And next, Syria?

[Pickman's model]

Well the Russians obviously do regard Grozny as a success story. The Chechen war is practically the basis of Putin's domestic wasta and we showed very little inclination to interfere. It was sold as part of the GWOT but was really just a state doing population management in its Old Skool 20th century way. The main criticism that's made of Chechnya by COIN experts is it displaced radicals to other places not that it was ineffective. The Russians are not appalled by Assad because his methods of dealing with an insurgency are just a very poorly executed version of theirs.

Methods that fail to force a conclusion but maintain a bloody stalemate are barbaric in a different way. Assad Pere's crushing of the last series of Syrian revolts at Hama may have killed 10-40K in a month but it at least ended the slaughter. The Syrian MB was broken and expelled never to recover. His weak son's war drags on killing far more people.

being as everyone wants blood on their hands in syria it's not really a surprise it's dragged on so long. did the turks or the lebanese or the iranians or the americans or the russians or the jordanians etc get involved in the syrian revolts at hama?

 

[kebabking]

... in case...

?

 

[Pickman's model]

.

 

[CrabbedOne]

being as everyone wants blood on their hands in syria it's not really a surprise it's dragged on so long. did the turks or the lebanese or the iranians or the americans or the russians or the jordanians etc get involved in the syrian revolts at hama?

From what I recall it was the other way round with the Syrian intervention in Lebanon in 76 lighting a slow fuse amongst the Syrian MB which led to a series of risings culminating in 82 in Hama.

Practically everybody had a hand in Lebanon. It's where the Islamic Republic first really got on the KSA's nipple ends. That one only ended via exhaustion after a decade and a half and a quarter of million dead in a country with maybe a quarter the population of Syria.

The end of the Syrian occupation in 05 after the Cedar Revolution and the waning of Syrian-Lebanese economic relations is often seen as one of the economic causes of the Syrian Civil War as lots of Syrian workers lost their jobs.

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The Nation The Debate Over Syria Has Reached a Dead End

...
Those opposed to the regime, from any perspective, must devote their energies toward building a more independent, democratic, and inclusive movement based on shared national goals and overlapping interests in at least stopping the mayhem. This will be a long and arduous task, one in which we have to take seriously some of the claims and concerns of the narratives this essay has examined. Most importantly, such an effort should not have its sights set on a particular end game; rather, we would do well to keep in mind that there will be life after the conflict, which requires the most responsible kind of building. We must start now, lest other, more powerful, and well-funded actors steal the day yet again and impose only a softer version of a repressive and exploitative Syria.
...

Has two competing narratives on Syria:

• A pure people's revolution against a cruel tyrant as maintained by Assad's opponents
• A largely foreign conspiracy against a legitimate ruler as maintained by Assad's friends

Subtle enough to acknowledge that both are fictive though not without a basis in fact.

It doesn't quite come to grips with the reality that there isn't one revolt but several provincial risings with contending objectives. The original Arab Spring protest movement demanding reform and then regime change still exists but its rather obscured by the men of violence. It's a cause lost in the momentum of Jihad. The toughest, best organised and most likely to succeed rebel groups are nearly all Salafist in nature some very radical ranging all the way to Jund al Aqsa. Even this can't be called a united front. They have serious disagreements that often lead to fighting. The other rebels include some big blocks but tend to be rather localised groups. Some are not much more than neighbour hood watch outfits. Some are effectively mercs taking some power's shilling. Some are literally bandits. Then there is IS of course but after taunting Uncle Sam into attacking them in Syria their dream of uniting the revolt under the Caliphate's black banner and taking the Holy places seems to be crashing. And lets not forget the PKK: a tough, rather competent Old Skool 70s revolutionary group that lucked out getting US backing to fight IS. It probably won't get US CAS to fight the very different forces of the revolt backed by Turkey but that is where it is headed. Good luck trying to unite that into a coherent opposition.

On the other side is the regime. This is a crumbling structure short on man power and slowly losing control of its own people. It's bankrupt in more than one sense and rotten but simultaneously resilient. The regime's retains more political coherence than the revolt but its highly authoritarian power structures are subverted by NDF militia warlords and the Iranians. Assad has no partner for a negotiated peace (or rather surrender) but it's also not clear Assad may actually be able to stop his warlords rather profitable war. He may even have more popular support than the revolt in Useful Syria. Or rather the many stranded revolt faces fearful opposition in many urban spaces not just a hardcore of Baathist loyalists. In particular the Salafist style of rule we see in areas of Idlib appears an unwelcome innovation. And this regime support varies greatly by region. Yet Assad would rule in every corner of Syria rather than consolidate around areas of support. The regime's allies are now essential to its survival but have limited leverage over Damascus's incompetent ruler. But it's their level of commitment that is the decisive thing here. They are willing to own a very problematic Syria the rebels backers fundamentally are not.

You have an extremely repressive and corrupt regime that gives good cause for revolt but the risings against Assad that often provoke more fear than hope for the future. And the author is right Assad won't reform. He's stiff necked but too afraid to show weakness and is almost impossible to excise.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Ikhwani=Muslim Brotherhood, well it's a big tent.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On War Is Boring THE ARC OF HISTORY IS LONG, BUT IT BENDS TOWARD BOMBING ASSAD

...
Looking back to the 1990s, it seems Obama is actually hewing fairly closely to the playbook that ultimately led Washington to intervene in Yugoslavia’s civil war. This is not a playbook that demands immediate military intervention, but one that has Washington spending several years desperately trying to avoid it, while still investing just enough diplomatically and rhetorically to make the eventual use of force inevitable.

In the Balkans, it took four years from the time Serb and Croat forces first began fighting in 1991 to the start of the NATO air campaign that finally brought an uneasy end to the fighting. During this period, two successive presidential administrations sought to keep America out of a conflict where they saw little public support or strategic rationale for getting involved. In a differently configured but not dissimilar political climate, many isolationist voters insisted that the United States should not serve as the world’s policeman, while internationalist realists like Secretary of State James Baker famously declared of the conflict, “We do not have a dog in this fight.” Thus when the Yugoslav civil war broke out, foreign policy hands in the George H.W. Bush administration were focused on Russia, while those concerned with domestic policy worried about how the public would respond to such minor reversals as the capture of an American pilot.
...

This is a clever piece but it entirely misses the very changed circumstances of a revived Russia prepared to get right in DC's face over Syria and the background of very disappointing US interventions in the 21st century. I do recall a British General in the former-Yugoslavia protesting he was not about to start a war with Russia. That risk is now very real. The knee jerk impulse is still strong but its advocates in the policy community are stuck in the vanished post-Cold War world of the 90s.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Reuters Major Russian naval deployment to intensify Aleppo assault: NATO diplomat

...
The fleet passed by the Norwegian city of Bergen on Wednesday, the diplomat said, while Russian media has said it will move through the English Channel, past Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean Sea to the Syrian coast.

"They are deploying all of the Northern fleet and much of the Baltic fleet in the largest surface deployment since the end of the Cold War," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

"This is not a friendly port call. In two weeks, we will see a crescendo of air attacks on Aleppo as part of Russia's strategy to declare victory there," the diplomat said.

Photos of the vessels have been released by the Norwegian military, taken on Monday. A Norwegian newspaper quoted the head of the Norwegian military intelligence service saying the ships involved "will probably play a role in the deciding battle for Aleppo".
...

I hope Putin is keeping the Red Army Choir in reserve just in case.

 

[CrabbedOne]

From The Atlantic Council Assad Wants to Rule Syria, but Economics Say Otherwise

...
Over half of the population is jobless. Capital has shifted from traditional industrial or trading families to new war business figures as wartime profits go to specific companies and sectors. As a result of last year’s elections for the regime-controlled Aleppo Chamber of Commerce, ten of the twelve members were newcomers; in Damascus, seven of the twelve were new. Yazigi explained that this is the result of immigration of the traditionally-wealthy class and the rise of a new elite.

According to the IMF, after fifteen years of civil war, it took Lebanon twenty years to catch up to its pre-war GDP level. It took Kuwait—which endured only two years of conflict—seven years to regain its pre-war GDP levels. Because Syria is witnessing unprecedented levels of devastation, it will likely take even longer for the country to recover. As early as 2014, a United Nations Relief and Works Agency report estimated that it would take thirty years for Syria to return to its 2010 economic levels.

The military solution can only take Assad so far—it is ultimately the restoration of the social contract that will bring stability to the country and allow for reconstruction. But to regain the people’s trust, Assad will need to ensure that Syria’s economic system allows for people to find employment and access basic utilities, especially in the rural areas. These regions have traditionally been neglected by the government and have slipped easily out of government control—first to rebels and then to the Islamic State.

To stay in power and stabilize Syria, Assad needs more than a military victory. Even prior to the revolution, Assad was already unable to achieve minimum economic stability, which ultimately triggered the revolution. Today, he cannot hope to do more, especially in the absence of support of much of the international community. “The rebuilding effort cannot stem alone from private donors, but will require the support of public investment such as the World Bank, Gulf donors, among others—something that is difficult to envision in the absence of a peace agreement,” says Yazigi. It will also need genuine reforms to rebuild the social contract between the government and people. Assad was not capable to make such reforms in 2011; it is unlikely he will be able to now.

My bold, the flight of the very urban elites Bashar poured favours on while grinding the Syrian poor into the dust before the revolt. From the victor fly the spoiled. Of course its the poorest who remain trapped.

This piece is a litany of economic wreckage. The civil war is turning Syria's economy into something more like dirt poor Yemen. And neither of Assad's sponsors are wealthy. Iran's basically a third world country with growth potential. The average Russian's income has fallen behind that of the average Chinese while the Kremlin spends a great chunk of their GDP on the military in pursuit of lost glories.

 

[CrabbedOne]

The Turkish military said its fighter jets hit Syrian Kurdish targets in northern Syria, and killed up to 200 fighters, according to state media.

The jets hit 18 targets in Maarrat Umm Hawsh, a region north of the city of Aleppo, the official news agency Anadolu said.

Quoting the army, the report claimed that between 160 and 200 fighters from the YPG, the People's Protection Units, were killed in the raids on Wednesday night.

A Syrian-Kurdish forces leader, however, said that while Turkish jets and artillery were attacking, no more than 10 fighters had been killed so far.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said at least nine YPG fighters were confirmed killed and 26 people were injured in some 20 raids.
...

Well it's the thought that counts.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On TDS On Syrian border, not all rebel goals shared by Turkish backers

...
Erdogan said he had spoken with Putin Tuesday and agreed to try to help meet a Russian demand that fighters from the group formally known as the Nusra Front, now called Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, be removed from Aleppo. “The necessary orders were given to our friends, and they will do what is needed.”

Such willingness to do Moscow’s bidding is unlikely to go down well with the FSA fighters Turkey is backing. “Russia says they are bombing terrorists, but be it Nusra or Ahrar al-Sham, these are people who have fought with us to save our land,” Sighli Sighli, another commander from the Sultan Murad brigade, told Reuters in Jarablus.

He said he was grateful for the backing of the Turkish military, and that the FSA’s recent advances could not have been achieved without it, but that Aleppo was the strategic goal. “It’s not possible for us to accept what Russia or Iran or the PYD [Kurdish militia] wants to do with our country. This land belongs to Syrians, not Russians or Iranians.”

Some of the civilians in Jarablus, where shops have gradually reopened selling fruit and cloth as rebel fighters patrol the streets on foot and in pickup trucks, are also suspicious of Ankara’s warming ties with Moscow.

“My family is starving in Aleppo. Thousands are starving ... Erdogan has left our people there to die, he has abandoned us,” said one Turkmen resident who gave his name only as Yahya, and who said his wife and five children were in Aleppo. “He sold Aleppo off to the Russians and Iranians. They made a deal and they no longer care about Aleppo.”

Rebel fighters who have benefited from Turkish firepower in recent weeks are less skeptical, convinced that they will go on to battle Assad in Aleppo once Turkey’s ambition of flushing Daesh from its border is achieved. “We have put aside our desire to fight Assad just for now. We haven’t abandoned it ... it’s not like we’ve dropped our target,” Bessam Muhammed, a 40-year-old rebel fighter, told Reuters in the garden of a Turkish-run field hospital.

“We haven’t come all the way and fought this war to seize Jarablus and then stay here,” he said.
...

A pretty basic dilemma for Turkey's rebels: the East Aleppo pocket is in danger of falling and they are fighting a different war mainly focused on thwarting the PKK's regional ambitions.

 

[CrabbedOne]

IN TDS EU drops sanctions threat against Russia over Syria

...
The watered-down statement said the EU "strongly condemns the attacks by the Syrian government and its allies, notably Russia, on civilians in Aleppo" and called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities."

"The EU is considering all available options, should the current atrocities continue," it added.

An earlier draft had mentioned sanctions.

Russia had upstaged the summit by announcing that it would halt hostilities over Aleppo on the same day, and said Thursday it would extend the truce by 24 hours.

EU President Donald Tusk, who had earlier said that sanctions should be on the table, insisted that the leaders had agreed to "keep the unity of the EU" over Russia.

The leaders brought up Russian "airspace violations, disinformation campaigns, cyber-attacks, interference in political processes in the Balkans and beyond" and other issues.

"Given these examples it is clear that Russia's strategy is to weaken the EU," said Tusk, the former prime minister of Poland, one of the countries that is most hawkish on Russia.

The EU is due to decide at their next summit in December whether to renew sanctions over the Ukraine crisis for another six months.

But the European Union remains split over how best to deal with Russia, with countries such as Italy and Greece favoring selective engagement with a major economic partner and energy supplier.
...

Europe divided over whether East Aleppo is less important than keeping the lights on.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On WaPo Washington’s foreign policy elite breaks with Obama over Syrian bloodshed

...
A similar sentiment animates the left-leaning Center for American Progress’s report, which calls for more military action to counter Iranian aggression, more dialogue with the United States’ Arab allies and more support for economic and human rights reform in the region.

“The dynamic is totally different from what I saw a decade ago” when Democratic and Republican elites were feuding over the invasion of Iraq, said Brian Katulis, a senior Middle East analyst at the Center for American Progress. Today, the focus among the foreign policy elite is on rebuilding a more muscular and more “centrist internationalism,” he said.

Less clear is whether such a policy has any support among an American public weary of war in the Middle East and largely opposed to foreign aid.

“There’s a lot of common ground among these studies,” Katulis said. “My concern is that we may be talking to each other and agreeing with each other but that these discussions are isolated from where the public may be right now.”

My bold, lots of liberal hawk yammering in a inner Beltway bubble.

The basic motivator here isn't really humanitarian: the fear is that the "American-led international order" is under threat. And it is, we are no longer in the 90s "End of History" but in a dangerous multi-polar world once more. The evangelical fever of globalisation fades. Nationalism rises at home and abroad. The Russians and Chinese are asserting themselves and US allies increasingly stray off reservation to follow their own agendas. The American voter tires of riding herd thanklessly in this increasing complexity. A world where a return to default Westphalian norms may be more appropriate.

 

[CrabbedOne]

From The Washington Institute The Druze and Assad: Strategic Bedfellows

...
CONCLUSION

As things stand, it will be difficult to detach Jabal al-Druze from the Assad regime by mere persuasion. The Druze will not be won over unless they are cut off from Damascus, and even then they will need very concrete assurances that international forces will protect them from jihadist groups such as JN and the Islamic State. Jabal al-Druze residents do not wish to suffer the same fate as their co-religionists in Jabal al-Summaq. Thus, if Washington and its partners want this strategic minority to play any role in ousting the regime or otherwise ending the war on favorable terms, they will need to demonstrably reassure local Druze that they have a safe future in Syria without Assad's patronage.

Balanche reckons the Druze might well have sided with the rebels as they've little love for Assad and were itching for a rising. Some did but the revolt's insistence on creating an Islamist state under Sharia and sectarianism alienated them while Assad managed to play on their fears of its direction. AQ Syria also played a very destructive role frequently attacking the Druze. When the regime looked weak in 2015 there was a movement for secession but it looks like the regime assassinated it's leader and then the Russian intervention ruled it out.

 

[teqniq]

You can follow the Kuznetsov's stately progress toward the Aleppocalypse by following the transponder of the civvie tug that's never far away in case the Kuznetsov breaks down.

Vessel details for: NIKOLAY CHIKER (Tug) - IMO 8613334, MMSI 273531629, Call Sign RAL 48 Registered in Russia | AIS Marine Traffic

 

[CrabbedOne]

On CNN Aleppo: Who still lives in this decimated city -- and why?

From the pocket in East Aleppo:

...
Mohammed, the young father, says every day is a struggle for survival.

"Basically, my whole daylight is just me trying to find stuff," he said. And when he does find food, "it is insanely expensive," describing prices 50 times higher than they were six years ago.

Mohammed declined to describe his job, saying it would likely identify him. But he says business is almost nonexistent.

"Now I don't have any more work to do, so I am living on some savings," he said.

The Aleppo native said he wishes he left before the government siege began.

"The regime has been bombarding the city over the last three years. It's very, very hard to live here," he said. "The new (bunker-buster) missiles are horrible. I can't stand living here anymore. It is a nightmare."

Why he stays:

Mohammed said he doesn't have the money to leave.

"I can't afford to go to Turkey with my wife, son and mother. It would cost me around $8,000 -- at least -- just to get to Turkey," he said.
"And then I don't even have any idea what can happen next, and if I will be able to work."

Mohammed said if he's able to escape, he'd like to go to a rebel-held part of the Aleppo countryside.

"I don't trust the regime," he said. "They would arrest me for sure."
...

If he had the money he'd clearly go to Turkey if there was an opportunity. The urban poor are trapped not just by fighting but by poverty.

Also gives an account from the much larger regime held Western Aleppo were things are not so bad:

...
Salam, a 35-year-old mother of two, says she has to tread carefully when walking her son to school.

"It is not safe. We are being shelled regularly by the opposition with mortars," said Salam, whom CNN is not identifying for safety reasons.

"When I take my kid to school, we try to walk under the balconies and try to stay away from open areas. We don't walk in open streets. And we try to reduce the time we spend out of our home as much as possible."

Why she stays:

Like Mohammed, Salam was born in Aleppo. But unlike Mohammed, she actually wants to stay.

Salam is luckier than many of the residents living on the other side of Aleppo. She still has a workplace and job, teaching French at the same school her son attends.

"If the situation stayed like this security-wise, I think I will stay, because I don't want to live in a tent. Also, I don't want to be very poor and not be able to pay rent and bills," she said.

"We also don't want to lose the house. We worked for years to buy it."
...

She speaks French, holds property but sees life as a refugee as economically perilous.

Notice neither are talking about a cause just material conditions.

 

[CrabbedOne]

From NDU The Rise of Syria’s Urban Poor: Why the War for Syria’s Future Will Be Fought Over the Country’s New Urban Villages

I posted this up before but the section on The Future of Syria’s Urban Poor starting at page 39 is worth reading after that CNN article.

In the East Aleppo Pocket we have Islamist rebels and AQ playing a rather similar role to Lebanese HA in its early days. A state within a dysfunctional state providing basic services and justice based on Islamic law to the urban poor of a handful of blue collar burbs. As with HA this builds a political base. Literacy is low, the Mosque strong and the hard clannish ways of the rif (Arabic for countryside) are still embedded in a population that's boomed after flowing in from the sticks a generation before. They'd been banging against a Baathist glass ceiling without the wasta to break it. And it took rebels who'd taken the nearby countryside coming into the city to spark this dry tinder into open revolt. Here the retribution of a vengeful regime is greatly feared.

On the regime side the people aren't so different but perhaps a little better off or with hope to be. Maybe holding some hard won property in Syria's commercial capital. There is the mark of the sedentary medina, Arabic for city. The example picked by CNN is a teacher, an educated state employee on a modest icome. We also have the remnants of a once thriving Aleppan haut bourgeoisie greatly favoured by the regimes crony neoliberalism that quadrupled Syrian GDP but in a most exclusionary way. More gobbling up all the pie economics than any sort of trickle down. These are people with something to lose. Few may love the regime but many fear the world being turned upside down as it is in East Aleppo. They are often only pro-Assad for fear the other lot will burn the country.

There's elements of class war but also cultural; the old tension between rif and medina brought together in a sprawling city and now divided camps.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Syria Direct Kurdish-led coalition inches closer to contested al-Bab, prompting swift Turkish response

Forget about the race to al Raqqa. It's the bounce towards al Bab.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On War On The Rocks POLITICAL AIRPOWER, PART I: SAY NO TO THE NO-FLY ZONE

...
As discussed, the no-fly zone was born in a post-Cold War era when the United States possessed such a lopsided military advantage that a political aversion to risk coupled with a relatively low demand on airpower resources could still pull it off. To establish a no-fly zone, one must first gain and maintain air supremacy — not merely air superiority. However, there is no real precedent to establishing and maintaining a no-fly zone against any meaningful resistance, and meaningful resistance doesn’t simply mean enemy fighters anymore. In the new era of air warfare wherein the lethality of modern proliferated Russian or Chinese air defenses easily trumps the threat from fighters, a NFZ must prioritize negating threats to friendly aircraft first. Operation Allied Force provides insights to the magnitude of what this endeavor might entail and shows that this is much more difficult than the casual strategist or armchair operational planner realizes.
...

Costs a Syrian NFZ at about a billion tax dollars/month and that US capacity to do such an operation has dropped by a fifth since the end of the Iraqi NFZ which would leave deterrent capacity stretched elsewhere.

In these things always consider opportunity costs.

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The Daily Sabah YPG must be kicked out of Afrin, Manbij before Mosul falls

...
What happened in recent days suggests that the YPG represents a national security threat not only in Manbij and but also Afrin. Seeking to create a safe zone in northern Syria to seal the border and prevent illegal immigration, Turkey has no choice but to eliminate the YPG threat before Daesh militants leave Mosul for Raqqa and al-Bab. At this point, the FSA forces are compelled to kick the YPG out of Afrin and Manbij.

So hordes of Daeshis are going to flood from Mosul to al Bab so Ankrara needs to get a move on with the PKK bashing. Turkish press going a little mental.

 

[teqniq]

Assad’s Latest Lie Debunked by His Own Wife

 

[CrabbedOne]

The second bit of highlighting is understandable. The Mukhabarat has a bit of habit of turning up to beat wounded men in their hospital beds or drag them off for torture.

 

[Casually Red]

Any thoughts in the footage of Syrian rebels shelling the humanitarian corridors , actively preventing the civilian population from leaving ? Reports of civic leaders executed by one group for trying to organise evacuations .

And both the Syrian military and Lavrov telling the Turks they'll shoot their planes down if they persist in attacking the Kurds .

 

[Casually Red]

Assad’s Latest Lie Debunked by His Own Wife

No mention whatsoever of the character responsible for taking the photograph and his links to head choppers and suicide bombers . And the defence of the " white helmets " is pretty fucking laughable given what's well known about them by this stage. Just another rant from another shill .

 

[Casually Red]

On War On The Rocks POLITICAL AIRPOWER, PART I: SAY NO TO THE NO-FLY ZONE
Costs a Syrian NFZ at about a billion tax dollars/month and that US capacity to do such an operation has dropped by a fifth since the end of the Iraqi NFZ which would leave deterrent capacity stretched elsewhere.

In these things always consider opportunity costs.

If there's going to be a no fly zone over Syria it will be the Russians and Syrians who enforce it .

 

[Casually Red]

From NDU The Rise of Syria’s Urban Poor: Why the War for Syria’s Future Will Be Fought Over the Country’s New Urban Villages

I posted this up before but the section on The Future of Syria’s Urban Poor starting at page 39 is worth reading after that CNN article.

In the East Aleppo Pocket we have Islamist rebels and AQ playing a rather similar role to Lebanese HA in its early days. A state within a dysfunctional state providing basic services and justice based on Islamic law to the urban poor of a handful of blue collar burbs. As with HA this builds a political base. Literacy is low, the Mosque strong and the hard clannish ways of the rif (Arabic for countryside) are still embedded in a population that's boomed after flowing in from the sticks a generation before. They'd been banging against a Baathist glass ceiling without the wasta to break it. And it took rebels who'd taken the nearby countryside coming into the city to spark this dry tinder into open revolt. Here the retribution of a vengeful regime is greatly feared.

On the regime side the people aren't so different but perhaps a little better off or with hope to be. Maybe holding some hard won property in Syria's commercial capital. There is the mark of the sedentary medina, Arabic for city. The example picked by CNN is a teacher, an educated state employee on a modest icome. We also have the remnants of a once thriving Aleppan haut bourgeoisie greatly favoured by the regimes crony neoliberalism that quadrupled Syrian GDP but in a most exclusionary way. More gobbling up all the pie economics than any sort of trickle down. These are people with something to lose. Few may love the regime but many fear the world being turned upside down as it is in East Aleppo. They are often only pro-Assad for fear the other lot will burn the country.

There's elements of class war but also cultural; the old tension between rif and medina brought together in a sprawling city and now divided camps.

Most of Syrias internally displaced live in government controlled areas . Millions of them .They aren't better off, they have nothing . The jihadists either destroyed or stole it all . Entire factories ..the peoples employment and nationalised wealth..were dismantled and openly shipped through the Turkish border . They despise the jihadists .

 

[teqniq]

No mention whatsoever of the character responsible for taking the photograph and his links to head choppers and suicide bombers . And the defence of the " white helmets " is pretty fucking laughable given what's well known about them by this stage. Just another rant from another shill .

You are little more than a cheapass third-rate troll who provides no credible evidence to back up your claims, lies and evades awkward questions when it is expedient so excuse me if I don't actually take you seriously.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Most of Syrias internally displaced live in government controlled areas . Millions of them .They aren't better off, they have nothing . The jihadists either destroyed or stole it all . Entire factories ..the peoples employment and nationalised wealth..were dismantled and openly shipped through the Turkish border . They despise the jihadists .

Only 16% of Syrians ever worked in industry, about the same as agriculture, 67% worked in services. The public sector was about a third of of the total workforce. This was always paid at miserly rates. Mundane as that is it's perhaps the key factor in regime support. The government still pays civil servant salaries across the country in the hope of winning it back.

There's certainly plenty of banditry in rebel areas. And I do recall all the Ali Babas from as far away as Kuwait flooding into liberated Baghdad to strip it of scrap. This is what happens in warfare. Though if you look at Salafi groups like Jaish al Islam it seems they've expanded the industrial base rather successfully in their areas for war production.

The Salafists are far from angels but as described in that urban poor article above they have a political program. They tend to dominate as they provide services and you at least get recourse to a Sharia court. This form of rule probably has an innate appeal to sections of the urban poor but polls as being a bit more unpopular than the regime's ugly ways. In contrast the FSA units are often led by junior former SAA officers too often do what they did in the chronically underpaid army and supplement their income by extortion, robbery and rackets. According to relief agencies the population moves to state controlled areas not because it loves the bountiful Bashar of Baathist propaganda but mainly because they are not heavily bombed and the civilian infrastructure is intact. The trauma inflicted on rebel areas is considerable but its most the work of the Syrian state. They may also see little hope in rebel areas but refugees fleeing Syria do report the regime as the major cause.

Baathist Syria always had a strange kind of "socialism" more redolent of the European far right than left. It was an extractive family business with the Assad clam on top of a highly repressive state. However Bashar's neoliberal policies before the revolution were a new affront. Basically class warfare directed downwards. His tough father came from the rif and knew the peasants would revolt if it they went hungry. Bashar like the younger Mubarak on the other hand was the typical spoiled aristocrat living in a bubble. He became a great indulger of financial services and eager to parcel out state assets to chums. Leaving the needy to rot and basically focusing on wealth creation among the elite particular in the commercial hub Aleppo. As in Russia the Syrian equivalent of Siloviki stole the country. They flaunted their booming wealth in the lower orders faces. You could say the great loot in Syria began in the noughties together with the exploding demographics of the urban poor it resulted in the Arab Spring risings in less favoured provincial cities. Unlike Russians too many Syrians refused to be aftershave swilling serfs kowtowing before modern Boyars and spoiled the party. Many of the elite simply took their swag to Beirut to sit out the war. And facing a brutal regime response often that disenfranchised rage took on a Salafist face sometimes very extreme.

There's an even more sordid reality:

...
The fact that the regime-controlled zone is the most diverse does not mean that Assad is more benevolent than the rebels, Kurds, or IS. Rather, it reflects his political strategy. He knows he must expel millions of Sunni Arabs to make the balance of power more favorable to minorities who support him. He also needs to divide the Sunnis by redistributing land and housing that belonged to refugees, making loyalist Sunnis who remain behind even more beholden to him and pitting them against any who decide to return.
...

Divide and rule but with that little Baathist touch of baksheesh.

Just up thread there's an article on how both the SAA and NDF predate on vulnerable IDPs. Aid flow are systematically stripped and food sold at black market prices. The downtrodden SAA even complain about the NDF getting all the best loot when a rebel held area falls. IDPs may get robbed once by rebels but then get fleeced again and again.

 

[Casually Red]

Only 16% of Syrians ever worked in industry, about the same as agriculture, 67% worked in services. The public sector was about a third of of the total workforce. This was always paid at miserly rates. Mundane as that is it's perhaps the key factor in regime support. The government still pays civil servant salaries across the country in the hope of winning it back.

There's certainly plenty of banditry in rebel areas. And I do recall all the Ali Babas from as far away as Kuwait flooding into liberated Baghdad to strip it of scrap. This is what happens in warfare. Though if you look at Salafi groups like Jaish al Islam it seems they've expanded the industrial base rather successfully in their areas for war production.

The Salafists are far from angels but as described in that urban poor article above they have a political program. They tend to dominate as they provide services and you at least get recourse to a Sharia court. This form of rule probably has an innate appeal to sections of the urban poor but polls as being a bit more unpopular than the regime's ugly ways. In contrast the FSA units are often led by junior former SAA officers too often do what they did in the chronically underpaid army and supplement their income by extortion, robbery and rackets. According to relief agencies the population moves to state controlled areas not because it loves the bountiful Bashar of Baathist propaganda but mainly because they are not heavily bombed and the civilian infrastructure is intact. The trauma inflicted on rebel areas is considerable but its most the work of the Syrian state. They may also see little hope in rebel areas but refugees fleeing Syria do report the regime as the major cause.

Baathist Syria always had a strange kind of "socialism" more redolent of the European far right than left. It was an extractive family business with the Assad clam on top of a highly repressive state. However Bashar's neoliberal policies before the revolution were a new affront. Basically class warfare directed downwards. His tough father came from the rif and knew the peasants would revolt if it they went hungry. Bashar like the younger Mubarak on the other hand was the typical spoiled aristocrat living in a bubble. He became a great indulger of financial services and eager to parcel out state assets to chums. Leaving the needy to rot and basically focusing on wealth creation among the elite particular in the commercial hub Aleppo. As in Russia the Syrian equivalent of Siloviki stole the country. They flaunted their booming wealth in the lower orders faces. You could say the great loot in Syria began in the noughties together with the exploding demographics of the urban poor it resulted in the Arab Spring risings in less favoured provincial cities. Unlike Russians too many Syrians refused to be aftershave swilling serfs kowtowing before modern Boyars and spoiled the party. Many of the elite simply took their swag to Beirut to sit out the war. And facing a brutal regime response often that disenfranchised rage took on a Salafist face sometimes very extreme.

There's an even more sordid reality:
Divide and rule but with that little Baathist touch of baksheesh.

Just up thread there's an article on how both the SAA and NDF predate on vulnerable IDPs. Aid flow are systematically stripped and food sold at black market prices. The downtrodden SAA even complain about the NDF getting all the best loot when a rebel held area falls. IDPs may get robbed once by rebels but then get fleeced again and again.

I'm sorry but your last link was from the Washington Policy institute...come on .

This is footage of Heavy machinery and infrastructure being shipped directly out of jihadi held territory , through the border post to Turkey they clearly control . With their flags on it and stuff .



You can't be so blindly oblivious as to how this actually works and the impact this state sponsored looting has on the average Syrian . For starters these largely nationalised industries were paid for by them Out of their purse. Billions of their national wealth was invested into creating these industries in the first place . " Only 16 % of the population " may work in industry...rather a lot . But that means a much wider percentage..their families..depend on that wage . As do the workers in numerous professions and services who depend on those wages being spent . As do those who are subsidised elsewhere, because that industry is where the govt gets the income to pay civil servants salaries and the like . So that's a hell of a lot of people directly affected by this wholesale looting by western and gulf backed terrorist groups of national assets . Efecctively all Syrians . Add to that the wholesale theft of their national oil and gas resources by jihadists and it's the people in their entirety being robbed blind by these bums .

Aleppo's businessmen blame Turks for damaged factories, looted equipment

 

[CrabbedOne]

On CMEC Smoke and Mirrors

...
A HOLDING PATTERN IN SYRIA

Turkish military intervention will remain limited in coming months, for all these reasons. Erdogan has little incentive to commit further troops in Syria, thereby running the risk of weakening his grip on Turkish domestic politics or the armed forces. He is even more unlikely to send the armed forces on a venture to Raqqa before the new U.S. administration is in place and able to offer tangible foreign policy and security gains in return. And although Putin pulled off a diplomatic coup by announcing the Turkish Stream gas pipeline deal during his visit to Istanbul, it may not survive the two countries’ policy differences over Syria and other issues.

Continuing material support to the armed opposition groups in Syria confirms that Turkish policy towards Syria is in a holding pattern, and that Ankara is not about to abandon them as part of an understanding with Russia, contrary to media speculation. But they will be used primarily to pursue Turkish interests in blocking expansion of the Kurdish canton in northern Syria. Establishing a safe zone in Syria is simply not an operational priority on the Turkish—or international—agenda, even if talk of it retains its political currency.

A tale of big Turkish talk and finding excuses for little action. A Safe Zone was never what Turkey was after in Syria. Ankara's policy now focuses on containing the threat from the PKK. That's something most Turks can agree on. PM Ahmet Davutoglu going lessened the impetus behind an Islamist approach abroad. After the coup Erdogan's sleekit pragmatism dominates. Support to the rebels amounts to maintaining leverage. Of course it's unknown what stance the next US President will take.

I've noticed Ankara has been far less liable to rattle its sabre at Moscow lately. It's Europeans and Americans that berate Putin over Aleppo. While here Erdogan just hopes that a way can be found to get aid through to the needy.