The enemy of the friend of my enemy is my friend, right?

Right at the top of this blog is my rationale for its' existence, and here is a classic case of refusing to learn from history:

On his campaign website, Romney criticizes Obama for reaching out to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the past but stops short of calling for any direct action to force Assad from power such as directly arming the opposition, as his surrogates like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are demanding, or establishing "safe zones" for the Syrian opposition, as many of his campaign's foreign policy advisors are calling for.

Romney's official position (or lack thereof) makes more sense to me than McCain's idea since we've been down this road before and McCain should know better. I have yet to see any realistic assessment of what may come out of Syria's "civil war" that will be a distinct improvement for the USA or anyone else whose interests jive with mine. I am reminded of a similar situation in the 1980s when it was decided (in concert with the Saudis) to arm people resisting someone we didn't like, and that has been biting the West in the ass ever since.

Yes, Afghanistan. Syria is a train wreck mishmash of people who don't get along, and a lot of them don't like "us" either. The CIA is involved again, oh happy day, "vetting" who they give weapons to. Assad is using attack helicopters now; will the CIA decide to hand out some Stingers again to help the rebels?

More recent and likely more analogous is Iraq. The Yanks didn't like Saddam (not much to like, for sure) so they regime-changed his ass. Let's look at how that worked out: nearly 40,000 Coalition (mostly American) casualties (Blood) and somewhere around $2 Trillion in financial cost (Treasure). This makes no mention of Iraqi casualties, the "cleansing" of the few remaining Christians in Baghdad, internal and external displacement of Sunnis and widespread destruction of infrastructure. All of that got the Americans none of the oil revenue (enter: China) that might have underwritten giving the Iraqis a "better" government.

Yes, it would be nice to put a stick in the spokes of Iran and by extension Hezbollah by removing Bashar & Co. but would it be worth it in the long term? Doing things half-arsed gives you Libya as it is post-NATO intervention, the full monty gives you Iraq or Afghanistan.

In the bigger picture it's not much of the Americans' concern, as there are plenty of regional powers (esp. Turkey) capable of setting up the "safe areas" or putting the coup de grace to the Assad dynasty. Supporting America's friends at this time is a better use of resources than fighting on behalf of someone who has a better-than-average chance of turning on you later on.

There are plenty of capable friendly-ish countries (Turkey, Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi and Jordan) with skin in this game. Playing this one cagey is appropriate, but Romney needs to be as clear as the circumstances permit about what he is prepared to do about it. After that be prepared to be flexible 'cause things can always change...