Middle East and North Africa 20 - The End of the Beginning in Syria? SPECIAL BONUS RUSSIAN JET CRISIS EDITION

[Shryke]

Yeah, you pointed it out, then were proven wrong, but you ignored it.

Uh, no, that did not happen.

 

 

Of course to defeat ISIS and radical Islam you have to back Assad. You may hate him, you may consider him a bloody dictator, whatever. The fact is, there are exactly two armies in Syria that fight for secularism - SAA and SDF (Kurds and co). And SDF are not going to go far into Syria, they re far away from its Western parts and are getting repeatedly bombed by Turkey to be prevented from capturing even their own Kurdish territories from ISIS.

SAA is the only power in Syria at the moment who has the will and power to cleanse the country from Islamic terrorists. You can't defeat terrorists just by airstrikes without ground troops. Airstrike will not capture the territory, they will not hold towns, cities, strategic points. Bombing ISIS or al-Nusra or whatever without troops on the ground is absolutely useless and a waste of time and money. So supporting the SAA advances by airstrikes is for now the only way to truly defeat ISIS and other jihadists in Syria. SAA is also the only power that prevents ISIS, al-Nusra, Islamic Front etc. to overrun the government held areas which are full of religious minorities who will get massacred if you give jihadists their way. Take away SAA and you will bring a true hell to Syria. 

But SAA will collapse if you take away Assad now. Insisting that Assad has to go now is a shear madness that will cause disastrous consequences. Assad must stay until the juhadists in Syria are destroyed, only after this happens he may leave. So whatever Russians motives are in Syria, they are doing the best job in defeating radical Islam in Syria by supporting SAA.

You have alot more faith in the Syrian government then is warranted.

[snake]

There has never been anything good to sprout from Western intervention in the Middle East.  To think that our actions now,will lead to a different outcome is the height of stupidity.  Que sera sera!!

[cgrnosfe]

Pretty sure they are not sold and repeatedly raped by their 'masters'. And one PKK female fighter on the interview told that she joined PKK to run away from an arranged marriage so I would question the notion of them being slaves in any way. 

What happens when one of them refuses to fight? Refuses to 'cooperate' with their superior's intentions? Decide to send her kid to a school? Try to work and live a 'normal' life?

I'll tell you what, they (pkk) first rape, then kill you, harm or force to migration your family, grab their possessions.

They kill doctors, rocket hospitals. Even attack ambulances coming for their wounded comrades' help. ( yes turks first shoot then try to save the terrorists. I know it's weird, but has something to do with army and hospitals being different organizations I guess. ) They dig main roads so as to block passage and attack their own municipality workers trying to fix it ( more dead Kurds = more hatred towards the state ). No I will not buy these heroes thank you maybe another day. These used to be trained by Russia hence the tactics. Sounds unbelievable? You are welcome to make a little research and see for yourself. The title 'terrorist organization' is not that easy to earn and requires some hard work. Especially if you are terrorising the middle east, you got to work real hard to be accepted as such by nearly all countries.

Well whatever, to expand my crackpot theory, here is some more:

Turks tried to side with shanghai 5. Tried to buy a Chinese long range missile. ( oh come on they could at least buy from Russia. ) granted construction of a nuclear power plant to Russian company. ( this could go to Japan IMHO) they even went as far not to grant incirlik Base to Americans for operations in Syria. This was the bravest. And whatever has happened afterwards they made a drastic u turn ( with the same government ) and sided with Nato, Eu and us. Obama's soft power? I don't really know. Your media will slowly cease the dark propaganda and show you a white and pink little turkey ( which it really isn't come on) in a year's time or so I guess.

Any guesses for the reason of the u turn?

[Dofs]

 

What happens when one of them refuses to fight? Refuses to 'cooperate' with their superior's intentions? Decide to send her kid to a school? Try to work and live a 'normal' life?

 

I'll tell you what, they (pkk) first rape, then kill you, harm or force to migration your family, grab their possessions.

 

I am not going to validate what you have told as that is a bit besides my point. Whether what you have told is true or not, I don't agree that it constitutes of being called "a slave". Definitely not in the same sense as ISIS slaves are. PKK is a military organization and what you have described is a punishment for defection or desertion. If being punished, no matter how hard, for leaving a military organization equals to being a slave, than a lot of modern armies practice slavery.

Uh, no, that did not happen.

 I've showed you an operation against ISIS that Russian was actively involved in since their coming to Syria. You ignored that and continued to claim that Russia barely touched ISIS. So yeah, it did happen.

You have alot more faith in the Syrian government then is warranted.

Nothing to do with faith. Just reality.

[Werthead]

Russian tv s discussing where to bomb first in Turkey. Pkk/ypg leaders speak live on Russian TV. Armenian people speak s..t about turkey and Turkish.

Russia is not going to bomb Turkey. There's a difference between embarrassing and isolating a country that has acted precipitously (as Russia has done with impressive success to Turkey) and embarking on a course that will commit you to war against a superior enemy (NATO and the United States) after they've just inflicted massive damage on your economy. Putin might go up to the brink but he's not dumb enough to jump over the edge.

Of course to defeat ISIS and radical Islam you have to back Assad.

 You don't have to, but it's certainly the most straightforward way forwards for achieving victory within a reasonable timescale (say 1-2 years or less).

In Iraq there are solid ground forces in place that can either work together or at least aren't actively trying to murder one another, even if only by dint of not being in the same geographical area (the local militias, Iraqi army and Pershmerga). So you can see a situation where Allied bombing helps the Iraqi army take Ramadi - which is already starting to happen - and eventually helps local forces retake Mosul, which is doable if more militarily daunting a task due to the sheer size of the city. But it's achievable. So our strategy in Iraq can work. It'd work faster if we sent in some special forces or even a couple of regular Western divisions, but if we keep up our current strategy, assuming half the Iraqi army doesn't defect to ISIS or something overnight, we may get somewhere in Iraq.

In Syria we don't have the same weight of coherent ground forces. We have a shifting patchwork of Syrian rebel groups who hate Assad more than ISIS, apart from a few moderate groups who do hate ISIS more than Assad but there's hardly any of them (and certainly not 70,000). The rebel groups don't want to take on ISIS because ISIS are big, organised and have achieved some significant victories over Assad. ISIS getting wiped out also might mean a large chunk of the forces fighting Assad getting wiped out, allowing Assad and the Syrian government to then turn on and wipe out the other rebel groups one by one.

So that leaves us with several options. The first one is to basically do nothing more than we're doing now. The problem with that is that it risks a Syrian army general collapse (as nearly happened a year or so back), ISIS probably capitalising on it by attacking Damascus and then ISIS and the other rebels kicking the shit out of each other and plunging the whole country into more of a bloodbath. Or the Syrian government gets on top of things, knocks out ISIS and then either wipes out the rebels or prolongs a civil war with them, ending up either with Assad in charge and far stronger than ever or an ongoing bloodbath. There is also the risk of a regional conflageration spreading (ignoring the fact that ISIS-influenced groups are now operating in Yemen and Afghanistan anyway).

The second is to let the Russians do some heavy lifting with ground forces, which has the positive result of ISIS being wiped out but probably with a shit-ton of civilian casualties and Putin coming out with his international reputation considerably enhanced. That's not really desirable either.

So from the West's POV we need to get a handle on the situation in Syria quickly, and that means dealing with Assad. Getting a ceasefire between him and the rebels we can influence, encouraging the destruction of ISIS and then getting people to sit the hell down afterwards and talk. The point where we can get rid of Assad, or support the groups getting rid of him, and have it not cause problems is over. We need to deal with Assad, even on a transitional basis.

I think what we are starting to see, to the horror of many, is the resurgence of realpolitik, that notion that we may have to deal with some unpleasant characters that morally we shouldn't be touching with a bargepole but we really have to to stop greater harm and bloodshed. That feels like a defeat of what the West has been trying to do since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But then, as our dealings with incredibly shady countries like Saudi Arabia have shown, it's never really gone away, we've just pretended it has.

[Horza]

 

 You don't have to, but it's certainly the most straightforward way forwards for achieving victory within a reasonable timescale (say 1-2 years or less).

In Iraq there are solid ground forces in place that can either work together or at least aren't actively trying to murder one another, even if only by dint of not being in the same geographical area (the local militias, Iraqi army and Pershmerga). So you can see a situation where Allied bombing helps the Iraqi army take Ramadi - which is already starting to happen - and eventually helps local forces retake Mosul, which is doable if more militarily daunting a task due to the sheer size of the city. But it's achievable. So our strategy in Iraq can work. It'd work faster if we sent in some special forces or even a couple of regular Western divisions, but if we keep up our current strategy, assuming half the Iraqi army doesn't defect to ISIS or something overnight, we may get somewhere in Iraq.

This is quite a rosy picture of what is happening in Iraq. The main difficulties with this narrative are that the Iraqi army has been supplanted by Shia militias that do not answer to a weak government in Baghdad, and that there are already disputes between the peshmerga and these groups in areas where their forces do overlap. Retaking Ramadi does not of itself establish that the problems securing Sunni territory from ISIS have been resolved - not least because the Iraqi security forces were in control of it at the start of the year only for it to fall to ISIS infiltration teams. And Ramadi is just one of the problems - ISIS reinfiltration is a live issue for all Sunni areas, and this is before we get to Mosul.

The big flaw in the argument that the timescale for defeating ISIS needs speeding up is that calls for accelerate come at the expense of post-war planning. The Iraqi government is a shambles and has been badly weakened by the events of 2014. It is now  reliant on Iranian-backed armed groups that do not have any interest in re-establishing an Iraqi state, much accomodating its Sunni population, yet this is the government that is supposed to administer occupied Mosul? As we'll see, this problem is even more severe when it comes to Assad in Syria.
 

In Syria we don't have the same weight of coherent ground forces. We have a shifting patchwork of Syrian rebel groups who hate Assad more than ISIS, apart from a few moderate groups who do hate ISIS more than Assad but there's hardly any of them (and certainly not 70,000). The rebel groups don't want to take on ISIS because ISIS are big, organised and have achieved some significant victories over Assad. ISIS getting wiped out also might mean a large chunk of the forces fighting Assad getting wiped out, allowing Assad and the Syrian government to then turn on and wipe out the other rebel groups one by one.

The opposition groups in the NW of Syria have no qualms about taking on ISIS, they did so in early 2014 and drove it out of Idlib, Latakia and parts of Aleppo province. It's just that while they did that, the Syrian government forces attacked them and bombed their forces fighting ISIS. This is a three-sided contest, each side seeks to benefit from the misfortunes of the other, and this applies as much to gains the Syrian government makes against the opposition. Right now the main thrust of Syrian government operations are directed against the opposition in SW Aleppo, and guess who is gaining ground in NW Aleppo as a result?

So that leaves us with several options. The first one is to basically do nothing more than we're doing now. The problem with that is that it risks a Syrian army general collapse (as nearly happened a year or so back), ISIS probably capitalising on it by attacking Damascus and then ISIS and the other rebels kicking the shit out of each other and plunging the whole country into more of a bloodbath. Or the Syrian government gets on top of things, knocks out ISIS and then either wipes out the rebels or prolongs a civil war with them, ending up either with Assad in charge and far stronger than ever or an ongoing bloodbath. There is also the risk of a regional conflageration spreading (ignoring the fact that ISIS-influenced groups are now operating in Yemen and Afghanistan anyway).

The second is to let the Russians do some heavy lifting with ground forces, which has the positive result of ISIS being wiped out but probably with a shit-ton of civilian casualties and Putin coming out with his international reputation considerably enhanced. That's not really desirable either.

 

This is wild stuff. Since 2013 Syrian Army hasn't at any point been close to total collapse, despite all the setbacks it has recieved. ISIS is nowhere near Damascus. No side, in four gruesome years of fighting is any closer to knocking the other out. There simply isn't enough manpower to do it. You keep listing a bloodbath as a future consequence to be averted, when there's been bathing all year round and the highest volumes have been delivered by the side rolling explosive barrels out of helicopters at 10,000 ft.

Russia's focus is on bringing the opposition to heel. Even with an expanded commitment going after ISIS is a whole new undertaking, and not necessary to shore up the Syrian government in the short to medium term. No one is interested in invading and occupying ISISland, and the only groups that might be capable of both occupying and governing it are the ones in Russia's sights. EDIT: Even in the unlikely event that the Syrian government was to reoccupy ISISland with Russian help, its administrative feebleness and the brutality with which it has waged war on Syrian Sunnis would make long term occupation impossible. ISIS would be back within a few years at most, and the cycle would continue.

 

So from the West's POV we need to get a handle on the situation in Syria quickly, and that means dealing with Assad. Getting a ceasefire between him and the rebels we can influence, encouraging the destruction of ISIS and then getting people to sit the hell down afterwards and talk. The point where we can get rid of Assad, or support the groups getting rid of him, and have it not cause problems is over. We need to deal with Assad, even on a transitional basis.

I think what we are starting to see, to the horror of many, is the resurgence of realpolitik, that notion that we may have to deal with some unpleasant characters that morally we shouldn't be touching with a bargepole but we really have to to stop greater harm and bloodshed. That feels like a defeat of what the West has been trying to do since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But then, as our dealings with incredibly shady countries like Saudi Arabia have shown, it's never really gone away, we've just pretended it has.

A ceasefire would be a pretty good start to ending the horrors and going after ISIS concertedly, and it is looking more likely that there could be a diplomatic fix that would give people just enough to stop shooting each other for the moment. But this wasn't a war about realpolitik to start with, and an armistice won't be enough to resolve the issues that lead to it. For as long as governments of this region continue to operate as patronage engines and practice sectarian divide-and-rule politics there will be another conflagration just around the corner, and there are plenty of people on both sides who would rather start another fire than put out the flames for good.

[Biglose]

One crackpot theory : your media was printing erdogan (again, who I don't like much) in purest black because he was close with shanghai 5 and Russia and assad at the time. Please read the gezi protests under this light. Prepare for a sharp u turn in your media, to manipulate you into 'liking' turkey and turks. Say farewell to brave pkk / ypg and their female fighters ( who in reality are no more free than isis slaves. I'm really sorry but this is the middle east.) welcome the brave turkish army who will do your dirty job for you.

I thought about it...

Maybe if it were up utterly to Obama and Merkel. But Merkel and the german left have overplayed their hand badly. Merkel might be aware of how bad things are but the left in germany won't be able to admit it. They more or less pushed europe towards a major shift to the right. And this will increase. And all the extream right wing parties are more or less pro Putin.

And it will go far, far worse. The german police is more or less occupied with the refugees. The same goes for most of the german communal services. This alone is highly proplematic, because it will imbolden criminal elements. (This means you have a rise in crime even without considering additional criminals comming in as refugees, which is of course natural.)

To counter that germany would need to take a few pages of the US police playbook. The left won't have that. Not even the SPD. Simply because they see the long term effects first. (which will be negative to some of their lets call them political activists and the fact that changes like that won't be reversed in a long time.)

Put without it the pressure will rise and rise. It is already starting that neighbors start to patrol their own neighborhoods...
A funny side note is that turkish sponsered mosques are part of the general effort to raise the pressure. Well, probably not willingly. More out of ignorance, self-rightousness and stupidity they are handing crates of ammunition to the right. (publishing on your homepage a text saying that jews are all greedy frauds, cheats and liars and christians are nearly as bad, well....)

And then there is the american internal politics. Sure the establishment republicans do not like russia, the same goes for the estabilshment democrats. But at least for the republicans it is more or less over. Using slashing the wellfare state as a hidden sign of I am as racist as you, does not work against a guy who is simply openly racist. (Which again will be less and less of a problem in the US as more news from europe come in)

One has to appreciate the irony, that the saudi in turksih efforts (government) to spread hate against non-0muslims(espacially jews) and support jihadist over years and years (saudi arabia for far longer than turkey) will finally pay of and now has a decent chance of severly helping to get muslim hating fashists in leadership possitions across europe. One has to appreciate the irony.
Same goes for the self hating and multikulti preaching left...If I would not live in the middle of it...

[Free Northman Reborn]

How about building a strong Shia Iraqi state in southern Iraq, building a strong Kurdish state in Northern Iraq and allowing Assad to rebuild a strong Alawite state in the parts of Syria he controls.

Then all of these strengthened states can effectively encircle ISIS and serve as the ground forces for massive Western and Russian bombing campaigns in ISIS held territory.

Why the aversion to a Shia dominated Iraq? And if ISIS eventually manages to create their own Caliphate in the areas in between, at least you then have a country to wage war against instead of a movement.

And you can then bomb the crap out of their territory, and gradually isolate it more and more with surrounding ground forces.

Let the Sunnis in ISISland then spend the next 2 decades figuring out what they want. If Israel can be a succesdful country surrounded by enemies on almost all sides, then why can strong countries not be established to survive, suround and contain the ISIS hellhole Caliphate, with generous help from the West and Russia as well?

 

[Altherion]

Because many of the groups you speak of are at each others' throats and consider this a much more important concern than the IS.

Speaking of regional powers... Iran has correctly determined that nobody can spare much attention for them at a time like this and has apparently decided to take this opportunity to test a prohibited missile.

The United States is reviewing and seeking to confirm reports that Iran launched a ballistic missile last month in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on Tuesday.

...

 

A Western diplomatic source said last week on condition of anonymity that the test of a Ghadr-110, a spinoff of the Shahab-3 missile, was held near Chabahar, a port city near Iran's border with Pakistan. He said it was a liquid-fueled missile with a 1,900 km (1,180 mile) range and was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

All ballistic missile tests by Iran are banned under a 2010 Security Council resolution that remains valid until a nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers is implemented.

I'm sure we'll do a thorough review and send them a sternly worded letter.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Can we agree on a few things?

 

ISIS can't be beaten in Syria without deploying ground troops. At least not short to midterm. I will explain this position a bit later.

The US and EU would prefer for Turkey and the Gulf States to take care of that. The US have been burnt badly in Iraq so they are super reluctant to deploy troops in that region again.

Erdogan has little incentive to send in Turkish soldiers to die there. From his perspective he is not willing to play the useful idiot for his western allies. The Gulf States have a slightly different agenda, but are in that respect pretty much on the same page as Erdogan. They also have another common goal, to get rid of Assad. The western position on this issue has softened up a bit, mainly because they have no means to do so without deploying troops, and with the Russian Army now officially backing Assad there's no way in hell for them to achieve it, at least not without a nod from Putin.

The indecisiveness of the Western goverments (I use it here mainly for NATO minus Turkey) has drawn Russia into this conflict to fill the void. Russia has an interest to keep Assad alive and well and help him regain control over Syria. Whether Putin will trade him in at a later point in time to deal with the Western goverments to lift the sanctions or accept his annexation of crimea, that remains to be seen. At this point I would not rule anything out.

Now back to my initial point why I don't think ISIS won't be defeated without ground troops. The IS has a now control over a large chunk of land, they have even build up some sort of administration. So the Islamic State is defacto a State. Maybe a bit comparable to the Taliban in Afghanistan before 2001. And they are making big bucks down there. Bootlegging oil, smuggling artifacts, taxes and other "endeavours", looting and pillaging in general (remember that 400 mil US$ from the Bank of Mosul?) and donations. All those sources of income allows them to pay for more war gear and to pay wages for their "army", and to support the widows (or families in general) of their fallen fighters. You want to attack the financial base of the IS, now tell me how do you want to do it. The airstrikes against the oil industry of the IS have not been terribly effective (mildly put). Trying to effectively ban illegal artifacts and pieces of art (of dubios origin) has been tried for decades even before the IS existed. The IS exploiting the population, well of course you can wait and "hope" that at some point there are no longer any taxes to be collected, but I assume they will try press every last drop of blood (quite literally) from a stone before they throw it away, and that can and probably will take a long time, while they seem to be getting willing new fighters every day. And the fighter returning home from Syria cause a severe security risk for the western states (and apparently for Russia, too.), not to mention the poor souls who fled that clusterfuck, and are now the target of public abuse from the political right. Yes, refugees. Who ironically streghtened Erdogan's hand when dealing with the EU. But the EU-Turkey releation ship, the refugee crisis and Europe's shift to the right are still different stories.

So it'S either intervention or watch and see how Syria will deterioate like Lybia and Iraq before (btw. does anybody happen to know, who is theoretically in charge of Lybia past the Gaddafis and which parts are actually under goverment control).

I left out Iraq because that is another mess (and the cradle of ISIS (thank you George W. for providing help to give birth to that monster, you did a real service to humanity with your war on terror there)), but there the big neighbour (Iran) is actually fighting ISIS, something Turkey and the Gulf States don't do. Of course Iran has its own interests there with the shiite majority living in Iraq.

In 9 out of 10 I am not a big fan of Putin, but with regards to Syria Vladimir Vladimirovich has the right idea. (Yes, I am repeating myself here). And as far as Syria and its political future is concerned, it looks like Russia will be the one calling shots there, not Erdogan or the US. 

[cgrnosfe]

Russia has deployed air defense systems inside Syria and is now blocking the flights of us and the coalition. The plane downing was an opportunity that Putin was seeking desperately, it seems. Deploying air defense systems inside Syria ( not at the Turkish border ) against isis that has no airforce seems really logical. Is Putin hitting or protecting isis?

Turkey and ısrael are normalising relations. After a crisis in 2010 there were problems with the relations, but now they have gone so far that erdogan and Turkish prime minister Davutoglu celebrate Hanukkah on the streets together with Jewish preachers. What islamism from erdogan...

Welcome to the middle east where 9 out of 10 you hear in your media are lies and the remaining 1 is wrong...

[A Horse Named Stranger]

The anti-air defense serves a double purpose.
 

Technically speaking, Assad is still charge of Syria. Unless you declare open war on the Syrian goverment, you still need an invitation/permission to enter Syrian Air Space. So the anti-air defense is imho a way to force the west back to the table to negotiate with Assad (well, more like with Putin and Assad). 
And it's also a bit showing off for his people back home, that a.) Russia is still on eye level with the US. And b.) the West has to talk with him and Assad now.
The US will probably have very little problems to coordinate their air strikes with the Russians. Turkey will probably need to be way more submissive. And it's again a more of a message for the Russians at home. If Turkey "tries anything funny ever again. We will bring down their airplanes." 

[Shryke]

Russia has deployed air defense systems inside Syria and is now blocking the flights of us and the coalition.

Source?

[cgrnosfe]

Source?

Well I found it also on the western media.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-12-17/new-russian-air-defenses-in-syria-keep-u-s-grounded?utm_content=buffer2c2c6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

My original source was Russians bragging about how they pinned down the Americans...

[Free Northman Reborn]

1. The Jerusalem Post had a nice article recently on why Erdogan's fake attempts to normalize relations should not be trusted by Israel. He is just trying to use it in his game against Russia.

2. The air defence system is indeed not aimed against ISIS. It is aimed against the actual threat to Russian aircraft - which is Erdogan the Mad. A move that is justified, given the shooting down of  a Russian jet under the most ridiculous of pretenses. 

As the Israeli's rather smugly announced to the world: THEY resolved Russian incursions into their airspace peacefully. With the subtext obviously intended to say: "Unlike that reckless Erdogan chap".

[Shryke]

1. The Jerusalem Post had a nice article recently on why Erdogan's fake attempts to normalize relations should not be trusted by Israel. He is just trying to use it in his game against Russia.

2. The air defence system is indeed not aimed against ISIS. It is aimed against the actual threat to Russian aircraft - which is Erdogan the Mad. A move that is justified, given the shooting down of  a Russian jet under the most ridiculous of pretenses. 

As the Israeli's rather smugly announced to the world: THEY resolved Russian incursions into their airspace peacefully. With the subtext obviously intended to say: "Unlike that reckless Erdogan chap".

Actually they seem to be aimed at US planes too, according to the above article.

Mostly it would seem to keep the US from supporting rebel forces in the area that the Russians want to bomb.

[cgrnosfe]

1. The Jerusalem Post had a nice article recently on why Erdogan's fake attempts to normalize relations should not be trusted by Israel. He is just trying to use it in his game against Russia.

2. The air defence system is indeed not aimed against ISIS. It is aimed against the actual threat to Russian aircraft - which is Erdogan the Mad. A move that is justified, given the shooting down of  a Russian jet under the most ridiculous of pretenses. 

As the Israeli's rather smugly announced to the world: THEY resolved Russian incursions into their airspace peacefully. With the subtext obviously intended to say: "Unlike that reckless Erdogan chap".

It is not that easy. They ( turkish government ) claimed to renounce the traditional western alliance heritage of Turkey. Tried to renounce secular heritage of Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey.

It is ironic that they ended where they began after years of instability, economic and political setbacks and losing trust of all sides. Also hats off to them for gripping on tovpower with all these mistakes.

I believe erdogan will be more or less loyal to the west from now on. Although a bit unpredictable. He has no other chance. What pity for the self proclaimed leader of Muslim world and protector of Palestine. This is politics.

And Russians are not taking Obama seriously. They lock on us planes, ready to shoot. I wonder what you will say once your beloved Putin downs an allied jet other than Turkey's. Your ignorance about it will not decrease the threat, and yes Russia is a threat.

[Biglose]

 

And Russians are not taking Obama seriously. They lock on us planes, ready to shoot. I wonder what you will say once your beloved Putin downs an allied jet other than Turkey's. Your ignorance about it will not decrease the threat, and yes Russia is a threat.

He won't. Lets be honest neither the russian nor the american military is that incompetant. If it would be like that, we would all play the fallout series in real life.

It was a stratigic play by putin not more not less, made possible by turkey shooting down the russian plane. Erdogan is a chest pounding macho monkey and putin is a KGB trained killer...Putin uses emotion, but he is not guided by them.

[Commodore]

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/18/hagel-the-white-house-tried-to-destroy-me/

Jet-lagged from a long overseas trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had just sat down with his wife for a quiet dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant in northern Virginia when his phone rang. It was the White House on the line. President Barack Obama wanted to speak with him.

It was Aug. 30, 2013, and the U.S. military was poised for war. Obama had publicly warned Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad that his regime would face consequences if it crossed a “red line” by employing chemical weapons against its own people. Assad did it anyway, and Hagel had spent the day approving final plans for a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missile strikes against Damascus. U.S. naval destroyers were in the Mediterranean, awaiting orders to fire.

Instead, Obama told a stunned Hagel to stand down. Assad’s Aug. 21 chemical attack in a Damascus suburb had killed hundreds of civilians, but the president said the United States wasn’t going to take any military action against the Syrian government. The president had decided to ignore his own red line — a decision, Hagel believes, that dealt a severe blow to the credibility of both Obama and the United States. …

In the days and months afterward, Hagel’s counterparts around the world told him their confidence in Washington had been shaken over Obama’s sudden about-face. And the former defense secretary said he still hears complaints to this day from foreign leaders.

“A president’s word is a big thing, and when the president says things, that’s a big deal,” he said.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/18/hagel-the-white-house-tried-to-destroy-me/

But can we trust Chuck Hagel?!

But the level of vitriol at the hearing — from lawmakers whom he had long worked with and even raised money for — came as a shock to Hagel.

More than one senator took Hagel’s comments out of context or simply misquoted him. During the 2006 Lebanon War, Hagel had called for an end to the “sickening slaughter” carried out by both sides, but Republican lawmakers wrongly accused him of singling out Israel.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), now a leading Republican contender for the White House, accused Hagel of possibly receiving speaking fees from “extreme or radical groups” but offered up no evidence.

“It is at a minimum relevant to know if that $200,000 that he deposited in his bank account came directly from Saudi Arabia, came directly from North Korea,” said Cruz, in a performance that some commentators compared to a Joe McCarthy-style smear.