Syria Superthread [merged]

[Altair]

Agreed,  however this is a active combat zone. Would the risk not be higher?

 

[The Bread Guy]

It seems the first Russian strike was not against IS, but other anti-Assad fighters.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/initial-reports-on-bombing-strongly-suggest-russia-is-in-syria-to-support-assad-not-destroy-isil

C'mon, now - if these guys were "Crimean Self-defence Forces" ....

.... I'm SURE those guys on the ground in Syria catching hot Russian steel HAD to be ISIS if Russia said so. >

Edited to add attachment of declaration from the Kremlin, in English.

 

[Altair]

There is a plus in all of this. Western nations get squeamish when it comes to hitting targets where there is a larger amount of collateral damage and civilian deaths.

The Russians lie with ease and have a firm grip on their own media so they can do whatever they want in theater. And then deny that any civilians were there. When they do get around to hitting ISIL,  I think they are going to notice that hiding among civilians isn't going to save them anymore.

 

[Kirkhill]

True. IF they get around to tackling ISIL.

In the meantime I suggest you review Basher's Dad's rules on insurgencies. 

Hama Rules.  Basher's Dad was Haf Assad.

 

[CougarKing]

Iran actually had a presence in Syria before: through Hezbollah etc. Tehran aims to defend the Assad regime since the dictator and the Allawite minority group that dominates his regime are seen as "cousins" to Tehran's Shia whose beliefs are similar.

Reuters

Iran troops to join Syria war, Russia bombs group trained by CIA
Thu Oct 1, 2015 4:15pm EDT

By Laila Bassam and Andrew Osborn

BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria to join a major ground offensive in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government, Lebanese sources said on Thursday, a sign the civil war is turning still more regional and global in scope.

Russian warplanes, in a second day of strikes, bombed a camp run by rebels trained by the CIA, the group's commander said, putting Moscow and Washington on opposing sides in a Middle East conflict for the first time since the Cold War.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[McG]

And Russia acknowledges it has hit rebels other than ISIS.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-bombs-syria-targets-for-2nd-day-including-u-s-backed-rebels-1.3251718

 

[a_majoor]

Forming an axis seems to be very popular these days:

http://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2015/10/01/putins-middle-east/?singlepage=true

Putin’s Middle East
As though anybody in the Middle East cares about Kerry's "concerns" while Moscow and Tehran are actually taking strong action.

Bashar Assad sitting pretty because Vladimir Putin has his back.
(AP file photo)

It’s been more than two years since Longtime Sharp VodkaPundit Readers™ were first warned of the Russo-Iranian Axis that would come to dominate the Middle East — and now here it is in action:

Hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria in the last 10 days and will soon join government forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies in a major ground offensive backed by Russian air strikes, two Lebanese sources told Reuters.

“The (Russian) air strikes will in the near future be accompanied by ground advances by the Syrian army and its allies,” said one of the sources familiar with political and military developments in the conflict.

“It is possible that the coming land operations will be focused in the Idlib and Hama countryside,” the source added.

The two sources said the operation would be aimed at recapturing territory lost by President Bashar al-Assad’s government to rebels. [Emphasis added]

Please pay particular attention to that last line as we venture back to the UN so that we might see the Obama administration’s reaction:


[Secretary of State John] Kerry told the United Nations Security Council that the U.S. would not object to Russians hitting Islamic State or al-Qaida targets, but airstrikes just to strengthen the hand of Syrian President Bashar Assad would be worrisome. Later, after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, Kerry said he had spoken about U.S. “concerns about the nature of the targets, the type of targets and the need for clarity with respect for them.

“It is one thing obviously to be targeting ISIL. We are concerned obviously if that is not what is happening,” Kerry said.

Anyone who can read a map — this definition would seem to exclude most senior members of Professor Ditherton Wiggleroom’s administration — isn’t at all surprised by Russia’s airstrikes. Senator John McCain “said he could ‘absolutely confirm’ that members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), who had been funded and trained by the CIA, were among those targeted.” The Syrian rebels, our supposed allies, hold the areas closest to Damascus and the coastal regions still held by forces loyal to Assad. The ISIS-held areas mostly lie far to the east, closer to Iraq.

So of course Russo-Iranian forces are concentrating on defeating the rebels, who pose the most immediate threat to Assad. And yet Obama negotiated in good faith with Putin on Monday, with some sort of expectation that Putin would attack our enemies rather than his own.

Naiveté. Idiocy. Madness. As though anybody in the Middle East cares about Kerry’s “concerns” while Moscow and Tehran are actually taking strong action.

Our former friends in Iraq are adjusting their planning accordingly, as Lebanon’s Daily Star reports:


Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Thursday he would welcome Russian airstrikes against ISIS in his country and had been receiving information from both Syria and Russia on the militant group.

“Not yet,” Abadai told France 24 television when asked if he had discussed with Russia airstrikes in his country. “It is a possibility. If we get the offer we will consider it and I would welcome it.”

He said Baghdad had also been receiving “massive information” from Syria on ISIS and also from Russia.

Obama has spent two years dicking around with the so-called “jayvee” in eastern Syria and western Iraq, wasting everybody’s time with ineffectual pinprick attacks. He spent half a billion dollars over the course of months to train five ostensibly pro-American rebels, while the Russians and Iranians have deployed hundreds of their own troops to Syria in just the last couple of weeks. Is it any wonder that Iraq, which Obama abandoned in 2011, is turning its lonely eyes to Moscow?

Meanwhile the Russians are ruthlessly going about the business of protecting their friends and blowing up their enemies — the perceived value of which even our own secretary of Defense doesn’t understand:


“It does appear they were in in areas where there probably were not ISIL forces,” [Defense Secretary Ash] Carter said of the Russian airstrikes, using an alternative acronym for Islamic State. “The result of this kind of action will inevitably simply be to inflame the civil war in Syria.”

Carter said he couldn’t confirm reports that the Russian strikes may have hit civilians, but said, “if it occurred, it’s yet another reason why this kind of Russian action can and will backfire very badly on Russia.”

Backfire with whom? The Assad regime has never cared about civilian casualties, Baghdad can’t afford to care about civilian casualties, and Russia and Iran care only about establishing their new hegemony over the old Fertile Crescent.

Obama and Kerry and Carter can cluck at Russia all they want, but its their chickens which have come to roost in what is fast becoming Putin’s Middle East.

 

[Altair]

So the western, including Canadian response to this should be what? 

Because it appears we have been outflanked...again.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Credit where due - the Russian MoD's info-machine is far more imaginative than the Pentagon's when it comes to headlines.

Russia (each link with a video)?

• "Russian Aerospace Forces engaged another four ISIS facilities in Syria this night"
• "Russian aviation performed high-accuracy strikes against international terrorist organization ISIS"
• "The results of the work of the Russian air group in Syria over the past day" (in Russian)

The U.S.?

• "Military airstrikes continue against ISIL terrorists in Syria, Iraq", repeat as needed

  ;D

Meanwhile, Russia scolds the media:

The Russian Defense Ministry calls the foreign media rumors about the operation of the Russia’s Aerospace Forces in Syria "pseudo-sensations."

"These pseudo-sensations are complete nonsense, not grounded in a factual basis. I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that today’s informational provocations had been concocted in haste before the start of the operation," Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Friday ....

 

[jollyjacktar]

They do have an ally here in Canada.  Jean Chretien is cheering.  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/01/chretien-says-putin-s-help-in-syria-should-be-welcomed-by-canada_n_8230114.html

 

[Flanker]

And Russia acknowledges it has hit rebels other than ISIS.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-bombs-syria-targets-for-2nd-day-including-u-s-backed-rebels-1.3251718

Other than ISIS?
How do you manage to distinguish good terrorists and bad terrorists?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group, expresses his views with a single image titled "US Syria policy:"

             

 

[The Bread Guy]

Other than ISIS?
How do you manage to distinguish good terrorists and bad terrorists?

When the Syrian government tells you, "those are the guys to bomb - thanks!"

.... Russia would use its warplanes to hit terrorist targets when requested by the Syrian government ....

 

[tomahawk6]

Both rebel groups oppose Assad,as a result they are fair game from Russia's perspective.Their objective is to prop up Assad.
Russian strike video of IS training and command center.

http://www.rt.com/news/317351-russian-strikes-aleppo-isis/#.Vg6rlGCSPRg.twitter

 

[Altair]

I'm no fan of Putin,  but is it fair to say he's one of the most effective political leaders on the world stage today?

I honestly have more faith in Putin when it comes to taking on isil (and whoever else isn't lined up with assad) than I do Obama.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I'm no fan of Putin,  but is it fair to say he's one of the most effective political leaders on the world stage today?

I honestly have more faith in Putin when it comes to taking on isil (and whoever else isn't lined up with assad) than I do Obama.

He is, seemingly, effective in the immediate, maybe even the short term; I think we'll need to await and see the intermediate and long term consequences. I would agree that he is one of the world's most opportunistic leaders ...

 

[The Bread Guy]

The latest from the Russian MoD Info-machine:

• "Russian air grouping continues making precise attacks at the #ISIS terrorists from the Hmeymim airbase"
• "Su-25 attack aircraft completely destroyed a large workshop aimed for production of bombs and improvised explosive devices and disguised as a plant for gas cylinders"
• "Results of actions of the Russian air grouping in Syria for the last 24 hours"

 

[The Bread Guy]

A bit more from the Russian Info-machine:

• "Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Colonel General Andrei Kartapolov told about actions of the Russian air grouping in Syria"
• "The Russian air group continued air strikes by precision-guided munitions by international terrorist groups IS in Syria" (in Russian)

 

[tomahawk6]

I wonder why they arent this public with their Ukraine operations ? ;D

 

[Edward Campbell]

Jeffrey A. Stacey, who is Managing Partner of Geopolicity USA, a former State Department official in the Obama administration, and author of Integrating Europe ( Oxford University Press), posits, in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from Foreign Affairs, that Syria, like Crimea, is now "lost" to the West:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2015-10-02/undeterred-syria

Undeterred in Syria
How the West Lost Crimea—And Syria

By Jeffrey A. Stacey

October 2, 2015

Russian President Vladimir Putin might have intervened in Syria promising to end the conflict there, but things on the ground are only going to get worse, and Putin’s drive to subvert Western interests will only increase.

Russia’s ominous military buildup in Syria represents the most significant projection of force beyond the territory of the former Soviet Union since the Cold War. In the past few days, Russia has initiated a series of airstrikes against Syrian regime opponents. It has begun operating advanced offensive hardware, including fixed wing Su-24, 25, and 27 fighter jets, attack helicopters, drone aircraft, main battle tanks, and SA-22 surface-to-air missile batteries from its new base in Latakia, which is in the backyard of Assad’s stronghold.

Although Russia uses the threat of the Islamic State (also called ISIS) as cover, the Russian campaign is in fact geared toward keeping the Bashar al-Assad regime in power in Syria, effectively closing the path toward negotiated resolution that had been opened by the Iran nuclear deal. Russia also intends to maintain a major forward operating base in the Middle East, which will allow it not only to play a role in determining the regime that follows, but also the ability to influence events in the region beyond the current conflict.

However, of greater concern in the immediate term, there is little guarantee that Russia won’t use its high-end military weaponry in other destabilizing ways, such as through sustained attacks on opposition fighters backed by the United States and the Gulf States. Indeed, Russia’s initial air attacks weren’t even aimed at ISIS strongholds, but were targeted at more moderate anti-Assad groups. And there are already questions about the Russian air force’s ability to operate in the same theater as British, French, Gulf, Turkish, and U.S. air operations without endangering allied aircraft and pilots, intentionally or unintentionally.

Indeed, Russia has been playing a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with allied planes and ships across Eurasia for many months now. Among other things, it has been both flying in the flight paths of Western commercial and military aircraft and using ships and submarines to intermittently sail into Western countries’ territorial waters. In addition, Russia has staged a series of large-scale military exercises just across the border of Poland and several Baltic states, and its intelligence service actually seized an Estonian agent during last year’s NATO Summit and held him for several days.

But this intervention in Syria is doubly ominous. Not only does it go far beyond Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in sheer operational terms, but it will also cause the Gulf States, led by Saudi Arabia, to massively up the ante in terms of their support of anti-Assad Sunni rebel groups in Syria. In short, this regional war—that is now verging on a minor World War, given all the outside powers now engaged in military operations there—will be substantially prolonged just when anticipation had grown over a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in the wake of the Iran nuclear qua peace deal.

PERCEPTION, MISPERCEPTION, AND DETERRENCE

The United States and its Western allies should not have been caught so off-guard by Putin’s shrewd but destabilizing move. Since the Russia invasion and occupation of Eastern Ukraine, Putin has been poking and prodding the West, seeking ways in which a militarily and diplomatically resurgent Russia can subvert Western security interests and force Western capitals to deal with Russia again as a major world power with its own unique set of legitimate interests.

But this was not just a sin of omission. It is also a sin of commission. By not confronting Putin and Russia sufficiently over its illegal invasion and occupation of Ukraine, the United States and its Western allies effectively gave Putin a green light to project force in other geostrategic hot spots.

When Putin stared down the West and the West blinked, the West lost its credibility and, with it, its ability to deter further Russian bad behavior. Most Western security experts, focused on the conflict over Ukraine itself, ignored the wider strategic ramifications.

Inside the beltway, pundits argued against arming Ukraine because they believed that Putin would only up the ante. In fact, the United States should have upped the ante itself. More than likely, Putin would have backed down. After all, the use of force is about the only form of statecraft Putin respects. Russia effectively shrugs off anything short of it, or the credible threat of its use. Even the sanctions, which have cost the Russian economy dearly, have not deterred him.

The West did do a better job after the Ukraine invasion, deterring Russian incursions into other parts of Europe. The United States fairly rapidly provided security assurances to Poland and the rest of East–Central Europe, forcibly drawing a line against Russian incursions into these former Soviet satellites. But after Crimea was lost, the immense damage to the highest tenant of international law—non-violation of sovereign borders—was already done.

Russia has a stronger set of interests in Syria and in the Assad regime than the United States and its Western allies do. And believing that the West probably wouldn’t fight back, it felt free to intervene and begin launching strikes. And now the West has a significant new Russian forward operating base on its hands in a pivotal part of the world. The seeds of this buildup were sown when Putin deftly inserted himself into the Syria equation over two years ago when the United States, United Kingdom, and France failed to enforce their no-use-of-chemical-weapons red line. But it was the failure to force Putin’s hand over Ukraine that emboldened him to make this newfound far-reaching move.

Since the West is unlikely to intervene in the conflict directly, deterrence is even more vital for the United States to establish and maintain. It is both strategically effective and cost-effective, but it is difficult to establish and maintain, and quite simple to lose. In fact, deterrence matters more when a superpower is either unwilling or unable to intervene in a crisis where its interests are clearly at stake.

Building deterrence back up is an arduous process; it cannot occur in the absence of carefully but forthrightly checking an opponent’s moves (or potential moves) by a combination of calibrated repositioning of military forces, engaging in military exercises, or the actual use of military force. However, the most difficult part is doing this in the middle of a crisis or conflict, as what might be effective in peacetime could well be escalatory in wartime. Hence, deterrence is likely to remain lost for the remainder of this conflict. Afterward, or simultaneously in other regions, the United States and its Western allies will need to painstakingly work on rebuilding deterrence against nefarious Russian interventions.

The timing of Russia’s intervention could hardly be worse. The Iran deal was, contrary to conventional wisdom, already having a salutary effect on the Syrian conflict. Not only has Iran reigned in its leader of the Quds Force (the foreign arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard) and backed off from its support of the Houthis in Yemen, but in Syria, Iran has negotiated two ceasefires and spoken publicly about finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict. With Russian and Syrian encouragement, it may now tack in a more disturbing direction by supplying hundreds of Iranian troops.

The United States had done itself a great favor by successfully negotiating the Iran nuclear deal. But now it is watching an earlier misstep come back to bite it. Assad will not be going anywhere soon. Nor will the war in Syria be winding down. And with Russia’s trademark unpredictability, it will surely be choosing yet another place to subvert Western interests.

Readers may disagree with his appraisal of the Iran deal but I think his logic, here, is sound.