@JECE: I never said that this was gospel; I only asked what people thought/interpreted from their broadcast. I find Stratfor to be quite focused on Geopolitical situations around the globe, but at the same time I don't always agree with their conclusions. However what it does is raise is questions as to how we choose to perceive the global situation at the moment. I've copied and pasted their most recent geopolitical broadcast below (and yes I am interested in how people choose to interpret this!):
The Emerging Doctrine of the United States
By George Friedman
Over the past weekend, rumors began to emerge that the Syrian
opposition would allow elements of the al Assad regime to remain in
Syria and participate in the new government. Rumors have become
Syria's prime export, and as such they should not be taken too
seriously. Nevertheless, what is happening in Syria is significant for
a new foreign doctrine emerging in the United States -- a doctrine in
which the United States does not take primary responsibility for
events, but which allows regional crises to play out until a new
regional balance is reached. Whether a good or bad policy -- and that
is partly what the U.S. presidential race is about -- it is real, and
it flows from lessons learned.
Threats against the United States are many and complex, but
Washington's main priority is ensuring that none of those threats
challenge its fundamental interests. Somewhat simplistically, this
boils down to mitigating threats against U.S. control of the seas by
preventing the emergence of a Eurasian power able to marshal resources
toward that end. It also includes preventing the development of a
substantial intercontinental nuclear capability that could threaten
the United States if a country is undeterred by U.S. military power
for whatever reason. There are obviously other interests, but
certainly these interests are fundamental.
Therefore, U.S. interest in what is happening in the Western Pacific
is understandable. But even there, the United States is, at least for
now, allowing regional forces to engage each other in a struggle that
has not yet affected the area's balance of power. U.S. allies and
proxies, including the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan, have been
playing chess in the region's seas without a direct imposition of U.S.
naval power -- even though such a prospect appears possible.
Lessons Learned
The roots of this policy lie in Iraq. Iran and Iraq are historical
rivals; they fought an extended war in the 1980s with massive
casualties. A balance of power existed between the two that neither
was comfortable with but that neither could overcome. They contained
each other with minimal external involvement.
The U.S. intervention in Iraq had many causes but one overwhelming
consequence: In destroying Saddam Hussein's regime, a regime that was
at least as monstrous as Moammar Gadhafi's or Bashar al Assad's, the
United States destroyed the regional balance of power with Iran. The
United States also miscalculated the consequences of the invasion and
faced substantial resistance. When the United States calculated that
withdrawal was the most prudent course -- a decision made during the
Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration -- Iran
consequently gained power and a greater sense of security. Perhaps
such outcomes should have been expected, but since a forced withdrawal
was unexpected, the consequences didn't clearly follow and warnings
went unheeded.
If Iraq was the major and critical lesson on the consequences of
intervention, Libya was the smaller and less significant lesson that
drove it home. The United States did not want to get involved in
Libya. Following the logic of the new policy, Libya did not represent
a threat to U.S. interests. It was the Europeans, particularly the
French, who argued that the human rights threats posed by the Gadhafi
regime had to be countered and that those threats could quickly and
efficiently be countered from the air. Initially, the U.S. position
was that France and its allies were free to involve themselves, but
the United States did not wish to intervene.
This rapidly shifted as the Europeans mounted an air campaign. They
found that the Gadhafi regime did not collapse merely because French
aircraft entered Libyan airspace. They also found that the campaign
was going to be longer and more difficult than they anticipated. At
this point committed to maintaining its coalition with the Europeans,
the United States found itself in the position of either breaking with
its coalition or participating in the air campaign. It chose the
latter, seeing the commitment as minimal and supporting the alliance
as a prior consideration.
Libya and Iraq taught us two lessons. The first was that campaigns
designed to topple brutal dictators do not necessarily yield better
regimes. Instead of the brutality of tyrants, the brutality of chaos
and smaller tyrants emerged. The second lesson, well learned in Iraq,
is that the world does not necessarily admire interventions for the
sake of human rights. The United States also learned that the world's
position can shift with startling rapidity from demanding U.S. action
to condemning U.S. action. Moreover, Washington discovered that
intervention can unleash virulently anti-American forces that will
kill U.S. diplomats. Once the United States enters the campaign,
however reluctantly and in however marginal a role, it will be the
United States that will be held accountable by much of the world --
certainly by the inhabitants of the country experiencing the
intervention. As in Iraq, on a vastly smaller scale, intervention
carries with it unexpected consequences.
These lessons have informed U.S. policy toward Syria, which affects
only some U.S. interests. However, any U.S. intervention in Syria
would constitute both an effort and a risk disproportionate to those
interests. Particularly after Libya, the French and other Europeans
realized that their own ability to intervene in Syria was insufficient
without the Americans, so they declined to intervene. Of course, this
predated the killing of U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, but it did
not predate the fact that the intervention in Libya surprised planners
by its length and by the difficulty of creating a successor regime
less brutal than the one it replaced. The United States was not
prepared to intervene with conventional military force.
That is not to say the United States did not have an interest in
Syria. Specifically, Washington did not want Syria to become an
Iranian puppet that would allow Tehran's influence to stretch through
Iraq to the Mediterranean. The United States had been content with the
Syrian regime while it was simply a partner of Iran rather than Iran's
subordinate. However, the United States foresaw Syria as a subordinate
of Iran if the al Assad regime survived. The United States wanted Iran
blocked, and that meant the displacement of the al Assad regime. It
did not mean Washington wanted to intervene militarily, except
possibly through aid and training potentially delivered by U.S.
special operations forces -- a lighter intervention than others
advocated.
Essential Interests
The U.S. solution is instructive of the emerging doctrine. First, the
United States accepted that al Assad, like Saddam Hussein and Gadhafi,
was a tyrant. But it did not accept the idea that al Assad's fall
would create a morally superior regime. In any event, it expected the
internal forces in Syria to deal with al Assad and was prepared to
allow this to play out. Second, the United States expected regional
powers to address the Syrian question if they wished. This meant
primarily Turkey and to a lesser degree Saudi Arabia. From the
American point of view, the Turks and Saudis had an even greater
interest in circumscribing an Iranian sphere of influence, and they
had far greater levers to determine the outcome in Syria. Israel is,
of course, a regional power, but it was in no position to intervene:
The Israelis lacked the power to impose a solution, they could not
occupy Syria, and Israeli support for any Syrian faction would
delegitimize that faction immediately. Any intervention would have to
be regional and driven by each participant's national interests.
The Turks realized that their own national interest, while certainly
affected by Syria, did not require a major military intervention,
which would have been difficult to execute and which would have had an
unknown outcome. The Saudis and Qataris, never prepared to intervene
directly, did what they could covertly, using money, arms and
religiously motivated fighters to influence events. But no country was
prepared to risk too much to shape events in Syria. They were prepared
to use indirect power rather than conventional military force. As a
result, the conflict remains unresolved.
This has forced both the Syrian regime and the rebels to recognize the
unlikelihood of outright military victory. Iran's support for the
regime and the various sources of support for the Syrian opposition
have proved indecisive. Rumors of political compromise are emerging
accordingly.
We see this doctrine at work in Iran as well. Tehran is developing
nuclear weapons, which may threaten Israel. At the same time, the
United States is not prepared to engage in a war with Iran, nor is it
prepared to underwrite the Israeli attack with added military support.
It is using an inefficient means of pressure -- sanctions -- which
appears to have had some effect with the rapid depreciation of the
Iranian currency. But the United States is not looking to resolve the
Iranian issue, nor is it prepared to take primary responsibility for
it unless Iran becomes a threat to fundamental U.S. interests. It is
content to let events unfold and act only when there is no other
choice.
Under the emerging doctrine, the absence of an overwhelming American
interest means that the fate of a country like Syria is in the hands
of the Syrian people or neighboring countries. The United States is
unwilling to take on the cost and calumny of trying to solve the
problem. It is less a form of isolationism than a recognition of the
limits of power and interest. Not everything that happens in the world
requires or justifies American intervention.
If maintained, this doctrine will force the world to reconsider many
things. On a recent trip in Europe and the Caucasus, I was constantly
asked what the United States would do on various issues. I responded
by saying it would do remarkably little and that it was up to them to
act. This caused interesting consternation. Many who condemn U.S.
hegemony also seem to demand it. There is a shift under way that they
have not yet noticed -- except for an absence that they regard as an
American failure. My attempt to explain it as the new normal did not
always work.
Given that there is a U.S. presidential election under way, this
doctrine, which has quietly emerged under Obama, appears to conflict
with the views of Mitt Romney, a point I made in a previous article.
My core argument on foreign policy is that reality, not presidents or
policy papers, makes foreign policy. The United States has entered a
period in which it must move from military domination to more subtle
manipulation, and more important, allow events to take their course.
This is a maturation of U.S. foreign policy, not a degradation. Most
important, it is happening out of impersonal forces that will shape
whoever wins the U.S. presidential election and whatever he might
want. Whether he wishes to increase U.S. assertiveness out of national
interest, or to protect human rights, the United States is changing
the model by which it operates. Overextended, it is redesigning its
operating system to focus on the essentials and accept that much of
the world, unessential to the United States, will be free to evolve as
it will.
This does not mean that the United States will disengage from world
affairs. It controls the world's oceans and generates almost a quarter
of the world's gross domestic product. While disengagement is
impossible, controlled engagement, based on a realistic understanding
of the national interest, is possible.
This will upset the international system, especially U.S. allies. It
will also create stress in the United States both from the political
left, which wants a humanitarian foreign policy, and the political
right, which defines the national interest broadly. But the
constraints of the past decade weigh heavily on the United States and
therefore will change the way the world works.
The important point is that no one decided this new doctrine. It is
emerging from the reality the United States faces. That is how
powerful doctrines emerge. They manifest themselves first and are
announced when everyone realizes that that is how things work.
taking odds on bombing - syria/iran, obama/romney
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