old salt wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 2:41 am
I've been thinking strategically for a long time. Long enough to have told you it was a mistake we'd regret to pull out of Iraq
I was just giving you grief for the turn of phrase.
In hindsight? Pulling out of Iraq led to one of our biggest victories against terrorism in our nation's history? What happened? ISIS came out in the open, like the JV that they are. How many tens of thousands of the nuttiest of nutjobs slaughtered as a result of this move? While you convinced me it was a mistake to leave Iraq "too soon" because of Powells' Pottery Barn rule, it wound up working out beautifully. There's no telling how many future terrorist plots were snuffed out because of ISIS's foolish decision to fight in the open.
old salt wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 2:41 am
that the JCPOA would not survive beyond Obama's tenure. Long enough to tell you we became hopelessly entangled in the ME when we went ashore in '91.
Nobody realized it then, except you, me & Jim Webb.
And my fellow libs, marching in the street. Ah, to be young and stupid again! Now I'm just stupid.
old salt wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 2:41 am
The whole "strategy vs tactics" canard is an excuse for being too intellectually lazy to learn the granular tactical considerations which undergird a strategy. You can't discern a strategy ? Examine the tactics & the details surrounding the tactics, study a map, then the strategy becomes apparent.
...but it's more profound to tug your chin, scold "tactics not strategy" when you disagree, & cite Sun Tzu.
I'd buy what you are selling here with any other commander in chief than Trump. Sorry man. He's all over the place. You keep trying to give a structure and a framework that doesn't exist. We'll find out which of us is right soon enough. Nothing would make me happier than being wrong about Trump's intention to pull out of the ME. Reminder: how happy was I with Trump when he announced we were pulling out of Syria? You have to give me credit for this consistency, no?
Well, you don't HAVE to do anything......but I digress.
And Trump's speech today? LOVED it. Wanting to sit down with Iran again....saying he wants peace....calling out NATO....it was great. Loved it.
The trouble, and reason I can't stand him (well, one reason).....is that there is a complete disconnect between what he says, and what he actually does. If Trump did what he said he was doing? I"d be a bigger fanboy than Bandito on about 80% of the issues.
I just don't trust him. At all. But time will tell...