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September 14, 2015
Tony Abbott
Source: Shutterstock
But wait, it gets better! Defending Abbott’s decision, playboy general David Petraeus told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, “It’s not easy to find moderates in that part of the world, particularly in Syria. At the moment the main forces are the gruesome Assad regime; the if-anything more diabolical Daesh death cult; and then of course there’s the people linked with al-Qa”ida.”
Naturally, this is the same David Petraeus who joined John “I”ve Never Met a War I Didn”t Like” McCain in blasting Obama for not sending arms and supplies to the Syrian rebels the moment hostilities erupted. But this is meant to be a break from all the doom and gloom. So relish the fact, dear reader, that you”ve outwitted a four-star general”and try not to be too unnerved by it.
Now, you may have seen reports that Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, is meeting with Secretary of State Genghis Kerry to discuss “political solutions” to the Assad regime, which Abbott will take to a summit of world leaders at the U.N. later this month. Presumably they mean the same nature of “political solutions” as our fifty-year-old embargo on Cuba, which aimed at unseating the Castros, or the fifty years of sanctions placed on North Korea between 1950 and 2008 to undermine the Kim dynasty. Yes, the West’s “political solutions” always have been, and probably always will be, a joke.
I might just be an imperturbable optimist, but…could it be that they know that? Or rather, is there any way they don”t know that? Could it be that they”re just trying to save face after spending the past four years denouncing Assad as the worst thing since If I Did It: The Musical? I”m inclined to think so. Either way, it looks like the U.S. is going to follow Australia’s lead and back off Assad. That’s good news for us, good news for the Syrian people, and very bad news for ISIS.