Hitting Saudi Arabia Where It Hurts
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/24/hitting-saudi-arabia-where-it-hurts
On the Democratic side, frontrunner Hillary Clinton wins praise from the neocon editors of The Washington Post for breaking with President Barack Obamas hesitancy to fully invade Syria. Former Secretary of State Clinton wants an invasion to occupy parts of Syria as a safe area and to destroy Syrian (and presumably Russian planes) if they violate her no-fly zone.
Much like the disastrous U.S. invasions of Iraq and Libya, Clinton and her neocon allies are pitching the invasion of Syria as a humanitarian venture to remove a brutal dictator in this case, President Bashar al-Assad as well as to destroy the Islamic State, which Assads army and its Iranian-Russian allies have also been fighting. Assads military, Iranian troops and Russian planes have hit other jihadist groups, too, such as Al Qaedas Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, which receives U.S. weapons as it fights side-by-side with Nusra in the Army of Conquest.
Clintons strategy likely would protect jihadists except for the Islamic State and thus keep hope alive for regime change explaining why the Posts neocon editors, who were enthusiastic boosters of the Iraq War in 2003, hailed her hawkish approach toward Syria as laudable.
To Clintons left, Sen. Bernie Sanders has punted on the issue of what to do in either Syria or the Middle East, failing to offer any thoughtful ideas about what can be done to stabilize the region. He opted instead for a clever but vacuous talking point, arguing that the Saudis and other rich oil sheiks of the Persian Gulf should use their wealth and militaries to bring order to the region, to get their hands dirty.
The problem is that the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis along with the Turks are a big part of the problem. They have used their considerable wealth to finance and arm Al Qaeda and its various allies and spinoffs, including the Islamic State. Their hands are already very dirty.