The Fall of Aleppo

[Ser Reptitious]

I'm surprised to see that there doesn't appear to be any discussion (yet) on this board about the currently unfolding human catastrophe in Aleppo. The apparent brutality towards civilians is absolutely breathtaking and heartbreaking. It also shows, imo, that throwing up our hands and saying that letting Assad reassert complete control over the country would be the best solution is completely misguided. With the help of Iran and Russia he will likely succeed in winning the war in the end, but so much brutality will not result in long-term stability.

 

Link: http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21711738-fate-100000-civilians-terrifyingly-unclear?cid1=cust/ddnew/n/n/n/20161214n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/n/8367657/email&etear=dailydispatch

[Arkhangel]

The bitter twist in this tragedy is that people have been suffering, starving and dying in Aleppo for literally years. The West only pays attention each time the crisis hits a new and bloodier peak, and then only for the five minutes it takes to wail and gnash their teeth about how someone must do something before moving right along without anyone having done anything but mash their keyboards. Three weeks from now, the politicians, the media and the chattering classes on Facebook and Twitter will have moved on to the latest Donald Trump gaff or hilarious John Oliver clip. If you care about Aleppo, don't rant online - do something useful and donate.

[Mr Fixit]

Now that Aleppo is almost liberated from foreign-sponsored terrorist scum, hopefully Syria can start recovering. I doubt it, but there's always hope.

[Happy Ent]

1 hour ago, Ser Reptitious said:

I'm surprised to see that there doesn't appear to be any discussion (yet) on this board about the currently unfolding human catastrophe in Aleppo.

There is little to say, or to disagree about.

I can assure you that every decent person has their heart broken by the development, and by the plight of the civil population.

The Middle East is a mess. The best you can get from a thread like this is political disagreement about whose fault this is, which is a tempting platform to project whatever opinions you held in the first place. I don’t find such threads enlightening. Clearly, Aleppo in particular is currently among the more heartbreaking and emotionally charged theatres of the consequences of political decision. Thus, by virtue of our emotional involvement, it present the least useful thing to rationally discuss.  

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

2 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

There is little to say, or to disagree about.

Apparently not.

[Crazydog7]

This isn’t going to end with the fall of Alepo all of the countryside around Alepo has been outside of government control for years and I don’t think anyone is going to be stupid enough to go into Kurish Zone of control and tell them they have to submit to the government’s authority again at least not right away.  

There are actually more then a few parallels to the Spanish Civil War in this case.  Syria and Alepo have become a proving ground for a lot of people with an ideological ax to grind or a cool new weapons system they want to test out. 

How anyone can look at people mostly women and children trying to flee this area and say “we can’t let them in because one in 10,000” might be a terrorist is absolutely crazy

Are there any numbers on many people got killed trying to cross the Mediterranean last year?    

[Commodore]

I'm sympathetic to the view that we don't want to get mixed up in this.

And for all we know any entity that might replace Assad could be just as if not more brutal.

Watching Samantha Power asking "have you no shame?" at the UN was pathetic impotent rhetoric. Everyone acknowledges they have no shame, as if they care. 

It always seems like we can/should do more to destroy the wealth of these bad actors. Petro-tyrants have an achilles heel, the price of energy. Do everything we can to bring that down and they lose the means to oppress. 

[Fez]

Its a terrible thing. Terrible things happen all over the world all the time. Not really much to say about this one in particular beyond commenting on how terrible it is; and not like anything we say can make any difference. Acknowledging something terrible is happening and refusing to do anything about it is arguably more callous than being completely ignorant about it.

And at the same time, hard to know even what the US could or should have done that would've actually made things better.

[Mr Fixit]

21 minutes ago, Fez said:

And at the same time, hard to know even what the US could or should have done that would've actually made things better.

Oh, that one's easy.

Ex-Finnish President Ahtisaari: "West 'ignored Russian offer in 2012 to have Syria's Assad step aside'"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/15/west-ignored-russian-offer-in-2012-to-have-syrias-assad-step-aside

I urge everyone to read at least a couple of paragraphs.

[Kalbear]

I'm not sure how Assad stepping down but the regime staying put under Russia would have changed the rebel's minds here. But it's at least worth a shot as far as thinking about it.

[snake]

I think having Assad removed would have been a moral victory for the rebels and they then would have been able to negotiate with those from regime that remained.  The rebels always stated they would not talk until Assad was gone.  If this is true then it was a huge mistake on behalf of Western nations.

[Mr Fixit]

20 minutes ago, snake said:

I think having Assad removed would have been a moral victory for the rebels and they then would have been able to negotiate with those from regime that remained.  The rebels always stated they would not talk until Assad was gone.  If this is true then it was a huge mistake on behalf of Western nations.

That's just it. The West couldn't care less about the people they claim to care about so much. Just as in Iraq or Libya (or Kosovo for that matter). The goal was not only to remove Assad but to effect a total regime change without the need to come to some kind of terms with the opposing side, either inside Syria or outside it (Russia, Iran, etc.) My way or highway, would be my depiction of US foreign policy. If millions have to suffer for it in the Middle East, well, tough luck. If you can then spin it so that the "enemy" is the only culprit for the chaos, even better.

[Ice Queen]

2 hours ago, Mr Fixit said:

Oh, that one's easy.

Ex-Finnish President Ahtisaari: "West 'ignored Russian offer in 2012 to have Syria's Assad step aside'"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/15/west-ignored-russian-offer-in-2012-to-have-syrias-assad-step-aside

I urge everyone to read at least a couple of paragraphs.

The rebels don't and never will trust Assad. Look at what happened just yesterday--Assad broke the cease fire within 24 hours of it being brokered, which resulted in the evacuation being delayed. Both sides are blaming each other, of course. 

No one trusts Assad. That's the problem. 

This is such a complex situation. There are no easy answers here. But what's going on there is genocide, and it has to stop. The only way to do that is to get rid of Assad. As long as Russia is backing him, that's not going to happen.

[Mr Fixit]

29 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

The rebels don't and never will trust Assad. Look at what happened just yesterday--Assad broke the cease fire within 24 hours of it being brokered, which resulted in the evacuation being delayed. Both sides are blaming each other, of course. 

No one trusts Assad. That's the problem. 

This is such a complex situation. There are no easy answers here. But what's going on there is genocide, and it has to stop. The only way to do that is to get rid of Assad. As long as Russia is backing him, that's not going to happen.

I'm not sure why you're quoting me and then replying as if I said something else. Russia offered to get rid of Assad 4 years ago. The West wouldn't take the deal because they don't give a shit about peaceful solutions if they involve some kind of compromise. The absolute same thing that happened a bunch of times before and will happen again, I'm sure. US foreign policy is as predictable as the Lords of Kobol. So say we all.

[Ice Queen]

11 minutes ago, Mr Fixit said:

I'm not sure why you're quoting me and then replying as if I said something else. Russia offered to get rid of Assad 4 years ago. The West wouldn't take the deal because they don't give a shit about peaceful solutions if they involve some kind of compromise. The absolute same thing that happened a bunch of times before and will happen again, I'm sure. US foreign policy is as predictable as the Lords of Kobol. So say we all.

Frak that.  (Kidding.)

The article didn't go into detail about what the terms of Russia's deal were, and quite frankly I can't remember what they were. I seriously doubt they were favorable to anyone but Russia. The article isn't telling the whole story. What were the details beyond Assad agreeing to cede power at some point after negotiations started with the rebels? At no point does it say that Assad would have accepted such a thing. 

I'm certainly not going to disagree on the West's motivations and we are all culpable in the slaughter that's going on there. But if the Russians thought that removing Assad was the right thing to do, why didn't they do it anyway? The man was prepared to slaughter thousands of his own people. Did the Russians really believe he'd just step aside? 

 

 

[Werthead]

Quote

I'm surprised to see that there doesn't appear to be any discussion (yet) on this board about the currently unfolding human catastrophe in Aleppo. The apparent brutality towards civilians is absolutely breathtaking and heartbreaking. It also shows, imo, that throwing up our hands and saying that letting Assad reassert complete control over the country would be the best solution is completely misguided. With the help of Iran and Russia he will likely succeed in winning the war in the end, but so much brutality will not result in long-term stability.

The problem the West faces with the Middle East is that there is no straightforward solution to the issues plaguing the region. The Arab Spring resulted in some dictators falling, but the democratic forces that were supposed to come in and replace them proved too weak to do so, and Libya slipped into cival war and permanent chaos, whilst Egypt suffered a military coup. It only really worked in Tunisia, a relatively small country. There are some very vague signs of hope for Iraq in the long term, but that's only come about after thirteen years of chaos and assumes the factions currently unified against ISIS won't turn on each other the second they are driven out of the country, which is far from certain.

In the case of Syria, it is possible that this bloodshed would not have come about if we had in fact bombed Assad and destroyed his military in 2012. The rebels would have likely taken Damascus and Assad would have been forced to flee or been killed. The problem with that is that we know now that ISIS was waiting in the wings. If the rebels had been victorious, as well as fighting one another they would have been easier prey for ISIS (who may have chosen in that situation to focus on Syria rather than expanding into Iraq as well, but who knows). We would have been forced to intervene again to prop up the rebels, and the risk of the whole country disintegrating like Libya would have been strong.

The fact that the moderate rebels have gradually given over the heavy duty of the fighting to the Islamic fundamentalists wouldn't have helped either. We could have ended up with a repeat of Afghanistan 1979 where we armed, trained and equipped the very people we ended up fighting years later (that's actually almost certainly already happened, to a lesser degree).

What we can do now is also a difficult question. Certainly direct Western intervention is impossible, although we can contribute some relief and supplies for the civilian refugees. The Syrian military has taken Aleppo but to hold it would tie down a huge proportion of it and prevent it from fighting elsewhere. We've already seen that to focus on Aleppo the Syrians had to take the eye off the ball in Palmyra and now that's been retaken by ISIS, with a whole bunch of Russian military supplies and one of their bases now in ISIS hands. Right now, the Assad regime does not appear to have sufficient manpower on the ground to actually retake the rest of the country. Russia will almost certainly not put substantial numbers of ground troops into the country (doing so damages Putin's plans not to over-extend and forces him to actually put his money where his mouth is, whilst his current policy is very much based on presenting the appearance of strength without having to back it up), so that leaves Syria with the possible fate of being carved up, with Kurdish forces securing the north, other rebels in the north-west and the government in the west and centre. ISIS, I think we can assume is going to get the shit kicked out of it by everyone else, but there is a strong possibility it won't permanently solve the problem and we will see it re-emerge a few years later under different branding.

One possibility is that having secured Aleppo, Assad might try to score a further, easier victory - maybe retaking Palmyra with Russian help again - and then suing for a general peace agreement (perhaps under the idea of an anti-ISIS coalition) so he can regroup and rebuild for a few years, with an eye to defeating the other rebels later on. I suspect Putin is rather keen on pulling out of Syria ASAP (we saw that when he spoke about trying to withdraw its mission after taking Palmyra the first time around, only to see Assad call for help again) so he can focus attention elsewhere, maybe back in Ukraine or staging further provocations in the Baltic States, but Putin pulling out now and the rebels retaking Aleppo or driving the government back elsewhere would be rather humiliating for him, so he's probably going to have to remain committed for the short to medium term.

[Ser Reptitious]

12 hours ago, Arkhangel said:

If you care about Aleppo, don't rant online - do something useful and donate.

How about doing both? And while we're at it, how about replacing "rant" with "bringing attention to the issue" or "starting discussions"? Yes, outside of donating to humanitarian organizations us average peons are pretty limited with what we can do, but since most of us (afaik) on this board live in democracies, creating awareness about the unfolding tragedy in Aleppo might (maybe? hopefully?) put at least a bit of heat on some of our politicians (i.e. the people who have more power than we do). 

And yes, this tragic catastrophe known as the Syrian civil war has been going on for far too long, but the current (seemingly intentional and organized) massacre of innocent civilians takes the savagery to a whole new level.

 

38 minutes ago, Werthead said:

/snip

Thanks for your thoughtful post. I feel much the same way. It's a tragic and complex mess without an obvious solution. But that shouldn't stop us from analyzing the situation anyway. 

[Mr Fixit]

2 hours ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

But if the Russians thought that removing Assad was the right thing to do, why didn't they do it anyway? The man was prepared to slaughter thousands of his own people. Did the Russians really believe he'd just step aside? 

Because they're looking after their own interests, like everyone else. They offered to get rid of Assad if that would help prevent full-scale war. They also wanted something in return, sure. That's how international diplomacy works. US thought that Assad is history and that they could get him out of the picture without outside help and therefore didn't want to commit to a deal. Once Russians realized that, they probably said, OK, whatevs, to the death then. Both sides are to blame, sure, but certain countries at least tried to reach a compromise. Others didn't because they thought they own the world. What can I say? US gambled and lost. Next time maybe don't finance, sponsor, train, and arm "moderate" rebels?

And anyway, what does "prepared to slaughter thousands of his own people" even mean? Yeah, Assad killed a lot of innocent people. "Moderate rebels" also killed a lot of innocent people and are lead by some hideous guys with links to international terrorists, criminal networks, islamists and god knows what else. Why this constant singling out of Assad as worse? He is your garden variety Middle Eastern dictator. The only difference is he's not sucking up to Uncle Sam to a satisfactory level which led to the level of destruction we see today. Do you think that many people in Saudi Arabia, for example, don't want to see the end of the tyranny of House of Saud? Of course they do, but there's no outside power to incite, finance, and arm them as well as provide them with international support and media coverage. Simple as that. 

Oh, and one more thing. What's the last anyone heard of Mosul and Yemen? What Mosul and Yemen, right?

[all swedes are racist]

6 hours ago, Commodore said:

<snip>

It always seems like we can/should do more to destroy the wealth of these bad actors. Petro-tyrants have an achilles heel, the price of energy. Do everything we can to bring that down and they lose the means to oppress. 

lol, yeah sure. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

A carved up Syria was always going to be the end state.

 Putin doesn't give two shits about preserving the territorial integrity of the Syrian state. He just wants part of it as a client state.