@Palmyrene
Still an alliance and they both benefit from their presence.
The fact of the matter is, they both are allied to the US, support each other in various ways, and have had several deals with each other such as arms sales.
Even if it's not a formal alliance, for all practical purposes, they are one. It doesn't matter whether it's only for convenience; all alliances are for convenience.
If you have Saudi Arabia as an enemy, Israel is not an ally to have. From the perspective of Israel, Lebanon is a greater enemy than Saudi Arabia and less of an asset.
Not really, Israeli-Saudi relations are only the way they are due to their hostility to Iran.
If Lebanon became allied to Israel, Iran would soon follow due to the massive presence of the Lebanese tribes in the Iranian economy and their connection to the Iranian tribes.
Likewise, the US would be far less hostile.
1. Israel hates Lebanon and pretty much all Arabs. I've never met an Israeli who didn't at least have a chauvinistic attitude towards Arabs.
I have, quite alot actually.
And Israelis do, in general, prefer peace with Lebanon.
3. It's a colonial state. This is a fundamentally different situation to Lebanon. From your perspective, Lebanon has more in common with Palestinians than Israel because Lebanon has a minority population colonized. What do you think is happening to Palestinians?
The Palestinians have already displayed their full hostility to the Lebanese people, and the Palestinians in Jordan hate Lebanese people.
If we managed to secure a deal with the Israelis on the expense of the Palestinians, then we'll gladly throw them under the buss.
And what if they win? You keep on funding them (which countries like Israel, the US, Iran, and Saudi Arabia do; they don't fund Islamists because they want them to kill each other, they do it to get the person who supports them on top. It's regime change) and eventually they win more and more till they get a whole country.
Neither will truely win, both sides of the conflict will be too weak to stand on its own, and either become fully subservient to the funder, or simply be killed off once the purpose of the support is achieved.
ISIS is a good example.
1. Iran literally supports Syria and puts in resources to help it and Iran isn't going to want something like ISIS effect it's activities in Iraq especially given the brutality of ISIS towards Shia.
-Iran supported both sides of the conflict, one directly and the other indirectly.
-It allowed and cleared the way for ISIS to grow to weaken its rivals in Iraq and Syria. And supported the government in Syria and established various militias in Iraq to consolidate power.
2. ISIS wasn't a project. It was a mistake. No one planned. It was the result of loads of countries just giving groups money and then accidentally gave it to the wrong people and ISIS was born. It's like having sex and realizing your partner wasn't on the pill.
ISIS grew out of Al-Qaeda in Iraq; Regional powers used it to their interests.
3. Turkey didn't create ISIS, it supported them.
I didn't say it created it, it just helped it grow to use it.
Oh that makes sense. It's a shame. I feel sorry for Iran.
Iran is a clear victor in the conflict, it consolidated power in two countries, economic and political interests.
This is the most disgusting shit I've heard in my entire life.
It doesn't matter, politics and geopolitics isn't nice.
There is no long term benefits to funding proxies. Terrorist groups always bite you in the back.
There is, as clearly established and observed.
If it didn't, then no one would do it.
No one does that though. No one arms Islamists so that you can get rid of Islamists. Islamists will always exist because the conditions that led to their existence will perpetuate.
Everyone does that.
And it works.
Simply the source (Hanbali ideology and Wahabis in specific) still exist, so new ones are always created.
Iran simply uses Saudi weapons against Saudi interests.
Are you implying the US did 9/11? Are you serious?
No, I'm not. Bother reading what I wrote.
The US supported the Mujahedeen, and did experience several attacks from them in the 90s, so it knew the consequences. 9/11 was simply a bigger backfire than expected.
However, the policy of funding and supporting the Mujahedeen did work and did achieve the required goals, and continue to do so.
Try reading what I write, instead of using strawmans.
Accidentally.
You can't be guaranteed the same thing if you do it again.
Not really, no. If you support an enemy of yours for whatever purpose, you expect that enemy to attack you atleast once or twice.
That's not my point. My point is that the common man isn't doing shit about funding proxies or whatever.
The common man benefits from it.
In a cold war, you either participate in the war, or you become another theater of the war. No middle grounds.
Most major interests are not what is typically called "the people".
There's no "nation" benefitting. Only the government and upper class.
Preserving the nation's interests is and always will be in the interests of its people, even if they don't agree on the how.
e.g. Americans might not like the Afghan war, they still benefit from the strategic, political, and economic influence it gives their nation.
The ruling class or landowners or keys or whatever. This isn't the population as a whole.
No, it's not limited to those.
No because Lebanon's potential influence overlaps with Israel. And Israel is not known to let other people have things it wants.
Lebanon's influence is mainly cultural, its interests however is what it shares with Israel.
Lebanese and Israeli interests are very similar and are interwind.
You're agreeing with what I said. You think the distinction lies on what class joins in. It doesn't and there's plenty of revolutions that were successful without middle class participation.
I'm not agreeing with what you said, what you said is far short of reality.
The distinction lies not on the class, but on the extent of the uprisings. Protests get crushed easily.
Revolutions are, in effect, civil wars.
If uprisings are limited to the lower class, then they'll be crushed easily. For uprisings to grow into a fully-fledged revolution, the middle and working classes must join in.
And no, there never were any "successful" revolutions without the middle class joining in.
There was no middle class at the time.
There was no bourgeoisie either and lower nobles joined in after the revolution had already been conducted.
European middle class came to be after the black death centuries earlier.
No it didn't. It started with protests, general disobedience against the government, and then outright secession from influence.
And the government cracked down on the protests. The only reason it turned into a revolution is because part of the army split off and joined in.
How hard is it to understand this?
It was called the FSA, read about it, you clearly didn't follow the war as it went along.
The revolution happened and then the middle class got cold feey and supported the military.
The army removed Mubarak, not the people.
You can't direct where culture evolves that's like saying you can direct how fast the earth rotates. You can only choose the general direction and to do that you must change the environment. You can't do it by making decrees or laws.
1- The comparison is idiotic.
2- You can, there is an entire field of study regarding it in fact.
And all of this was done in the name of modernization and culture.
No, it wasn't.
It's a simple balance of power that needs to be maintained. Culture and modernization are 2 entirely separate subjects.
Says the guy who thinks the Syrian Revolution was a coup.
Attempted coup.*
Everyone does do it. People form groups and organizations all the time even if they're informal. The hard part is coordinating with other groups but that's easy if you have a common ideology (i.e. anarchism).
No, on a grand scale, everyone is subject to organization, they don't organize or lead themselves.
They haven't. Especially after the Black Death.
The only reason Europe had a middle class is because of the Black death.
It's like you don't know history at all.
After some considerations, you don't. So on we go.
They can. That's specifically what "owning the means of production" is. It has happened before in Algeria and in modern cases (such as an aerospace production facility) runs without even democracy, just consensus and resource/information sharing.
Owning the means of production is not the same as managing them.
What I said was exactly what happened in real life.
Where? When?
And If it did happen, why is there still are upper classes? Ooh, right, because it never works like that.
This is irrelevant.
China is not meritocratic at all. Don't pretend it is.
you brought it up, not me.
And it is relevant to the discussion.
And China meritocratic, to a large extent atleast.
This is irrelevant.
Again. Not only you brought it up, it is also very relevant to the discussion on why people in these places don't revolt.
I agree that Saudi Arabia is on thin ice. That's why I expect to start a revolution there too.
There wont be a revolution in Saudi Arabia. There's more likely going to be either a take over or the state will simply dissolve into multiple states.
I'm not talking about the Vietnam war.
About what then?
Vietnam was a French colony until the communists with the aid of the USSR came along.
A majority of the population in Russia and China were peasants prior to the revolution. 80% of Russia was composed of serfs and 90% of China was composed of peasants.
And they were organized and led by middle class leaders.
And serfdom was abolished decades prior to the Russian revolution. Get your facts straight.
Not me but others were as they struggled to buy food. And importing food, like I said, strained the economy.
Sure, that's what mismanagement and dumb policies do.
Apparently, Fascists have a way of fucking things up.
What about Jordan?
The only reason why Syria had a war is because of the coup and the various foreign interventions.
The same conditions that existed in Syria prior to the war existed in Jordan for many years now and still no revolution.
It had protests and slight uprisings, but those were swiftly quelled.
This can also serve an example on the difference between uprisings and revolutions.
That's the price of cultural meddling. It's an extensive process.
It's not. The new regime led a far more extensive cultural reform campaign than under Mao.
The deaths and famines that resulted from Maos actions were due to stupid policies like forging steel in backyards, and the retarded distribution and negligence of agricultural production.
Apparently you think parents are going to be fine with these policies? Really? Who do you think is going to make a big stink about this other than the parents.
As long as their needs are being fulfilled, they won't. They hardly ever do so.
The factions are states at least in an anarchist sense.
Sure, democratic mini states that is.
Then it shouldn't be the core issue since they don't apply the aspects you're criticizing.
It is a core issue.
Heck, look at the Turkish economic crisis right now, literally happening right now.
It's because of Islamic inspiration on economic policy.
Your evidence is?
You can easily look the financial data from the Islamic banking sector.
Primarily, check the 2008-2009 years.