Why the West is Standing by Amid Russia’s Campaign in Syria
Why the West is Standing by Amid Russia's Campaign in Syria by Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor
… The West’s inaction in the face of the recent Russian onslaught in Syria – which is in support of the army of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – has several explanations, regional experts say. Those range from a desire to keep Moscow on board the sputtering Syria peace process to the emphasis by the United States and France, since the Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks, on the effort to degrade the so-called Islamic State.
But the key reason appears to be that no one in the West has the appetite to confront Russia as it pursues its interests in the Middle East.
“Russia has very clear intentions and is using military means to accomplish them,” says Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. “At the same time our aims are not so clear, and we are using soft means to try to accomplish those unclear goals.”…
As someone who has followed the CSM political analysis work on just about any topic since the 70s they are always close to the truth.
This is the core part of this article and it goes to the heart of the overall Obama and Kerry failures in confronting Putin who is forcing himself back into superpower status and who wants a “new Yalta” largely supported by the failures of Obama and Kerry to confront him on just about anything…especially the Russian breaking of the INF.
If one looks at the Obama mantra first in eastern Ukraine and now in Syria it is eerily the same thing…
“the conflict cannot be militarily won and it has to have a political solution”
ALL the while Putin and his MoD are actively and actually pushing a “military solution”…
We see that with the TOW arguments in Ukraine where Obama and Kerry basically declared them “an offensive weapon which turned the truth upside-down and they often stated…..if we supply them then Putin will escalate”…..AND Putin escalated at every twist and turn and the US did what nothing except demand the Ukraine accept the political points in Minsk 2 without the Russians even fulfilling reciprocally even the simple point of POW exchanges.
In Syria we see the exact same Obama and Kerry argument for the last four years…..”there is no military solution it has to have a political solution”…AND who places the entire game on a military win…Putin AND what does Obama and Kerry do…..cut off the flow fo weapons to the anit Assad forces and virtually demands they surrender in Geneva in order to get a “ceasefire”.
BTW the same “ceasefire” in eastern Ukraine has never been fulfilled by Russia so why would they honor one in Syria???
Never answered by the WH when that question is placed to them…BUT WAIT US MSM never asks that question does it?
QUOTE:
“Russia has very clear intentions and is using military means to accomplish them,” says Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. “At the same time our aims are not so clear, and we are using soft means to try to accomplish those unclear goals.”
The Obama administration has been caught off guard by the ferocity of Russia’s recent escalation in Syria, some say. But that surprise, they add, has only reinforced a determination not to end up in a conflict with Russia in a region that the US, under President Obama, is trying to play down.
“The administration does not like what the Russians are doing, but they’ve been set off balance by this recent escalation and they don’t seem to feel there is anything they can do about it,” says Andrew Tabler, a Syria specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Given Mr. Obama’s desire to stay out of Middle East crises as much as possible, he adds, “The US is not about to do anything that would involve going up against Russia and risk a confrontation in Syria.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin “has a plan” for rescuing Mr. Assad and reinvigorating Russia’s role in the Middle East, Mr. Tabler says, “and I don’t think they [the administration] care enough to do something about it.”
Given that the change-over — from a “strongman” Greater Middle East to a more-democratic/capitalist Greater Middle East — appears to have been undertaken much too early,
There apparently being:
a. Far too few individuals who are (1) interested in joining together under the democratic-capitalist banner and (2) being willing to fight and die to achieve same. And
b. Far too many individuals still having other, more-provencial/parochial agenda. (And, in sharp contrast to “a” immediately above, being willing to “go the distance” to achieve such goals),
Then does the move by Russia — to reinstate/shore-up “strongmen” — not make good sound strategic sense?
This, until such time as:
a. There IS, in the Greater ME and elsewhere, a sufficient ground-swell of desire for a more-cosmopolitan democratic-capitalist way of life and way of government? And until such time as:
b. There ARE sufficient numbers of individuals willing to fight and die to achieve these objectives?
Bottom Line:
We pulled the “liberation” trigger much too early in the Greater ME; this, based on such invalid concepts as western “universal values.”
Now we have to go back to “square one” (strongmen) — (if, indeed, we can) — this, as Putin (acting knowingly or inadvertently in our and the world’s behalf?) is now attempting to do.
This explaining why the U.S. is “standing by amid Russia’s campaign in Syria?”
(Putin, thus, giving us “political cover” and achieving objectives which, given the circumstances outlined above, we [1] totally agree with but which, for obvious reasons, we [2] cannot undertake ourselves?)
The unanswered – and seemingly unasked – question:
Why would the US want to confront Russia in Syria? What would the US have to gain from it? Is it rational or desirable to stage a confrontation in a theater where you have no compelling interests at stake and no clear or achievable policy goals?
This seems a relic of the cold war mentality… an assumption that everything Russia does must be “countered” by an equal and opposite (or greater and opposite) reaction. The wisdom of such a reactionary policy has to be questioned.
I have stated here that Kerry and Obama are over their heads…and warned the Turks and Saudi’s were not bluffing…..they were not…
Turkey’s answer is now being received in Syria and Russia has not said a thing yet via their massive propaganda….
After Russia’s power show & massive air campaign on rural #Aleppo today, Turkish artillery pounding Russia’s new allies & drawing red lines.
Pro-AKP “Yeni Şafak” reports “howitzers and heavy weapons” are used “to stop terrorists with Russian support from encircling Azaz”.
Breaking
Pro-Turkish government media reports, Turkish artillery also hits “YPG-held #Sijaraz, 500 m from #Azaz”.
Türkish artillery hitting YPG controlled areas of Azez, Maarnaz, Sicaraz, Minag, Malikiye, Keştear
http://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/tur…z-town-2411302 …
This is exactly why Obama is standing on the sidelines…..
What the heck is this…….for four years Obama states Assad must go…THEN he caves along with Kerry in order to agree with Assad and Putin THAT he can stay until mid 2017 at least and participate in elections….THEN Kerry states there can be no preconditions ie those stated in UNSC resolution 2254…….
NOW after massive Russia air strikes and a major ground offensive using transnational shia jihadi’s……THEN after Munich 1938 we get the Obama Kerry shift backwards for four years……….
John Kerry to Orient News: No peace in #Syria with Assad there
http://youtu.be/bqDsFuFPs5Q
This is exactly why there is total confusion on exactly where does the US stand on just about anything when it comes to Putin…..
Russia’s non linear strategy failed in the Ukraine, so Russia resorted to tried and true use of conventional force threats with its flash exercises and threats to use tactical nukes in Europe.
Their actions in Syria are related to the larger strategy, and it is no surprise that hard power trumps soft power in the Middle East. Hopefully not a surprise to our foreign policy winks. Russia probably didn’t forsee the impact of the refugee crisis on Europe, but now that they do it makes sense for them to expliot it to weaken Europe. It also gives Russia a larger voice in the international order because they have to be part of the solution. Without risking all out war with Russia, what should our next move be?
Duplicate…
This just how confused the Obama WH is right now this evening in Aleppo and Azaz…..
Turkey (NATO member) is bombing YPG (backed by US, Russian CAS, which is fighting along side Hezbollah against FSA) & SDF (backed by US also fighting against FSA), for attacking FSA (backed by US, Turkey & Saudi and who is fighting against Assad and IS).
NOW US asks Turkey to quit shelling YPG who is attacking FSA and closing off the Aleppo corridor together with Hezbollah…..AFTER Turkey tells the US to make a choice…Turkey or YPG…..
Russia is bombing IS only 12% of air their strikes the rest 88% hit FSA and YPG has largely in their move to Aleppo refrained from attacking IS and the transnational shia jihadi’s are attacking FSA and forgetting IS…….and YPG is fighting together now with Hezbollah and Russian CAS…..and Assad/Russia are actively working with IS.
AND the only one fighting IS is FSA and JaN (AQ).
Make sense to anyone…???
It should…it is the Obama successful Syrian strategy gone completely astray….
If you had read the Obama last National Strategic Strategy document released late 2015 you would have found a section on just how critical it is to US FP to eliminate issues like genocide as it “directly impacts the security of the US”…but hey you missed it.
Secondly you still owe me a definition of what exactly “a moderate Syrian rebel fighter looks like and acts like”….you cannot and that was the intention of the Obama WH in starting this debate…go back and review who actually started that discussion…Kerry…….as long as there is a “debate of sorts”….Obama needs to do nothing…as he argues then and now “we do not know who to talk to”…..
Well he knew enough to support YPG…did he not….?
AND he knew enough to ignore the Turkish threat…choose NATO or YPG..and he/Kerry assumed it was a bluff….oh how wrong was that decision…..
AND there is no intertwining of eastern Ukraine and Syria in the current Russian non linear war against the US…..?
Russia-backed separatists in DNR in talks to host Syrian Kurdish embassy in Donetsk http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2016/02/12_a_8071685.shtml …
This is now the near perfect storm that the Obama WH has created themselves by never really wanting to create a long term US strategic vison for their FP in both the ME and Europe…….that even considers the use of force if necessary to accomplish their “soft power goals”….
US DoS statement yesterday
We have urged Syrian Kurdish & other forces affiliated with YPG not to take advantage of a confused situation by seizing new territory.
Hassan Hassan
@hxhassan
By visiting YPG commanders as they were advancing west of the Euphrates despite a previous US-Turkish understanding
The PYD & its armed wing the YPG, is in all respects possible, an integral component of the PKK and KCK.
Naive to claim anything else.
Exactly why the Turks told the US…..make a choice Turkey and NATO or the PKK……
Russia-backed separatists in DNR in talks to host Syrian Kurdish embassy in Donetsk
http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2016/0…_8071685.shtml …
After opening their main office in Moscow….this week…
Steimeier questions Iraqi #Kurds about the use of weapons supplied by #Germany,warns them agnst indep. referendum https://twitter.com/dw_ukrainian/sta…60803550420992 …
الخالدي @khalidi_4_sham
Breaking: what appears like Drones coming from Turkish airspace entered reef Aleppo presumably to find YPG targets 4 artillery
الخالدي @khalidi_4_sham
Breaking: Turkey has reportedly carried out its first airstrike targeting reef North Aleppo YPG
This is another example of what happens “when the West ie the US” decides to “sit it out” in their own declared war on terrorism……notice a deep discussion of this development is being seen nowhere in US MSM…..
http://gu.com/p/4gknj/stw
Isis has been thwarted militarily. But now it could seize chance to advance
Hassan Hassan
Sunday 14 February 2016 00.05 GMT
In January 2014 newly organised rebel factions in northern Syria declared war on Islamic State (Isis), and this culminated in the expulsion of the group from all of the city of Idlib and most of Aleppo. Rebel forces in Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor and Hasaka similarly rose up to root out the increasingly overbearing foreign organisation.
The anti-Isis offensive reportedly cost the rebels about 7,000 fighters. The group’s presence in Syria was seriously threatened, receding to Raqqa and pockets in Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor and Hasaka, until the summer of that year, when Isis swiftly took over Deir ez-Zor and consolidated its presence in eastern Aleppo, southern Hasaka and Raqqa. It was helped by momentum and the advanced weapons it seized after it took over Mosul in mid-June and the Iraqi army there collapsed.
But the advancing hordes of Isis still failed to reclaim control in Idlib or the rest of Aleppo. That remains true today. Local rebel factions have resisted the group’s incessant attempts to return. The rebels’ resilience in those areas is remarkable, especially considering Isis’s control of al-Bab and Manbij west of Aleppo, two significant strongholds for, respectively, Isis’s economic activities and its manpower.
But what Isis failed to achieve with advanced weapons and momentum could be achieved with the changing military landscape in Aleppo and northern Syria at large. Isis and other extremists may benefit from the weakening of local forces – the ones that proved effective in repelling Isis’s attacks and infiltration of these areas – and become more dominant. This risk is particularly real if the Assad regime’s campaign disrupts the rebels’ hold without providing enough forces to effectively defend and police those areas. Almost all the regime’s ground advances in Aleppo were spearheaded by government-aligned foreign Shia militias. Those included the breaking of the sieges around the Kweiris airbase in November and around the towns of Nubbol and Zahraa on 3 February. In November, for example, Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Sulaimani appeared in southern Aleppo, celebrating with a crowd who raised the flag of Iraq’s Harakat Hizbollah al-Nujaba paramilitaries.
Elsewhere the regime relies on army units or local militias, organised under the National Defence Forces, to take and then hold territory. But these local militias are effective in their own areas, not in opposition strongholds. The danger is that foreign militias could defeat rebel forces – with the crucial help of Russian airstrikes –without necessarily having the local support or experience to hold territory, which will inevitably create an opening for Isis forces that have already been attempting to control those areas. The regime’s reliance on foreign militias suggests it does not have enough manpower to fight for it everywhere. More importantly, the growing public appearance of foreign sectarian militias on the frontlines of predominantly Sunni Aleppo is a gift for sectarian forces from the other side. Shia operatives have recently released videos using clearly sectarian language: one Shia cleric is shown shouting anti-Sunni slogans from a Sunni mosque pulpit in Aleppo. This is new in Aleppo, and has increased since November.
What makes such sentiments potentially more consequential is that Jabhat al-Nusra, too, has a strategy to increase its grip in Aleppo at the expense of other forces. Such attempts have taken tensions with local factions, sometimes including its ally, Ahrar al-Sham, to boiling point since October. After the regime broke the siege of Nubbol and Zahraa, a massive Jabhat al-Nusra convoy of around 100 vehicles moved inside Aleppo last week, as did one of its factions in Deraa in December and another from Azaz in August.
The continuing relentless airstrikes by Russia, the majority of which target opponents of Isis, as western officials have frequently said, is finally putting President Assad’s regime back on the offensive. While the campaign is unlikely to help the regime take back all of Aleppo in the foreseeable future, it will certainly shake up dynamics in this strategic city and adjacent areas. And extremists appear better prepared to steer these changes in their favour.
Another side effect of “standing by”…”namely unintended consequences”….
al Baghdadi has got to be counting his great luck right now……after his not getting constantly bombed by Assad and Putin……..
He must be very confused watching reports of anti-IS forces shelling anti-IS forces after anti-IS forces advanced against anti-IS forces with the US and Russia CAS supporting those anti-Is forces…..attacking anti-IS forces…….make sense to anyone other than myself????
When Russia and the US are finally finished IS will be the strongest anti-IS force in Syria and the ME.
Now that is truly “power politics”…..
NATO ordered #Russia to dismantle it’s s400 missiles in #Syria FEB 14
VIDEO: Egyptian soldiers arriving at King Saud Air base to participate in Northern Storm – @FaisalbinFarhan
BREAKING: Turkish PM tells Germany’s Merkel: #Turkey will continue to respond to Kurdish militia attacks in #Syria – @AlArabiya_Eng
ISRAEL: Russia has allegedly given #Hezbollah advanced radar systems capable of locking onto Israeli aircraft.
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel…i-fighter-jets …
Breaking
“We will help Syria w/all our strength, if the Syrian government invites us to do that.”
– #Iran’s #AirForce chief Farzad Esmaeili
We are seriously inching ever closer to a full scale regional war both Russia and especially Iran wants as payback for the 80-88 war….
Both Obama and Kerry not have a clue how on to stop it….as it would now require force he does not want to ever use…….
Today the Turks made a formal open and public news media statement aimed squarely at Obama…”either lead, follow or simply get out of the way” as the point of no return has long been reached with US lack of actions and the actions being conducted by Russia and Iran…..
Looks like Obama is simply “standing by” as now one of the strongest NATO militaries is engaging into Syria to defend their perceived national security interests….and from the WH silence……
BREAKING Turkish PM Davutoğlu speaks en route to Ukraine, says “Turkey will not allow Azaz fall”
Turkey non stop artillery shelling now on #YPG positions in northern #Aleppo #Syria
CNN Trk ENG @CNNTURK_ENG
#BREAKING Turkish PM says if #YPG does not withdraw from Menagh base, it will be rendered unusable
Turkish speak for they will simply bomb it/or shell it and challenge the RuAF to stop them…..as they appear to not be worried in the least by the Russian stationed S400s.
SO Dayuahn……”genocide” and or Russian “war crime” per international war…both…..
Breaking news: At least 14 dead as missiles hit hospital and school sheltering refugees in Azaz, Syria, medics and residents say
Our special needs center for children in Tel Rifaat, Aleppo struck by cluster-bombs. The town and center is empty.
The videos coming out of this attack are to brutal and way to graphic to link to….and in the years of seeing these videos they reach levels I have not seen before…the use of cluster munitions on unarmed and clearly identified civilians breaks just about every Law of Land Warfare paragraph, totally violates the international humanitarian law, the Geneva Convention on Humanitarian law, and totally violates the UNSC resolution 2254 signed even by Russian and the so called basis for Geneva……
AND Obama yesterday “approved” the continuing use of Russian air strikes per Russian news media in his Puti phone call.
So a provocative question…is Obama just as complicit as Putin is for these civilian deaths as he knowingly refuses to push back on Putin and knew the air strikes would continue????
Russian air strikes on ……
Update
Children’s Hospital #Aazaz
MSF Hospital #Maarat_alNouman
School #Aourom_alKubra
School #alKajibrin
School #Kafr_Dael
#Syria FEB15
Yes Obama is “standing by”…..
Currently predictable but true….another reason why Obama “is standing by” BUT the Russians are saying that in his call to Putin yesterday he ‘agreed” to allow further Russian air strikes….
John Schindler @20committee
I notice the people who hyperventilate about every single US drone strike are pretty quiet as Russians keep bombing hospitals killing women and children.
From one of the best social media open source analysts on the net these days…..
Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins
Playlist of 12 videos from the MSF hospital bombing, including two added in the last few minutes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPC0Udeof3T7Tq9EXLp4zhbqlzd–tqG5 …
Dayuhan…hope you are watching this so called “non genocide”….
Since we can all agree that Obama is largely “standing by” in Syria…..the next provocative question….that spins out of Obama’s “standing by” agenda…..or lack of an “agenda”….
WHO is the biggest terrorist in Syria right now?….Assad, Putin or Islamic State as based on the sheer destruction to Syrian towns, villages, critical civilians infrastructure, schools, mosques, hospitals and food supplies
AND secondly based on the sheer number of civilians being killed.
Assad first and racing to catch up…Putin…..
“It sure ain’t the Islamic State” by any means…..
AND which of the three named above poses the most existential threat to the US…meaning the ability to both threaten the US and carry put that threat with a certain level of creditability in their ability to carry out that threat….and has a nuclear capacity to do it….
Russia…end of story on the Obama “standing by”…
BTW..a direct result of that so called “standing by agenda”….
Unusual seeing US govt calling on a fellow NATO member to cease attacks on an armed group it itself has designated a terrorist organization.
That is why the Turkish call to the US of …”lead…follow or simply get out of the way” .or the day before…of “fish or cut bait”….rings so true.
Amazing to watch a regional power basically telling a superpower you have no longer a say in what is ongoing in my region.
Russia DepFM Gatilov: Assad could have prevented the escalation if he had taken democratic reforms in time
https://www.rt.com/news/332477-assad…gc9Jh8.twitter …
BUYERS remorse……????
As we debate or not debate whether Obama is in “standing by mode”…after the massive Russian air strikes against schools, hospitals and civilians today and not a single word out of this WH..I have come to another take on the article…
He is not “standing by” WHY because Obama really does not care thus is not even involved in any decision making and is simply allowing this war to run it’s course….quite simple actually…taking no action is at least “a strategy of sorts”……a bad one but one could at least call it a “strategy…..he is simply going through the motions to make it another 12 months so that his legacy is…..”he got into no wars”
Turkey has clearly, concisely and often in the last two days declared their “red line” to be Azaz and if there is to be a true regional war…Turkey has thrown down the glove over Azaz…..seriously do not think both Russia and the US believe them…..but it is about to be tested…….they are so wrong right now and the next 72 hours is going to become both interesting and down right dangerous for the ME and a disaster for the US FP in the ME..BUT WAIT we do not have a FP in the ME…..
Things are about to go ballistic in a very short timeframe….
Faylaq al Sham group is on the vetted TOW approved list and is fighting in Tal Rifaat against the SDF, main recipient of US support in Syria
The CIA & CENTCOM have each empowered armed groups that directly oppose the other’s reasons for being on the ground. = Sheer hubris.
It really cannot be said enough how catastrophic the policy disconnect between (1) CIA (2) CENTCOM & (3) Obama Admin has been on Syria.
Totally bizarre seeing U.S vetted & supported Jabhat al-Shamiya & Faylaq al-Sham being attacked by U.S vetted & supported SDF in N. Aleppo.
Dayuhan…care to comment?
Does the US really think anyone is listening to them?….this is exactly what happens when “you are just standing by”.
US urges #Russia, #Turkey to avoid ‘escalation’ over #Syria: State Dept @AFP
http://news.yahoo.com/us-urges-russi…ons&soc_trk=tw …
The Turks told the US to choose and they did …the YPG/SDF and Russia does not even believe Obama will do anything anyway…..
Dayuhan….this goes to exactly what I have been repeating over and over for you….the so called use of “soft power” can really only be successful if it is backed up by “hard power”…hard power can take many different sizes and shapes BTW.
Obama/Kerry’s Iran Deal while using “soft power” was only facilitated in the end with the crashing Iranian economy “brought on by a strong and growing even stronger set of economic/political sanctions” ie a form of “hardpower”.
Back when the Crimea was militarily annexed by Putin and the West “talked” (and then passed really a set of weak sanctions) about sanctions I wrote here the following “turn off SWIFT”…BTW “SWIFT” is the ultimate economic nuclear threat.
This SWJ banner is interesting in that Nixon as much as he is seen badly in history was one of the last US Presidents who fully and completely understand the use of a “threat” and proved a number of times he was willing to use the “threat”…ask the NVA….
QUOTE:
”I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe that I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war.”
–Richard Nixon
You ask all the time… what to do…had Obama and Kerry had this same sort of political beliefs on the use of force as Nixon did Obama both during the Minsk 2 and now the Geneva meetings ALL of which are basic failures…he could have seriously raised the “SWIFT” stick and actually turned it off if the US had not gotten the agreements they saw fit for the Ukrainian and Syrian issues….
The Europeans actually did bring it up…OMG you missed the rapid run for cover by the Obama WH response….”we are not in the least thinking about it”….THEN Obama/Kerry ever so quietly and unknown to the EU supported the Russian application to place two Russians on the SWIFT board of governors making it nearly impossible in the future to turn it off….I know you did not know that….
HERE is another perfect mess created by a non strategic thinking Obama and Kerry.
I posted here that all three…President, CIA and CENTCOM ALL supported that grand idea of using Kurds to fight IS ie the YPG and a sub Arab force called the SDF to give the YPG the appearance of being a Kurdish Arab coalition…..
NOW that same very YGP is literally out of control and the US will not admit it and is provoking a war with Turkey WHICH Russia definitely wants as part of the “non linear war” with NATO/US.
If you had been following me on the Syrian thread you would have seen that the Shia militias have basically pulled back from Aleppo and the advance is now being carried strictly by YPG with extensive Russian CAS and Assad artillery strikes.
This is exactly what happens when you lose full control over your proxy.
So again Obama was actively participating in Syria..he just picked the wrong race horse.
Which kind of negates your thesis we have/had no business being in Syria.
By the way it is a complete mystery to me just HOW the CIA did not see the closeness of Russia and the YPG developing …it did not occur simply overnight.
BUT I digress….NOW the YPG is releasing info warfare propaganda to support the fact that it is Turkey who is responsible for the current mess in Aleppo…NOT them but it is them who are attacking the FSA.
Remarkable pro-#YPG propaganda.
Footage from #Idlib, claimed to be #Aleppo, blames #Turkey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au_hsI2ri6g …
AND absolutely no major pushback on the former US out of control proxy YPG…
BTW the explosions seen in the video ARE from deliberate Russian air strikes on a MSF NGO hospital killing over 50 including a high number of children and women…
Summed up…..referencing Geneva and in the end Syria….
“Veiled references to “Plan B” notwithstanding, John Kerry’s strategy rests on words. He has no leverage. He knows it. So does Vladimir Putin.”
Awaiting your comment…because reality is still showing you and me…Obama is “still standing by” the tenor of the article….
This might be a provocative comment for some but really think about it…. as of this morning in Europe the so called “outrage over the bombing of hospitals” is rather nill by NATO or any of the European leaders AND certainly nothing has come out of DC on what is basically a “war crime” par excellence…
We live in a time when state militaries bombing hospitals is a new norm, & NATO & EU member states are on board.
When it comes to Russian combat operations(over 70 odd attacks a day on the UAF)either in eastern Ukraine and or in the sheer killing of civilians and the use of starvation in Syria….. NATO/US is strangely silent…
ANYONE ever notice the UNSC hypocrisy…their UNHCR has been in virtually in bed with Assad and altered their reports to cast a favorable light on the so called sieges of Sunni towns and villages, and their aid is being supplied to the SAA instead of the IDPs and other civilians in need of the aid…NOW this….
Turkey asked UN to stop Russia attacks on hospitals.
UN ignored.
Russia asked UN to stop Turkey attack on YPG militants.
UN meeting today.
The UN is “standing by” as well as Obama actually when you think about after three passed UNSC resolutions all signed by Putin calling for the stopping of bombing of civilians and for humanitarian aid to roll.
HAS any UNSC member ie the US called out the Russian killing of civilians and called for a special UNSC meeting to discuss it…not a single one..
BUT WAIT…Turkish shellings not killing civilians but the YPG and there is an immediate call….
The drumbeats of a major sectarian war in Syria is being evidently missed by the Obama and Kerry “standing by”…..
As I indicated before about 72 hours is just about all the time that is left before Turkey makes a move into Syria…..probably using the Putin excuse of “their all vacationers and retirees, truck drivers and or miners AND oh by the way they “borrowed their tanks for the vacation”.
Turkey’s motto…we are saving our fellow Sunni’s from being slaughtered by a genocidal dictator and a Russia who is not Arab or Sunni and whose own ROC has declared “a Holy War” on the Sunni.
With the horrific air strikes being provided daily especially those from yesterday by Putin THAT reason will hold water tightly in the UNSC…..as there are three UNSC resolutions that Putin signed that he is blatantly ignoring.
Turkey is setting the stage for pulling the NATO Article 5 trigger which they actually can as they announced …”their national security is being threatened by Assad and Putin”….and there is nothing the US can do…..Obama will have a choice…fish or cut bait on whether he has ever fully supported NATO…or go down in history as a do nothing president when the ME and Europe unraveled.
[B]#Breaking: #Syria situation now is a direct threat to our national security: Turkish PM[/B]
THIS after the open warning directed at Obama recently by the Saudi’s…”our national security is more important than world peace”….
Dayuhan…another writer who is well known in the ME and knows this Syrian fighting far better than I do is saying almost the same thing I am…
Whether you will ever see it….Obama has basically abandoned the former regional allies of the US and he is in fact “standing by” “just to protect his own legacy” and that my friend makes for poor foreign policy.
Dayuhan read the article below AND then let’s debate it…you can argue the fact that staying out has been the greatest thing for US ME FP since sliced bread because we have no strategic interests in the ME which is what you state over and over and I will argue the US has for all intents and purposes basically abandoned the ME and to some degree Europe as well.
AND I will additionally argue that the Syrian refugee crisis is causing the inherent unravelling of the EU and the US is “standing by” and allowing that to occur as well.
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/americas-policies-are-failing-its-regional-allies
America’s policies are failing its regional allies
Hassan Hassan
February 14, 2016 Updated: February 15, 2016 04:09 PM
Last week, there were reported hints that Saudi Arabia, under certain circumstances, could send troops to Syria to fight against ISIL. The suggestion follows months of calls by western officials for Sunni Arab countries to deploy forces to fight the extremist group.
In November, for instance, US secretary of defence Ashton Carter told The Atlantic about advice he had fiven to the Gulf states that they should be involved on the ground, rather than from the air: “I’ve said the same things to them: ‘Guys, you come and complain to us but you’re not in the game. You have to get in the game’.”
But on Wednesday last week, Mr Carter did not seem so keen on the idea. He said: “I just want to emphasise there are lots of different ways that Saudi Arabia and Bahrain can contribute. One of them is on the ground – and we’ll definitely be discussing that – but there are lots of other ways as well.”
The United States sees any talk of Saudi Arabia sending in ground troops as an attempt to force its own hands in Syria.
According to The Wall Street Journal, US officials have complained that suggestions of Gulf states sending troops to Syria were aimed at pressuring president Barack Obama to be more assertive in Syria.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have announced closer military coordination, through the southern Incirlik airbase and a wider Saudi-Turkish strategic coordination council to combat ISIL. But Turkey is also worried about the expansion of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The Turkish military has shelled Syrian regime and YPG bases in Azaz, a town in northern Aleppo province that is seen as the centre of gravity for almost all parties involved the conflict.
ISIL sees Azaz as a gateway to the return of areas it lost in early 2014. The YPG considers Azaz fundamental to its expansionist project to link its cantons in northern Syria, while Turkey has frequently made it clear that it would not tolerate such moves.
The Syrian regime and Russia view Azaz and adjacent areas as central to their strategy of severing rebel supply lines to Turkey. And the United States has called on Turkey to de-escalate hostilities against the YPG, which has proved an effective ally for the US against ISIL.
So, a messy situation is only becoming messier. But Washington bears most of the blame for the uncomfortable situation in which it now finds itself.
In July, disagreements between Ankara and Washington reached a high point when the former wanted to establish an “ISIL-free zone” that would run from Azaz to Jarablus, clearly to disrupt the YPG’s moves.
The US finally resolved the issue by securing a promise from YPG commanders, and their political umbrella Democratic Union Party, not to advance west of the Euphrates river. Turkey scrapped its plan, and allowed the US-led coalition to use the Incirlik airbase to fight ISIL.
Four months later, in late November, the YPG violated its promise and tried to advance in northern Aleppo amid rumours that it was coordinating with the Russians in Syria. The US did not pressure the YPG to keep its side of the bargain and focus on ISIL in northeastern Syria. Worse, the special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter ISIL, Brett McGurk, visited YPG commanders, who have direct links to the Turkish PKK, a group designated as a terrorist organisation by both the US and Turkey.
On Saturday, Mr McGurk tweeted that the administration “urged Syrian Kurdish and other forces affiliated with YPG not to take advantage of a confused situation by seizing new territory”, while also urging Turkey to cease artillery fire on Kurdish positions in Azaz.
The US knows that Turkey views the YPG in the same light as it does ISIL. Both of them are a national security threat, but the YPG’s self-rule project near Turkey’s southern borders presents a more pressing threat for Ankara, partly because the Kurds’ nationalist project could be a more sustainable effort internationally and morally.
The point it that the current crisis is connected to America’s inconsistent policies regarding Syria. Tactical gains, such as working with the YPG to expel ISIL from some areas – gains that project an appearance of progress and success – have become preferable to a wider strategy with long-term returns. Eventually, this has led to a worsening situation for America’s regional allies.
The same mistake is being made with the pursuit of progress, any progress, on the botched peace process, while neglecting the deteriorating situation on the ground.
For regional countries, there is a lesson to be learnt from acquiescing to half-baked US plans or fragile promises.
The increasing assertiveness displayed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey is a good example of how countries in this region should prioritise their own interests. The US administration’s policies have neither achieved the envisioned outcome nor pursued the interests of its allies.
THEN when you finish your debate piece I will argue that in fact if we look at the educational path of Obama and the paths he took actually created exactly what we are seeing….an inelastic president tied to a personal ideology that states talking is far better than fighting….in some ways it remains me of the current arguments of the German Left when they critique US involvement in the ME and Europe….and that my friend is really strange.
Because the image of Obama in the US is one that he is not a “Socialist”…..BUT when we look at his FP moves since he came in….one does wonder…….
Dayuhan…the perfect example to accompany Hassan’s comments….concerning the Obama “standing by”…….
Earlier today:
US-backed FSA rebels destroyed a US-backed YPG pick-up truck using a US-made TOW anti-tank missile outside Tel Rifaat when the nearest IS forces were miles in the opposite direction and the YPG were receiving direct Russian AF CAS support……
You still think Obama is not “standing by”…..??
Sorry he is way over his head now and has absolutely no solution other than “waiting it out”…only 300 or so days left then it is someone else’s problem…that is what he is trying to reach…nothing more nothing less..it is that simple really.
Even you can see that??
Appears even the US AF is “standing by” or are they “sharing strike data” with the Russians OR vice versa…?
Either way they really got it wrong yesterday…..not a beep out of CENTCOM….
BreakingReport
Up to 28 civilians killed in international coalition air strike on bakery in #Shaddadi.
SOHR+LCC
So it begs the question is the US supporting now RuAF air strikes as some reporting has them providing CAS to the Kurds fighting FSA along side Russian CAS….YET both AFs claim they are bombing IS…..??
Dayuhan..do you really want to state the US is combatting IS inside Syria with anything other than bombs which are not really effecting them much these days as their numbers are still growing and they only lost 11% of their Iraqi and Syrian areas….
BUT the only one really fighting IS inside Syria is dodging IS, Assad, the entire Iranian shia mercenary army and Russian/US AF air strikes…
Care to comment now…and yes Obama is truly “standing by”..
BUT WAIT….has not Obama been telling us for the last month his Syrian strategy is working and he is aggressively attacking IS to defend all of us….?
No shame to loose against this “democratic coalition”
pic.twitter.com/B4Bytk7TRA
SWJ carried an article on the great successful Obama Syrian strategy which just needed some more messaging for all of us to understand that it was highly successful…then we have this SWJ article on the Obama “standing by”……..
If the Obama strategy is to defeat IS and they were using their Kurdish proxy for the goal to be met…ie funding, weapons and training…..
Does that now successful Obama Syrian strategy include the ethnic cleansing of Arab Sunni’s from areas what have been largely Sunni and Arab since 1104.
Never thought I would see US FP supporting ethnic cleansing, starvation, war crimes and genocide in the name of keeping the US out “of danger”…BUT WAIT…where is then the fight against IS…..just a myth of this WH.
Well the old and worn out excuse that the Kurds would be fighting IS is now safely out the window…and the so called US fight against IS is then for all practical purposes dead in the water…..practically non existence outside of the AF and a few bombs….
Aleppo Kurdish #YPG attack rebel held Kaljibrin village btw #Azaz & #Mare
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36…16451&z=13&m=b …
but new frontline with IS is quiet
So nothing for three days except for the Kurds/YPG other than constant attacking FSA with Russian CAS and not a single Kurdish attack anywhere along the IS frontline….
This alone proves the Kurdish intent….HOPE Obama and Kerry did anticipate this move by the Kurds….what a great Syria successful strategy…it has turned out to be..basically creating Kurdistan and we still do not have the Turkish response….
Kurdish #YPG rename former #SAA regime airbase “Menagh” to “Serok Apo” base
This is an Arab area since 1104……..not Kurdish…….
Kurdish #YPG renamed arab “Tell Rifaat” city in northern #Aleppo to “Arpêt” after occupation
City Tel Rifaat in northern #Aleppo before & after #Russia’n
& kurdish “Liberation”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6BiVA2K44E …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DruKjePZbA …
And that highly successful Obama Syrian strategy will now give the US that NFZ that the Turks and the Saudi’s have been demanding for a long number of months….and it will be secured on the ground and air by both Turks and Saudi’s…and there is nothing the US can now say and or do ……they have no further US creditability after they failure to control their own proxy the Kurds….
Al Arabiya English @AlArabiya_Eng ·
BREAKING: #Turkey wants secure line created 10 km within #Syria, including town of Aziz -deputy PM
AND that highly successful Obama Syrian strategy is getting more “standing by” by the minute……the creation of an “Islamic Sunni Army” being led by KSA was actually the dream voiced often by Khomeini but he wanted it led by the Shia……as an “Islamic Army” under his command.
When one reads the article..take notice of the battle flag in the background…the same exact style carried by the staff of Mohammed in his battles to unify Islam…the green war flag of Islam…..NOW convince me there is not a looming sectarian Sunni Shia war on the horizon…..the IRGC really wants one to payback KSA for their support of Saddam in the 80-88 war and from their constant info war side they feel it will be in Syria.
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/co…omes-a-reality …
Saudi Arabia’s two-war doctrine becomes a reality
Faisal Al Yafai
February 16, 2016 Updated: February 16, 2016 05:52 PM
Saudi Arabia’s military exercise was a goodbye wave to America
Quote:
For decades after the end of the Second World War, the United States maintained a “two-war” defence doctrine. The military organised its capabilities around the idea that it should be able to fight two conventional wars, in two separate theatres, at the same time.
That, after all, had been the reality in the Second World War, when the US had to fight in Europe and the Pacific simultaneously.
The doctrine came to an end in 2010, and in the 60 years that it was active, it was never enacted. The nearest the US came in recent history were the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which were conventional wars for long. Indeed, it was the inability to win those wars that finally pushed the US to change its policy.
A similar doctrine appears to be taking shape in Saudi Arabia, but the other way around. The kingdom is having to ramp up its military presence in response to multiple threats, not to meet some future perceived threat.
Saudi Arabia doesn’t have the advantages that the US has long enjoyed, hidden away behind two oceans. In fact, Saudi Arabia faces serious challenges on at least three of its borders.
There is the long, porous border to the south with Yemen, currently the focus of its most serious military effort. There is the eastern flank, facing regional rival Iran. And there is its long northern border, the majority of which has Iraq on the other side. Only to the west, across the Red Sea, are there clear allies in Egypt and Sudan.
Saudi Arabia has not yet articulated its defence posture. But it does look as if it has taken the two-war doctrine as a starting point.
The Northern Thunder joint military exercises it is conducting with 20 other countries, touted as the largest joint military exercises ever conducted in the region, are a pointed message to its adversaries, whether states (Iran), regimes (Syria) or groups (ISIL).
That it is taking place in Saudi Arabia’s north is no coincidence. With a serious war underway to the south, the kingdom is seeking to show that it can, despite suggestions, fight on two separate fronts.
After all, if the country can project power with Northern Thunder, what is to stop it using that power farther north?
The obvious place for that power projection is Syria. Earlier this month, a Saudi official, Brigadier General Ahmed Al Asiri, suggested the kingdom could send ground troops to Syria to fight ISIL – although it is likely to seek support from its allies as well, some of whom are involved in Northern Thunder.
Taken together with other elements – Saudi fighter jets are now stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik base, close to the Syrian border – it is hard to avoid the message that Saudi Arabia and its allies are prepared to involve themselves in the Syrian civil war, if need be.
But there’s a second part to any new defence doctrine, and that is the political aspect. Saudi Arabia’s new muscular military posture requires close cooperation between allies.
Northern Thunder, after all, is a follow-up to Abdullah Sword, Saudi Arabia’s 2014 military exercise that was, at the time, the largest it had ever conducted.
Abdullah Sword involved all the GCC countries except Qatar. Northern Thunder builds on it, expanding Saudi’s list of allies further.
The message is unmistakable. The Saudi-led coalition is expanding, not diminishing.
And it is in that that we can discern the real intention behind Northern Thunder. The Saudis are seeking to use the military exercises as a way to deepen the political coalition against Iran and any future Russia-Syria-Iranian axis.
Problems like Iran and Syria don’t have long-term military solutions. Iran’s re-emergence is not a one-off event; it is a process that will play itself out in various ways, affecting political alliances and diplomacy.
Saudi Arabia may be seeking to send a strong message to Tehran that it can defend itself against external aggression – even while involved in a conflict in which Iran is a proxy – but it is also preparing for the much longer political and diplomatic fight.
By assembling a 20-country coalition, Saudi Arabia is gathering its allies close, preparing to deepen ties between it and the Muslim world, so that when the inevitable diplomatic confrontation takes place with Iran, it will have the political capital to react.
That is the real intention behind Northern Thunder. The message being telegraphed is not merely that Saudi Arabia is ready to defend itself, but that it does not intend to do so alone.
Once the war games begin in northern Saudi Arabia, it will not be the strikes of lightning that matter so much, as the gathering of the clouds which precedes it.
It is great to be considered an intellectual president but Obama in his “standing by” mode should actually refrain from making any statements right now on Syria…he is just making things worse….
Obama on Syria: “This is not a contest between me and Putin.”
That’s not what the other guy says… And he’s spectacularly outplayed you at every step……..it is bad when even Obama does not understand the full extent of the Russian non linear warfare…being used in support of the political war Putin is pushing..
And he is not “standing by”????
Even the Surpreme Leader is getting into the Iranian info war fight with the US…non linear warfare hard at work these days..only theUS cannot figure out the “game”…..
But actually there is a grain of truth in this statement concerning the current Obama/Kerry concept of diplomacy….well so much for the Obama belief that Iran will “moderate”…….
Khamenei.ir
@khamenei_ir
Americans smile, shake hands and say unctuous words in private meetings; this is for diplomatic meetings and has no value.
NOW we have the reason for the Turkish border crossing into Syria….clear as a bell…..AND Obama and Kerry have not been supplying much effort in trying to defuse this development….maybe they no longer have any creditability with the Turks…..
CNN Trk ENG @CNNTURK_ENG 1m1 minute ago
#BREAKING Turkish PM says YPG member Salih Neccer of Syrian origin is responsible for the terrorist attack in Ankara
1. Turkish views YPG a terrorist organization in Syria and is part and parcel of PKK even a US declared terrorist group
2. Syrian resident
3. Kurdish and member of YPG
AND with Russia claiming the “right to defend itself from terrorists” although a long way from Russia Turkey will claim the “same rights” when it is on their border by a group they view as being both terrorist and fully supported now by Russia which has been acting “barbaric” in their killing of Sunni civilians and which they use the term “terrorist state” when referring to Russia.
Putin and his ROC declared their adventure into Syria as a “Holy War”…….he might just get one….
AND Obama is still “standing by”…….
Dayuhan…yesterday I linked you to the US Daily Press Briefing where Mr. Tone is briefed you would think on all possible questions …was in fact asked about the social media reporting of “alleged Russia CAS support for both IS and YPG”….go back and dig out his somewhat of a badly done tap dance……
But “optics” sometimes trumps actual proven facts……..
FSA repel #Isis attempt to advance into #Marea, but before it, #Russia was bombing the exact FSA positions where IS attacked. Look the pattern.. Coordination.
#Aleppo cs #Syria
Dayuhan..taking you back to our previous discussion of “what a moderate Syria anti Assad group is”…which is the Obama smokescreen for “standing by”..
Taken from yesterday’s Syrian thread…..
Quote:
Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
CrowBat……..
Thanks…nice to see you back….so are we in the true sectarian war…
Thanks, and sorry to ‘interrupt’ you here.
‘Sectarian war’ – from the standpoint of regime: no doubt.
They’ve got their Alawites-only PMCs (i.e. RGD, 4th Division etc.); they’ve got the Ba’ath Party Phalanga, their Christian Nazis (SSNP), all sorts of IRGC’s Shi’a Jihadists from Hezbollah (whether from Lebanon, Iraq, or Syria), Iraqi PMUs etc. In essence, from regime’s standpoint it’s ‘Syrian minorities’ (reinfroced by Iraqi and Iranian majorities) vs ‘Syrian majority’.
However, on the insurgent side it’s the other way around: they’re abandoning the split down ideological lines, joining and cooperating with each other better than ever before.
Azaz pocket is ‘just the best example’ for this: the HNC is at the top, the local Operation Room is under FSyA officers, while four ‘coalitions’ (or ‘divisions’) of insurgents there are led by Ahrar’s power-brokers, but largely (60-70%) consisting of FSyA units.
BTW, one of FSyA units in Azaz pocket is Liwa Sallahaddin, which is entirely Kurdish. That means: thanks Oblabla, his YPG/SDF/JAT conglomerate is now not only fighting against US-vetted FSyA units of the JAS, JAM etc., but also US-supported FSyA units of Kurds…
Thanks to Ahrar, there is a similar process going on in Idlib and southern Aleppo too. But, especially because of the JAN, it’s going to take a while longer to reorganize everything there in similar fashion. From that POV, defection of Jund’s leadership to the JAN is something like ‘encouraging signal’: it shows that Ahrar’s pressure upon Jihadists is starting to work.
That Dayuhan is not being carried by US MSM and not being acknowledged by this Obama WH when they use the “who is a moderate Syrian smokescreen”….
Worth reading…..long read on just how bad Obama, CIA and CENTCOM “got it”….and goes to the heart of Obama’s “standing by”….and it virtually shreds any pretense that Obama is interested in attacking and defeating IS which goes against all the statements to the contrary coming out of this WH….that they are attacking and defeating IS to protect the US.
http://mme.cm/JWAW00
Kyle Orton
Published: 17/02/2016 07:32 PM
America picked the wrong allies against the Islamic State
Quote:
Over the last six weeks the regime of Bashar al-Assad—which by this point means in most areas Iranian-run ground forces and Russian air power—have made territorial gains in northern Syria that threaten the existence of the armed opposition in the area. This threat has been compounded by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and allies, which have also drawn on Russian airstrikes to attack the rebellion in the same areas. The US-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) has made the PYD its main proxy inside Syria—the only force that can call in coalition airstrikes. This policy was obviously flawed given the view of the PYD by necessary anti-ISIS allies like Turkey and the demographic realities of ISIS, which require Sunni Arabs to be able to police their area and ensure that ISIS begins to look like a protector of Sunnis if Kurds occupy Arab areas; the PYD now attacking the crucial anti-ISIS demographic in alliance with the regime underlines that fact.
The Rebellion Surrounded in Aleppo
On January 12, an important rebel stronghold in north-eastern Latakia, on the Syrian coast, fell to an ideologically diverse pro-Assad coalition: the Syrian Arab Army, the National Defence Force (the largely-Alawite, Iran-built sectarian militia that has overshadowed the SAA), Mihrac Ural’s al-Muqawama as-Suriya (ostensibly Communist), the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (the irredentist outfit descended from, as its party symbol attests, European fascism), and Iraqi Shiite jihadists under the control of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Latakia offensive was heavily directed by Russian military advisers and possibly included Russian troops. The offensive was carried into Aleppo, where the IRGC-led pro-Assad forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, set their sights on the narrow corridor in the north of the province around Marea and Azaz that kept supplies coming in from Turkey to the rebel enclave in eastern Aleppo city that rules over more than half-a-million people.
The rebels had been struggling to hold the Azaz corridor since the second week of Russia’s intervention, which began on September 30, when Moscow killed hundreds of rebels in Aleppo, clearing the way for ISIS to sweep into areas the rebels had held them out of for years. ISIS’s territorial advances in Aleppo in October 2015 were the largest since their capture of Ramadi and Palmyra five months earlier. This brought the pro-Assad and ISIS frontlines into contact; they made no move against one-another as the Assadists advanced on Azaz.
Meanwhile, the PYD was bearing down on the rebellion from the east. On January 2, the PYD pushed the rebels out of Tanab, a demarcation point between the PYD-held Efrin canton and the rebel-held corridor. The PYD claimed to have defeated Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria). The rebels were in fact al-Jabhat al-Shamiya (The Levant Front), Ahrar al-Sham, and three Free Syrian Army (FSA)-branded groups: The First Regiment, Division 13, and Division 16. The PYD would often use the Nusra pretext when attacking rebels, where they didn’t outright deny their involvement and claim it was an intra-Arab dispute between PYD-aligned Arab militias like Jaysh al-Thuwar and jihadist-Salafists.
A Deniable Ally
Jaysh al-Thuwar has been flagged as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an American-orchestrated conglomeration into which the PYD folded its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The YPG was to give the PYD some deniability—originally the YPG was intended to be a broad-based armed formation of all Kurdish factions—but the PYD is undoubtedly still the leader of the YPG and now the SDF, both of which are “front groups for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK,” which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984. That the PYD—in any of its iterations—is synonymous with the PKK is currently being denied by both the naïve and those with an agenda to push because the PKK is a registered terrorist organization.
Those with an agenda include the US State Department. After saving the Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria went from non-strategic to imperative in the space of two weeks in October 2014, the US fell into an alliance with the PYD, which became the only force in Syria able to call in US airstrikes. By the summer of 2015, the Obama administration preferred the PYD over its own trained rebel groups. The terrorism laws thus have to be circumvented—in this case, by flat denial. Just last week, the State Department said it remains “very firm” in opposing the PKK, but continues to regard the PYD as an asset.
Despite the denials, the PYD/YPG’s own fighters don’t make a secret of their organization’s subservience to the PKK’s command structure. When the US’s envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, Brett McGurk, journeyed to Kobane he met with one of the PYD’s founders, Polat Can, who just happens to be a veteran officer of the PKK. In late January 2016, with Turkey and the PKK back at war, an English-speaking foreign fighter for the YPG was featured in a video calling for more foreign volunteers to either join the YPG or at least carry out terrorist attacks against Turkey. The YPG does not just take orders from the PKK’s leadership in the Qandil Mountains, however. The extent of the PKK’s dominance over the YPG can be seen in the YPG’s self-reported casualty figures: between January 2013 and January 2016, half of the Kurds killed fighting for the YPG came from Turkey.
Peace Talks as Cover for a Military Escalation
On February 3, the pro-Assad coalition succeeded in cutting the rebels’ supply line into Turkey, severing it south of Tel Rifaat, and connecting up with the pro-regime villages of Nubl and Zahra, which had been under incomplete sieges by insurgents essentially since the regime was forced out of northern Rif of Aleppo in July 2012. As the Iranian-led pro-Assad coalition moved toward tightening a siege on eastern Aleppo city on the ground, Russia bombarded it from the air. Within days, 70,000 people had fled from Aleppo, many toward Turkey.
In a masterly piece of maskirovka, the Russians announced their agreement to a ceasefire on Friday, which contained a loophole for continued strikes on terrorists big enough to permit Russia to bomb anyone they liked and claim to be adhering to the ceasefire, and which would allow Russia a week of internationally-sanctioned time to make its gains in Aleppo and then blame the rebels for breaking the ceasefire when they refused to be bound by the lines Russia would try to freeze in place after its aggression.
The proximate cause of this catastrophe was the Geneva III negotiations. It was obvious before the negotiations started that the Assad regime was too strong for negotiations to be meaningful and that swiftly the US was going to be faced with the choice of allowing the collapse of a process it was invested in, or forcing its own side to accept the edicts of the other side.
The US gave a strong indication of which track it was taking when it deliberately weakened the rebel hand in the run-up to these talks—stopping the shipment of TOW anti-tank missiles, among other things—ostensibly on the premise that it would make peace more likely. But—even on the best reading, where the intention was not to help defeat the rebels altogether—this was folly. The US cannot calibrate something like this with any delicacy: it either means to supply enough pressure to force Assad out, or it doesn’t. But more than that: a strategy of weakening what is purportedly your own side would rely on the patrons of the other side doing the same, and they didn’t and never claimed they would. To the contrary: they saw an opening and took it—obviating the need for talks at all, if they succeed. As one Western diplomat put it: “It’ll be easy to get a ceasefire soon because the opposition will all be dead.”
One view is that this is bad negotiating; another view—already prevalent in Syria—is that this is deliberate. If the US allows the destruction of the moderate rebels and lets the pro-Assad coalition make this a binary choice—the dictator or the terrorists—as they have wanted to all along, it won’t matter if the US deliberately ran out the clock on those it claimed to be supporting or is engaged in post-facto rationalization. Everyone saw the US’s pro-Iran tilt, symbolized most acutely by not punishing Assad for the chemical weapons attack, and every Sunni will believe it was a conspiracy—as ISIS has continuously told them.
The pro-regime coalition crushing the rebels in Aleppo City—either killing them or driving them from the battlefield—will not just be a propaganda (i.e. recruitment) victory for ISIS, but will open an immediate military opportunity. The spearheading of the offensive by foreign Shiite militias strongly indicates that the regime’s chronic shortage of manpower is getting no better, so while an aerially-delivered and ground-supported round of massacre and expulsion is possible, actually holding new terrain is likely to prove impossible. If the pro-regime forces clear the rebels from Aleppo, it will be ISIS that fills the vacuum.
Continued…long read….
Well that highly touted Obama Syrian strategy is now totally in shambles it appears and that great anti IS force that Obama, CIA and CENTCOM trained, feed, funded and armed is doing exactly what now…..fighting for Assad and Putin?
Who would have ever stated a US President spent US taxpayers money in training Russian para military units…would have been declared “crazy” by US MSM…?????
Assad’s adviser Bouthaina Shaaban says YPG has partnered w/ regime forces to liberate #Syria from “terrorism” I.e. Anyone who is anti-Assad
Obama is simply “standing by” as he is now out of whatever very limited ideas he had…….BEGS though a core question…has Obama played the US civil society in that he has actually been supporting all along Putin’s expansionism efforts in Ukraine and now Syria…it is a valid question now that one can evaluate his actual moves in both areas…which fit nicely into Putin’s efforts of damaging NATO, EU and yes even the US.
When an American President is constantly “standing by” and constantly only talking “soft power” with no leverage…at some point this failure gets you this….
Where will Vova strike next?
“It is now a strategy of geopolitical confrontation..It could be anywhere in the world”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/19/vladimir-putin-syria-campaign-united-states-focus-europe-poland-russia …
Turkey can close #Incirlik airbase to US jets, says #Erdogan advisor
http://www.yenisafak.com/gundem/seref-malkoc-incirlik-ussu-abdye-kapatilabilir-2417910 …
And the negative reporting just keeps coming in on this failure…what many in the US do not understand is that a private US/Erdogan agreement was in place ……the YPG would not advance beyond a certain point in Syria…for that agreement in place then Turkey allowed the USAF the use of Incirlik AB….now that private agreement has been badly violated by both the US and their proxy YPG..thus the threat which is not a threat BUT rather a statement of fact.
Obama needs an urgent answer to this posted social media comment….
American special forces participate in the YPG ethnic cleansing operations in northern Syria …….
There were in fact clear photos of either CIA or US SOF personnel standing near YPG personnel of one particular unit that has been often accused of ethnic cleansing by the HWR and AI…..will not link to the photos due to OPSEC reasons but they are out on the net for all to see…but it is a serious accusation if US military/CIA personnel are in and around proven ethnic cleansing and or have direct knowledge of that and do not report it..
Does in fact Obama support the YPG’s ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs from areas that are being taken over by YPG in the name of fighting IS??
Am assuming that this was not posted by any member of YPG as the photos are very clear and close to the US personnel in question.
These are the most oblivious results of the Obama “standing by”…..
The three core Putin geo political goals of his non linear war against the West are slowly being fulfilled and the West does not see it coming…….
1. damaging and discrediting of NATO
Putin has now has succeeded as NATO fully supported Paris in bombing terrorists after the Paris attack BUT tells another NATO country equally threatened and attacked by terrorists this response……because of the Russia/Iranian loudly threatened war if Turkey crosses over.
Breaking: (expected) #NATO will NOT help #Turkey if war breaks out with #Russia –
http://m.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/…www.google.it/ …
NATO evidently does not realize the central value of a NATO member sitting on the Black Sea entrance and controlling a vital portion of the Med. and fielding the largest military force inside the currently very weak military wise NATO….right now Ukraine has more tanks and IFVs than five of the larger NATO members…..
What NATO does not seem to fully understand is that the key to the refugee flow sits in Turkey who has 2.5M Syrian refugees right now with another 150K sitting on their border and could if they wanted to flood the EU just as Greece has done.
What NATO does not realize is that by turning their back on Turkey it will nudge it far closer to the KSA and the two regional powers wll often in the future clash with NATO planning if it does not fit their geo political views for their region….AND Turkey has contributed far more troops to NATO missions over the last 20 years than 15 of the other NATO members combined…..Turkey can now pass on NATO missions if asked….
NOTE: Turkey will be rethinking their position inside NATO after this rejection and the US should not be surprised nor the rest of NATO.
2. damaging and discrediting EU
Putin has succeeded as the EU has absolutely just about unraveled due to the massive flow of Syrian refugees…..and more are coming after the deliberate Russia attack on civilians further driving more into refugee status…..
Refugees being manipulated by cynical #Russian strategy, says #Lithuania ForMin
http://en.delfi.lt/lithuania/foreign….d?id=70445206 …
pic.twitter.com/24MN4R7ta8
NOTE: Turkey has largely supported the 2.5M Syrian refugees on their own dime and the EU had promised 3B Euros to assist BUT has now not even provided a single Euro. Merkel realizes this and is urgently trying to weave Turkey into a coherent EU answer to the refugees…and the EU is dragging it’s feet as usual.
NOTE: Turkey has defined for EU/NATO/US a clear and concise statement concerning what they view as a serious threat to their national security and neither US/NATO/EU has even responded to this declaration……even now NATO is shying away
AFP news agency
@AFP
BREAKING Kurdish militant group warns foreign tourists not to visit Turkey: statement
What has been NATO/EU/US response to this threat….do not attack the source of the terrorists BUT we want you to attack IS not the Kurds….BUT WAIT it is the Kurds attacking Turkey…AND Russia is providing them open support..
3. disconnecting the US from NATO and EU..
He is half way there with this NATO decision as the decision was largely driven by the US….as well as the US adamantly holding onto their support of a grouping that are in the eyes of a NATO member…terrorists…..
Anyone want to argue Putin is not “winning” his non linear war against the West…..?????
As I have a number of other US actions that indicate they have been disconnected from the ME and have largely allowed the EU to unravel over the refugee crisis as the refugee crisis is in reality easy to stop …kick Assad out and stop the bombing…but the US has largely accepted the Russian positions and are following Putin’s led now so that is out of the question…….
Further indicators that Turkey is moving into Syria and a 1.2 hour Obama telephone call to Erdogan is not going to stop it as Turkey fully feels the US has sided against both Turkey and Sunni’s in their support of the Russian bombing and relentless killing of Syrians BECAUSE Kerry refused to counter the Russian demands to continue their bombing and their unabashed support for the YPG…..
Latest: Russia asks Security Council meeting “urgently.” Russia deeply concerned with stated plans by Turkey to send troops in Syria.
NOTE: Appears that Russia does not understand the UN….under the UN Charter any member state that defines a serious national security threat has the inherent right to defend itself…nothing the UNSC says and or does cannot revoke the Charter rights…
US State dept spox once again refutes Turkish official, this time Turkish FM Cavusoglu, saying “US trusts YPG until otherwise proven”
Does the US simply not care any more about NATO falling apart?
Erdogan live: I’m disappointed w/ West, we’ve provided documents. Why don’t they designate YPG as terrorists.
Billl…NATO is failing and those that know this and simply do not trust the “rest” of NATO to hold to their Article 5 commitments are Poland, and the Batlics…..AND there is some serious validity to their suspicions….
I will throw out a provocative question that even NATO is quietly side stepping…if in fact the Russians rushed into an “annexation” of say Lithuania under the same Ukrainian guise of “defending ethnic Russia speakers” out of a “snap Russian exercise” would say Holland, the UK (remember even the UK ignored their Budapest Memorandum commitments suddenly to say the least)…..would even Germany or Slovenia honestly sit down and state to their own societies we are going to war over some small insignificant Baltic nation state called Lithuania….”the public response would be hell no I won’t go” or “I am to die for what exactly??”…..or do you seriously think they will support a regional war with possible nuclear TBM exchanges being used for a small “insignificant Baltic nation” that does not mean much for the rest of the EU???
BTW……this argument is being being hammered into Europe via the Russian info war machinery DAILY….in multiple languages and it is working…just check the latest polling for the populist right wing groups using the same exact argument.
That is the reason Poland is (pushing for forward basing of an actual US unit and the same for the Baltics)…following the mantra….the US has skin in the game so they will come…BUT WATCH the Obama tap dance on forward basing at the coming Warsaw NATO meeting….will bet a Starbucks that there will be none and that message will come from the US….
BTW…under the Obama WH IMHO I am not so sure they would indeed come..or for that fact trigger Article 5..
Open for examples that reflect the opposite of what I am saying..but it will be hard to find them….
So melodrama or not I am correctly reading NATO from Berlin…not from the US.
In some ways this is the same argument being used by Dayuhan when he constantly states…Syria is not of US strategic interest, nor why should the US get involved…actually no different….sounds super great but races past the reality of geo politics.
Bill and Dyauhan…remember the US DoS and the DoD both publicly stated this week when directly asked “their Kurdish proxy YPG is not getting Assad and Russian CAS”….it’s publicly available to be reread ….
WHY because it is simply “unthinkable that an Obama, CIA and CENTCOM” project could have run off the geo political rails so badly……
Social media is carrying now daily confirmed evidence that basically shows that either the fog of war has blinded both the US DoS and DoD OR they are badly lying……..
Syria’n regime dropped barrel bombs with helicopters on northern #Aleppo housing complexes to support kurdish #YPG attacks
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.247492&lon=37.144432&z=15&m=b …
These barrel bombs came immediately after a series of RuAF air strikes (videoed) on the exact FSA positions that YPG was actively attacking…..
THAT is not coordination???? So the US cannot be lying right??
BUT WAIT US info warfare hard at work right???
There is no Obama “standing by”……..
America Is Now Fighting A Proxy War With Itself In Syria http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/america-is-now-fighting-a-proxy-war-with-itself-in-syria?utm_term=.bo05jJrBY …
By trying to juggle Turkey and the Kurds, the Obama administration may lose both
http://www.bloombergview.com/article…ition-together …
http://www.voanews.com/content/shift…a/3194684.html
Shifting Allegiances, A Free-for-All in Northern Syria
Sad to say it…there is total confusion this morning on who is leading the US FP …Putin or Obama as both FPs seem to be the same…..
Turkish answer to the Obama phone call yesterday……..
Rebels groups crossing through border town of #Atmeh, y’day FEB 19 as they head towards and through #Turkish territory to join battles against #SAA & it’s allies terrorists in other areas of the country. It “appears” that Turkey has new and improved cooperation and coordination with Rebel opposing the Syrian-Russian-Iranian terrorist alliance
Rebel groups crossing through #Atmeh (through Turkey)y’day FEB 19 join battles against #SAA terrorists
Another #IRGC commander by the name of Hamid Ridha Ansari was killed by FSA in #Syria in yesterday’s fighting.
If kurdish #YPG advance towards Omari oil field 100km south of al-Shaddadih they are the biggest oil/gas trader in #Syria….
BUT WAIT I thought it was IS…????
al-Shaddadih was taken by the YPG yesterday and they did not actively engage the IS located in the town but rather chose to fight the FSA units which were facing the IS front lines in and near Shaddadih for literally the last two years……
Bill and Dayuhan…melodramatic……..check my three points again as events are moving extremely fast now and I am not so sure the Obama WH sees just how fast.
Would fully agree with this BUT it is not Turkey Putin should be extremely worried about rather the KSA who is not a member of NATO and not tied to the US and who has declared Assad and Putin to be a danger to their national security….
.@DerSPIEGEL: “Merkel is concerned that Putin is doing what he can to provoke #Turkey as way to test #NATO” http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs…ey-hostilities …
NATO official: #Russia’s & #Turkey’s forces “both active in fierce fighting… just few kilometers from each other”
FINALLY Germany “sees” the Russian non linear war with Turkey……
Berlin officials have begun talking of “#Putin’s #hybrid war against #Turkey”
pic.twitter.com/mkyGbbnfM3
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/p…ful-new-enemy/
Putin’s winning in Syria – but making a powerful new enemy
This time he’s taking on Turkey’s President Erdogan, a ruler as ruthless as he is
Owen Matthews
Quote:
Russia’s bombing of the city of Aleppo this week sent a clear message: Vladimir Putin is now in charge of the endgame in Syria. Moscow’s plan — essentially, to restore its ally Bashar al-Assad to power — is quickly becoming a reality that the rest of the world will have to accept. America, Britain and the rest may not be comfortable with Putin’s ambitions in the Middle East, or his methods of achieving them. But the idea of backing a ‘moderate opposition’ in Syria has been proved a fantasy that leaves the field to Putin and Assad.
The Syrian partial ceasefire, brokered in Munich last week by America’s John Kerry, only served to reinforce this sense of Putin’s power. Under the terms of the deal, all combatants were to cease hostilities while humanitarian aid was delivered to rebel enclaves besieged by government troops. Except Russia, whose planes have continued bombing ‘terrorist targets’ — and since Assad insists that all his enemies are ‘terrorists’, the Munich ceasefire effectively means business as usual for Russian and Syrian warplanes. In recent days, they have bombed Médecins Sans Frontières hospitals in rebel-held Idlib and Azaz, and Free Syrian Army positions in the northern suburbs of Aleppo. In response to international condemnation, the Russian foreign ministry has declared that it ‘has still not received convincing evidence of civilian deaths as a result of Russian air strikes’.
Presidents Putin and Obama have both sought to intervene in the conflict militarily, but all the successes have been Russia’s. Between August 2014 and December last year, the US Air Force made 4,669 air strikes to aid Syria’s elusive ‘moderate opposition’ and degrade Isis. But while this made little impact strategically, Russian air power has proved decisive. Since last September, a single squadron of Russian bombers flying some 510 sorties a week has turned the balance of the war in Assad’s favour. Russian armour and tanks have reinvigorated the Syrian army’s battered forces. Ostensibly flown in to protect the Khmeimim airbase, Russian T-90 tanks have since been reported in the vanguard of Syrian army assaults on rebel strongholds south of Aleppo.
Putin is also seeking to reconcile Syria’s warring factions. While the Pentagon spent billions trying to train an army of democracy–friendly moderates which turned out not to exist, Russian military intelligence has been working with its Syrian counterparts to identify rebel groups who would be willing to cut a deal with Assad. The senior Syrian officer corps was largely trained in Moscow during the Cold War. According to one well-placed Russian diplomat, the Kremlin has drawn up a list of 38 potential opposition allies and has been actively wooing them since last October. The list is said to include the Syrian National Council’s current president, Khaled al-Khoja, together with three of his predecessors — Ahmad Jarba, Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib and Hadi al-Bahra.
Throughout the winter, a number of rebel leaders have gone to Moscow to discuss terms — with mixed success. Late last month, a Russian attempt to bring several Syrian opposition parties together in Moscow collapsed. Brigadier General Manaf Tlass, a close Assad ally who defected from the Syrian Republican Guard in 2012, has drawn up an 11-point ‘national project’ which envisions a general ceasefire, followed by a joint regime-rebel assault on Isis. It is a proposal backed by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and part of a wider strategy that Russia pursued successfully in Chechnya in the early 2000s: reward rebels who are willing to change sides with a place at the winners’ table, while mercilessly bombing those who resist.
Russia’s new best friends are Syria’s Kurds. Earlier this month, the ‘Rojava Democratic Self-Rule Administration’ proclaimed itself the new government in Kurdish-held northern Syria and opened its first overseas representative office, in Moscow. Meanwhile, 200 Russian military advisers have been deployed to the Kurdish-controlled town of Qamishli, next to the Turkish border, to secure a military airport for Russian use. That gives Russia a stronghold from which to strike Isis in northeast Syria and protect its new Kurdish friends from attack by Turkey.
A wider Kurdish-Russian pact could be a game-changer for Assad — but it also massively raises the risk of the Syrian conflict spilling over into a wider war. A deal between the Kurdish YPG militia and Damascus would deprive the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces — a coalition that includes Arab and Assyrian groups — of some of their most effective soldiers. It would also further confuse United States policy in Syria, since the Kurds have been Washington’s closest allies in the region for years.
The danger is that Russia’s overtures to the Kurds could put Moscow on a direct collision course with the Turks. Ankara sees the Syrian Kurdish YPG as an offshoot of Turkey’s home-grown Kurdistan Workers’ Party — or PKK — which has been fighting a renewed insurgency against the Turkish state since last summer. Turkey’s tough-talking president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has repeatedly declared that he will not tolerate a de-facto Syrian Kurdish state on his southern border.
Last week, Turkey’s army — the second largest in Nato — backed up Erdoğan’s words by shelling YPG positions from across the frontier, ostensibly in self-defence. Moreover, Erdoğan recently said that a Turkish-US buffer zone mooted for northern Iraq in 2003 would have preserved Iraq from its current problems with Isis. Erdoğan added that he saw no need ‘currently’ for a similar buffer zone in northern Syria — but said that the Turkish military had all the parliamentary authority it needed to create one if the order was given.
More worryingly, Putin and Assad have accused the Turkish army of running weapons to Ankara-backed rebel groups deep inside Syrian territory via the Bab al-Salam border crossing point. The Russians expect Turkey to go further. ‘At a certain point, a full Turkish intervention is inevitable,’ Fyodor Lukyanov, who heads Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, told Bloomberg last week. ‘That would mean a completely different conflict, with a much larger force fighting on the side of the opposition and the risk of a direct Russian-Turkish conflict.’ Nationalist-leaning media on both sides are already fighting a war of words. It’s highly likely that another clash — beginning with, say, a Russian airstrike hitting Turkish troops inside Syria — would escalate quickly. In that case, Turkey could potentially invoke article five of Nato’s founding treaty, which states that an ‘armed attack against one [member] shall be considered an attack against them all’. The terrifying result: war between Nato and Russia.
To further complicate the situation, Saudi Arabia moved fighter jets to Turkey last week to carry out strikes inside Syria — and both Turkish and Saudi foreign ministers agreed that Saudi special forces troops deploying via Turkey might be involved in a future operation to liberate Raqqa from Isis. But Saudi troops on the ground in Syria would be a red rag to Assad’s other key ally, Iran — which already has troops from its revolutionary guards fighting in Syria.
Speaking at a security conference in Munich, US senator John McCain correctly predicted that Russia would not observe the recent ceasefire. ‘Russian presses its advantage militarily, creates new facts on the ground, uses the denial and delivery of humanitarian aid as a bargaining chip, negotiates an agreement to lock in the spoils of war, and then chooses when to resume fighting,’ he said. ‘The only thing that has changed about Mr Putin’s ambitions is that his appetite is growing with the eating.’
Certainly part of Putin’s plan in Syria is to distract international attention from his own unfinished intervention in eastern Ukraine. That conflict has cost Russia dearly: international banking sanctions and falling oil prices have sent inflation soaring and halved the value of the ruble. Putin is also ambitious to restore his country’s status as a world power. And he would like to show potential allies in the Middle East and the wider world that Russia stands by its friends. For the first time since the 1980s, Moscow’s military and diplomatic backing is something truly worth having.
Putin’s intervention in Syria is an act of reckless geopolitical buccaneering — just like his invasion of Georgia in 2008 and his annexation of Crimea in 2014. But it’s worth asking the question: if Assad wins decisively, and peace breaks out, is Putin’s plan so terrible? Washington and Moscow want many of the same things: an end to hostilities on the ground, the destruction of radical Islamist groups such as Isis and the Al-Nusra Front, the establishment of a transitional government and, eventually, free elections. Even the Americans are willing to fudge on a key rebel demand — that Assad, personally, be removed from power. They agree that he could at least stay for a transitional period.
If Putin’s latest gambit does bring peace to Syria, even if it is a peace on Assad’s terms, it may one day be counted as a success, albeit a self-serving one. But it is also Putin’s riskiest move yet, and growing riskier by the second. So far Putin’s opponents have consisted of the disorganised regimes of former Soviet nations. In his Syrian war, he faces a ruler every bit as choleric and ruthless as himself — Erdoğan — and an increasingly belligerent Saudi Arabia. The prospect of peace in Syria is now dependent on the wisdom, restraint and goodwill of Putin and Erdoğan: an unsettling prospect.
Here is the perfect example of the inherent failure in “standing by”..if you voice a threat THEN be prepared to carry it out….Kerry and Obama are not even close to being ready to carry out this threat while it risks ruining the Iran Deal and their legacy…..
In response to Kerry’s demand Hizb & Shi’ite Iraqi militias leave Syria or be targeted, Iraqi militias threaten to hit US embassy w missiles
And #Obama donated tons of american weapons, tanks, humvees to the same shia terrorists. And still gives CAS to them
The US is seeking to rein in Turkey and Saudi Arabia from military action in Syria if the ceasefire fails
http://on.ft.com/1SX2ZXu
For Saudis the risk of inaction is far greater. The internal pressure is tremendous.
.@JohnKerry called Russia’s Lavrov to complain about the “indiscriminate” & continued Russian bombing in #Syria$
Saudi response…….Complain is all?
Well that’s something: after 5 years of war, Amos Harel reports Israel starts to side w the Syrian rebels (Heb)
http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politi…mium-1.2856776 …
= no more Israeli objections to supplying the opposition in Syria w MANPADS
That is a clear signal to the Saudi’s that they can go against the US MANPAD blockade in place by Obama since 2012…..
NATO/EU is not unravelling and this is Germany supposedly one of the most stable inside the EU….Russian non linear warfare has been hammering them now for five months and the Syrian immigration issue due to massive and deliberate Russian killing of civilians is being used by Russia to drive it.
Check the article I linked to from Lithuania the only EU/NATO partner that called a spade a spade in the Russian use of “weaponization of refugees and the utter destruction of a civil society”…
Refugee shelter in Saxony, to be opened in March, burned overnight. Locals cheered, obstructed firefighters.
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bautzen-brand-in-kuenftiger-asylbewerberunterkunft-a-1078501.html …
AND Obama is standing by on both Syria and the unravelling of Europe……
Saudi official: “[Obama] thinks he could never do anything about [#Syria]. Well, you certainly can’t from the sidelines.”
Saudi official: “Can this really be incompetence … Do[es the U.S.] really think they can walk away from their responsibilities like this?”
Russia Guilty Of Syria War Crimes, Says Amnesty
http://news.sky.com/story/1645573/ru…s-says-amnesty …
AND when both Turkey and KSA makes moves to rein in the Syrian problem Obama attempts massive pressure on both to not confront either Assad and or Putin……why is that??
Now does everyone fully understand the Russian non linear warfare hard at work…….using the core cornerstone…”weaponization of information”…or what some call….”winning the hearts and minds”…it really is all about UW in the 21st century.
Breaking story and it concerns a serious Russian info war attempt against Germany….using Syrian refugees..the EU is serious seriously struggling with the refugee issue vs European right wing populist political groups and parties ie Hungary, Poland, France, Spain, Italy and others..
Merkel probes claims of #Putin plot to weaken her by exploiting #migrationcrisis. My story: http://thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news….ece#pq=bDocjk …
pic.twitter.com/z8gMzFhGJA
Now it is easy to see the Russian intertwining of a two front non linear war…directly aimed at the US…….
Back to the melodrama of an unravelling of both the EU and the EU members inside NATO…think it will not happen over Syrian refugees…..??
AND referencing the article….Obama and Kerry are indeed “standing by”…and allowing it to happen
In #Brandenburg, pamphlets call for “total resistance” against “invasion of foreigners” w/bomb building instructions
http://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/aufruf-zum-widerstand-gegen-fluechtlinge-anleitungen-fuer-bomben-in-nauener-briefkaesten-gefunden/12993072.html …
Obama is not “standing by”?????
War is not far away if one watches the GRU moving of intel assets into and or near Syria in the last ten days…..actually all reported by social media and US MSM has not yet picked up on them….
GRU already has SIGINT bases in+near #Syria with good coverage. Moving more GRU air+sea SIGINT assets in theater = big tell something’s up
In the Indications and Warnings intel world….this is a large really red flag…
Might in fact indicate the Russians are seriously taking the not so subtle Saudi threat coupled with the very open Turkish moves….
Ex. Northern Thunder, report of Israel to allow MANPADS for rebels, Russia sending big SIGINT platforms, now this… https://twitter.com/AlArabiya_Eng/status/701474838733574147 …
BREAKING Lebanon’s March 14 Alliance reaffirms support for Saudi Arabia and GCC states
BREAKING Lebanon’s March 14 Alliance calls on Hezbollah to withdraw forces fighting in Syria
BREAKING Lebanon’s March 14 Alliance says Hezbollah responsible for threatening economic stability
Bahrain adopts steps to counter #Iran ‘interference’
http://ara.tv/rgz3z
Sunni Front States now are going active around Syria…..and starting to push back thus the evident Russian fear the Saudi’s will actually enter southern Syria.
Russian currently uses two terms in their info war…”near abroad” and “far abroad” when they work their info war “narratives”……right now the “near abroad” meaning Russians living in Russia are being bombarded daily with the following……
Anchor on Russian TV news last night: “The world is a hair’s breadth from a big war…”, blames US, Turkey, EU
The goal of the “near abroad” is to create “an altered state of reality”…
Core question is …is this an attempt to “weaponize” the Russian population for a true war?????
I appear to be not the only one stating the Obama WH is “standing by”…even a former member of his staff is saying the same thing…..
Ouch……….
“Kerry is now fully dependent on Putin, the Supreme Ruler of Iran and Assad to achieve any US objective in Syria”………Fred Hof…….”You are generally not treated with respect when you have so few cards to play”…..
This is the direct result of “standing by”…….
BUT WAIT both Obama and Kerry “played” the Kurdish card that in the end “burnt them” and totally either forgot or worse ignored the Syrian Arab Sunni card……FSA who is for over two years in direct fighting daily with IS.