Daniel Lazare — The Collision Course in Syria

After Bush's folly in Iraq, Obama's folly in Syria and it far from over yet in both Iraq and Syria with both the future costs on all sides and the ultimate outcome uncertain.

A quarter of a million people would eventually die as a consequence of Obama’s miscalculation, 7.6 million would be displaced, and another four million would be driven abroad, all this in a country of just 22 million prior to the onset of civil war.

To put this in perspective, it is as if 3.6 million Americans had died as a result of a foreign-financed civil war, 110 million had been driven out of their homes, and another 58 million had been forced to flee abroad to Canada, Mexico or whatever other country would take them, where they would have no choice but to beg or perhaps sell ballpoint pens to passers-by in hopes of scratching out a living.

Instead of democracy, the U.S.-led push to overthrow Assad put Syria on the path to catastrophe. Obama could have hit the pause button at any point once it became clear where the effort was going.…

Daniel Lazare outlines how Obama got in bed with the devil.

Daniel Lazare catalogues how this is now spinning out of control.

Consortium News
The Collision Course in Syria
Daniel Lazare

See also

The “War on Terror” – now more than 14 years long – has trapped the U.S. and other nations in the “dark side” of human behavior, a dilemma that is both moral and practical because the continued use of brutal methods has only made the crisis worse, as Nicolas J S Davies explains.

In the Dark on the ‘Dark Side’
Nicolas J S Davies