Download USI Library News Information Service Pioneer, 01-11

USI Library
News Information Service
Pioneer, 01-11-2016
EVEN A NON-WORKING CLOCK IS RIGHT TWICE
Gwynne Dyer | in Oped
Trump’s propaganda that Hillary Clinton
could trigger a third World War because of
her West Asia policy, is an exaggeration.
But his criticism of her position is valid
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Donald J Trump's record is not that good, but
he does get it right once in a while. He got it
right on Tuesday, when he said Hillary Clinton
would be dangerously aggressive in Syria if she
wins the presidency. Trump went too far, of
course. He always does. He claimed that
Clinton would trigger a third World War with
her Syrian policy, which is utter nonsense.
Given the current international balance of
power, it is almost impossible to get a RussianAmerican war going. The Russians simply aren't that stupid.
Even a new Cold War is hard to imagine. The Russians know they would lose it in only a few years,
so they would refuse to play their allotted role in any such scenario. But US-Russian diplomatic
relations would get distinctly frosty for a while — and the United States, in the meantime, would be
up to its neck in the Syrian civil war and betting on the wrong horse.
What Trump actually said, in an interview conducted in his Florida golf resort between bites of fried
egg and sausages, was that the United States should focus on defeating the Islamic State. “We should
not be focussing on Syria. You're going to end up in World War III over Syria if we listen to Hillary
Clinton.”
The Clinton policy in question is her promise (repeated in the third debate) to declare a no-fly zone
and “safe zones” on the ground in Syria to protect non-combatants. Those zones, of course, would
deny the Syrian Government the chance to recover the territory it has lost to the rebels, and deprive
the Russian Air Force of the ability to help it in that task.
But what if the Syrians and the Russians don't accept that the United States has the right to set up
no-fly zones on Syrian territory just because it feels like it? What if they send their planes into those
zones and dare the US forces to shoot them down? Then the US has to choose between backing
down and being publicly humiliated — or shooting down Russian aircraft and (according to Trump)
starting a third World War.
The Russians would be especially happy to do so, because they know perfectly well that they could
not win a war with the United States. Even leaving aside the question of nuclear weapons (which
make such a war unthinkable), Russia is simply not a credible rival to the United States any more: It
has half the population of the former Soviet Union, and an economy one-tenth the size of the
United States.
So, Clinton would not really be courting World War III if she did what she has promised. She
would, however, be doing something very reckless and stupid. After Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya,
the United States really does not need to get more deeply entangled in another unwinnable war in
West Asia.
What Trump is advocating is actually the policy that President Barack Obama has been following
over the whole five years of the Syrian civil war: Concentrate on eliminating the IS, and do not get
involved in the rebel military campaign to overthrow Bashar al-Assad's regime, however much you
may dislike it.
Hillary Clinton, by declaring no-fly zones, would effectively be creating safe areas for the rebels to
operate out of. However, the great majority of the active anti-regime fighters belong to the IS, or to
the equally extreme group that used to be called the Al Nusra Front and is now changing its name
every week or so in an attempt to conceal its true origins as a breakaway part of the Islamic State and
an affiliate of the Al Qaeda.
(The writer is a London-based Canadian journalist)
http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/even-a-non-working-clock-is-right-twice.html