What "military honour adventures" have you in mind in regard to the Assad regime ? The regime of Dr Assad has been really peaceful, at least internationally.

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to the local population

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the West in the past has NOT imposed "charismatic leaders", as leaders like Bourguiba and Nasser and Sadat were NOT "imposed", neither was King Hussein bin Talal ! And countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Syria in recent decades were NOT in turmoil. And were not dominated by atrocities.
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you mention corruption. Ever realized that the most corrupt country in the Mediterranean is democratic Italy ?

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the charismatic leaders I mentioned profited from the respect they had earned locally.
- Bourguiba had lead Tunisia into independence
- Nasser improved healthcare, education, industry
- Sadat moved Egypt into peace and modernized the economy
- Mubarak never had charisma, but had respect as being a war hero, and has he modernized education and the traffic infrastructure. Under his rule, Cairo got its underground railways system, city highways, etc, AND under his rule, Bilharziosis was eliminated
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women in power ? the position of women in the Arab World in the 1970ies and 80ies in fact was better than now as the late 1980ies and the 1990ies resulted setbacks for female rights. It will improve again, but this needs time. Interestingly however there are quite many female business leaders all over the Arab World

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Did the West criticize the amount of time it was taking and ..... ? If you mean WEST GERMANY, then the answer is a clear yes. How quite many West Germans commented about the "Ossis" until not too long ago was a shame !

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These revolutions only were possible thanks to the Internet. Ironic is that the Internet in Egypt for years was heavily supported by Hosni Mubarak.

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China is to expand its economic and political power quite universally, and this is of advantage for most. Look at Zurich. Zurich had lost Air China and Cathay Pacific more than a decade ago but since yesterday now has Hainan Airlines operating between Beijing and Zurich. Egypt builds Chinese training jets and small fighter jets under licence, and the about 300 Chinese instructors provide practical technical expertise to Egyptian engineers. Chinese banking institutions have bought up European state loans in various countries and so helped the finance crisis to be contained.

China is building roads and airports and sanitary installations in countries between Burma and Senegal, and exports many industrial products the world over, while becoming a tremendous market for many other countries. Switzerland for example exports watches, machines, electricals, pharmaceuticals, medicines, instruments and chocolates to China.

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No, all these countries have seen the re-emergence of Islam. But Islam was and is not the problem. The problem was and is a form of radical Islam. And when the Fundamentalists in the late 1990ies had to realize that they could not succeed by peaceful means and that this re-emergence had run out of steam they resorted to violence.
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Islam has NOT to spread to China, as it already is there . More than 20 mio. Chinese are Muslims .

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Iran is just doing what everybody does. Why should it not ?

There is only the base in Tartous. The Russian Eskadra however has the right to send ships to Latakia seaport for repairs. Dr Assad invited the Russians as it provides thousands of Syrians with work, quite a lot of that work fairly qualified engineering work, and it provides many Syrian engineers with practical training in technology. The Russians on their side had increasing problems with their basis on Ukraine-owned Crimea. Among the problems were shoddy assistance work of the Ukrainians and things very close to sabotage.
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Whomever takes over in Damascus will have a very high interest to keep the Russians content, and the Russians have a very high interest to keep the Syrians content. Whomever takes over in Damascus also will have to rely on Russia for new stuff for the Air Force. I do not believe that either side will ask the White House for advice

thats what i have been saying here for a long time, duh, its a well established fact, but good luck convincing our israeli propagandist hasbara friend here!

fact ? How is Israel supporting Assad ?

Is Israel sending advisors (like Iran) or maybe lucrative business deals (Like Turkey), perhaps military bases (Russia) or nuclear reactors (North Korea).

How ?

There of course is another very good reason why the USA want to convince the Dr Assad regime to develop a "human face of dictatorship" and that is that "the man of the Assads in Baghdad" to the bad luck of the USA is identical with "the man of the Americans in Baghdad" ! Amazing how that fox managed to enjoy the support of both Damascus and Washington/DC and please them both !

how much more pathetic can you really get?

read about lucrative dealings of Israeli firms with IRAN, from Haaretz:

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/the-arm...-iran-1.364069

your brushing aside of every fact you are presented tells a lot about your motives here

And what exactly ? Israeli has had good economic relations with Iran for decades, going back into the times of Imperial Iran. BUT having economic deals with Iran is NOT support for Syria, not even indirectly. In spite of the good economic and tactical relations between Iran and Syria.

Look at Palestine. Iran supports Hamas, Syria supports el-Saika. Syria against good payments channels Iranian supplies to Hamas, but parts of the profits go straight to Secularist anti-Hamas PLO member al-Saika.

Look at Lebanon. Iran supports Hizbullah, Syria supports Amal. Both are Shi'ite, but Amal is for jokers "Hizbullah with Red Wine" and so clearly secularist. In this case again, Syria channels, against serious payments, Iranian supplies to Hizbullah, but also profits out of these deals to some extent are used to support both Amal and the Frangieh (Maronite Christians) movement in Lebanon.

Sure, Iran allow Syria to produce Iranian motor cars under licence. And lots of other deals

But Iran produces the Antonov 140 as "Iran 140" under licence, and on their side co-operates with many countries.

"Her Clintonite Highness" Dame Hillary may not be amused ! But the world is not around to appease and amuse the US Secretary of State

Some Israelis did business with Iran - what does that have to do with Syria ?

Some people here in the West think that any commercial deals with Iran in some ways automatically benefit countries like Syria, Ukraine, Russia and China. I personally am astonished to learn that such deals are continued, but even if in danger to be accused of support for "immoral business" support the personal courage of the Israeli businessmen in question. I do NOT believe that they by their dealings either really support the Iranian top leadership or damage the national interests of their own country. I am in favour of some realism

The Syrian crisis continues - Thousands flee to Turkey, only to be locked up in camps with no access to the outside world, no foreign reporters are allowed to to them (very democratic Turkey, a role model to the middle east).

The area the refugees flee to is considered by many Syrians as part of Syria (TAI or Hatai) given by French to Turkey back in the 1920s.

There is even talk of the Turkish army establishing a "safe zone" inside Syria - this will be interesting, maybe they will use the same tactics they used in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Russians will try to block western action - to defend their big (only?) mediterranian Navy port (Tartous) - So a Libyan style intervention is probably not in the cards.

Maybe an Israeli promise (or threat thereof) of supporting Druze & Kurdish autonomy will put more pressure on Assad to go. But replaced by whom ? the anti assad crowd is shouting "Allah hu akbar", not "freedom & democracy"

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"I work abroad, you've gone native, he's an expat"

I disagree, amongst all the anguish this Syrian situation has caused , the Turkish decision to open their borders to Syrian refugees is the most open humanitarian decision so far.
They most certainly should not be criticised for it so cynically.
Israeli support of Kurds will only alienate the Turkish govt who have been very even handed so far.

Why is Turkey blocking foreign access to the Refugees ?

The Turkish government took an anti Israel line 2 years ago, but anyway - why not support a Kurdish autonomy ? They are a people after all, with their own language & culture.

About "Why is Turkey blocking foreign access to the Refugees ?" to prevent them giving their versions of what is happening in Syria.

Why that?

• to avoid upsetting the Syrian govt?
• to give the Syrian army no excuse to march into Turkey & drag back their people?
• or?

About "They most certainly should not be criticised for it so cynically."

What criticism? This is a factual statement about how the refugees are treated, or do you have other information?

more crazy talk...you will never give up, will you?

Other then Ad hominems you have very little to contribute (conspiracy "theories" don't count).

Can you please point to factual inaccuracies ?

let me give you some "information" my friend: Turkey set up refugee camps for nearly ten thousand people in a matter of 2 days, all they have to complain is "boredom" at the moment, they are safe, well fed, well taken care of. This is quite a contrast compared to what many European countries will do when it comes to refugees, Europeans simply turn the ships back or put them directly into jail. In the case of Greece, they build border fences, and sometimes dump refugees into water to be picked up nobody but the Turkish navy.

Turkey is currently helping the Syrian refugees by risking a confrontation with Syria AND Iran. Now tell us what Europeans, Americans and Israeli's are doing about the crisis in Syria...(other than agitating the situation even more)

I normally would do that, as I did many times with you in the past, but you have a record of ignoring facts and arguments and repeating the same BS over, and over and over and over...

kind of make me think you are a computer program or something...or a mankurt caught up in double think...or a paid propagandist. But never a reliable counterpart in rational dialogue

So more ad hominems and conspiracies, no attempt of polite discussion.

Why is this allowed on this forum ?

>> Turkey wants the Syrian refugeees to return as soon as possible and NOT to mingle with the partially Arabic speaking population of Kylikia
>> in defence of France, it is to be said that the army of Mustafa Kemal conquered Kylikia and threw the French out
>> amazing is that all maps around in Syria show the Sandchak of Iskandariyah as Syrian territory
>> Israel ought to keep out. Any Israeli involvement would be disastrous.