‘When will the Syria crisis end? God knows.
God knows because this crisis is increasingly not about freedom but about religion.’ Paul Danahar BBC
Mark Mardell has long supported Obama’s dithering, sorry, masterly inactivity..no….cautious, wise, diplomacy over Syria.
‘It is clear Mr Obama doesn’t want to go to war in Syria. He regards it as too complex, too difficult, too uncertain.
American action there would have a huge impact on the perception of America in the region – confirming every image he wants to change.
Yet the US is, perhaps, moving slowly and cautiously toward taking action. There is no sense of a time scale and no real certainty about what might be done. This is very Obama: the caution, the desire to bring allies along, the reluctance to rush to judgment.
Enemies call it dithering. Even allies are sometimes impatient. I doubt whether any of that worries a president who says sending young men and women into action is the hardest thing he has ever had to do.’
Unfortunately the real world has intruded into Mardell’s Obamian utopia, oddly, in the shape of the BBC’s Paul Danahar who has introduced a full dose of realism into the debate on Syria.
Mardell, no doubt through gritted teeth, has even linked to Danahar’s web article:
@BBCMarkMardell via Twitter thoughtful, gloomy take on Syria’s lengthy conflict http://t.co/x9dZJU8H9z
Why through gritted teeth? Because the article essentially damns Obama for his inaction over Syria…two years into the conflict and still no support for the anti-Assad rebels. Danahar is honest about the West’s failure, honest about the need for military action if we want to get rid of Assad, honest about a few other things not normally admitted on the BBC….such as the malign influence of Saudi Arabia and the divisive effects of religion.
I first heard Danahar on 5Live Drive (18:36) on which he poured scorn, diplomatically, upon the ‘West’…which really means Obama. The web article is pretty much as the live chat but the 5Live report is blunter and more to the point.
What is Danahar’s conclusion?
That as soon as it became apparent that the anti-Assad movement was serious, long term and capable of sustained action it should have been supported with funds and arms.
What are the consequences of not doing that? The original, secular freedom fighters, the original revolutionaries, have lost authority and influence because they have no funds or arms.
Into that vacuum have moved the Islamists funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and who are luring men away from the more secular forces and are now dominating the opposition ranks.
The opposition forces are fragmented with no overall command and control…this could have been put in place from the start if the rebels had been supported and helped to form such structures at the beginning. A ‘regular’ army could have been formed and the incursion of the Islamists limited.
Having no overall commander and therefore no overall plan of action means that there is no strategy to beat Assad who can survive lots of single attacks and beat them off individually.
That old phrase ‘divide and rule’ is as apt as ever here.
Iran and Russia are supplying Assad with weapons…and of course should he win will retain the influence over the region that they had before.
Assad has survived, he thinks he can, and will survive long term. He sees his enemies are divided and without funds or arms whilst he is resupplied by Russian and Iran.
He has no incentive to head for the negotiating table or to cut and run.
The war continues and thousands more lose their lives….all because Obama hasn’t supported the creation of an army capable of making unified decisions and one that is powerful enough to conduct decisive battlefield operations capable of knocking out Assad’s forces.
I disagree with Danahar about this statement which seems at odds with the rest of the report:
‘America is not acting because it does not know what to do or whom to do it with. Neither do the European countries.
Having spent the last few days in Beirut and Damascus, talking to the international community, Western diplomats, FSA activists and Syrian regime supporters, it is clear that nobody knows how to end this crisis.’
The answer is quite apparent, his whole article pointed to the answer….either let Assad win or pile in arms and money….targeted at the secular rebels, but the Islamists if necessary as well….they are a problem that any post Assad regime would have to tackle.
Here are some notable sentences from Danahar’s web article:
- The vacuum created by Western inaction has been filled by two of the Gulf states – Saudi Arabia and Qatar…..These are both sorely undemocratic states, they are not champions of democracy either at home or abroad.
- Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia hates Shia Iran, so it is using the war in Syria to try and weaken it. The Saudi interest in the conflict dates back 1,300 years to the split within Islam. That is where its ambitions over the outcome of the civil war begin and end.
- When will the Syria crisis end? God knows. God knows because this crisis is increasingly not about freedom but about religion. The Syrian war is turning into a sectarian conflict whose influence will spill beyond the country’s borders.There was the chance at the beginning to stop that being the case. That chance has been lost.
Whilst Danahar’s article and report are examples of how the BBC can provide us with intelligent, informed and unbiased news and analysis you know that this will soon be forgotten.
As soon as the US starts to arm the rebels and fighting breaks out on a larger scale the BBC will change that tune and the normal service of anti-war rhetoric will crank into action with demands for ceasefires and negotiations…thereby just prolonging the war…as we find with Israel which is constantly restrained from winning a decisive battle against Hamas or Hezbollah who survive to fight another day and keep pounding Israel with missiles and any other means of attack they can muster.
If nothing else though, it has shown Mardell how to gauge a situation with an honest appraisal rather than checking first to see how things reflect upon the best beloved Obama’s reputation.
Naming that bunch of murderous lunatics ‘rebels’ is an insult to all proper rebels everywhere. It’s evidently a choice between two evils, a repressive regime but with freedom of religion where islamic extremism is most repressed, or a sharia state run by psychotic religious fanatics.
I guess i’ll go for door number one.
Michael Totten, a man whose opinion I respect, says door number two. Assad Delenda Est: The Case for Aiding Syria’s Rebels
The gist of his argument is that an Assad who survives will be worse and unstoppable which means that Iran will be unstoppable. Worth reading
“Why through gritted teeth?” Erm, because you made that up? I can’t see this site being of any use while is ascribes fantasy actions to BBC staff while highlighting other articles the author approves of anyway. Did you write this “through gritted teeth” or perhaps “sobbing into a pot noodle”?
Always great to see a new poster join the fold.
Looking forward to all future shares, especially the results of any exchanges with BBC Editors who may also see fit to project… maybe ‘make things up’ in the same way, especially as they are professionals paid to be objective vs. free forum commenters. Ascribing emotional assessments based on mystery ‘analysis’ abilities does seem rather a feature of Aunty’s market rate opinion-forming output.
But such a contribution is of use in highlighting the odd parallels that can be drawn between ‘unique’ worlds and real ones, so thanks for the share.
“…said Guest Who while sobbing into a pot noodle and eying his first drink of the day.” This game is easy!
Says the child protecting a multi billion £ corporation full of pedos and tax dodgers !
you really should get a moral compass little boy !
You are right, I am currently wiping a tear from my eye, inspired by your debut. And the first cuppa cools by the keyboard.
‘This game is easy!’
Ey, ey… what’s this, did you say ‘Game’?
This will not play (see what I did there) well a few cubicles down with colleagues who claim to be treating matters of correcting errant BBC bias with utmost seriousness and integrity. Procedural hall monitors especially will not be best pleased.
Now, having raised the interesting point of editorial mind-reading, why so coy in answering a reasonable question on the precedent of BBC Editors doing just that, a lot?
Has, I wonder, your hero Mr. Mardell ever strayed into the world of divination in his ‘reports’?
One might almost suspect you were not being serious with the rational argument levelled for discussion in your first foray.
If ‘game’ it is, then by your efforts so far it looks more ‘Grand Troll Auto: Salford Car Crash’.
And in spotlighting the BBC’s less savoury sides via those who seek to run interference for them, you have an unassailable drive-by high score already.
Bravo! I cede.
It’s probably someone who has already done a drive-by sneer under a different name. Whoever it is feels so strongly about this obscure website which nobody reads that he created yet another anger-driven email account from which to post. I think it’s funny.
“Judgement, perspective, balance.
That’s what the BBC expects from you when they give you the title “Editor”.”
—
And if falling short on expectation?
Or what the paying public might get from the deal too, not that this seems to be an issue.
I forgot to include the URL, possibly from laughing so much at the latest po-faced ‘It is written on BBC parchment and thus it is the word of truth and trust’ first para.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22465216
I am always struck how the upper echelons of BBC market ratedom can so often excavate halfway to China all on their own, and then when the sides start collapsing, start digging further holes to make things worse.
Reminds me of the time he ‘analysed’ an Osborne/Balls spat from holiday without actually at the time reading or seeing it.
The commenters loved that one too, especially when he used his unique control over the edit facility to try and ‘explain’.
Even his bosses struggled to deal with that one, falling back on ‘shows how dedicated he is; posting from holiday. And if it was all BS, he’s a BBC professional, so it was BBC professional BS’. Unique indeed.
Here he seems to be going for a variation on ‘just joking’, like Richard Bacon when one of his nasty little rants backfires.
Not sure many are convinced.
Defo be worth seeing when this one gets closed.
I wonder if it will make it to 5pm?
Still, be reassured; be very reassured:
‘don’t worry, in future I’ll stick to the day job’
“Why through gritted teeth?” Erm, because you made that up?
Mardell “He has never exactly said, of course, how the game would change, but most people assume he meant military action of some sort.”
Most people? He made that up.
“White House officials have confirmed that if reports of past small scale use are confirmed, they would cross the president’s red line. But he is not happy with the intelligence as it stands.”
Red line? Not happy? Did Mardell ask? No, he made that up.
It is easy to forget now that Mr Obama was elected almost as an anti-Bush – calm, deliberative, slow to wrath.
No, he wasn’t GWB, end of. He could have been a gibbering twat – but he wasn’t Bush.
It is clear Mr Obama doesn’t want to go to war in Syria. He regards it as too complex, too difficult, too uncertain. I see Mardell has read Shakespeare but did he ask Obama? No, so he just made that up.
…confirming every image he wants to change.
Wants to change? Did Obama tell Mardell that?
I wouldn’t mind betting that in every report by every BBC employee there are things made up…
Mardell didn’t make up the bit about the President not being happy with the intelligence coming out of Syria. That’s the White House talking point being fed to everyone. Reminding everyone that we didn’t find any prêt-à-porter nukes in Iraq after all is a convenient excuse not to do anything now, but doesn’t really work any more. He went after Ghadaffi and has drone-bombed the bejesus out of people in Yemen and Pakistan for much less.
What Mardell is making up is that the anti-Bush features are that He is “calm, deliberative, slow to wrath”. It’s an absolute lie that this President is slow to wrath. Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention has seen His quick, angry reactions to a whole host of things. And He was elected as an anti-Bush because He was against the war in Iraq and promised to bring the troops home, and because He spoke about healing the nation and holding back the rising oceans and all that. And because, let’s face it, any Democrat would have been the anti-Bush at that point. Mardell is wrong here.
But the “deliberating, not dithering” Narrative is classic Mardell. He said the same thing about the Nobel Peace Laureate-in-Chief deliberating, considering all the facts, not wanting to rush to war in Libya as well. Of course, that turned out to be false, too, as we learned from Hillary Clinton and others in the Administration. In fact, He didn’t want to do it all, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming. That’s not the same thing as cautiously, intellectually considering the options.
Funny how you never hear from Mardell that the President has surrounded Himself with a small group of trusted political apparatchiks who filter all this foreign policy stuff for Him. I don’t call him the BBC’s US President editor for nothing.
If you don;t like it here, bugger off.
Ooooh, I heard the teeth being gritted that time. x
Your imagination is clearly as strong as any BBC reporter. I assume you are paid well by us taxpayers for this inanity.
Will Obama supplicant, Mardell, now eat humble pie?:-
@BBCMarkMardell via Twitter
Evidence State did purge Benghazi talking points of “terrorism” http://t.co/J78t5d7mvN
And more extensively, from ‘Jihadwatch’:-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/br0nc0s/managed-mt/mt-srch.cgi?search=benghazi+hearing&IncludeBlogs=1&limit=20
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/10/the-moment-of-responsibility-for-hillary-clinton/?page=1
‘I asked if she had read the cables from Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens asking for increased security. She replied that she was busy and had not read them.’
Well, if Lord Hall Hall follows in DG Incurious George’s footsteps, she seems perfectly suited to be next up to waft about those BBC whispering corridors of power.
As DB pointed out on the open thread, Mardell actually has nibbled on some humble pie.
Yet defenders of the indefensible will continue to pretend it didn’t happen.
Bill O’Reilly ‘Fox News’:
“Does Benghazi really matter?”
(8 min video.)
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2369565040001/does-benghazi-really-matter/?playlist_id=1621774019001
listen here mark mardell,you get your bloody flak jacket and rifle and go join the al qaeda rebels in syria if you want.you could do with losing a bit of weight pal,but dont expect one of are soldiers to die in a war that is not are business you damm fool.
Unlike INBBC-BBC Democrat, Bloomberg’s Charlie Rose in interview with Republican Chaffetz on Benghazi hearing:
(15 min video clip)
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12920