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And next, Syria?

In JPost 'Russia and US tensions over Syria dangerous for Israel'
The escalation of rhetoric between Russia and the United States over Syria's Civil War is creating a dangerous situation for Israel, former Israeli envoy to the United Nations Ron Prosor told Army Radio on Monday.

"We have here a dangerous situation. It is dangerous, by the way, also to [Israel], because we find ourselves right in the middle," Prosor said. "We coordinate with Russia, and the Americans are an important strategic asset for us."

Prosor said that a conflict between the Americans and Russians could create "a very uncomfortable reality" for Israel.

The former envoy to the UN said that the level of rhetoric in recent days between the world powers is unprecedented in Syria's Civil War, however, he does not believe at this point that it will turn into a physical confrontation.

"There is a head on confrontation between the world powers who both currently maintain a presence in the arena, not through proxies," he stated. "As far as we are concerned, as a country that is in the area with these world powers, who are in the midst of an escalating conflict, the arena is complicated."
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Interestingly ambiguous Israeli view while Samantha Powers rants about Russian barbarism.

Someone once described Israeli management of their problems with the neighbours as "Beating the Arabs with a stick until they love us." The Baathists "Assad, or we burn the country!" is undeniably more brutal but not so alien a concept. The Israeli approach to uprisings differs from Assad's Russian allies mainly in its brevity and superior hasbara.

The Israelis have been a pawn in the competition between Washington and Moscow before. They killed quite a few Soviet advisors to Syrian forces back in the day while the Russians stirred trouble around them. When the Putin's Russians invaded Georgia the advisory IDF presence melted away. On Russian entry into theatre in support of Assad they carefully de-conflicted and went neutral on his ouster. The Russians in turn defer to them over strikes against HA. Tel Aviv has just been promised a huge bung by DC to by a fleet of F-35s but the US-Israeli relationship is somewhat rocky. They currently have good relations with both big powers and are enjoying a window of peace. The US and Russia ever getting into a fight over which Arab rules the wreckage of Syria is not a welcome prospect.
 
In JPost 'Iran and Russia in danger of becoming war crimes accomplices'

According to the French. How anyone could seriously they have not yet committed war crimes in Syria already is beyond me. The other side may be the bigger offender but the rebels are guilty as sin of those on numerous counts as well. Both sides punitively bombard civ pop the regime just has more ordnance.

What's is more says FM Jean-Mark Ayrault the regime's allies are prolonging the war. I think you could make similar allegations about folk covertly supporting what looks very like a failed rising gone badly sour on life support. Foreign interventions in civil wars historically tend to lead to bigger pile of skulls. We were not remotely serious about trying to deescalate this one until the Russians got involved.
 
TSG IntelBrief: Western-Russian Tensions Boil in Syria
Bottom Line Up Front:

• During a September 25 emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, the U.S. and UK accused Russia of abetting war crimes in Syria.

• The collapse of the Syrian ceasefire has resulted in the further slaughter of civilians in Aleppo, as well as deteriorating diplomatic relations at the highest levels.

• Counterterrorism efforts were once a rare source of agreement between Russia and the U.S.; recent events in Syria have challenged that cooperation.

• While there are many reasons for the declining relations between the West and Russia, Syria is now arguably the primary factor.
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I find that last bullet a little hard to swallow.

This was a very flawed agreement made in US-Russia talks from which Syrians were largely excluded. It was always likely to fail. At that point the consequences were always going to be attempting to force the rebels to terms violently.

Unlike in the Ukraine the Russians never really were in the driving seat in Syria. They have allies they rely on and have to contend with. Assad in particular never really seemed on board and was rather frank about that. The Iranians clearly had limited patience and have severe trust issues with the Great Satan.

The US could not deliver either. The last CoH was in part successful but flagrantly used to resupply a rebel counter-offensive coming out of Idlib led by AQ Syria and its closest allies. This resulted in Iranian positions being overrun and deaths of senior officers. The rebels were not persuaded to agree to the US demand for finally isolating and killing off AQ with some groups rushing to decry this. AQ Syria refuses absolutely to stop fighting short of the revolt establishing an Emirate that they hint will owe a lot to Taliban style governance. We are in an incoherent position of heavily supporting insurgents many of whom are fellow travellers (out of expediency or not) with this agenda while wanting the rebels to stop fighting and AQ Syria dead. From what I can tell the Russians are entirely serious about wanting to kill AQ Syria off we seem far more torn over it as it's likely to bugger a revolt we've unwisely invested in. With AQ's influence spreading the CoH was liable to be meaningless.

The airstrike in Deir looks like a large contributory factor to the collapse of the CoH and deliberate or not that's our bad. It nearly compromised the defence of the Deir's airhead and the regime is fighting our main enemy in Syria IS there. The Pentagon had very publicly baulked as cooperating with the Russian military against clearly identified terrorist threats. This must have added to suspicions of foul play that actually isn't untypical of the Pentagon leadership historically. At a minimum this is a very serious error by CENTCOM at worst it's a weak US executive losing control of its military. Sacking prominent officers for running a loose ship would have been an appropriate response.

This all is very easy to interpret as bad faith from the enemy's position. Hitting an aid convoy cutting off all supply to the rebels demands a rebuke but this is the Russians and they can be expected to play hardball at a hint of an enemy doing the same. The harsh fact is as the Iranians hinted the aid likely only delays the surrender of the remaining pocket of resistance in East Aleppo. The Russians are not the only nation that has "accidentally" killed aid workers or conducted urban sieges in densely populated areas.
 
Yemen is entirely different, the GCC coalition may be committing obvious war crimes, trashing hospitals and any other civil infrastructure and intimidating NGOs to not service areas of Saleh-Houthi support with the added quirk of not really doing much to deal with a rampant AQAP infection. It may escalate into a slaughter like Syria if they try to go to Sanaa. It is an inch away from becoming a Biafra like humanitarian disaster that puts Syria in the shade.

However the Princes have the great moral virtue of being immensely rich. They buy lots of over priced British arms and are being supported by our American masters. The UK as an eager arms supplier would be implicated in GCC war crimes if it acknowledged they existed and so we'll do our damnedest to indignantly insist they don't and block enquiries. All helped by a MSM that seems rather eager to focus its outraged glare elsewhere. Rather too like the misinformation loving Russians in fact.
 
Yes, I already know this, hence my comment under the link. On the one hand it needed saying but it's a bad case of double standards imo whilst keeping the house of Saud sweet and enriching the shareholders of Bae systems and the like.
 
teqniq said:
British ambassador accuses Russia of war crimes in Syria

This is all very well and good until you consider the UK's continued support of the house of Saud's nasty adventure in Yemen.
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Not just Yemen. There's the small matter that without direct and indirect Western support the Syrian 'revolution' would have been over long ago, and the butcher's bill would have been correspondingly less.
Instead of bleating on and on about how evil Assad and the Russians are and how we must assure humanitarian aid reaches our pet terrorists in Aleppo and other places and how we must let in ever more immigrants, how about we just leave these people the fuck alone and stop supporting terrorism in their countries. That would be the biggest favour we could do them.
 
Firing on unarmed protesters is sort of traditional in the region. The Egyptians, Israelis and Iraqis make a habit of it. The former in the coup that brought Sisi to power killed over a thousand Brothers in the space of a few days. The difference is Sisi backed by some popular support and upwards of twelve billion bucks in GCC cash won and Sisi then just relied on Egypt's gulag going into overdrive. If he was able to reward the large wedge of public sector employees that supported the coup it would even look like successful authoritarian consolidation.

Somewhere between 5K and 10K folk died in the first year of Syrian rising. This is undoubtably very violent but a pretty low rate of attrition compared with Pere Assad's day. It compares with the Black September rising in Jordan in 1970. As with much of the Arab Spring it's inaccurate to call the protests non-violent. Regime casualty figures in this year are not slight being at least 10% of the above. The Bedu nearly everywhere and in particular down Deraa way kicked of violently from the start of the rising. There was an awful lot of opportunistic banditry as state power receded. Bedu in places also invited Salafi-Jihadis in as muscle to police their rackets. It's the call to international Jihad in 2012 and covert support piling in that really escalates it. I recall this being hotly debated by rebels in places like Homs. Some rebels now view all this as a mistake. It has achieved little beyond empowering Salafi and added a zero and more to the PA casualty figures.
 
CrabbedOne said:
Firing on unarmed protesters is sort of traditional in the region. The Egyptians, Israelis and Iraqis make a habit of it. The former in the coup that brought Sisi to power killed over a thousand Brothers in the space of a few days. The difference is Sisi backed by some popular support and upwards of twelve billion bucks in GCC cash won and Sisi then just relied on Egypt's gulag going into overdrive. If he was able to reward the large wedge of public sector employees that supported the coup it would even look like successful authoritarian consolidation.

Somewhere between 5K and 10K folk died in the first year of Syrian rising. This is undoubtably very violent but a pretty low rate of attrition compared with Pere Assad's day. It compares with the Black September rising in Jordan in 1970. As with much of the Arab Spring it's inaccurate to call the protests non-violent. Regime casualty figures in this year are not slight being at least 10% of the above. The Bedu nearly everywhere and in particular down Deraa way kicked of violently from the start of the rising. There was an awful lot of opportunistic banditry as state power receded. Bedu in places also invited Salafi-Jihadis in as muscle to police their rackets. It's the call to international Jihad in 2012 and covert support piling in that really escalates it. I recall this being hotly debated by rebels in places like Homs. Some rebels now view all this as a mistake. It has achieved little beyond empowering Salafi and added a zero and more to the PA casualty figures.
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fair point but it certainly doesn't make it right.
 

Turkish backed Nour al-Din al-Zenki joins Jaish al Fateh where it will be rubbing along with Syrian AQ which isn't supportive of it's involvement in Euphrates Shield.
 

All I got was "Bashar". I assume that's an Latakian NDF mob. The little yellow noddy car is worthy of an Alexi Sayle sketch.
 

Bear in mind that Syria was sold as a short decisive Russian intervention. We had that almost comic "Mission Accomplished" moment earlier this year. That it certainly has not turned out to be. Obama, cautious of such US a commitment, said it would be a quagmire and that appears to be correct.

It seems the Russian intervention was brokered by IRGC leadership. The Iranians aim to be in Syria until the Mahdi comes and al Quds falls. Now the Russians appear just as committed. Expanding basing infrastructure, the withdrawn SU-25s have been brought back for the assault on the remaining rebel pocket in Aleppo. It's a relatively cheap Russian commitment and apart from some very disposable mercenaries they have not bled like the Iranians but it now looks intended to be permanent

I don't know if that was the actual original intent in Moscow or if they were lured onto the slippery slope by the willy Persians. I've tended to look at as a revival of Syria-centric ME Soviet policy. Breaking out of NATO containment and moving towards the space the attempted US disentanglement from the ME may leave. Putin isn't much of a strategist but he is an agile opportunist tempted by former glories. The folk of Latakia celebrate Putin as a saviour for without him they'd be fighting an even bloodier battle to avoid being drowned like Nusayri rats by JaF. The price of that is he's got himself manacled to the awful, immovable Assad with his decaying SAA and bandit like NDF.

The Russians have elbowed their way into the position of a still dangerous competitor. Their complaints will no longer simply be heard and dismissed; they may once again project force to get their way as we do. Weak compared to the USSR but not to be trifled with. That was perhaps the point as much as preserving Assad in most of useful Syria. They can no longer be arrogantly ignored when we make our moves but that was always a foolish posture.
 
On War On The Rocks IT IS TIME TO DRIVE A STAKE INTO THE HEART OF THE AMERICAN CREDIBILITY MYTH
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Perhaps most surprisingly, I found that the United States does not bluff in the realm of compellence. In all crises in which the United States issued an explicit threat intended to modify a target’s ongoing behavior, it followed through if and when the target chose not to comply with U.S. demands. (Some might argue that the United States’ decision to take no action in response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria in 2013 would constitute a failure to follow through on a commitment. Because the initial “red line” threat was an effort to deter the Syrian regime, it would have been outside the scope of my analysis of U.S. compellent threats. We have direct evidence, however, that Putin saw this inaction as prudent and did not conclude that Obama was weak as a result.) In terms of the reputation theory, this strongly suggests that U.S. compellent threats should be extremely effective, and that they should become more effective over time as this reputation becomes more consistent and impressive.

When we look at the record of U.S. compellence, however, we find that the opposite is true: America’s compellent threats have been both more frequent and less effective on average since 1990 than they were during the Cold War. The target conceded to U.S. demands in 55 percent of Cold War crises in which the United States issued a compellent threat and in only 25 percent of crises in the post-Cold War period. In other words, despite the fact that the United States has demonstrated that it always follows through on its compellent threats, these threats have become less effective over time. This is the exact opposite of what we would expect given the logic of those who argue that U.S. inaction in Ukraine emboldened Putin to intervene in Syria and that inaction in Syria will similarly embolden him toinvade the Baltics.
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Sharp piece this; deterrence is built on cold capability to do harm not temper tantrums. And in a democracy the voter has to be willing to pay in many ways for actions taken. One intervention incurs opportunity costs and compromises the possibility of another. Walking softly with a big stick should not compel its use at every opportunity rather very careful consideration of targets.

Obama's red line over Chemical Weapon use in Syria is mentioned in this but set aside as out of scope. It is however a good example. A windy threat made lightly without considering in depth the consequences of Assad being desperate enough to cross the line. When it came to it Obama appeared reluctantly trapped into action. He lacked support for overt action against Assad in Congress and amongst voters. There simply wasn't a compelling national interest case for action beyond a slight loss of Presidential face. Putin offered a way out and Assad gave up most of his (in fact pretty useless) stockpile. I'd compare this rather favourably with Reagan's rapid retreat from Beirut after losing best part of a battalion of marines to an HA truck bomb in another fight the US had no dog in. Both of these are examples of wisdom trailing in after interventionist folly.

Where the US has done it's self enormous reputational damage is in hasty action. The successful Iraq invasion and disastrous occupation being the obvious example. Nothing like seeing the world's most powerful military bluntly flailing at a stubborn insurgency to take the sheen of its menace. That and the debacle in Libya shaped Russia's response in Syria.
 
teqniq said:
Here I think you are largely overlooking how all this began, namely the regime firing on unarmed protestors.
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Unarmed protestors who somehow managed to kill numerous cops and soldiers with lots of bullets. You've largely overlooked that. Repetitively . Over and over again . For years on end .
 
On Reuters Gulf may arm rebels now Syria truce is dead - U.S. officials

Well the very well supplied rebels might be surprised to learn the Gulfies had not been pouring arms into Syria. What they mean is a better supply of MANPADS might be coming despite the US getting real itchy about that leading to us loosing the odd airliner.

There is a lot of hype about this sort of weaponry making a big difference in the Muhj war not really supported by the facts. Stingers just put Soviet air frames higher in the sky. They were fairly insignificant in that war compared to mines and mule trains. What more MANPADS would mean in this theatre is more Russian area bombing.
 
From The Atlantic Council The MOC’s Role in the Collapse of the Southern Opposition
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The MOC’s, and in particular Jordan’s, decisions are being driven by an absence of US leadership. In move of realpolitik, Jordan is coordinating with Russia, one of the main backers of the Syrian regime, even as it houses the MOC in Amman. It fears the possibility that Damascus could fall and the United States will not ensure that forces hostile to Jordan do not take over the capital, or at least protect Jordan from such hostile forces. There have been recent reports in mainstream media that the MOC imposed a red line on certain cities like al-Shaykh Maskin, preventing the opposition from advancing and hindering their success; news of other red lines has been common amongst fighters in the south for over a year. In sum, Jordan is containing the crisis at its doorstep in the only way it can, but in doing so it has settled the fate of the south.

The effects of the MOC’s decisions are not limited to the front in Daraa; they also extend to regions in the countryside around Damascus. Russia has focused mainly on the north and central regions of the country since last August, when its intelligence services learned of a plan that Saudi Arabia and Jordan were preparing (through the MOC) to launch a sudden attack through Daraa and Quneitra to bring down Damascus, accompanied by a huge mobilization from Jaysh al-Islam, led by Saudi’s man Zahran Alloush. This would have been Saudi’s first foothold in Syria, and it would have taken Eastern Ghouta as its primary headquarters. Russia verified their intelligence with information from the field from Hezbollah, which had noted unusual movements around Jobar and Qura al-Asad outside Damascus. Russian planes changed their usual routes from the north to the south, and launched air strikes on several sites in Jobar and Eastern Ghouta. They hit the two towns of Marj al-Sultan and Deir al-Asafeer especially hard, as well as other villages that make up the opposition’s supply lines. The leaders’ positions were destroyed, a large number of opposition fighters were killed, and thus the opposition’s attack was thwarted before beginning.

The collapse of southern rebel factions has led to infighting. Several months after Zahran Alloush was killed in a Russian airstrike, fighting broke out between the two of the strongest factions in Eastern Ghouta: Jaysh al-Islam, a Salafi Islamist faction, and al-Rahman Legion, which primarily relies on the MOC for support. Meanwhile, the Syrian regime’s army, backed by the Fatimid Brigade, invaded the Marj district in Eastern Ghouta (the primary food store for the nearly 350,000 civilians in Eastern Ghouta) and displaced nearly 1,500 families to other regions in central Ghouta.
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Perhaps the Russians most successful move in Syria and barely reported as the MSM focuses on the breaking of the East Aleppo pocket.

I think it was King Abdullah of Jordan that coined the phrase Shia Crescent. If we were backing the Syrian revolt to thwart the Iranians it's the South and the Ground Line Of Communications to HA in Lebanon that really matters. Strangling its supply lines and eventually starving Damascus into submission was also key to toppling Assad.

The Russians may have been pushing on an open door here. Jordan often seemed far less taken with the Syrian revolt than its paymasters in the KSA and US. Lack of US leadership is cited here. Lack of faith in anybody's ability to control who actually replaced Assad and a distaste for radical Salafi like Alloush might be another explanation. After all why would the rather pragmatic Hashemite Crown actually want something like JaF "liberated" Idlib next door? The Jordanians brutally put down the PLO during Black September half a century ago for fear of terrorist state developing next door. As with the Israelis the Russians came not just bearing quiet menace but with reassurances that their influence in Syria would restrain Iran's. Add on top of that you have the risk of tangling with the Russians while maybe being hung out to dry by the Americans and going along with them becomes a bit of a no brainer.
 
Two hospitals bombed in rebel-held Aleppo amid government assault

The two largest hospitals in the Syrian city of Aleppo were bombed early Wednesday, knocking them out of service and worsening an already dire medical crisis in the besieged city, medical workers said.

Two patients were killed and three hospital staffers injured in the pre-dawn attacks, including a nurse and an ambulance driver, according to the Syrian American Medical Society, which runs hospitals in opposition controlled areas of Syria....
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Well that was a blunt reality check and he forgot to mention Iran.

Twits bring up the NFZ in Iraq forgetting that only the Kurdish end worked while Saddam slaughtered Shia and that there was no Russian force in theatre to run headlong into. That is something that gives even the headstrong Turks pause. We were then also rather careless about Salafi-Jihadis getting foothold in ungoverned spaces and the group that became AQI and morphed into IS was active there. The lack of course correction amongst some Syria wonks as the regime's powerful allies made clear they'd back Bashar to the hilt is astounding.

And, Lord help me, little Kosovo still gets wheeled out by eager interventionists. A country the size of Chechnya with what was one of the most laxly observant Muslim populations on the planet. We poured an enormous amount of resources into carving out this state much to the annoyance of the Russians. With not a little help from the Saudis encouraging it as field of Jihad who have since made it a mission to bring their little Wahhabi ways there. It is currently by some accounts a bigger per capita exporter of Salafi-Jihadis than Putin's well pulverised province.

Talk about learning the wrong lessons.
 
On War On The Rocks UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE IS NOT THE ANSWER TO YOUR PROBLEM
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The challenge of selecting a suitable proxy force also presents a serious problem, as recent struggles to back“moderate” Syrian opposition groups indicate. While resistance forces may offer expedient short-term allies, their ideological aims often fail to align with long-term U.S. policy objectives. Covert American support to Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet occupation is perhaps the best-known example of “policy blowback” in which short-term solutions cause greater long-term problems.

Countering potential blowback requires long-term commitment on the part of the U.S. government, typically in the form of hefty financial and military aid to the political leaders it supports.. Externally- supported rebel groups show decreased accountability to the population they fight for, as well as less restraint in employing violence against them The logical corollary that follows from this argument extends to governments (and shadow governments) as well. The U.S. policy of artificially subsidizing non-functional or sub-functional governments creates dependency and de-incentivizes the correction of corrupt practices. This simply delays, rather than solves, the problem of blowback.
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Ah the temptations of "doing something" with little green men and proxy forces. It can go horribly wrong in all sorts of ways. The US has a terrible record with this sort of thing even according to Langley's own dire official assessment. However it does have the advantage of being pretty deniable. You still get outraged journos banging on about the lack of a US intervention in Syria while some chin bearded types are setting up Langley's TOWs behind them. I don't recall that happening during the rather similar antics of the Muhj war.

General Zinni watching the neocons plotting Saddam's overthrow with Iraqi exiles in the 90s once referred to their covert schemes as The Bay Of Goats. Of course it can go wrong as well when you throw in a few Divisions and set about nation building.

Speaking of little green men: who'd have thought after spending several trillion tax dollars on Iraq in 2014 it would be the IRGC-QF and its Great Satan hating militias that rushed to defend the Baghdad Belts while a Division of the US trained ISF collapsed before a few battalions of ragged IS beards. Perhaps the main difference is the patient Iranians set up the Badr Brigades as a strategic asset in the early 80s with an eye on gaining strategic depth in Iraq and have attention span of decades not a two year US electoral cycle.
 
CrabbedOne said:

Well that was a blunt reality check and he forgot to mention Iran.

Twits bring up the NFZ in Iraq forgetting that only the Kurdish end worked while Saddam slaughtered Shia and that there was no Russian force in theatre to run headlong into. That is something that gives even the headstrong Turks pause. We were then also rather careless about Salafi-Jihadis getting foothold in ungoverned spaces and the group that became AQI and morphed into IS was active there. The lack of course correction amongst some Syria wonks as the regime's powerful allies made clear they'd back Bashar to the hilt is astounding.

And, Lord help me, little Kosovo still gets wheeled out by eager interventionists. A country the size of Chechnya with what was one of the most laxly observant Muslim populations on the planet. We poured an enormous amount of resources into carving out this state much to the annoyance of the Russians. With not a little help from the Saudis encouraging it as field of Jihad who have since made it a mission to bring their little Wahhabi ways there. It is currently by some accounts a bigger per capita exporter of Salafi-Jihadis than Putin's well pulverised province.

Talk about learning the wrong lessons.
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A lesson was learned when Putin repaid the bill in Crimea, quid pro quo . An unfettered NATO simply annexed Kosovo Metohija from Serbia and turned it into a NATO colony , unrecognised by half the worlds states, were under NATO supervision everything from people trafficking ,sex slavery, live organ harvesting and Salafi Jihadism flourished . After bombing Serbia to smithereens .
Putin reminded them of this when he oversaw the reunification of Russia with its previously departed Crimean district . Although he managed it bloodlessly with barely a single shot fired . And a referendum to boot .

NATO chucked the rattle out of the pram and bawled and wailed . But they learned a lesson . 2 can play that game and Russia plays it a lot more skilfully .
 
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