And next, Syria?

[Idris2002]

You could say the same about the Syrian Baath with the Assad's cultivating the Mosque and permitting a high degree of Saudi ulema influence in some places. I think it was more a regional trend towards conservative Islam than anything.

"Doctor, why do I have a fever?"

"You have a fever because your temperature is high".

 

[CrabbedOne]

I'm sure I quoted that as well.

 

[CrabbedOne]

That in fact may be true. Despite all the airpower it's wishful thinking assuming the Russians have secured more than docking rights in Tartus with Damascus.

But I'm not seeing Tillerson sitting down with anyone but the Russians. It's not like the others have much to say to him but fuck off out of it.

 

[CrabbedOne]

The Trump Team's messaging on Syria is incredibly incoherent. You'd think Trump was in some sort of headless chicken mode trying to figure out what to do next while binge watching Fox & Friends.

 

[Idris2002]

The Trump Team's messaging on Syria is incredibly incoherent. You'd think Trump was in some sort of headless chicken mode trying to figure out what to do next while binge watching Fox & Friends.

Aw gee, d'you reckon?

 

[Knotted]

Re; Knotted's tussle with butchersapron above, concerning the sectarianisation (or alleged lack of same) of the regime. This shouldn't be considered outrageous at all: the region has more than one case of leaders that started out secular, but then turned to weaponised religion when the going got tough - Nimeiry in Sudan in the 1980s, and Saddam in Iraq after 1991.

There is a difference between abandoning secularism, which the Syrian regime has, and actively promoting a sectarian agenda. I'm convinced by arguments that the regime encouraged the various Salafis in order to poloarise the conflict so you could say they were helping to create a sectarian context to the conflict. But suggestions that they were trying to alienate the Sunni majority sound absurd to me, and are evidence free. It's opposition rhetoric, and the opposition aren't trying to explain the situation, uncomfortable truths and all. The opposition are trying to win support for their cause and I would do the same in their shoes, but I find it so tiresome.

 

[DownwardDog]

It's what Patton would have done god damn it.

There was definitely a USAF General who flew MC-12W combat missions in Afghanistan. There's probably been others too.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

Part of a thread on the regime's like victory but the steady erosion of Syrian state institutional capacity. Assad as the dominant warlord.

What I imagine five years down the line is parts of Useful Syria will be relatively normal but any reconstruction will be painfully slow and will tend to enforce the power of Assad cronies. Syria won't quite be the pariah Saddam's Iraq was after his invasions but an appalling repeat offender in smaller atrocities. Bashar increasingly ruling via not crumbling state institutions but competing local power brokers as the Baath have always done to some extent. This has been the trajectory in loyalist areas with mafia like NDF/LDF kingpins being granted the same license to steal that SAA Divisional commanders get. Damascus is too cash poor to rent loyalty in other ways. Rebel warlords will either be peripheral clients of regional powers at the fringes of Syria, coopted as regime clients or crushed. Patches of revolt will reignite. The Syrian PKK seems to be positioned to be effectively a regime client as well maintaining some autonomy via a lingering US CT presence. As there'll be a sporadically vigorous Salafi-Jihadi insurgency that exists on conservative Sunni Arab resentment is funded by extortion and racketeering. The IRGC will buy up the state's assets at knock down prices and patiently develop their sub-state actors as they have in Lebanon and Iraq. It will be a weakly held country but the Assad's will have some sort of claim on most of it and will slowly work to increase that. It's the kleptocratic badly administered Syria of 2011 only greatly degraded by a protracted war into something Hobbesian. A situation far worse than Iraq where the state is both often absent and oppressive.

That's if Trump on a whim does not decide to smash all of Assad's toys and fight a war with the Russians. It would be foolish to assume that would lead to something orderly either.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

Had to google Leeroy Jenkins:

...
The video was released by a World of Warcraft player guild to video-sharing site Warcraftmovies on May 5, 2005.[1] It features a group of players discussing a detailed battle strategy for their next encounter while Leeroy is away from his computer, preparing a meal. This risky plan is needed specifically to help Leeroy, yet it is ruined when Leeroy returns and, ignorant of the strategy, immediately charges headlong into battle shouting his own name in a stylized battle cry. His companions rush to help, but Leeroy's actions ruin the meticulous plan, and all of the group members are massacred.

Part of the satire in the video was the complex battle plan itself, which—evident only to fellow players—represented a fundamental lack of understanding of the game characters' abilities, and would have led to the party's demise even without Leeroy's suicidal charge.[2]
...
The meme spread further in 2009 when the Armed Forces Journal published an article titled "Let's Do This!: Leeroy Jenkins and the American Way of Advising". The article, by Capt. Robert M Chamberlain links Jenkins to the American approach to advising the indigenous armed forces in Iraq.[14]
...

Back in 03 Brits used to joke that yeehaw was not a sound basis for foreign policy. If only Team Trump was capable of any thing that coherent.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

Certainly a possibility.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On War On The Rocks IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY: FINDING LEVERAGE IN SYRIA

...
Cruise missiles don’t give the United States any leverage, they do not degrade Russia’s ability to sustain Assad’s war effort, they do not account for the weapons Assad “held back,” and they do not provide a pathway to eliminate these weapons. Policymakers will have to think through how to eliminate these weapons. The threat of their proliferation and future use will not disappear – and it is long-standing U.S. policy to uphold global norms against weapons of mass destruction. Absent a strategy built around the tactic of using standoff weapons, the recent attacks may amount to little more than the destruction of supporting elements at a Syrian air base, and not much else.

Suggests sanctions on Russia. This is all going to be pretty toothless without a willingness to confront Russia more forcefully which I suspect no more present in this Administration than the last one despite some mixed messages. Kerry's fairly belligerent State Department has been cut off at the knees.

They face the same constraints. Limited US interests in Syria focussed on terrorism, Israeli security and securing Iraq. Little real domestic support for expanding US involvements. Getting into a ruck with Russia over who rules Damascus isn't going to help with any of those much.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On TSG Evaluating Trump’s Strategy in Syria

...
Furthermore, key components of the Syrian opposition remain beholden to foreign backers with divergent interests in the country’s future. The Syrian opposition is even less united now than it was in 2013, and many rebel groups are openly aligned with al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. While all of the opposition’s regional and international backers can agree broadly in their desire to unseat the Assad regime, there is little consensus around a viable replacement should the regime fall.

Ultimately, any U.S. strategy in Syria that could lead to the removal of the regime—unwittingly or otherwise—will need to account for the fact that there is not currently any viable replacement. Ongoing conflicts in places like Libya and Iraq demonstrate that U.S. military interventions are often unwilling or unable to meet this standard. Indeed, given the increasingly muddled nature of the Syrian conflict, and the absence of an articulated long-term U.S. strategy to replace the Assad regime, it is impossible to predict whether such a strategy would ultimately serve U.S. national security interests.

It remains to be seen if the Trump administration can effectively translate its newfound willingness to engage militarily in Syria into meaningful diplomatic progress. Both Iran and Russia have demonstrated a remarkable ability to withstand diplomatic pressure, suggesting that any U.S. attempt to change Russian and Iranian calculations will likely require a willingness to incur significant risk. With the ghosts of past interventions looming large—and little public or congressional support for extensive U.S. involvement in Syria—the Trump administration may ultimately be forced to more narrowly define its objectives in Syria.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On The Bored Jihadi

One of a series of tributes to Pakistani Shia Jihadis killed fighting in Iran backed Liwa Zaynabiyyun in Syria.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Lawfare Using International Law to Prevent Interstate War: How Syrian Airstrikes make the World Less Safe

...
Third, President Trump’s destabilizing leadership is the immediate cause of many dire scenarios forecasting war; such leadership makes exceptions to Article 2(4) especially dangerous and especially difficult to limit. President Trump’s use of force in Syria illustrates how hard it is to categorize such interventions as “one-off” incidents (on this point, see the exchange between Monica Hakimi and Anthea Roberts over at EJIL:Talk!) or to define their precedential impact in narrow terms. The very factors that were supposed to limit the Kosovo precedent, including the participation of a regional security organization such as NATO, failed to constrain the primary architect of those very limitations: the United States itself. A nuanced and fine-tuned set of factors justifying the use of force is hard to administer in a world of trigger-happy, truth-challenged leaders.

There's an awful lot of talk about Russia undermining "international norms" and in fact trying to reshape them in its own interest. It's worth pointing out the US has been a repeat offender in such things. Notes how pivotal the arguably worthy and not unsuccessful Kosovo intervention was in this.

Mind you the UK and France did things by the numbers getting a UN resolution for intervening in Libya only to subvert the whole R2P thing into a regime change which is arguably far worse than just flouting the international law and not paying much attention to US norms as Trump just did. The sleight of hand over Libya in part shapes Putin's attitude to regime change in Syria but also the instability that followed in Libya and neighbouring North Africa. The Russian urge to push back against HR concerns easily trumping national sovereignty isn't without a practical basis. That was creating a dangerously unstable framework for international relations in a multi-polar world.

 

[teqniq]

Unsurprisingly.

Russia vetoes UN draft resolution on Syria gas attack probe

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi's blog Myths, militias, and the future of Syria

...
The rise of these militias deserves much more nuanced consideration, in no small part because of the problems militiafication has created for the regime. For one, on many occasions militias have been able to act with impunity and take the law into their own hands, with the weakened Syrian state unable to rein in such excesses. In the predominantly Druze province of Suwayda', located in southern Syria, internal security has been largely delegated to militias – some ideologically loyal to Assad, others lacking that ideological loyalty but still working within the framework of the regime's continued existence. As a result, reports of kidnappings in Suwayda' have grown more and more frequent.

Other problems include the tendency of many militias to engage in systematic looting upon retaking areas from insurgents, as seen in Aleppo and Homs. The regime's ability to restrain such transgressive behaviour has been dubious, to say the least. Reliance on militias has also complicated the regime's war effort, with the existence of multiple chains of command and occasional infighting, posing severe obstacles to achieving unity of command and tactical coordination on the battlefield. The establishment of the Fifth Legion (also known as V Corps) in November 2016, a unit backed by Russia and Iran, appears to have been intended in part to address this problem in part by uniting commanders from a range of militias to lead assault units.

Taking these points into account allows for deconstruction of the myths obscuring the role of militias on the regime side. Their presence on the battlefield does not mean the Syrian state has collapsed. It has kept sectors such as education intact, and continues to pay salaries to those in areas not under regime control. Although militias on the side of the regime have engaged in non-military activities, they cannot be said to offer a political alternative that threaten the regime's existence. The same cannot be said for opposition formations in territories like Idlib province, where factions compete over who has the most popular judiciary and can best provide social services.

Militias fighting in support of the regime have accepted that the foundations of the Syrian state– and Assad's rule itself – are to be preserved. Among them, even groups that are ideologically and ideationally at odds with the regime, most notably the Beirut-based Syrian Social Nationalist Party, do not envision Syria's political future without Assad. Instead, they have sought to achieve more limited political goals, whether in targeting specific local communities or seeking to become the new middlemen through the parliamentary elections.
...

My bold, that's an important distinction loyalist militias are not setting up sub-states. They are regime affiliated power brokers. They may be competitively looting but they are not squabbling about whose Sharia Court has jurisdiction.

They're often linked to intelligence or military formations that are part of the Syrian state proper. A smaller number of Syrian militias are affiliated with the IRGC or HA but they remain supportive of Assad. Given how crappy the regime is there appears to be surprisingly little talk of reform amongst these actors. They are focused on regime survival above all. Some are pushing Assad to reconquer areas they've been displaced from.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Watch the bit to the left of "IRAQ". CENTCOM with want that going orange.

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
"Sixty-three percent of Americans say the U.S. should be doing more in Syria, but when we ask what concrete actions should be taken, that support falters," said Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult's co-founder and chief research officer. "For example, 57 percent support airstrikes, and 39 percent support putting troops on the ground to remove Assad. The only action that garners widespread support is imposing tighter sanctions, which 70 percent of Americans support."

Overall, 30 percent of voters have “a lot” of confidence in Trump “to take the necessary towards ending the ongoing civil war in Syria.” Another 27 percent have “some” confidence, 14 percent characterize their confidence in Trump as “not much” and 20 percent have no confidence “at all.”

 

[CrabbedOne]

On IRIN Eastern Aleppo under al-Assad

...
A new normal?
While activists and politicians debate the numbers from afar, conditions in eastern Aleppo remain murky and open to conflicting interpretations. Syrians on the ground may view the situation differently from foreign observers, in so far as an end to hostilities offers them a measure of personal and economic security, which is understandably the first priority for many civilians.

Until the rebel capitulation in December, life in eastern Aleppo was a bloodbath, with constant bombing and attacks on schools and hospitals. Thus far, the aftermath to that battle is no Srebrenica and certainly no Rwanda, but something more akin to a brutalised and washed-out version of pre-war Syria. It will be a future filled with difficulties and problems – but also a familiar one.

“People lived with Bashar al-Assad for 10 years before this began,” a prominent pro-regime figure told IRIN in November with a gloomy shrug. “They know what it was like. Life was better for them then than it is now.”

Yet, with war still raging around the city, the deeper sense of normality that peace and the passage of time may offer must seem very far away. In Aleppo, neighbour has fought neighbour, and the city will be saddled with emotional trauma and unresolved grievances for decades to come. Though former enemies must now learn to live side by side again, the government’s rhetoric about reconciliation seems to be little more than a flimsy cover for continued rule by force. In the end, it will likely be up to Syria’s divided, brutalized, and politically powerless civil society to try to overcome the bitter legacy of war, and there is no overstating the difficulty.

Lund thinks the absence of a large culminating massacre is perhaps surprising but then it ended on terms with the people Assad might have wanted to kill being bussed out to Idlib. Rebel resistance collapsed under sustained pressure and they fell to infighting with there being some evidence of failing popular support in the form of rioting.

Terms were offered because the regime had limited resources to do otherwise. No quarter is a stupid war fighting policy unless you have huge advantages over your enemy as it just encourages futile resistance. Even Assad isn't that dense. He's repeatedly ended sieges in this manner. If his appalling mukhabarat had less of a reputation for protracted vindictiveness rebels and the civ pop supporting them might be more prone to surrender.

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
Operation Euphrates Shield, it now seems clear, was primarily meant by Turkey as a blocking move against the PYD-YPG (fighting as part of the SDF) and a means to secure additional Turkish leverage. But it was sold to many in the Syrian opposition—including Free Syrian Army rebels who had been beaten and intimidated by Idlib’s jihadists—as the future of the Syrian revolution. It was a second chance at relevance, a base from which they’d push south and east into Islamic State territory. The revolutionary opposition’s raison d’etre remains the fight against the regime, but both the PYD-YPG and the Islamic State are also considered enemies of the revolution. The PYD-YPG (or linked security bodies) and the Islamic State have purged the revolutionary Syrian opposition in their areas of control and fought Free Syrian Army and Islamist rebels. The PYD-YPG in particular is seen by most of the opposition as a separatist, occupying force and as an ally of the Assad regime, and opposition members resent the international backing the YPG has received against the Islamic State. (Arab-Kurdish ethnic tension and old resentments also seem to figure in, although few are willing to acknowledge it.)

Euphrates Shield is seeded with factions made of rebels from the parts of eastern Syria held by the SDF and Islamic State, rebels told me. These Euphrates Shield rebels have been trained and prepped by Turkey to fight their way home.27
...

Describes Turkish backed Manbij rebels as furious that their town is under what they see as an alien occupation. Reckons Turkey is not much focused on Idlib becoming a AQ dominated fiefdom. Supporting Ahar al Sham but not with much vigour. What Syrian territory Ankara has annexed there's no sign of them giving up. It's a Turkish protectorate where rebels are at least safe from bombing. It's increasingly likely that their rebels finally become Turkish citizens. It's a way of keeping Turkey's options open for who knows how this goes. Sees the Khan Sheikhoun Sarin attack and Trumps response as complicating and perhaps delaying taking Raqqa with the Syrian PKK.

 

[CrabbedOne]

From The Washington Institute Rojava Seeks to Break Out in Syria

...
To be sure, the feasibility of opening this route is not yet assured because the Islamic State is still present south of Sinjar, while the KDP and PKK are currently clashing for control over Sinjar itself. Moreover, KDP president Masoud Barzani and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan both oppose any strategic axis that opens Rojava up to the outside world and reinforces its geopolitical importance for Iran. Yet if current trends continue, a corridor could be established between Hasaka and Kirkuk, essentially linking Syria's Kurds to Iran via Sulaymaniyah. Theoretically, Rojava could then become an Iranian transit route between Iraq, western Syria, and even the Mediterranean coast, at least once U.S. forces leave eastern Syria. Although this is not the shortest potential westward route for Iran, it would have the advantage of circumventing Islamic State strongholds along the Syria-Iraq border, where the terrorists are likely to take refuge after being expelled from Raqqa and Mosul. Accordingly, if the United States and its allies hope to prevent Tehran from establishing such a corridor, they will need to reinforce their own influence in Syrian Kurdish areas.

Excellent piece from Balanche on Rojava's developing lines of communication. Economic links to the regime in what's a mutually beneficial symbiosis. It's not just hydro-carbons and comms with Afrin. He writes about textile industry in Aleppo being fed by cotton from the NE. Access to regime medical facilities in Aleppo. No longer having to pay huge tariffs on Aleppo headed cargoes to rebels or IS.

This did make me think about how the regime recovery of Aleppo strengthens the relationship with the PKK in less obvious ways than supporting Afrin.

The snip above help's to understand the clashes between PKK affiliated militias and the Irbil backed Rojava Pesh. Also why IRGC backed Iraqi Hashd might be being so friendly with the PKK while talking about a post-Mosul lunge into Syria.

Not really very compatible to the sturdily independent ideas of Apo but it's necessary to live in the real world to survive.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On TNI Could Syria Spark a Nuclear War Between Russia and America?

...
Imagine this scenario. Syrian forces, having been bombed by U.S. warships, respond by mortaring U.S. Marine firebases inside the Syrian border. The Marines call for air support to neutralize the Syrian attackers. Russian advisors are killed in the strikes and the Russians order a no-fly zone imposed.

Trump refuses to back down and continues to fly sorties in Syria. Russian fighters try to force U.S. Navy strike craft out of Syrian airspace under the no-fly order, and collide with one of the U.S. planes. Thinking they are under attack, U.S. pilots open fire.

Now you have a shooting war with Russia, and what happens next is anyone’s guess.

But with a combined active military stockpile of some 8,300 thermonuclear weapons, this is not a guessing game that anyone should want to play.

Official Russian military doctrine calls for the use of tactical nuclear weapons to control the escalation of a conventional conflict. In other words, if Russia finds itself in a fight that it can’t win, a real nuclear option is on the table. Some in the U.S. have mirrored this first-use strategy.

Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s top acquisition chief told Congress in 2014, that low-yield nuclear weapons provide the President with “uniquely flexible options in an extreme crisis, particularly the ability to signal intent and control escalation.”

This is becoming a trend. Just this year, the Pentagon’s defense science board issued a report urging, “the president to consider altering existing and planned U.S. armaments to achieve a greater number of lower-yield weapons that could provide a ‘tailored nuclear option for limited use.’” But those weapons already exist, and some are already deployed in theater.

Some 50 B61 gravity bombs are based at the Incirlik air force base in Turkey, just 68 miles north of the Syrian border. Each one is fitted with a “dial-a-yield” nuclear warhead that can be set to explode with a force anywhere between 300 and 50,000 tons of TNT. It could be set to be 3 times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, or 98 percent less powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

These weapons go beyond deterrence. These are weapons that are tailored for use on a battlefield. And they are right next-door.

In 1914 Europe’s monarchs thought they understood battlefield strategy. They quickly lost control of the situation, resulting in a war that lasted 4 years and killed close to 20 million people.

Miscalculating in Syria could have far greater consequences.

Well that's comforting.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Hotly predicted massively increased US leverage not really in evidence.

 

[teqniq]

Trump Said No to Troops in Syria. His Aides Aren't So Sure.

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
The unprecedented scale of the alleged death toll meant that for the third straight month, civilian casualty events reportedly carried out by the Coalition in both Iraq and Syria significantly outweighed those allegedly involving Russia just in Syria. However, according to Airwars’ most recent monitoring, Russian strikes have begun once more to reap a heavy toll and this dynamic could flip once more, especially if the Coalition is firing less often. The unilateral US strike on a regime airbase in the early hours of April 7th may also lead to a reduction of Coalition sorties to avoid confliction with Russian planes.

Of the 166 claimed civilian casualty events attributed to the Coalition, Airwars had assessed 63 of these as fairly reported. That classification reflects an incident as having two or more credible sources, and which took place in an area where Coalition airstrikes were declared in the near vicinity. Between 477 and 1,216 non-combatants are currently assessed as likely having died in these events – over four times the 110 likely non-combatant deaths estimated for February. These are not anonymous people: 359 victims are so far named, each tracked and recorded by local monitoring groups and listed by Airwars in its public database.

There is significant debate concerning why civilians are at far greater risk on the battlefield. The Pentagon has denied that its rules of engagement have changed under Donald Trump’s presidency, which for the moment appears to be the case. As previously reported by Airwars’ Samuel Oakford, Iraqi officials have said that it is now easier to call in US and Coalition airstrikes – though this change reportedly dates back to December 2016. Coalition spokesman Colonel Joseph Scrocca has referred to any shifts in how airstrikes are called in, and who is authorized to do so, as “merely a procedural change”. While these changes may not match the military’s official definition of new “rules of engagement,” that is little solace for those affected by the new and looser guidelines.
...

Raqqa incidents actually outpacing Mosul where you'd expect a very high civilian death toll as its a densely populated urban environment like East Aleppo. Lots of strikes on peripheral villages and towns around Raqqa killing civilians.

I recall when the PKK were taking Manbij they were taking heavy casualties complaining that was due to Coalition air being called in too delicately for fear of killing civilians. Units exhausted by costly urban assaults often fall back on using more air and more air. The Iraqi CTS took Ramadi that way causing structural damage to 70%+ of the buildings though fortunately it was mostly empty. Another aspect is according a report up thread on the tribes of Raqqa there's really no love lost between the PKK and some of the local tribes the youth of which have sometimes supported IS. PKK fighters were saying they wanted payback for Kobane prior to this operation and Raqqa locals that they feared a bloodbath. For whatever reason it looks like that is going to happen in the rush towards Raqqa.