people commenting their opinions while the length of the video still exceeds the amount of time it’s been released🤣

What’s that tune that plays at 10:55?

This conflict was very poorly covered in most media- the US might not have put boots on the ground but it did bomb and fire missiles and back Turkey, Saudi Arabia and UAE intervening in Syria. There was no secular alternative government, that part of the opposition was brutally crushed by the regime, the only alternatives to Assad would have been Isis or absolute chaos. It was a regime change effort that failed on the part of the aforementioned countries. The refugee crisis first became an issue after US threats to attack, the idea that Assad used chemical weapons raises the same questions as WMD narratives in Iraq, the only group that has admitted using them was a rebel group, Isis had already used them in Iraq.

I remember back in 2013 I was hoping that one day, Asad would get up in the morning, look out the window of the ruins of his capital (figuratively if not literally - not sure how bad things ever got in Damascus specifically), and think to himself "What am I doing to my country?" and give up his position as ruler. Of course, I'm a decade older now, and have learned that it's a lot more than just one man with a deranged obsession with keeping power - Asad had a military willing to back him against his own people, the removal of the government with so many rebel groups would likely have just led to a civil war much like what Afghanistan experienced between Russia's withdrawal and the Taliban's takeover, which is far from a guarantee of stability and, as in Afghanistan, can lead to extremely harsh totalitarian rule, etc. But still, one has to wonder, how do you get to a point where dropping chemical weapons on your own cities is a thing you consider doing, let alone actually act on?

I just love it that Warographics is sponsored by a russian/belarussian company situated in Cyprus.

2 videos already today. Gifts keep on giving

Thanks.

After Russia backed a no-fly zone in Libya and the US used that to attack Gaddafi, there's no way Russia would have stood aside this time. It's quite likely that Russia would have sent its air force in earlier, thus increasing the risk of a larger war if the US insisted.

Honestly as a US citizen I am glad we got someone else to play world police this time. I have wanted to get out of the Middle East since I was a child, let them handle their own issues. Imagine if the Iranian military came to the USA to fix our gun and gang problems or if Saudi Arabia droned a US general they deemed dangerous.

I remember I was 16, and I was obsessed with geopolitics, so I was up to date on what was happening in the world. Every morning, I'd spend an hour reading stuff happening in the world from the BBC. With me checking the bbc app for more news throughout the day. When I heard Obama put down that red line, I remember saying out loud, "If you put down a red line, you better be ready to respond if they cross it, Obama." Not reacting will give the green light for the Syrian government to go wild. Just as it would any genocidal regime. And when Obama didn't respond when they crossed that red line, I remember hoping he'd do SOMETHING. But he didn't. I still up until today shook my head in disgust whenever I'm reminded of it. And when they announced a deal, I remember not trusting the Russians and Syrians. Historically, Russian deals tend to be one of trickery and is a deal that's dishonest. And so when Assad used chemical weapons after the chemical weapons were all "supposedly" destroyed, I wasn't surprised. But as a 26 year old still obsessed with geopolitics and reading about 20th century history, I looked back at Obamas inaction with humiliation and disgust. It was only recently that I learned a theory on why Obama didn't respond. As mentioned in the video, it was believed that if Obama did bomb Assad, his chemical weapons could be thrown into the wild and be put into a rising ISIS' hands or another terrorist group. It would've opened up the possibility of chemical attacks by terrorists anywhere. London, Baghdad, Paris, Cairo, or NYC. The best thing Obama could've done is not make the red line statement at all. Because responding could cause Assad and Syria to collapse into another Libya and chemical weapons go into the wild while not responding...well... we are living in that reality. Obama made us look weak by not responding. The only thing that would've changed is that the US wasn't humiliated because no red line statement would've been made. Bad choices all around.

Åke Salström hahaha love the pronunc.

10:56 What is the name of that piece of music?

In the advertisement for your sponsor you said let's drop anchor and get underway. This is incorrect. You drop anchor when you are stopped and want to stay in one place. You weigh anchor (raise the anchor) so that you can get underway.

2 in 1 day?

Please do more pirate impressions. Do an entire video in pirate language and the subject is about pirates

ABSOLUTELY NOT A CHANCE. it's like 2 black ant hills fighting each other and we use our military like our foot stomping around killing both sides. Then they crawl all over us🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜

Interventions are a wide scale from nothing to full-on invasion. We can see now that doing nothing was the wrong call. I've always wonderd what the effect of taking out the dictator and his inner circle would be. Positively I'd assume that would cause infighting and weaken the wider force but Id also hope it would show the replacement and other leaders that their life will be forfit to continue so be more compremising. On the other hand you can get even more hard line replacements and a complete collapse is risky (even though the day to day running goverment are still alive)

Trying to recall a time when an American military intervention resulted in a successful mission with no blowback.

If anyone thinks Iraq was too divided between Sunni, Shiite and Kurds to ever work, Syria has deeper divisions between Alawite, Sunni, Christian, Druze, Kurds...the best option would have been to negotiate with the Russians early on when the rebels were winning to split the country up and let a Russian backed Assad keep a rump state along the coast in the traditional Alawite stronghold of Latakia, while Aleppo and Damascus became separate polities. Russia since Peter the Great places supreme value on access to seaports and was never going to let Assad fall to the west.

sick sweater

I feel bad for Simon, the barrage of self-appointed "experts" sharing their opinions in comments. Simon's team does extensive research, as does he... but the armchair warriors know things. ;) I know I am not qualified enough to say if it was Obama, the GOP and the senate, or Russia that resulted in inaction. Very few people are truly qualified, and its probably not these people in comments.

One question is why the US has to intervene on every humanitarian crisis? Why not Germany or France or the UK? Sure, inflating your defense budget means your healthcare may change or your retirement age may climb but is Europe going to take responsibility or is Europe going to pass the US the check and complain about how we pay the bill?

Superpowers don't bluff is absolutely the primary thing that colored my view of the situation at the time (and in many ways still does). The only change in hindsight is that perhaps we never should've drawn such a red line to begin with. But once it's drawn, the amount of shit that would have to go wrong by enforcing such a decree would have to be astronomical to make me not enforce such a declaration. Of course, the thing is, as a superpower, we (the US) should've been a bit more careful about drawing such a line in the sand, knowing the implications that come from such a line being crossed. So, to rephrase the axiom a bit, instead of superpowers don't bluff, I'd rather say superpowers only draw lines they're prepared to enforce after considering the implications of drawing such a line. The so-called red line in question here appears to be drawn not after careful consideration of the relevant facts, but rather one more akin to an off-the-cuff remark that we only later discovered oops, we said something meaningful. That is to say, a line shouldn't even be drawn unless we've already considered all the relevant information and decided that if such a line were crossed nothing short of a cataclysmic shift in situational awareness would make it such that an action taken to enforce the drawn line could be worse than doing nothing and having our word essentially mean nothing. If you're drawing such lines without considering the gravity of the words, well, stop freaking talking and think for a bit before you continue speaking

Yes. That would've been a lot of fun.

Similar to Haiti and Venezuela, no. The landscape, issues, and political turmoil in Syria is too great for the US to just break in trying to solve things by force.

I'm Syrian from Aleppo and I wish the US got intervened. In March 2011 a couple of school kids wrote on the wall "it's your turn doctor" (hinting to Bashar Al Assad's turn in the arab spring), the school reported it to the secret police of Syria (Mukhabrat) who's sole reason of existence is to monitor citizens, brutally quell any form of dissent and operate horrible terror centers (Saydnaya and Palmyra), when the secret police chief of Daraa Atef Najib who is Bashar Al Assad's cousin detained the kids, their families came to him and asked them to be released since they were kids and didn't have any idea of what they're doing and then Najib said the famous words that started everything "Forget about your kids, make new ones and if you can't then send your women to us and we'll make new ones to you". The families understandably got furious and they said enough is enough, they went to the streets to protest and the Assad regime (who tolerates zero criticism and dissent) sent in the army to brutally wipe out all protesters and the secret police to detain all human rights activists (so he can try to hide the that the revolution was made by families of detained kids and try to taint it by labeling it a universal conspiracy made by foreign entities). When other cities heard of this they went to the streets too to protest and the revolution that wanted to oust Assad (his family has been in power for 40 years at the time and Bashar inherited the presidency from his usurper father) had many people from all sects, Sunnnis, Shias, Alawites and Christians, Assad then brutally cracked down on all of Syria, and to taint the image of the revolution, he released known members of Al Qaeda in the 2011 general pardon se they can form rebel groups and tarnish the image of the revolution, and also by saying to the minorities of Syria "oh if I'm gone you're all gone, they don't want to oust me they want to wipe all of you out", and by spreading conspiracy theories that these are not Syrians who are upset but traitors who got paid from foreign entities. the protesters saw that Assad got brutal and was ready to go to extreme measures, they armed themselves and formed rebel groups and these groups at the beginning were formed by defectors of the Syrian army. Assad was ready to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of his own citizens just to not make him look bad. Syria under the Assad family has been the second most corrupt country in the entire world for decades, the Syrian people doesn't have enough to buy stuff like bread, it's a dream in Syria to eat meat, to have electricity for more than a couple of hours and running water, and on top of all that the Assad regime is still oppressing the people, and if you have a brother/son/father who got conscripted into the army and he dies for a corrupt tyrant the only compensation you'll get is a clock to hang on your wall and a basket of vegetables, that's the price of your men in the eyes of Assad who he dragged them into service for him. Anything would be better than to live under Assad, only children, trolls and edge lords believe in the stuff that Assad is the Otto Von Bismarck and Napoleon of Syria for "standing against Zionist western imperialistic Freemason Illuminati". The world has forgotten about us and didn't care, my countrymen are now freezing to death in winters, their children dying of hunger and they all have family members in detention centers who they know nothing about, anything is better than Assad, anything.

Love your videos Simon. I don't comment much and won't look for a response unless you wanted to email. But check the meta data I'm an avid watcher. Much love man.

The Arab spring has sadly been mostly reversed in Egypt.

20:31 - "The Moderate Opposition was Still Powerful" I am unconvinced of the assumption that the Non-Jihadists opposition would have been the primary victor of the conflict if Assad went in 2013 and that Daesh/Al-Nusra could have been stopped. It seems identical to the situation in Afghanistan after the Soviets left - the Taliban were initially a minority but they eventually overcame the Northern Alliance due to their ruthlessness and resistance to corruption. That seems to be the general rule of revolutions, especially after extreme violence (the French/Russian Revolutions come to mind) - the most violent faction usually wins out because they're willing to do anything to get power. Daesh and Nusra A far more likely scenario as I see it would be as follows: 1) Assad and his family dead/flee - Opposition forces move in and conquer Damascus/Latakia/Tartus. 2) Immediate and widespread sectarian violence in the anarchy against Alawites (the sect that Assad comes from - calling it Shia is a bit controversial but that's too big a debate). Christians will also likely be viewed with suspicion. Immediate poisoning of Syrian society in the way sectarianism ripped across Iraq in 2003/4. 3) The new moderate government will struggle to deal with the collapsed economy, extreme sectarian differences in Syria and how to disarm rebel groups and form a single government under presumably the FSA. No one gives anything but economic aid as it would be grossly unpopular in the West. 4) East Syria would remain a Jihadi haven as it already was in 2013 the moderates would try and not step on too many toes while the Jihadis consolidate their strength and blame the problems the country has on the government they've been excluded from. 5) The Jihadis (helped from their militias on the other side of the Iraq border) would eventually see the Sunni popularion tire of the incompetence of the government (they would have no experience since the Assadists have monopolised power since 1970) - this proto-ISIS would likely have commenced a slaughter of the Christian, Alawite, Druze and Twelver communities. It is likely there would eventually have been a full foreign intervention, but by the time it was done the tapestry of Syrian life would likely have been permanently eroded and Syria would just be another mostly homogenous Arab country riven with sectarianism against its vanishing minorities. The Opposition's failure to distance itself from sectarian politics (one of the initial demands of the revolutionaries was the right for teachers to wear Islamic veils in schools) was ultimately the main reason they failed to achieve victory. If you've been to Busra in the south of Syria, it is still run by the FSA while being in truce with the government - if you talk to them, they wish death on the Islamist Idlib government and consider the revolution to have been undermined by the Gulf countries supporting Nusra and other Islamists. This is such an underexplored question of the Syrian War - the mistakes of the Opposition. I think the way the Syrian War was portrayed in the West did a lot to hurt trust in Western institutions. People were relentlessly (and correctly) told that Assad was 'a brutal dictator killing his own people' and that we had to 'do something' - it created so much cynicism in a younger me since it felt we were being treated like children. It felt we were deliberately not being given a critical look at who Assad was fighting - I couldn't even name a single Opposition leader and I was tuned into the news all the time. How the heck was I supposed to know what a Post-Assad Syria could look like if they never talked about the Opposition. It created a lot of suspicions, many going off the deep end into Pro-Assad contrarianism. Look on KZfaq and you'll see Pro-Assad songs with millions of views, then Anti-Assad and Pro-FSA songs with five figures at best. Ultimately, having talked to MANY Syrians (Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Kurds, religious and non-religious), only a minority are 'Pro-Assad' (religious minorities love him in particular as they see him as a savior from genocide), but that bloc plus the 'I trust the opposition even less than Assad' bloc made up a noticeable majority. You ultimately need a government that most Syrians can get behind. You can't just drop an opposition figure on the Syrian people and expect it to work - you need Syrians to buy into it. Unfortunately, I don't see a way out of the situation since Assad has crossed the moral event horizon but most Syrians are so exhausted of war and cynical of the West that they are extremely resistant to further attempts to destablise the situation. There is no solution for the Syrian issue at the moment - only dealing with the fact that for the moment there is no solution.

United States should take care of their own problems first can we are not the Roman empire

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

😂😂😂 hahahaha who wrote tha intro state department ?😂😂😂

I swear genocide has lost all meaning these days. Changing definitions to fit your political goals

Going by America's record, I don't think they really care what anybody else thinks. Whether it be the UN, enemies, or allies lol

Thank you x100

Just want to let you know that your American fans in The South of the country are all vets my husband too for 21 yrs and many of us had to deal w PTSD, but we are always proud of them and they don't see Iraq as a loss by American. They were there and saw it. Anyway a few if these are rough for Vets to sit through as if was all for naught. Thanks we are big fans of all your stuff like all! Lol

Why should America intervene every time ? Why not Europe ? Why didn't your country intervene Simon ? Why are they always behind the Americans asking them to write the cheque for the conflicts and they enjoying their welfare state. Europeans have outsourced their defence & international relations/ interventions to the Americans.

I remember watching the syria thing unfold in real time. I watched John Kerry make that comment and then later found out Putin said "wait we will do it"

I do love me some world of warships. We really, really need to stop going into the Middle East unless the nation itself asks for assistance. At least Desert Storm saw Kuwait liberated.

Rest in peace to those that passed away.

Syria for the U.S. was damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

In my opinion, one issue Obama had was the fact that he tended to make big statements and promise action but when the time came to follow up on those claims, he would either spend to long contemplating a decision or just end up not following what he had claimed. Like when there were large protests against the pipline going through Native American lands and their water supply, with clear evidence of the police/security personnel over stepping their boundaries, he waited until things got really out of hand before finally deciding to do something. I feel he should have made his decision on how to act before placing down his red lines. Regardless of whether or not intervention would have been useful; if you place a red line be ready to act, if not then don't put down a line so they can't cross it.

Why America feels the need to intervene in so many foreign affairs is beyond me. The reality of it is that they should provide humanitarian aid like everyone else and stay out of foreign affairs as much as possible. They might even gain some credibility on the world stage if they transitioned from the world's largest interventionist to the being solely the world's largest provider of humanitarian aid while being the last to intervene militarily.

I gotta ask, why does the U.S. always need to be the one responding? How about someone in Europe foots the bill at their taxpayer's expense and sends their own troops and equipment? Keeping both Europe and the middle-east from imploding is exhausting, both financially and mentally.

2:43 HOIST THE COLOURRRRS!!!!!!!! -Mr. GIBBS [Pirates of the Caribbean III]

Anyone else ever wonder how Isis had hundreds of Toyota trucks with anti-aircraft guns attached? Or where they were supplied with ammo and hi tech weapons?

Short answer, no the US should not intervene in other countries. The US should pull all foreign aid and payments, pull all its troops from around the world and solely focus on the US.

I'll save you the time: hell no