Kerry Expresses U.S. Concerns About Russian Moves in Syria

If one is to believe the lead article in the Israeli Haaretz from today–the US is just delivering lip service and there is really nothing behind this statement basically because the Russians and the US share the same goal of not toppling Assad.

Putin’s Military Build-up in Syria Could Be a Game-changer for Israel
Now that the U.S. isn’t aiming to topple him, and Russia and Iran are increasing their support, Assad has better chances of stabilizing his defense.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.674779

The second thing is that this lip service came rather late–after a number of US government statements that they had little information on the matter thus could not state anything.

Then social media unleashed a barrage of Russian selfies, VK photos and videos that proved beyond a doubt that Russian combat troops have been fighting in Syria since at least April 2015.

THEN we get this press statement.

If one really pays attention to US announcements like this–notice that after the recent dust up between the Russian FM and the KSA FM where Lavrov basically called him a blooming idiot in nice words for stating to the world press that for the KSA–the removal of Assad is a demand as they see him as the problem.

NOT a single response by Kerry, the DoS in general and or Obama.

That dust up was totally out of the realm of diplomatic norms.

Remember I mentioned here as did the Israeli Haaretz–the US ie Kerry is only paying lip service–it has been and is now all about the Obama legacy-not about a solid well thought through US foreign policy.

Obama has the weakest NSC in 40 plus years and he himself is starting to rival Wilsonian foreign policy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini…395_story.html

The horrific results of Obama’s failure in Syria

By Michael Gerson

September 3 2015

One little boy in a red T-shirt, lying face down, drowned, on a Turkish beach, is a tragedy. More than 200,000 dead in Syria, 4 million fleeing refugees and 7.6 million displaced from their homes are statistics. But they represent a collective failure of massive proportions.

For four years, the Obama administration has engaged in what Frederic Hof, former special adviser for transition in Syria, calls a “pantomime of outrage.” Four years of strongly worded protests, and urgent meetings and calls for negotiation — the whole drama a sickening substitute for useful action. People talking and talking to drown out the voice of their own conscience. And blaming. In 2013, President Obama lectured the U.N. Security Council for having “demonstrated no inclination to act at all.” Psychological projection on a global stage.

Always there is Obama’s weary realism. “It’s not the job of the president of the United States to solve every problem in the Middle East.” We must be “modest in our belief that we can remedy every evil.”

But we are not dealing here with every problem or every evil; rather a discrete and unique set of circumstances: The largest humanitarian failure of the Obama era is also its largest strategic failure.

At some point, being “modest” becomes the same thing as being inured to atrocities. President Bashar al-Assad’s helicopters continue to drop “barrel bombs” filled with shrapnel and chlorine. In recent attacks on the town of Marea, Islamic State forces have used skin-blistering mustard gas and deployed, over a few days, perhaps 50 suicide bombers. We have seen starvation sieges, and kidnappings, and beheadings, and more than 10,000 dead children.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has changed her country’s asylum rules to welcome every Syrian refugee who arrives. Syrians have taken to calling her “Mama Merkel, Mother of the Outcasts.” I wonder what they call the U.S. president.

At many points during the past four years, even relatively small actions might have reduced the pace of civilian casualties in Syria. How hard would it have been to destroy the helicopters dropping barrel bombs on neighborhoods? A number of options well short of major intervention might have reduced the regime’s destructive power and/or strengthened the capabilities of more responsible forces. All were untaken.

This was not some humanitarian problem distant from the center of U.S. interests. It was a crisis at the heart of the Middle East that produced a vacuum of sovereignty that has attracted and empowered some of the worst people in the world. Inaction was a conscious, determined choice on the part of the Obama White House. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus advocated arming favorable proxies. Sunni friends and allies in the region asked, then begged, for U.S. leadership. All were overruled or ignored.

In the process, Syria has become the graveyard of U.S. credibility. The chemical weapons “red line.” “The tide of war is receding.” “Don’t do stupid [stuff].” These are global punch lines. “The analogy we use around here sometimes,” said Obama of the Islamic State, “and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” Now the goal to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State looks unachievable with the current strategy and resources. “The time has come for President Assad to step aside,” said Obama in 2011. Yet Assad will likely outlast Obama in power.

What explains Obama’s high tolerance for humiliation and mass atrocities in Syria? The Syrian regime is Iran’s proxy, propped up by billions of dollars each year. And Obama wanted nothing to interfere with the prospects for a nuclear deal with Iran. He was, as Hof has said, “reluctant to offend the Iranians at this critical juncture.” So the effective concession of Syria as an Iranian zone of influence is just one more cost of the president’s legacy nuclear agreement.

Never mind that Iran will now have tens of billions of unfrozen assets to strengthen Assad’s struggling military. And never mind that Assad’s atrocities are one of the main recruiting tools for the Islamic State and other Sunni radicals. All of which is likely to extend a war that no one can win, which has incubated regional and global threats — and thrown a small body in a red T-shirt against a distant shore.

Bill C–
For those that do not believe there is an ideology to Putin’s actions TAKE note——-

http://debateolavodugin.blogspot.de/2011/07/dugins-conclusion.html
Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Dugin’s Conclusion
Against Post-Modern World

I would like, at the conclusion of this debate with Mr. Carvalho, to sum up the most important points:

Now I see that he was rather right in the beginning stressing that the asymmetry in our respective positions would eventually damage the whole task. So it was. I don’t see any use in continuing the mutual critics because it doesn’t help understand anything at all (for us and for the readers). I can now sincerely confess that I find the position of Mr. Carvalho too personal, idiosyncratic and irrelevant. So I would like to concentrate myself on other theoretical points that seem to me of real importance for the cause of the Tradition, of anti-imperialist and antimodern struggle that is my first and only concern.

First of all I insist that the current world is unipolar with the global West in its centre and with the United States as its core. The opposite arguments of Mr. Carvalho didn’t convince me at all.

This kind of the unipolarity has geopolitical and ideological sides. Geopolitically is the strategic dominance of the earth by North-American hyperpower and the effort of Washington to organize the balance of forces on the planet in such a manner to be able to rule the whole world in accordance with its own national (imperialistic) interests. It is bad because it deprives other states and nations of their real sovereignty.
When there is only one instance to decide who is right and who is wrong and who should be punished we have a kind of the global dictatorship.

I am convinced that is not acceptable. So we should fight against it. If someone deprives us from our freedom we have to react. And we will. The American Empire should be destroyed. And at one point it will be.
Ideologically the unipolarity is based on the Modernist and Post-Modernist values that are openly anti-traditional ones. I share the vision of Rene Guenon and Julius Evola who considered the Modernity and its ideological basis (the individualism, the liberal democracy, the capitalism, the comfortism and so on) to be the cause of the future catastrophe of the humanity and global domination of the Western attitudes as the reason of final degradation of the earth.

The West is approaching to its end and we should not let it push all the rest with it into the abyss.
Spiritually the globalization is the creation of the Grand Parody, the kingdom of the Antichrist. And the United States is in centre of its expansion.

The American values pretend to be “universal” ones. That it is new form of ideological aggression against the multiplicity of the cultures and the traditions still existing in the other parts of the world. I am resolutely against the Western values that are essential Modernist and Post-Modernist ones and promulgated by the United States by force or by the obtrusion (Afghanistan, Iraq, now Libya, tomorrow Syria and Iran) .

So, all traditionalists should be against the West and the globalization as well as against the imperialist politics of United States. It is the only logical and consequent position. So the traditionalists and the partisans of the traditional principles and values should oppose the West and defend the Rest (if the Rest shows the signs of the conservation of the Tradition – partly or entirely).

There can be and there are really men in the West and in the United States of America who don’t agree with the present state of things and don’t approve the Modernity and Post-Modernity being the defenders of the spiritual tradition of the Pre-Modern West. They should be with us in our common struggle. They should take part in our revolt against Modern World and Post-Modern world. And we would fight together against a common enemy.

Unfortunately that is not the case of Mr. Carvalho. He shows himself partly critical of the modern Western civilization, but partly agrees with it and attacks its enemies. It is a kind of “semi-conformism” so to say. It is frankly irrelevant and of no interest to me. There are friends and there are foes. Only that matters. All the rest is without any importance. Mr. Carvalho is neither. It is his choice. His anti-soviet and anti-Russian pejorative myths, stupid conspiracy theories, implicit cultural Western racism, the ressentiment to his own native country are not even worth of critics. No comments.

The other question is the structure of the possible anti-globalist and anti-imperialist front and its participants. I think that we should include in it all forces that struggle against the West, the United States, against the liberal democracy, against Modernity and Post-Modernity. The common enemy is the necessary instance for all kinds of political alliances. The Muslims, the Christians, the Russians and the Chinese, the leftists or the rightists, the Hindus or the Jews who challenge the present state of things, the globalization and the American imperialism are virtually friends ands allies.

Let our ideals be different but we have in common one very strong thing: the present reality that we hate. Our ideals that differ are potential (in potentia). But the challenge we are dealing with is actual (in actu). So that is the basis for new alliance. All who share negative analysis of the globalization, westernization and post-modernization should coordinate their effort in creation of new strategy of the resistance to the omnipresent evil. And we can find the «ours» in the United States also – among those who choose the Tradition against the present decadence. Mr Carvalho doesn’t belong to such kind of persons. He has convincingly explained that during the debate.

At this point we could raise a really important question: what kind of ideology should we use in our opposition to the globalization and its liberal democratic capitalist and Modernist (Post-Modernist) principles? I think that all anti-liberal ideologies (the communism, socialism as well as fascism) are not anymore relevant. They tried to fight the liberal-capitalism and they failed. Partly because in the end of time it is evil that prevails; partly because of their inner contradictions and limitations. So it is time to make the accomplish deep revision of the antiliberal ideologies of the past. What is their positive side? –

The very fact that they were anti-capitalist and anti-liberal, as well as also anti-cosmopolite and anti-individualist. So these features should be accepted and integrated in the future ideology. But the communism doctrine is Modern, atheist, materialist and cosmopolite. That should be thrown out. On the contrary, the social solidarity, social justice, the socialism and general holistic attitude to the society are good in themselves. So we need to separate the materialist and Modernist aspect and reject them.
On the other hand in the theories of Third way (dear up to certain point to some traditionalists as Julius Evola) there were some unacceptable elements – first of all racism, xenophobia and chauvinism. That is not only moral failures but also theoretically and anthropologically inconsistent attitudes.

The difference between the ethnos doesn’t mean superiority or inferiority. The difference should be accepted and affirmed without any racist appreciation. There is not common measure dealing with the different ethnic groups. When one society tries to judge the other it applies its own criteria and so commits the intellectual violence. The same attitude is precisely the crime of the globalization and Westernization, as well as the American imperialism.

Continued—and it goes on.

Bill C–retrenchment equals in the language of the old Cold War “isolationism” plane and simple.

This President has not had a single strategic strategy in place in the last six years—it is foreign policy by the flag pole–meaning I will react with a big R when the wind blows it in a direction–THEN I will make some statements, makes a few small moves and then PRAY.

Yes we cannot be the eternal policeman of the world but at some point it needs a grown up and right now that grown up runs from any responsibility.

I have been harping about Putin from the very moment he entered into Crimea as the existential threat to the US from day one and I have not wavered one bit from that estimate–Putin is not the old Soviet leadership who clearly understood the red lines and basically was interested in protecting the “Revolution”.

Putin is a fascist imperialist expansionist and that mixture we have not seen for a long long number of years and he is not afraid of going nuclear–remember he cancelled in fact MAD.

Coming into office he should have known this–not learning it from the newspapers–this NSC as I keep repeating is a total failure.

NO PLAN come on Bill even you must admit that is strange for a President and a 700 person NSC and the entire IC that has cost this country billions in the last 14 years to build.

Russia’s new air base in Syria has Obama scrambling for a plan, reports [/B]@joshrogin http://bv.ms/1JZRtnu via @BV

A very brutal assessment of the Obama failures in Syria—

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2015/09/12/Obama-has-a-heart-like-railroad-steel-on-Syria.html

Obama has a ‘heart like railroad steel’ on Syria

Saturday, 12 September 2015

Hisham Melhem

Former President George W. Bush bequeathed to Barack Obama a precarious and partially broken Arab World. A spectacularly ambitious imperial attempt at remaking the region, beginning in Mesopotamia, crumbled mightily in the inhospitable desert of Iraq.

The dream of planting a Jeffersonian democracy in the land of the two rivers, metamorphosed into an unprecedented sectarian bloodletting. Bush’s freedom agenda, coming after he admitted – correctly – that for more than fifty years U.S. administrations neglected human rights in the Middle East in the name of maintaining stability, the free flow of oil, and striking alliances against the Soviet Union, was ill-conceived, naively pursued, and badly executed.

Bush’s ‘War on Terrorism’ was equally flawed; Al-Qaeda was cut to pieces, but like the mythical Hydra it metastasized and produced the monstrous ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS). But hard as it is to conceive, President Obama will bequeath to his successor a breathtakingly pulverized – figuratively and, yes, physically – region, where in some states like Syria and Iraq whole communities have been uprooted and once great ancient cities have been ransacked, and precious cultural and religious jewels have been destroyed.

“The President will be judged as an accomplice in the historic betrayal of the Syrian people, and in the creation of the worst refugee problem in the Middle East in a century.”

There are no more streets in some Syrian cities; The Assad regime turned them into shallow valleys of broken concrete, twisted metal and shattered personal artifacts indicating that they were once full of life. If hell has streets, they will surely look like the streets of Syria’s cities today. It shall be written, that the words of a sitting American President in the second decade of the 21st century justifying his inaction and his inane silence in the face of the staggering savagery of the Syrian regime – which repeatedly used chemical weapons, barrel bombs, medieval sieges and starvation against his own people – were stunning in their moral vacuity. The President of the United States will be judged as an accomplice in the historic betrayal of the Syrian people – and, to a lesser extent, the Iraqi and Libyan peoples – and in the creation of the worst refugee problem in the Middle East in a century.

Whose responsibility is it anyway?

Surely, the primary responsibility for the agonies of the peoples of the Middle East lies in the hands of the political and cultural classes that inherited the new political structures erected in modern times by the colonial powers over the remnants of old civilizations.

True, European powers drew artificial boundaries – most countries have such borders – not taking into consideration the wishes of the affected peoples, whose promises were rarely honored. This left behind wounds that have yet to heal. But in subsequent years, the ideologues of Arab Nationalism and Political Islam, the military strongmen who perfected military coups along with some atavistic hereditary rulers maintained the ossified status quo or destroyed nascent and relatively open, diverse societies and representative forms of governance in countries like Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Tunisia.

However, Western meddling and military intervention contributed to the rise of Arab autocracy and despotism. The American invasion of Iraq did not cause sectarianism in that tortured land; that dormant scourge was awakened by years of Ba’athist despotism and Saddam Hussein’s decision to invade Iran in 1980.

But the way the American invasion was conceived and executed accelerated Iraq’s descent into the abyss. Hence America’s partial political and moral responsibility for Iraq’s current torment. President Obama’s eagerness to disengage himself and his administration from Bush’s Iraq burden explains his reticence to push for a residual force after 2011, or to seriously and personally continue to engage Iraqis and help those forces willing to live in a unitary civil state, his deafness to repeated warnings that former Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki’s sectarian policies were deepening the sectarian fissures, makes him a partial owner of Iraq’s chaos.

A red (like in blood) line

In neighboring Syria, decades of military rule, and Ba’athist tyranny that was punctuated by violent upheavals and dark periods of repression, gave way to a tremendous popular and peaceful uprising in the spring of 2011 following those in Tunisia and Egypt.

“Assad, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and the rulers of Iran took the measure of President Obama and they knew that they would get away with murder. And they did.”

The Assad regime responded by the application of gradual violence against a civilian movement calling for change, an end to the state of emergency, and political representation. Every qualitative violent escalation on the part of the Syrian regime – the use of the air force, barrel bombs, Scud missiles and chemical weapons – was taken after carefully watching and gaging Washington’s reaction. Assad, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and the rulers of Iran took the measure of President Obama and they knew that they would get away with murder. And they did, in Syria, Iraq and the Ukraine. In 2011 President Obama cavalierly called on Assad to ‘step aside’ without any serious thoughts to the options available to him after the inevitable ‘go ahead and make me’ that he was warned would come from Assad. During the deliberation that preceded the president’s call on Assad, a very experienced Syria expert cautioned against the move unless the President was willing to back his words with action. One young advisor to the President, his principle wordsmith, dismissed such prudent advice, saying with churlish arrogance betraying his own ignorance of Syria that Assad will soon be swept from power by the winds of the ‘Arab Spring’ just like Presidents Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt.

Unsheathing swords and cocking guns

For a President who defined his political career by words and speeches, Obama acts at times as if his words carry the power of actions. On his own initiative he drew a virtual red line for Assad in 2012, warning that his use of chemical weapons will mean that he has crossed that bloody line, a violation that will force the President to change his calculus.

It was supposed to be Assad’s Rubicon. Once again, the lisping tinhorn dictator of Syria (beautifully described by an astute American diplomat in a cable as the ‘self-proclaimed Pericles of Damascus’) paid no heed to the American President. In one attack in August 2013 against a suburb of Damascus more than 1400 Syrian civilians, many of them children, were killed by chemical weapons. The scorned President huffed and puffed and issued threats backed by dispatching military assets to the Syrian coasts. Then the President took a walk with another young advisor and supposedly saw the folly of delivering on his words, and once again he flinched. On August 31, 2013, another American day that should live in infamy, he informed a stunned world of his (in)decision. Mighty America shrunk on that day. The word of the American President was no longer the coin of the realm. One could imagine Putin’s smug smile, and almost hears Assad’s nervous loud laugh.

The Arabs of olden days used to say that an honorable man should not unsheathe his sword unless he intends to use it. For ordinary people this is unbecoming, like breaking your word or reneging on a promise. For a ruler it could be a fatal mistake. I remember after writing this observation that I was thrilled when I heard former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a televised interview saying that he warned President Obama about issuing threats if he is not ready to act upon them. Gates reminded the President of a saying in the old West; don’t cock the gun unless you are willing to pull the trigger.

“For a president who did not want to do ‘stupid stuff’ in foreign policy, his approach to Syria is akin to a case of criminal negligence.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson went to his grave haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam. President George W. Bush will live the rest of his life being tormented by the nightmares of Iraq, even if he claims he is not. President Obama’s catastrophic policies towards Syria will be a blot on his legacy. For a president who did not want to do ‘stupid stuff’ in foreign policy, his approach to Syria is akin to a case of criminal negligence.

A damaged legacy

President Obama’s attitude towards Syria says a lot about how he sees American power and how he sees the Middle East. He seems to be always cognizant of America’s limited power, and what he perceives as its shrinking ability to still do great things on its own. In Libya, he pursued a limited military role, leading from behind and hoping for the best and placing his faith solely in air power. He shirked the tedious political follow-up after the fall of the Libyan dictator, and in fact he admitted to that error.

Early in his first term President Obama wanted to have a new beginning with the Muslim world. That took him to Ankara and Cairo to pursue that path. And he extended an open hand to the hostile regimes in Iran and Syria. He also tried to stop the building of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. Then he was hit in the face by the so-called Arab Spring where he reluctantly withdrew his support for Egypt’s Mubarak. In a few months his Middle East policies began to meet the hard men and the harsher realities of the region. The Iranians maintained their clenched fist; the Assad regime went through the ritual of dialogue but was never serious about changing its ways in Lebanon or the region. Netanyahu stiffed Obama on settlements, and the ill winds of the season of uprisings, plunged Libya in a civil war, and put Egypt under a precarious military rule, and the fires reached Syria. Obama took a second look at the region and realized that he has to invest a huge political and moral capital without guaranteed success… and he flinched.

In his second term, the long arduous road to Persia began to open slowly for a nuclear deal. Ever since, Obama’s eyes were focused on that prize, at the expense of other pressing challenges. Meanwhile, Syria continued to bleed and die slowly. And from the beginning, and even before the Assad regime militarized the uprising, Obama looked at the conflict as someone else’s civil war. He derisively referred to the Syrian opposition as ‘former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth’ (words that could be used to describe the American rebels fighting for independence) before abandoning them to the tender mercies of Assad’s barrel bombs and the depredations of ISIS, when ISIS did not exist as an effective fighting terror army. The President wanted to believe the fiction that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria, when the Assad regime and his Russian and Iranian sponsors always acted and believed that they will prevail only by the sword. Obama was not even serious when he claimed that the limited programs of training and equipping the moderate Syrian opposition were designed to force the Assad regime and his backers to the negotiating table. Truth be told, President Obama betrayed Syria for the sake of a nuclear deal with Iran. To paraphrase Saint Luke, what good is it for a president to gain a temporary deal, and yet lose his very self?

Deception

What was most maddening was the sheer length the president went to when he engaged in the worst use of sophistry during his tenure to misleadingly frame the arguments of his critics by claiming that they want him to ‘invade’ Syria, when in fact not a single serious expert on Syria called for such a thing. This is as deceptive, as his argument that those opposed to the nuclear deal with Iran, are pushing for war with the Islamic Republic. Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry were repeatedly misled by Russia. A few weeks ago, the President himself more than hinted that Russia is seriously willing to engage in a political process that will end in Assad’s departure. General John Allen, the President’s Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, said three weeks ago that the Russians have told Secretary Kerry that they are ‘tired’ of Assad and are willing to move beyond him, that they may be able to lean on Iran to show some flexibility. Instead, both Russia and Iran are doubling down and qualitatively increasing their support for Assad. Russia has sent advisors and Special Forces and Marines to Tartus and Latakia. The U.S. is confirming these reports but it admits that it has no idea about their mission. The Obama administration is reduced to asking Moscow for explanations, for telling the Russians about its ‘deep concerns’ about these military moves. The Obama administration in dealing with the Russians and the Iranians is variously pleading, beseeching, and imploring. Words like these re-inforce the views of President Putin and Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei that the President of the United States is willing to go the extra mile not to jeopardize the chances of implementing the nuclear deal and to secure Russian cooperation regarding Syria.

“Hard as it is to believe, but the worst is yet to come in Syria, for the Syrians as well as for the region and beyond.”

The worst is yet to come

What we see in Syria today, could be the shape of things to come in other parts of the region. The foreign fighters, and the endless river of refugees are threatening Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey where almost four million Syrian refugees currently and precariously reside. It is a question of time before Lebanon and Jordan implode. Violence has reached Turkey. With each passing day the chances for an acceptable political outcome are shrinking, and the chances of a permanent breakup of Syria and Iraq increase. Hard as it is to believe, but the worst is yet to come in Syria, for the Syrians as well as for the region and beyond. The best and the brightest of Syria are leaving the country to join a Syrian nation of refugees on the move. Most, if not all, will not return. Thus rebuilding Syria – if such a possibility is within reach in the foreseeable future – will become next to impossible.

Bill—this is a sample of this isolationist mentality of the Obama Administration—they were actually part and parcel of the so called Normandy Five when we were in Normandy for the first meeting—THEN Obama pulled out leaving it for the Europeans to handle with it now being the Normandy Four.

After the Kerry Sochi Putin meeting where Kerry actually criticized the Ukrainian President in front of Putin the US attempted to setup a back channel between Nuland and Russia in order to get back into the Normandy format—Russia has effectively sidelined the US and frozen them out of the following meetings and basically the meetings are going in circles as Putin wants the political points inside Minsk 2 to be fulfilled and is basically refusing to implement the military points-ie total and complete POW exchanges, total withdrawal of Russian troops and her mercenaries, restoration of the Ukrainian border, total and complete withdrawal of all heavy weapons verified by OSCE and a total and complete monitoring by OSCE—none of that has been achieved.

Nuland and her counterpart had several meetings but lately not a single one as they were not going anywhere and after she was accused of pressuring the Ukraine into a unilateral appeasement move with no reciprocal demands on Russia she has not been to the Ukraine until yesterday.

Russia has gone into a ceasefire right now because of Syria, Putins UN visit, the coming potential EU sanctions rollovers in December etc.

Below is from yesterday’s meetings—NOTICE Germany is harping that progress is being made and the Ukrainian response was nothing was achieved—all the Russians wanted to do was talk about elections and yet they are still occupying eastern Ukraine and per Minsk 2 they should have been pulling out by now-along with their mercenaries and should have exchanged the remaining 189 POWs.

It is really worth reading the Minsk 2 agreement in order to see what Russia has never implemented all the while demanding the Ukraine fulfill every point.

Notice just how Germany wants progress so they can get back to business as usual.

AND just where is the US in all of this????? AWOL across the board—that is isolationism not retrenchment.

Klimkin: Normandy talks as confrontational as they were before. https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/642922454671851520 …

Russia refused to pass to Ukraine the control over Ukraine’s border – Klimkin nothing achieved.

Germany says ‘significant progress’ made at #Ukraine meeting
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/12/us-ukraine-crisis-germany-steinmeier-idUSKCN0RC0RL20150912 …

СММ ОБСЄ в Україні @OSCE_SMM
Time for sustained cease-fire, meaningful progress in implementation of Minsk Agreements, says OSCE SG on Ukraine http://www.osce.org/node/181686

ATO press center: 3 militant attacks recorded yesterday. No casualties among UA forces
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1066153943395411&id=820651001279041&refid=17&_ft_=top_level_post_id.1066153943395411%3Atl_objid.1066153943395411&__tn__=%2As …

@waterloo_2014 Rumours are spread, RUS troops and hardware being withdrew. I didn’t note that. Drills in progress, ready ‘to Kyiv’…

@hingar66 Affirm. Many of them in #Starobesheve-#Dokuchaevsk, not going away but intrenching… https://twitter.com/loogunda/status/642988583507349504 …

This is a telling comment about the lack of any US strategic thinking at any level when it comes to Russia and especially Putin either in the Ukraine and or Syria—even now.

Earnest said that the U.S. remains unsure about Russia’s intentions in Syria. (Critics say this inability to understand President Vladimir Putin prevented the Obama administration from anticipating the invasion of Ukraine, or responding effectively to the conflict that followed.)

“At this point, it’s hard to tell exactly what they’re planning to do,” he said. “We’ve, I think. tried to make clear what we would like to see them do, but ultimately they’ll have to decide.”

AND the narrative of this Iranian message is what again and who is it targeted against????

Khamenei.ir
‏@khamenei_ir If any war happens…
https://youtu.be/QjmDV8kagV8

Yoram Ettinger, a former Israeli consul-general in Houston, said the issues here have little to do with personalities or alleged hostilities on the part of Obama. “It’s an issue of a gap between two very different world views,” he said.

He said that in Israeli eyes, Obama is unrealistic, sending a message of weakness through his handling of the so-called Arab Spring over the past five years and by trusting an Iranian government with such a long record of defying the international community and supporting violent groups across the region.

“Are you rooted in reality or are you rooted in wishful thinking,” he said.

Bill C–pay very close attention to the podcast from RFL–RFE/RL Podcast: Putin’s Road To Damascus

There are a serious number of items mentioned by the participants that never seem to make it into the US mainstream media thus never make it to the WH and the NSC for their attention. I have said a number of times in SWJ comments that the Sunni militant groups are fighting now as a professional army as someone has effectively trained them and provided an unusual number of TOWs–their comments confirm this.

Notice the mentioning of the following;

1. that it is a proxy war between Iran and the Sunni states of UAE, Qatar and the KSA

2. in fact it might and could be said Russia is being pulled into the proxy fight by supplying highly modern weapons to the Iranians and the Iranians flying in units of the IRGC to do the ground fighting

3.AND this is the most important piece—yes IS is fighting there and Al Nursa is actually acting much like a free agent–sometimes here sometimes there depending on who pays them and provides more weapons

BLUF is that there are in fact “three distinct Sunni Armies” with the emphasis on the word “Sunni Armies” now on the battlefield fighting to defend the honor of Syria against Assad and IS AND they are battle hardened and combat efficient and are well supplied with ATMs and more modern artillery.

While the IS is fighting to create a Caliphate–the Sunni Armies are fighting to preserve Syria as a Sunni state and where there have been head to head fighting IS usually loses.

Iran on the other hand is as I have indicated here a number of times fighting to have the Green Crescent connections to Hezbollah in Lebanon not cut.

While the bulk of the podcast concerned Russia and the US it did go into Russian relations with Iran.

The podcast should be replayed and replayed in the WH and the NSC.

We the US had in fact a number of different opportunities since 2011 to shape the outcome of the fighting in Syria which would not have cost us much at all in the grand scheme of things—–BUT we did absolutely nothing.

Deleted– was a second copy for the previous comment.

Duplicate.

Bill C—this is why anything done currently by the US is nothing but lip service as they have absolutely no strategy nor can they even understand Russian moves in Syria.

What is interesting about this particular weaponized information “leak” is that at first glance it looks like Putin was pushing a valid offer and it was the mean West that was far sighted and did not engage—BUT then the second comment reflects social media who had done battle with Russian propaganda for over a year now and can fully read between the Russian lines as opposed to say Obama and the entire NSC.

West ‘ignored Russian offer to have Syria’s Assad step aside’ says Ahtisaari to @julianborger http://www.theguardian.com/world/201…sad-step-aside … fascinating if true

Just to be clear: Russians offer was 4 Assad 2 “lead transition” (God knows 4how long) & leave honorably on his term. http://www.theguardian.com/world/201…rld_b-gdnworld …

So in reality it really never was a true offer-was just designed as Russian CYA so Russia could stand back and say –“we are the adults here not the West”……..BUT WAIT was not this offer actually all about regime change as even defined in Russian propaganda.

THEN today from the Russian UK Ambassador–one of their leading info warriors—he flips the 2012 article–typical Russian Orwellian doublespeak.

Alexander Yakovenko Verified account 
‏@Amb_Yakovenko Rumours of Rus-US-Saudi “secret talks on ousting Assad” groundless. Moscow is not in regime change business.

BUT with a extra large B —-why do regime change when one can “share”–so Assad is in the view of Russia going to be there for a long time—but as the KSA has stated he must go as he is the problem.

Putin says Assad is ready to share power with Syria’s opposition https://meduza.io/en/news/2015/09/15…a-s-opposition … Why change regimes when you can “share” them?

BUT only share with “reasonable forces”–what the heck is “reasonable forces” among the current anti Assad forces fighting in Syria to actually toss out Assad?????

Another abject failure by the US intel community if in fact it is true—

Russian troops have been already in Syria for over four months SO in fact the video released of them fighting in Homs is in fact accurate.

https://meduza.io/en/news/2015/09/18…oyment

Russian soldiers reportedly refuse secret Syria deployment

13:22, 18 September 2015 Gazeta.ru

A group of Russian soldiers who are serving in the army on military contracts (as opposed to draftees) have reportedly refused to be deployed in Latakia, Syria.

Officials from Russia’s Eastern Command have denied this report, saying its training exercises are limited to Russian soil. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said earlier today that the Kremlin has no knowledge of the situation.

A lieutenant who identified himself as Alexei N. told the Russian news website Gazeta.ru that commanders selected 20 of the best-trained soldiers and told them that they would be deployed to a hot region. They were warned that the climate would be very different from what they were used to and that there would be poisonous animals at the new place, but the specific region was not named. The group was first sent to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. At first, the soldiers assumed they were being sent to the east of Ukraine, but later they found out they would be deployed in Syria.

On September 16, a General Staff representative dressed in civilian clothing told the group that a secret decree stipulates that they would be sent to Latakia and that they may have to participate in fighting.

The group was due to be shipped off on September 17, but instead they appealed to the Military Prosecutor’s Office, and the deployment was delayed. Several of the soldiers have already submitted their letters of resignation from the army.

“Registrations were being taken off the technical equipment. We were told about the consolidation of an air base in Syria,” said another contractor. “One of the people at the loading station at the port told us that our men have been there for four months already.”

Russia is currently training Syrian soldiers in accordance with a weapons trade deal between the two countries. Officials have confirmed that Russian trainers have been sent to Syria. Russia also operates a military base in Tartus, and in the past Russian troops have been stationed at Latakia.

Earlier, Stratfor revealed satellite images showing construction work in Latakia. According to some sources, Russian tanks and weapons are stationed there.

On September 16, the Russian military high command admitted that Moscow might construct an air force base in Syria.

On September 18, Syria’s Foreign Ministry announced on television that Syria might appeal to Russia to bring in troops. He said that Russian troops are not actively partaking in the armed conflict in Syria at the moment.

The American taxpayer has funded the intel community to the tune of literally billions since 9/11 and yet social media has to tell the world what is going on in Syria—-come on……tell me this is not happening..

Now Obama and Kerry completely retreat from their foreign policy decision that Assad must go–come on that flies in the face of KSA, UAE, Qatar, and Turkey demands.

It now appears that Obama is fully supporting the Iranian IRGC and Iranian hegemony in Syria.

U.S. to Begin Military Talks With Russia on Syria

By MICHAEL R. GORDON
SEPT. 18, 2015

LONDON — Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that the United States was prepared to engage in military-to-military talks with Russia concerning Syria.

“The president believes that a military-to-military conversation is an important next step,” Mr. Kerry said, “and I think, hopefully, it will take place very shortly.”

The initial purpose of the talks with Russia, Mr. Kerry said, will be to help “define some of the different options that are available to us as we consider next steps in Syria.”

Mr. Kerry said that the Obama administration would not change its basic goals in Syria: The defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and a political solution for the conflict there.

But though the administration has long said that President Bashar al-Assad must go for there to be a durable solution to the Syria crisis, Mr. Kerry seemed on Friday to allow for the possibility that Mr. Assad might remain in power in the short term. Mr. Assad has had Russia’s backing throughout the conflict.

THIS is exactly the Putin agenda–nothing less nothing more–this is not US foreign policy at work but Putin’s own FP dictated to the US via a weak President.

“Our focus remains on destroying ISIL and also on a political settlement with respect to Syria, which we believe cannot be achieved with a long-term presence of Assad,” Mr. Kerry said. “But we’re looking for ways in which to try to find a common ground. Clearly, if you’re going to have a political settlement, which we have always argued is the best and only way to resolve Syria, you need to have conversations with people, and you need to find a common ground.”

Mr. Kerry made his remarks in London at the start of a meeting with Abdullah bin Zayed, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates. Mr. Kerry also plans to meet on Saturday with the British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, and then will travel to Germany on Sunday for discussions focused mainly on the Syria crisis and the refugee situation in Europe.

Russia has been stepping up its support for Mr. Assad in recent weeks, including deployment of weapons and personnel to an airfield near Latakia, Syria. With Mr. Kerry’s comments on Friday, the Obama administration’s position on the Russian steps has shifted, from objecting vociferously to trying to manage events.

On Sept. 5, Mr. Kerry warned Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, that the Kremlin should not expand its military support for the Syrian government. The Russian buildup, Mr. Kerry said in a telephone conversation with Mr. Lavrov, “could further escalate the conflict” and might even “risk confrontation” with the American-led coalition that is conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, according to a State Department account of the call.

The United States also sought to impede the Russian buildup. Bulgaria closed its airspace to Russian transport planes at the request of the United States. Iraq, however, did not take any action, which has allowed the Russians to keep delivering weapons and equipment to Syria.

Russia made the next diplomatic move. Seeking to rebut Mr. Kerry’s assertion that the Russian deployment could fuel the Syrian conflict, Mr. Lavrov said last week that the Russian military was prepared to coordinate with the Pentagon to avoid “unintended incidents.” He repeated the offer for military-to-military talks in a telephone conversation with Mr. Kerry on Tuesday.

Prior to Putin’s move into Syria there was a stream of social media comments and articles that the US had thrown the Ukraine under the bus in order to get an Iran deal and resolution of the Syrian conflict.

Appears to have been true—US double standard ——

US suspended mil 2 mil talks w Russia over Crimea. Now US lifts suspension after Russia moves into Syria.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/world/europe/us-to-begin-military-talks-with-russia-on-syria.html …

Could not talk because of the Crimea and the Russian invasion into eastern Ukraine AND suddenly Obama talks to Putin–AND his legacy is not at the center of this sudden shift in US foreign policy?????

Can anyone here at SWJ explain why people outside of DC and the US have a far far clearer understanding of the world around them ?????

REMEMBER Putin stated before Obama “caved” that Assad was willing to negotiate with “reasonable forces” BUT he never defined the word “reasonable” just as he stated Assad would remain for a “transitional period” AGAIN undefined.

BUT when using the word “terrorist” Putin definitely between the lines is openly and publicly defining ANYONE who is anti Assad is a “terrorist”–so who is left that is “reasonable”??????

Heck if we take Putin at his word–then even Obama, his entire NSC, Kerry and the DNI were actually up to the point of “caving” yesterday actually “terrorists” in Putin’s eyes–SO why are they then “caving” and negotiating????

Does anyone in Washington ever fully listen to each and every word Putin and his inner circle utters??

http://www.rferl.org/content/islamic…/27255377.html

Why Putin Wants To Tar IS And All Assad’s Enemies With The Same Brush

By Joanna Paraszczuk

September 18, 2015

Earlier this week, we noted how a pro-Kremlin website claimed the extremist group Islamic State (IS) had sent Chechen militants to Latakia province in Syria.

The report was incorrect — the Chechen group is not part of IS.

But it was almost certainly an intentional obfuscation.

Russia’s conflation of all armed opposition groups with extremist Islamist militants is an integral part of a narrative that has evolved during the Syrian conflict.

Its goals are to keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power, counter the United States, and maintain influence in the Middle East.

The “IS threat” narrative contains several arguments that Moscow puts forward in support of these aims.

1. ‘There Are No ‘Moderate’ Rebels’

According to Moscow, the vast majority of groups fighting Assad are foreign-backed terrorists, not “moderate rebels.”

“The Free Syrian Army does not exist,” Russia’s ambassador to international organizations in Geneva, Aleksei Borodavkin, told the United Nations a year ago, referring to the Western-backed umbrella of moderate rebel forces.

This narrative is partly true. In the north and increasingly the center of Syria, rebel factions are mostly Islamist or Islamist-influenced. Some, like the Al-Nusra Front and the foreign fighter groups, are Salafist-jihadist.

U.S. attempts to bolster moderate rebels have gone awry. The first group to receive U.S. weapons collapsed in March and the United States said this week that there are only “four or five” U.S.-trained rebels fighting IS.

But moderate rebels are still influential in some parts of Syria’s far south, where Jordan’s intelligence services are active.

2. ‘IS Wants To Destroy Syria’

Moscow has warned that IS and other Islamist groups are threatening to turn Syria into a “terror state.”

Therefore, eradicating these groups is more important than ousting Assad, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

3. ‘Assad Has To Be Part Of Fight Against IS’

Russia has insisted that Assad must be part of the fight against IS, claiming that Syrian armed forces are “the most effective military force on the ground.”

Meanwhile, Russia has frequently slammed the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition, saying that it is both illegal (because it has not asked Assad’s permission to operate) and ineffective.

4. ‘Rebels Should Unite With Assad Against IS’

Both Russia and Assad argue that the threat posed by Islamic State is so great, rebels should unite with government forces to counter the militants.

On September 16, Assad used an interview with Russian news outlets to call on rebels to stop fighting him and help him defeat IS.

Only then can Syrians work on a political solution to the conflict, Assad explained.

Assad’s call may seem unrealistic. But it is not a new tactic.

Moscow first put forward the idea nearly two years ago.

“Everything must be done to create a battle-worthy alliance of the government and the patriotic opposition against the terrorist interlopers who flock to Syria from around the world,” Lavrov told Russian TV in December 2013.

4. ‘The West Is Responsible For IS’

Both Moscow and Damascus have blamed the West for the rise of IS (and other Islamist groups in Syria), saying that while Washington is quick to say Islamic State is a terror group, it has backed other armed groups against Assad.

In February, Putin said the rise of IS was the result of Western “interference” in Syria as well as “double standards” over who it deemed terrorists.

Assad repeated this narrative in an interview with Russian media this week.

“What are IS and the other groups? A Western extremist project,” the Syrian leader said.

5. ‘Russia’s Military Build Up In Latakia Is To Fight IS’

The claim that Assad is essential to countering the IS threat has provided Russia with an argument for its military buildup in Syria — which is causing increasing alarm from the United States.

“We support the government of Syria in its effort to counter terrorist aggression,” is how Putin explained the Russian military expansion in Latakia at a September 15 security summit in Tajikistan.

The Real Threat To Assad

As Russia continues its military build-up in Syria, it has also stepped up its use of the “IS threat” narrative.

But these moves are only partly about IS.

While Islamic State is a threat, a bigger problem for Assad is the advance of other radical Islamist battalions, particularly Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate — the Al-Nusra Front — and Ahrar al-Sham, one of the most powerful rebel groups in Syria.

Part of the Jaish al-Fatah military operations coalition, Nusra and Ahrar have driven out government forces from almost all of Idlib province.

And they now threaten Latakia, Assad’s coastal stronghold.

But the war is not being fought on the battlefield alone.

Russia’s best chance to save its ally in Damascus could be an agreement with the West that while Assad should go or at least be demoted, most of his regime remains in place.

And the only way to achieve that is by persuading Washington and its allies that this would be the best way to fight IS.

Can this current Administration, NSC, DoS and the DNI be that intellectually weak that they cannot also “see” the world around them??????

Maybe moving them all to Kyiv or say Jordan or say Moldavia might wake them up???

Did the CENTCOM commander appear to “forget something” in his recent Congressional remarks???????????????

From today’s social media side of the open source intel world—-

New batch of 75 #US-trained fighters (Division 30) entered northern #Syria with 12 technical

So who trained them——because the four star never mentioned them?