Great Decisions - The Middle East: Regional Disorder - Dr. Chris Bolan

Dr. Bolan is a Professor of Middle East Security Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. Researches and teaches graduate-level courses on contemporary national security issues and the Middle East. Six years as senior foreign policy advisor and analyst on Middle Eastern and South Asian affairs for Vice Presidents Gore and Cheney.

[brictator]

good talk. got to come back to it at 20:34

[Sparticulous]

Please keep posting videos! It is nice to have actual speakers on YouTube in regards to these topics

[CassandreBolan]

Love how you take all sides into account and keep it real ;)

[khunterg]

It seems to me that the U.S. most definitely contributed direct military aid to Syrian rebels. Not only that, before President Trump, under the guise of thwarting the ISIL U.S. military units became place holders effectively defending the flanks of ISIL territory from the Syrian government and their Russian allies.

[QuizmasterLaw]

The neoconservatives, in other words the Jews and Israelis, who have been calling the shots on US middle east policy for decades now Want a divided disrupted chaotic middle east and are THRILLED if the US is willing to do the killing dying and paying for it. Few if any of the wars of choice the US started in the middle east in the past 20 years were in the US interest. More or less the middle east is a giant toilet and it's partly the Israeli's fault: neither the USA nor the Israelis have even a concept of how to build a peaceful prosperous middle east. Spoiler alert: the Israeli's don't want that. Divide and rule, diviso et impero. So feel free to act out as ants, parasitized and turned into zombies.
Jews are great people and the Israeli state should exist but this IS the reason WHY you get to go to all those funerals with full pay and benefit. You're more or less puppets, even if you don't -- or don't want -- to see it.

[angelsy]

Sooo... if I'm getting this right, the presenter is suggesting that we pivot away from the Middle East with a Marshall-esque plan in place, in order to mitigate our strategic reprioritization, rather than adopting perpetual war in the region, which may be where our national pride might lead us otherwise.

Or, if we are set on achieving energy independence through internal and local means (Canada, et al), we could just walk away from the ME and let the chips fall where they may. I am not suggesting that we adopt this policy, but I have the feeling that it may be a knee-jerk reaction from those who don't want to fight further or expend any more resources in the region. I believe, looking at the China "Belt and Road" initiatives, this would be a mistake, because the global powers we are already competing with, such as China (or Russia or...), will see this as an opening to be exploited - and that the local authoritarian regimes would all too willingly court as an alternative to the U.S.

Thus, I tend to concur with the idea that a wide-ranging diplomatic and strategic support plan needs to be adopted under our foreign policy, to maintain that edge against such global competitors. Let us not get sucked into further long-term military action that ties us down politically, but instead help support rebuilding these war torn nations, and thereby in the doing, help ourselves economically as well - not through conquest, but rather through regional mutually beneficial partnerships. This could even mean working with Iran - because if we don't, if we maintain a hard line on who we will *not* work with, I believe it is a given that someone else will - and further, I believe that our interests are not met when we set it up for our power and influence to so easily be circumvented.

The Cold War is long ended. Is democracy still so threatened by the spread of communism (or whatever the preferred reasoning may be) that we cannot afford to accordingly change our foreign policy methodology?
I would hope that the answer to that question is that we are fully capable of adapting our responses to changing times, to innovate, but not to get bogged down in methods with experientially questionable outcomes.

[faithvirtue]

The US, Israel and Saudi Arabia have instigated and perpetuated sectarian conflict in the Middle East. The US destroyed Iraq, Syria, Libya. We are helping Saudi Arabia with a genocidal war in Yemen. We have so much blood on our hands. It’s shameful and a disgrace to humanity.