Twilight Struggle: Playing the "Syrian Re-alignment" Card

Card Instructions: Red: Remove all U.S. Influence from Syria and Place Enough Soviet Influence in Syria for Control.

If you haven't played Twilight Struggle and are interested in the Cold War, go get a copy now.  I'll wait...

Now, I'm as big a "Team America: World Police" booster as there is.  Nationalistic pride and cool boomstick stockpiling aside, I really do think that the world is a much more dangerous place without Pax Americana.

But... Syria?  I find myself hard-pressed to care if Putin is sending a few An-124s full of vodka-soaked soldiers, technicians, and batteries of SAMs to prop up Assad the Chinless for another decade.  The rest of the region?  Well, I wanted to believe that the clarion call for liberty and democracy beat strong and hot in the breasts of the groaning masses of the Middle East - hell, I did believe it - but the data are in, and the data clearly show I was wrong: that beat is not strong (nor is their spine the bassline).  At best it beats in few enough of them that they're better off taking those breasts somewhere not in the Middle East and letting the place rot.

Besides, what the hell are good breasts going to do in the Middle East?  Sooner or later some jihadi is going to come along and just cover them up or saw them off anyway.

Short-sighted of me?  Maybe.  But we tried it my way for a while - why not try something different in that region for the next while?

Maybe it's a Blue card after all...