Did Climate Change Cause Syria's Civil War? - YouTube
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What is the point of this rambling chatter? Climate has shaped farming in the Middle East since the Neolithic revolution, but surely in more recent times the volume of water for farming in Northern Syria has been affected by dams in Turkey, just as the volumes in the south-west have been affected by the competition for scarce water resources with Israel, Lebanon and Jordan. There was a famine in the 1930s and some political agitation accompanied it, although in Syria they didn't need bad harvests to complain about the French mandate, and in Palestine much of the conflict was shaped by the deterioration of relations between Arabs and Jews. That the Syrian government was unable to cope with a crisis in farming should not surprise anyone given the poor record of management the government has had for years; it is a dictatorship, the needs of the people come a distant second to the needs of the elite.
Climatology currently is an amalgam of atmospheric physics, geography and statistics. No serious climatologist can point to a specific weather event, a tornado, a hurricane, a forest fire and claim it was the result of global warming. Though one can point to a series of such events as evidence for global warm. It is the same with the conflict in Syria. It is one particular event, and one that at first glance is fairly far removed from global warming. As Stavros points out, there are more probable hypothesis ready at hand that account for the current civil war. Badly managed resources, religious animosities and old tribal disputes. I doubt very much we can with a good scientific conscious point the finger climate change.
This is not to say that climate won't play a huge role in the future of Northern Africa and the Middle East. I mentioned in another thread that I had recently been to Morocco and marveled at the irrigation network that was being developed there. It is snow melt from the mountains that feed that network. Should the snow-caps vanish permanently, there would be no water to irrigate Moroccan crops. I think similar dangers prevail throughout the two regions.
I would agree with this, but add that in the cases of the terraced agriculture practised in Morocco and the Yemen (but which is common in many places in the world, such as China and the northern Philipppines) in recent years it is not just issues around water but terrace management that has put these 'hanging gardens' under strain. Pity as they are great to look at when maintained...Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
(in order: the Imli Valley in Morocco, and Yemen
http://moroccoonthemove.files.wordpr...pg?w=610&h=405
http://www.filaha.org/images/introdu...ira-yeme_L.jpg
A Plea for Caution From Russia
What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/op....html?hp&_r=1&
An accompaniment to the article I posted....Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
Syria crisis: US and Russia agree chemical weapons deal
Inspectors to be given 'immediate unfettered access' with a 'comprehensive list' of weapons from Damascus within a week, says Kerry
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...l-weapons-deal
This is interesting:
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/09/...tims-were.html
http://news.yahoo.com/syria-39-assad...194045940.html
Quote:
Syria's Assad sends message to pope
http://l.yimg.com/os/publish-images/...fp-gif_new.gif 51 minutes ago
Vatican City (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sent a message to Pope Francis Saturday, that state media said expressed his determination to defend Syrians of all religions against hardline Islamists among the rebels.
The message was passed on through a Syrian government delegation that held talks at the Vatican with the pontiff's Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and foreign affairs official Dominique Mamberti."The delegation brought a message from President Assad for the Holy Father and explained the position of the Syrian government," a statement said.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency said Assad expressed his government's "determination to exercise its right to defend all its citizens, whatever their religion, against the crimes committed by the takfiri (Sunni Muslim extremist) bands who attack them in their homes, in their places of worship and in their neighbourhoods."
Assad's regime prides itself on its secularism. While the rebels fighting for its overthrow are mainly Sunni, the government draws much of its support from Assad's own Alawite minority, as well as from Christians and other minorities.
Assad said the conflict could be resolved only by a "national dialogue between Syrians without foreign interference, because the Syrian people is the sole master of its own destiny and it alone should its leadership."
He condemned the "military, logistic and material support being provided to the terrorists by neighbouring countries," an allusion to the aid being provided to the rebels through Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.
The pope, who was elected in March, used his first "Urbi et Orbi" speech on Christmas Day to plead for humanitarian aid access in Syria and an end to the violence.
"Too many lives have been shattered in recent times by the conflict in Syria, fuelling hatred and vengeance," the 77-year-old pope said on Wednesday.
"Let us continue to ask the Lord to spare the beloved Syrian people further suffering, and to enable the parties in conflict to put an end to all violence and guarantee access to humanitarian aid."
The conflict is estimated to have killed more than 126,000 people and displaced millions since it first started out as peaceful anti-regime protests in 2011.
Earlier this month, the pontiff called for prayers for 12 nuns seized from their convent in Syria.
In September he organised a global day of prayer for peace in Syria, speaking out against the prospect of Western military intervention.
The ‘Geneva II’ talks are scheduled to take place next week -in Montreux. Geneva II is supposed to take to the next stage the measures that were announced in Geneva I in June 2012. Most of the parties to the conflict have said they will attend the talks which are aimed at bringing a halt to the fighting and the start of meaningful talks on political change in Syria and ancillary issues, such as refugees. However, at this stage the Syrian govt has already stated it will not hand over power, which makes the attempt to plan a transition seem pointless if there is not going to be one. The Syrian govt can claim to have made concessions to the Syrian National Coalition which previously said it would not attend the talks if the govt did not release prisoners, especially women, whereas now that the Govt has said it will do that the SNC has said it will go. The SNC says it will be bringing with it representatives of the Kurdish communities and other rebel groups, but the Jihadi have condemned the talks and claimed anyone who goes is a traitor. Iran did not sign the Geneva I communique and has not been invited although the US thinks the Iranians should be there.
The prognosis for the talks achieving their primary objectives is poor. The Syrian Govt is in a powerful position, entering the third year of the conflict without any sign of weakness. The armed forces and the political machine have both survived defections, and the Syrians may feel that the decisions made by the UK and the USA not to become engaged militarily has strengthened their position. Although this might be true militarily, politically the government is trying to hold on to a status quo ante, as if a ‘military victory’ were not only possible but would return Syria to the situation it was in before the conflict began in March 2011. If anything, the lack of political initiatives coming out of Damascus will maintain the fighting in the absence of a credible alternative, unless the Syrians are going to show us something different.
The Syrian opposition continues to be the weak link in the overall picture. The initial assumptions that the conflict in Syria would lead to a rapid change of government have turned out to be false, and the badly divided opposition has enabled the survival of the regime largely through its own incompetence which, in turn, has lead to a crushing lack of confidence in it in the west. Notwithstanding the allegations about who was responsible for the chemicals weapons attacks which were supposed to be a ‘game changer’, the refusal of the British Parliament to support military engagement, and President Obama’s referral of the matter to Congress reflected the lack of confidence in both the outcome of a military engagement and in the ability of the existing opposition to take advantage of it.
I think the best outcome which has a realistic chance of being approved by all may concern the fate of the refugees, of which over a million now rot in camps in Jordan and Turkey. This displacement of refugees relative to the population of Jordan, for example, is equivalent to the entire population of Poland arriving in the USA seeking help. One slim feeler which has also emerged in the last three months or so is the realisation among some opposition groups that the Jihadi groups operating mostly in the north-east and in areas around Aleppo are undermining their long term political ambitions. As with the ‘Arab Awakening’ in Iraq that was coincident with the ‘surge’, the mostly foreign Jihadis with their extremist ideology have alienated local people, and while it is still too soon to see the Syrian opposition dealing with the Syrian govt in order to eliminate this component of the problem, it is not beyond the realms of possibility. It is not only the Govt that seems to lack initiative, the Syrian opposition has to ask itself where it is going, because it is not clear to outsiders.
On the positive side, there seems to be some acceptance by the US that the Russians are in Syria for the long haul, and are more likely to play a positive than a negative role; the same is also true of Iran which the Americans see as a key player as the backer of both Asad and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The US wants to keep the conflict out of Lebanon (to protect the security of Israel) but also is coming round to the idea that the Rouhani govt is genuine in its desires for reform and that this is the best opportunity in years to bring Iran into the mainstream of Middle Eastern politics, although this is one of the issues that most annoys Saudi Arabia.
On the negative side, Saudi Arabia is still seething with rage over Obama’s referral of military engagement to Congress. Robert Gates, in his book states that Obama has an aversion to military solutions to political problems -an obvious legacy of the Bush Presidency but also something I think most Americans approve of- whereas the Saudis were desperate for the US to get more involved and by not doing so believe they will now have to engage more than they have done so far. This is a problem because the Saudis have not used their troops in a regional conflict since the ‘revolutionary’ war in the Yemen in the 1960s (other than than sporadic air force activity in Desert Storm in 1991), which leaves them with the option they have used ever since, to fund covert autonomous or semi-autonomous guerilla groups. But this has already backfired on them as the al-Qaeda franchise shows in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Syria. Nevertheless, the Saudi position to extend the military engagement on the basis that it is the only way to eliminate the Asad regime and in doing so weaken Iran, remains in place.
In the long term, Saudi Arabia continues to believe it should rule throughout the Middle East, what is most worrying is not just that they are extending the misery for a political objective they can’t guarantee, there is now a belief that the rocket attack from Lebanon last month was launched by an 'al-Qaeda' unit, whatever that means these days. There is no guarantee that the 'autonomous' groups fighting for the Saudis might not improvise their tactics and decide to attack Israel as part of the wider Jihad, in other words, the more the Saudis get involved the worse for all concerned.
In sum, if there are any practical agreements at the talks they will not have been a waste of time, but on the fundamental issue of political change in Syria I am pessimistic about an agreement, and for every day that passes, more people will die.
Mark Katz on Russia and Syria (4 Myths)
http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-e...ria-four-myths
New York Times on the rocket attack from Lebanon last month:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/wo...ref=world&_r=0
Pessimism is is utterly appropriate. I see no early end to things there.
Impressive post, Stavros. Thank you.
Although the last month has seen some important developments in the struggle for power in Syria, as usual it is hard to know how these will affect any long term attempt to bring this catastrophe to an end (Polio is now rife in Syria and in the refugee camps, one of the bleakest components of the conflict).
1. Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia last month is now believed to have been difficult, possibly confrontational, but one from which both sides have tried to find a compromise in order to retain the relationship the USA has maintained with Saudi Arabia since the 1930s.
-Bandar bin Sultan, the intelligence chief and the most prominent pro-American Saudi in the ruling family (he has personally known every American President since Jimmy Carter), has been removed, or resigned, largely because his aggressive stance on Syria has failed to produce regime change. If this was a sign that Saudi Arabia has lost a sense of direction, then its anger with the USA for not stepping into the gap with its military forces may have been assuaged by the news that the Syrian opposition is now using American made weapons, not the first rate 'MANPAD' shoulder-to-air missiles, but the lesser BGM-71 TOW anti-tank rockets though it is not clear who supplied them and it us unlikely they were provided directly by an American source. These weapons are supposed to be used against the Syrian Air Force, but there are fears they could end up in the hands of Salafi groups.
In addition, the US has agreed to increase the number of Syrian rebels it has been training in Jordan where for years the US has monitored the Middle East -they built an enormous new embassy there not long after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Obama, it seems, is more tuned to covert action than its more accountable alternative.
The problem for me is that the Syrian opposition is so weak politically, I don't see what it can do on the military front, even with American weaponry, except delay a conclusion to this conflict for several more years.
2. The other concern about Bandar's removal/resignation is that it signals a moment of change within Saudi Arabia, as King Abdullah is dying and his nearest successor Salman is apparently suffering from dementia, so there is talk of the next King being a 'youthful' 68 year old called Muqrin who is not descended from the Sudairi Seven, the sons born to Ibn Saud's favourite wife who have provided all of Saudi Arabia's kings so far, although Muqrin is one the 45 official sons Ibn Saud did produce...Muqrin might be a moderniser in the context of Saudi Arabia, but his hostility to the Shi'a is well documented, so this is unlikely to lead to a rapprochement with Iran.
3. The success that Putin has achieved in the Crimea, and the pressure he is exerting on the Ukraine to reduce its ties to NATO and the EU, suggests Russia will also not be looking for a diplomatic conclusion to the Syrian conflict just yet. Russia believes its support for the Damascus government is paying off, and that it will strengthen their position as a world power with influence.
Some recent reports (of varying quality)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...s-9265567.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...9e1_story.html
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04...tup-for-syria/
http://www.meforum.org/3683/bandar-b...3A%3A+Writings
OMG, forgot about Syria. Is it still there? News has moved to Ukraine now!
Forgive me, but I'm American (and proud of it). Where's Ukraine now?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-to-intervene/
Sorry for the digression. As you were. Smoke, if you got 'em.
All you need to know, Trish, is that it's those commie bastards again, and you are going to get really tough with them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
I didn't do as well as I thought I might on the capitals of US states and in the one on Middle Eastern states it includes Afghanistan, Uzbekistan etc which are not really in the Middle East.Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm
http://lizardpoint.com/geography/
If you believe what you read in some of the papers, this has been a momentous week in the history of the conflict in Syria. This evening the BBC reported on refugees returning to their homes in Homs, where the conflict began in 2011, following a negotiation between the government, the rebels and the Iranians, whereby the rebel fighters have been allowed to leave Homs, while they in turn have released Iranians they were holding hostage. The Iranians claimed therefore to have 'won' and the apparent retreat of the rebels has been presented as a sign that the Syrian government is winning this 'war'.
But what in fact has the government of Bashar al-Asad actually won? The people the BBC spoke to were returning to Homs not to start again, but to collect their belongings, such as they were, and go somewhere else, preferably out of Syria altogether. And while Homs is a major victory for Asad owing to its strategic location, the government does not rule over Syria, which remains a fractured state. And we may as well say in advance because we know that Asad has won the elections planned for the 3rd of June, not least the landslide vote for him in Homs where the mere idea that an election could take place is an obscenity characteristic of this civil war.
Crucially, this is a victory for Iran, and conforms not just the deep relationship between the government, Iran and its proxy militia in Lebanon, but the fact some of us pointed out in 2003, that regime change in Iraq would be a significant boost to Iran's regional aspirations. Commentary, a journal not noted for its sympathy for Middle Eastern political issues unless they serve the interests of Israel, has made the telling point that the primary negotiator in the Homs deal though Iran's ambassador to Syria, has a background not in the diplomatic corps, but the Revolutionary Guard. While this is a telling point Michael Rubin's attempt to suggest the New York Times did not report on this because "to suggest that under Obama’s watch the IRGC is supervising and confirming the defeat of Syrian rebels" sidesteps the nodal point that without George Bush and Tony Blair, Iran might not have been in a position to crow about its 'diplomatic' achievement.
An intriguing prospect now looms -Iran's Republican Guard has set up shop in Syria, a commander in the Republican Guard set panic buttons off when he stated
"Today we fight in Syria for interests such as the Islamic Revolution…” and “Iran has formed a second Hezbollah in Syria.”
So his comments were immediately removed from the public sphere (some hope!). And yet...the Salafi extremists in the north loathe and detest the Iranians, and vice versa -but who has the firepower to crush the other, if it can be done...enter the Russians. Watch this space.
Articles from Commentary, The Economist and the comment by Hussein Hamedani of the Iranian Republican Guardlinked here -
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/20...mits-on-syria/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomeg.../05/syrias-war
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/view...volvement.html
Solution for Syria..
Get the USA to stay the fuck out of it..
Everyone in the USA needs to hammer this all over the twitter accounts of all the people in office.. I'm talking like 10's of millions of twitter posts..
This is part of the global destabilization campaign of the USA backed Banksters..
They lost the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.. they can't win in Syria or Ukraine either.. When they can't win they destabilize..
I guarantee if you give them more weapons.. those weapons will kill americans one day..
The biggest problem with american sheeple is that they're 99% passive to getting fucked over by their government..
The middle east isn't ruled by democracy.. it never will be.. It takes a powerful man with charisma to unite them under a single banner.. they rule by the gun and so it shall be.. as long as religion divides them this is how it will be..
The american version of democracy is a fucking joke.. There's no normal people in congress.. Just well to do's that have no concept of work or suffering..
Of course they'll just hire Blackwater if they can't send in troops..
As over a year has passed since this thread was live, a re-cap may be in order as there is, possibly, a new chapter opening in the Syrian conflict -again!, and not for the last time.
Syria is or was a country of 23 million, of whom 7.6 million are now classified by the UN as internally displaced people, while 1 in 4 of every refugee in the world today is Syrian, meaning that overall 43% of the population has been displaced by war in one way or another. Three out of four Syrians live in poverty, and the estimates of the numbers killed range from 220,00 (UN figures) to 320,000 (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights).
The government of Syria continues its aerial and land assault on what it calls 'rebel held areas', where something like 11 or more un-coordinated armed rebel groups are fighting the government, funded or supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the USA, not including Daesh or the Nusrah Front.
For its part, the Syrian government continues to rely on support and direct military assistance from Iran in the east, and Hezbollah in Lebanon in the west. It is the claim that though resilient, the Syrian armed forces are stretched and tired that may explain an apparent increase in Russia's commitment to the Asad regime, with the deployment of materiel and personnel (but not yet ground troops) to an air base north-east of Damascus, while Russia maintains its naval base at Tartus on the Mediterranean coast.
The key point of interest in the last month or so is the claim that the USA has lost its leading influence on regional politics and that the Russians are entering this vacated space. The loss of the USA's influence has been noted first in the failure to mend the broken system in Iraq since the departure of President al-Maliki, a failure that has entrenched Daesh in Iraq with no sign of a Sunni-led attack on it; second is the failure to sponsor an armed rebel group in Syria at a cost of $500 million -a project intended to create a force of 5,000 sent an initial group of 54 into the field who were attacked and routed by an affiliate group of al-Qaeda leaving 4-5 as the only fighters left, though at least 200 are still in training. Third has been the alienation of Saudi Arabia from the Obama Presidency which led the Saudis to visit Moscow and which may lie behind what is being seen as a Russian-sponsored attack on Daesh in Syria (see below). Although fighting a proxy war with Iran, Saudi Arabia is furious with the USA for not doing more to attack both Daesh and Asad in Syria at the level it wants, but much of this comes from the aggressive new monarchy of King Salman and in particular his sock it to 'em Crown Prince Mohammed who has been a driving force in their futile war in the Yemen.
Whether or not Obama has 'abandoned' the Middle East is debatable, given the enduring support for Israel and the continuation of drone strikes in Syria and the Yemen. The criticism from outside is in effect levelled at Congress for not authorising more direct action, but it comes from states who do not need, indeed never seek the authorisation from their people to engage in war.
According to Robert Fisk in today's Independent (28th September 2015), Vladimir Putin may be organising a military campaign to oust Daesh from the ancient town of Palmyra, a campaign that is expected anytime between now and the end of 2015. This is seen as militarily 'doable' hence the build-up of materiel in an air base north-east of Damascus, and if successful -and that is a pretty big IF- would demonstrate that Daesh can be beaten by direct action, while the Russians would be in a strong position (they believe) to protect the Asad family through a diplomatic initiative which would support a 'transition' in Syria, but one that would take years during which Asad would remain head of state. Apparently, Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Moscow where he was told of Russian plans so as not to alarm Israel should Russian jets fly into Israeli air space.
The claim that Russia is in the ascendancy and America in retreat has yet to be played out for real. The Russians are making what to me looks like a huge gamble on Palmyra, if that is what is about to happen, given that predictions in the Middle East are always unreliable.
It sets up a dilemma for either Republican or Democrat Presidential candidate in the next 18 moths, as the situation may change, but as the arguments for or against more involvement in Syria rise and fall. I suspect most Americans cannot see an end-game in Syria that would advantage anyone least of all the USA, and are therefore reluctant to get involved, I believe the same is true of opinion in the UK; but for the USA to hold back to some American foreign policy insiders is a dangerous long term position in a region where the USA needs to maintain a presence, and not just in Israel.
Only one thing is certain: the fighting will continue, with no end in sight, for even if the rebels agree to negotiate with the Asad government, and some have indicated a willingness to do so, Daesh is unlikely at the moment to engage in diplomacy, while the prospect of Turkey creating a buffer-zone in Northern Syria remains an option that in itself could lead to a long drawn out conflict with Syrian Kurds. Or to put it another way, Syria is what the Americans call a cluster-fuck, and best of luck with that!
I don't think it's any big secret Obama wants to fight his war in poor black neighborhoods, not the middle east. We should send McCain and his little buddy Lindsey Graham over there with some Jets and a few billion bucks and show ISIS and Putin who calls the shots on this planet.
[QUOTE=buttslinger;1638772]
I don't think it's any big secret Obama wants to fight his war in poor black neighborhoods, not the middle east.
--What? I don't understand this.
We should send McCain and his little buddy Lindsey Graham over there with some Jets and a few billion bucks and show ISIS and Putin who calls the shots on this planet.
-The US Air Force has been bombing targets in Syria for over a year, what does McCain have to do with it?
I read your write up two posts ago Stavros and it does portray a clusterfuck. It almost seems there is no course of action in the Syria that can relieve tensions, quiet hostilities, or get rid of either ISIS or Assad (the latter of which is becoming increasingly difficult because the Russians and Iranians want to prop him up as a bulwark against the former).
As you say, it may not be the case of Obama abandoning the Middle East but rather recognizing the U.S has very little power to quell a civil war that is becoming a regional proxy war, and we should be wary of our expenditures as they do not seem to be moving us in a clear direction.
But not to hold back would mean figuring something out that is constructive. Killing Daesh members with airstrikes seems to have little downside. Trying to oust Assad or to support rebel groups who are trying to do the same now seems like an enormous liability since it would be directly antagonistic to what the Russians and Iranians are now committed to doing. We don't even know what end game we want except for Daesh to be gone, Assad to be gone, and some semblance of organization in the country. But what action by the U.S gets the country anywhere near that outcome?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I don't think it's any big secret Obama wants to fight his war in poor black neighborhoods, not the middle east.
There used to be a saying "No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger"
If you live in a poor black neighborhood you don't want Dick Cheney pouring cash and blood into the sand of Iraq, you want to focus on the problems of this nation first. Build Schools and Hospitals here. Obama's political career started in the poor neighborhoods of Chicago, I really do think he's in this for them. In his Heart.
The US Air Force has been bombing targets in Syria for over a year, what does McCain have to do with it?
You'd have to live over here to know McCain is almost cartoonish when it comes to the Middle East. He wants a military solution to everything. Boots on the ground. Boots up people's asses. McCain's dad was a hot shot general, he grew up a military brat, just like Obama came up as a black man in the United States (kinda)
Hillary comes right from her stint as Secretary of State, and you'll see her take a lot more interest in the Middle East than Obama. If Bush wasn't such a complete imbecile we might have actually WON the second Iraq War. We could have been a stabilizing force. Hillary is much more willing to get in bed with the devil than Obama is. To achieve her goals.
Maybe the Russians will get lost in Afghanistan again. I can't see one good thing than has ever come out of the Middle East for the US, not one thing.
Politics is everything here.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Our air strikes don't seem to have even nearly enough effect...and some of our gaffes, such as the 'red line' fiasco have only made things worse...We're walking a tight rope here...
There's a limit as to what we can do there - it's going to be a nuanced affair...but in that particular area of the globe, I think one of the worst things you can do is to appear weak.
No one likes Putin...but they fear him, and right now, that may be more important than a country that 'says' the right things, but won't help or protect you when you may need them.
Bashar and Vlad are business partners from way back. When there's blood on the streets buy real estate.
Let Turkey and Saudi Arabia kill people for a while.
As long as we are spending all that money on jets and drones, using them for humanitarian reasons sounds good to me, better than letting them rust on the ground, but our middle east plan is getting oil from US Shale.
One way of looking at this cluster is to see which parts can be picked off to reduce the number of parties engaged in the conflict, or at least to stop the fighting. Just last week the Syrian government and rebel groups reached a ceasefire agreement -the 'Zabadani ceasefire' (see the link below)-allowing for a local agreement to stop the fighting and evacuate towns and villages under siege. The location is in Idlib province, the same one attacked yesterday and today by Russian jets, but presumably not in the same places, but illustrating how on the one hand local agreements can become a piecemeal part of a wider peace, yet remain fragile to the point of collapse.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
The US in this context could conceivably join with the Russians (I believe John Kerry is meeting Segei Lavrov today -1st October 2015)- to promote this kind of solution, rather than show just how effective their military can be -or not. In the short to medium term, if this means Asad has to remain President of Syria then this must be part of the deal, as long as there is a longer term programme for a transition to a different political arrangement. In Syria the lack of confidence between the parties is not much different from those years when there was no confidence between the Israelis or the PLO that either side was serious about peace, yet the Peace Treaty did eventually get signed.
But what that also suggests is that there is never a 'final solution' to these conflicts and that the best one can have is a managed peace. Because Daesh is a 'state within a state' it appears to be easy to pick off, but as has been shown with the Taliban in Afghanistan, total defeat may not be possible and in this sense attempting to 'wipe out' Daesh is actually meaningless. I can see the so-called 'Islamic state' collapsing from within as much as without, but the dream of a Caliphate is not going to die anymore than Irish republicans will ever give up their yearning for a United Ireland. The point would be that for all their current hatreds the parties to the conflict in Syria can compromise, as has already been shown, but to reach a point where enough parties to the conflict accept this and agree to meet to negotiate we need external actors like Turkey,Saudi Arabia and Iran to stop pouring fuel on the fire.
It may that the Syrian government believes this 'surge' by the Russian military will finally tilt the balance in favour of more ceasefires from exhausted rebels, and that may be why Syria has (presumably) asked the Russians to attack the rebels first, but it could make the situation worse. For that reason I would rather the US and the Russians talk in practical terms about how to bring these parties to the table, rather than take them to the graveyard.
The Zabadani Ceasefire agreement can be read about here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Z...fire_agreement
...or Russia may in fact, be targeting rebels to leave only Assad and Daesh, so the US will have no choice but to back Assad.
That theory is making some of the media rounds...don't know how true it is.
Fred there is a lot to say about the theory you outlined, with the usual 'But...'. In a post a few days ago I picked up on Robert Fiks's claim the Russians would prove what great guys they are by evicting Daesh from Palmyra some time between now and December, whereas it is now clear their initial campaign is to attack the Syrian rebels, even if this does not rule out strikes on Daesh. An analysis in The Guardian yesterday claims that a key reason for the Russian intervention has been the depletion of the troops the Syrian army can put on the ground. From a force of around 300,00 at the start of the war, the army can now only rely on between 80,000 to 100,000 -
Officials and analysts say Moscow decided to deepen its involvement after the fall of the northern towns of Idlib and nearby Jisr al-Shughour in May served as a “wake-up call” about the parlous state of the Syrian army. Both were taken by the Jaysh al-Fateh (the Victory Army), a coalition of Islamist rebels.
Russia’s move was prompted in part by Assad’s other main ally, Iran, which plays a powerful though discreet role in Syria but is usually reluctant to commit its own forces. “The Iranians told the Russians bluntly: if you don’t intervene, Bashar al-Assad will fall, and we are not in a position to keep propping him up,” said a Damascus-based diplomat.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...n-intervention
Yesterday Sergei Lavrov clarified Russia's perception: "If it looks like a terrorist, if it acts like a terrorist, if it walks like a terrorist, if it fights like a terrorist, it's a terrorist, right?" This for Russia is hugely important because they not only believe that overthrowing dictators causes more problems than it solves, this was also the position of the USSR, while the right of governments to 'suppress' armed opposition using maximum force is taken as the sovereign right of that government, much as Putin trashed Chechnya as one of his first acts when becoming President in 1999 - the suppression of the democracy movement in China in 1984 is another example, Hafez al-Asad's brutal suppression of the insurrection in 1983 another and more pertinent one.
The assumption behind all this is yes, that the Syrian rebels will either be defeated or sue for peace, which as I suggested yesterday has already happened with some groups in Idlib Province. And that if there was a sequence of talks this will lessen the fighting between the Syrians and the rebels and clear the way for the long awaited attack on Daesh, because so far, the Syrian government has more or less left Daesh alone, as David Blair claims in today's Telegraph:
A study conducted by IHS Jane’s, a defence consultancy, found that of 982 operations launched by the regime’s forces in 2014, only 6 per cent targeted Isil. This was the year when Isil overran swathes of eastern Syria, seizing valuable oilfields and their de facto capital, Raqqa. While this was happening, Assad was hurling 94 per cent of his military effort against the other rebel movements. When Isil advanced, they often captured territory not from the regime but from rival insurgents. By using barrel bombs, chlorine gas and strike aircraft against the rebels in Isil’s path, Assad actually helped the terrorists to gain ground.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...thout-end.html
What happens next I don't know. Both Russian bases on the Mediterranean -the naval base at Tartus and the air base at Latakia- have been shored up with ground forces, a battalion each I believe, but it is still a gamble based on the military might of Russia changing the agenda. If it succeeds, it doesn't end the war as Daesh will go down fighting; if it fails, the war will go on.
What to do about Syria? What to do about ......(most places on the map,all kinds of p)
There is no doubt at the moment that the priority for Russian targets are rebels fighting Asad rather than Daesh, as the map of air strikes in October shows (below with link). We do not yet know if the claim by Daesh that it downed the Metrojet plane over Sinai is true, or if there was a bomb on board, or if the plane broke up from other causes, but it does raise the prospect of the Russians having to increase their strikes on Daesh in Syria.
What has interested me in recent weeks is the argument in which those who support the Russian strategy in itself and because it exposes the 'weakness' of President Obama, make the judgement that Daesh is the bigger threat and must be dealt with urgently. The point of interest is that we have been here before at least twice in history, and the record of supporting 'the bad guy' in order to eliminate the 'even worse guy' is not a good one even when the worst is seen off the stage. Consider -
Case 1: USSR
In 1919 in an attempt to derail the Bolshevik Revolution and support the 'White' armies, British, American, Chinese and other troops landed in various parts of Russia to engage the enemy -with no success. Retreating behind an emerging Cold War the deep mistrust of the Bolsheviks hardened with the ascendancy of Stalin and the USSR's interventions in the Spanish Civil War, but reached a nadir with the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939. But when the Germans invaded Russia in 1941, the West found itself in a situation where it was able to -indeed felt it had to- form an alliance with the USSR because Nazi Germany was the greater threat to Europe. As a consequence political economic and military support flowed in to the USSR on land and by sea and played a role in the eventual defeat of Germany.
What happened next was that Stalin used his new found status as the free world's buddy, and used it to carve up Europe giving the USSR control over most of central and eastern Europe. In the years between 1945 and Stalin's death in 1953 there was a renewal of the purges that had taken place in the 1930s, even more people were summarily executed or sent to the Gulag Archipelago, while in the areas under Soviet control every uprising against it was met with brute force -Berlin in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland in 1980.
Case 2: Iraq
The career of Saddam Hussein -who was destined for a life in crime until he realised politics paid better- took off when the Ba'ath Party mounted a successful coup in 1968, aided by the CIA whose primary concern at the time was to see off the Iraqi Communist Party. They supplied many of the names on the list which was given to the B'ath party's security service who used it to deal with the Commies in the only way they knew how (imprisonment, torture, death), a steep learning curve for Saddam which also gave him an entry into the higher reaches of the Ba'ath Party's security apparatus from which he launched his leadership campaign which saw him get top job in 1979. A year later, urged on by the USA, Iraq invaded Iran in order to derail the Islamic Revolution and however bad Iraq was in this war, and it was bad enough to use chemicals weapons to attack both Kurdish rebels in the north, and Iranian forces (many of whom were under the age of 16) in the south, Iran was considered the greater threat.
What happened after the Iran-Iraq War was that Saddam Hussein, who had bankrupted his country -indeed, both Iran and Iraq spent more money fighting the war than the entire revenue they had acquired from oil- used his alliance with the USA to invade Kuwait, according to some account with the approval, or more precisely without an explicit objection, on the part of April Glaspie who was the USA's ambassador to Iraq at the time. The consequence for Iraq was not just a devastating war following hard upon a devastating war, but a sanctions regime and the beginnings of the dismemberment of the state that has worsened ever since.
But here is the key point, summed up by Henry Kissinger earlier this year:
“The destruction of ISIS is more urgent than the overthrow of Bashar Assad, who has already lost over half of the area he once controlled. Making sure that this territory does not become a permanent terrorist haven must have precedence."
But what happens if, for the sake of argument, Asad is backed because Daesh is the greater enemy and is destroyed in Syria. Would this not embolden the Asad regime to see off its remaining rebels? And what about Lebanon? Syrians like Asad have never accepted the separation of Lebanon from Syria and see it as part of Syria, as is also true of the old Sanjak of Alexandretta which was annexed illegally by Turkey in 1938 and is these days called 'Hatay'.
Asad may be better than Daesh, but neither he nor the clique around him who own Syria are trustworthy and none can be trusted 'after the war' to do anything other than anything that will give them power and riches -and if as is likely Syria continues to decline, Lebanon would be considered 'fair compensation' for its losses.
Maybe in the light of history, Obama's caution is the wisest position to take. Strengthening the position of a mass murderer has been tried before, and in the long term was just as bad, if not a worse, option.
Link to Kissinger's remark is below the map.
Attachment 890355
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a6684631.html
http://www.newsweek.com/kissinger-ri...388902?ref=yfp
I think you could say that outside interference into Middle Eastern Politics has just compounded a age old problem into a present mega-problem. In the 20th century Europe drew the map for the middle east and didn't do a very good job. Then it helped put Israel in the middle of it. In many ways the middle east is more about tribes than countries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K_jDX2WtiA
If your family has lived in Idaho from the very beginning, that's probably 7 or 8 generations. Before Jefferson sent Lewis and Clarke out there, the civilized world didn't even know Idaho was there!
The Cradle of Civilization.....the Garden of Eden.......is between the Tigris and Euphrates, before that, there was no civilization. All those begats and begats in the Old Testament Bible go back to this area, the Middle East.
So I really doubt that any real American gets what is going on over there, it would be impossible.
On the other hand, I'd bet the CIA has as good a guess as anyone on what is "going on" in Syria, and based on that Obama decided to LET IT BURN.
Practically every leader over there is a bully or tyrant, that's no accident, you have to be a Political Strongman to keep all your individual tribes in order. Paul Ryan would not last 5 minutes over there.
Probably the most despicable recent example is Idaho's favorite son, Dick $heney, who sent our National Guardsmen over to Iraq for four tours to protect his Haliburton goals. Haliburton won that war.
I think one Reason Obama is sending guys into Syria now is because of what happened on that Isis rescue mission: our ADVISORS couldn't just stand there when bullets started flying, the "boots on the ground" guys (I hate that phrase) they are sending in are not 19 year old National Guard weekend warriors....these guys are special forces Seals and Rangers who are born killers and really are the best trained troops that have ever existed. Isis be punks.
I also think Obama didn't want Hillary to be the one tagged as putting BOOTS ON THE GROUND in Syria. Where Obama represents the Dove side of the Democratic party, Clinton leans Hawkish. So Obama sees the writing on the wall and is doing Hillary a SOLID by doing some groundwork for the inevitable future.
But this still leaves questions on what would happen if Bashir was nixed. Every realistic replacement would not be a friend to the U. S. or Israel. All you can really do is remind Russia and Iran that we have a long arm and will use it if necessary.
And I have a feeling Hillary Clinton is going to be a lot more hands on when it comes to flexing America's Power. Hillary is going to be a lot more Shakespearean than... maybe any President, uh-oh.
bomb them all into submission.
What has four years of bombing achieved so far? And what do you when 'they' submit?Quote:
Originally Posted by daltx_m