"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Isn't the problem that just when things start to get really messy in these conflicts, the west loses its nerve, in large part because of political pressure back home imposed by 'progressives' and squeamish anti-war movements. Like when Obama talked about the 'red line' of Assad using chemical weapons and then pussying out when he did.
All it really proves is how much we undervalue a truly brutal dictator who keeps his population of nutters under firm control.
A man with whom you can do business should never be under-valued, no matter how much of a c*nt he is.
Elected politicians can't really do long-term strategy, though, that's the problem, since they're on a two-year cycle between the need to get re-elected or step down raises its ugly head. It makes taking decisive action difficult. Dictators like Putin have the advantage there.
This 'hard man' line gets trotted out regularly and rather ignores the fact that these sort of quasi-socialist, kleptocratic, 'hard-man' dictators like Mubarak and Assad are actually shït at running their countries. They give the appearance of keeping the lid on, but actually balls things up to the extent of them becoming backwards, rat poor and basically forming a wonderful breeding ground for resentful hard-line islamists.
I don't think the failure of any state populated by millions upon millions of religious fanatics to whom the very concepts of wealth and prosperity is anathema can really be blamed on any individual leader. It's pretty much the geopolitical equivalent of the England job.
What would have become of Saudi Arabia if they hadn't struck oil?
Supreme Leader Trump will bring peace to the world imo.
Will go down as the greatest ever US President...Lincoln and Roosevelt ain't going to have sh*t on him.
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failing that we can always use Plan G....i.e. let Israel off their leash and let them pick a country to nuke....might as well give the nod and wink to the Indians to do the same to Pakistan while we're at it.
"Is it possible for the West to do anything right in the Middle East?"
Colonise the place? That was right in the past.
I read a book review of Baghdad in the Sun Times a year ago, which said the only peaceful time in its history was under GB rule in the inter-war years as part of the League of Nations mandate.
The natives didn't have the vote anyway, but under GB rule they at least had the rule of law and security forces who were above all the sectarian conflict and put a stop to it.
Wouldn't work now, mind.
But it's another of those imperial questions most fellow lefties find a bit tricky. Unfortunately, they seem to have been better off under our rule. Still, at least we robbed all their oil so we can feel guilty about that.