* A nation's foreign policy is supposed to advance its interests in terms of prosperity and security. Much of our policy in the Middle East has been to assure oil availability, to limit Soviet influence, to protect allies.
* Since 1948, our actions have harmed Palestinians, Iranians, Iraqis, Libyans and Syrians. I wonder what the Middle East would be like today had we not recognized Israel, deposed Iran's elected leader, blitzkrieged Iraq twice, facilitated Gaddafi 's murder, encouraged Syrian rebels. Would the affected populations be more satisfied and peaceful or less?
* Much as I like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, I believe that their cheering for the Arab spring was harmful, especially their condemnation of al-Assad. It is naive to believe that gentle democratic rule could have succeeded in Syria, a country with arbitrary and porous borders, with mutually incompatible tribes and religions within those borders and outside them, with negative agricultural reserve, with historic drought, with insufficient industrial capacity, with clan-based society, having been overrun by millions of Iraqi refugees for several years. Had al-Assad capitulated, millions of minority subjects (including Christians) would have been dispossessed by Sunnis or butchered by ISIS.
* Putin's Russia is bringing the needed forces to Syria, and we should adjust our actions and rhetoric to be compatible with their agenda. Syria's problems need definitive ruthlessness that we cannot provide.
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