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1/ I am not a Gabbard supporter, nor do I favor her for the nomination. But, all the talk about she's an Assad supporter seems misleading. Let's suppose she did support Assad. What is the policy position of Democrats and progressives opposing Assad? Do/did you favor a policy of
2/ regime in Syria? Were you willing to pay the enormous financial costs of breaking Syria under the Colin Powell dictum: "you break it, you own it." Was regime change to occur with a CIA-backed coup? Did we have all the assets necessary to pull that off? Were we going to invade
3/ Syria? Were we going to base 100ks troops in Iraq?, a country that kicked us out over the SOFA? Obama seemed to back a small amount of military pressure that could not get rid of Assad combined with Russian participation in international negotiations that left Assad in power
4/ until the end of the negotiations that might not even get rid of Assad. So, what is the Democratic or progressive policy for Syria? How much blood and treasure were/are you willing to expend to end Assad's regime in Syria? That is the strategic question that needs to be asked.
5/ Whether or not Gabbard is a supporter or ally of Assad is not the point. Obama's policy was bizarre. We somehow became the al Qaeda air force. The DOD/CIA ended up training anti-Western Islamist forces. Eventually, Obama's policy and ISIS successes brought Russia into the
6/ equation. And let's also consider the regime change question from the POV of success. What if regime change fractured Syria and al Qaeda and/or ISIS came to power in Syria. Would Israel be better or worse off? Would Iraq? Would Turkey? Leave Gabbard out of the consideration
7/ here. What are the progressives really arguing for? Regime change? Coup? Military invasion? Expending blood and treasure in enormous quantities? The smear ends up being "whataboutism" to avoid answering hard questions.
