Syria and UN Security Council Decision

[HoverBoarder]

ANybody who thinks the Turks are a bigger problem then ISIS is living in another reality......

Assad may be many terrible things, shrewdly dishonest, a calculating war criminal, and a reprehensible mass murderer. However, I have not found him to be out of touch with reality, which in many ways makes his war crimes worse because he knows exactly what he is doing when he bombs bread lines, or refugee camps, or starves out whole cities.

The regime has for the most part until recently had a long mutually beneficial working relationship with ISIS, and in many ways still does. Many of the top leadership of ISIS today were released early on by Assad, and instructed to do exactly what they are doing now. Which is mainly killing off the moderate opposition, and until recently (and possibly still) they cooperated in a reportedly valuable oil trading partnership with the regime. Both sides (the regime and ISIS) cannot coexist together long term, but both sides are beneficial to each other right now, and that is why attacks on each other from both groups except for consolidating territory are kept to a minimum. Both groups have likely calculated that they will be able to eventually gain the upper hand in the squeezing out of the other groups, and will be better suited to leave each other for the end game.

Erdogan on the other hand is definitely out of touch with reality, and he seems to be getting worse and worse. His recent comment that "As Muslims, we’ve never taken part in terrorist massacres." And further insulation that all Muslim terrorism is actually part of some crazed scripted conspiracy theory, is a clear indication that he does not have a desire to have a real grasp on reality.
Leader of Country Behind Armenian Genocide Says Muslims Never Commit Massacres

Unlike the factless conspiracy theories involving Israel and Al-Qaeda, because they have given medical treatment to rebels in Syria, Turkey really does have a quite longstanding support for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria. Terrorist financing from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and new recruits almost freely flows through Turkey, and vast amounts of smuggled oil from ISIS territories flows back across Turkey. By many estimates, the majority of the financing of ISIS comes from their illegal oil trade with Turkey.

ISIS is extremely dangerous and terrible, but Assad is reasonable to focus more of his attention on Turkey. If ISIS were defeated, another equally reprehensible terrorist supporting group (likely Al-Nursa) would take their place, and support for them would still flow through Turkey.

 

[trustbutverify]

As the Kurds regain ground from ISIS there are people they will not be allowing to stay or come back, those Sunni Arabs who sided with ISIS when they looked like winners. Some innocents will suffer with the guilty as usual. There are no saints in this story, but when were there ever?

Rarely.

The demographics will be a nightmare, if and when a homeland is actually established. I'm strongly in favor, but the attraction of a modern, robust Kurdish economy combined with strong democratic institutions will attract non-Kurdish refugees and claimants like wildfire.

 

[HoverBoarder]

Rarely.

The demographics will be a nightmare, if and when a homeland is actually established. I'm strongly in favor, but the attraction of a modern, robust Kurdish economy combined with strong democratic institutions will attract non-Kurdish refugees and claimants like wildfire.

This is definitely true, and already witnessed by current events. When the chaos in Iraq started to play out. A large portion of both Sunni, Shia, and Yazadis fled to Kurdistan for protection.

On top of that, many powerful and rich Sunnis and Shias, and other civilians had moved there long before because it is so safe and stable. Beyond the complaints of the tight security checks at the border, there has been little other complaints from the non Kurdish people living in Kurdistan.

 

[dudalb]

Assad may be many terrible things, shrewdly dishonest, a calculating war criminal, and a reprehensible mass murderer. However, I have not found him to be out of touch with reality, which in many ways makes his war crimes worse because he knows exactly what he is doing when he bombs bread lines, or refugee camps, or starves out whole cities.

The regime has for the most part until recently had a long mutually beneficial working relationship with ISIS, and in many ways still does. Many of the top leadership of ISIS today were released early on by Assad, and instructed to do exactly what they are doing now. Which is mainly killing off the moderate opposition, and until recently (and possibly still) they cooperated in a reportedly valuable oil trading partnership with the regime. Both sides (the regime and ISIS) cannot coexist together long term, but both sides are beneficial to each other right now, and that is why attacks on each other from both groups except for consolidating territory are kept to a minimum. Both groups have likely calculated that they will be able to eventually gain the upper hand in the squeezing out of the other groups, and will be better suited to leave each other for the end game.

Erdogan on the other hand is definitely out of touch with reality, and he seems to be getting worse and worse. His recent comment that "As Muslims, we’ve never taken part in terrorist massacres." And further insulation that all Muslim terrorism is actually part of some crazed scripted conspiracy theory, is a clear indication that he does not have a desire to have a real grasp on reality.
Leader of Country Behind Armenian Genocide Says Muslims Never Commit Massacres

Unlike the factless conspiracy theories involving Israel and Al-Qaeda, because they have given medical treatment to rebels in Syria, Turkey really does have a quite longstanding support for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria. Terrorist financing from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and new recruits almost freely flows through Turkey, and vast amounts of smuggled oil from ISIS territories flows back across Turkey. By many estimates, the majority of the financing of ISIS comes from their illegal oil trade with Turkey.

ISIS is extremely dangerous and terrible, but Assad is reasonable to focus more of his attention on Turkey. If ISIS were defeated, another equally reprehensible terrorist supporting group (likely Al-Nursa) would take their place, and support for them would still flow through Turkey.

Hey, I am not a big fan of the Turkish Government. Their refusal to accept the reality of the Armenian genocide is ridiculous. I live in a part of California that has a large Armenian population and they don't forget.

 

[HoverBoarder]

Crass behaviour on the face of it but the terrain and situation forced it on them - which should have been the signal to give it up and pull out. There aren't many routes to travel by and the hills held Kurdish fighters who would pick off individual vehicles. ISIS advanced much too quickly, as if they were operating in open country as they're used to.

I'd given ISIS a lot of credit for military smarts before Kobane, but there they gave up their advantages - mobility, internal lines, and the initiative. Then they staked their reputation on winning the battle and started issuing Stalingrad-style statements, "the battle is nearly over", "a few pockets of resistance remain", "the city is essentially ours".

This is bad for them. Really bad. It'll spark up the internal opposition no end, and they're already making inroads. You can ban girls' education and get away with it. You can ban music and get away with it. You can ban drinking and get away with it. But ban smoking and you are entering a world of hurt ...

Reminds me of an account from witnesses who described a driver who accidently drove into ISIS territory while smoking. After briefly arguing with them that smoking was not banned in the Koran, they promptly tied him down and ran over his head with his own car.

Hard to win the hearts and minds with those kinds of tactics.



Militarily, the ISIS loses leading into Mosul will probably have a much larger long term impact, but Kobani was certainly a major win. The major loss of ISIS military vehicles, and artillery taken from their summer Iraq offenses will not be easily replaced.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Interesting interview with a french Syria pundit who did some research on the numbers and comes to the same conclusions one gets by understanding the map I posted.

[...] The Syrian government currently controls around 50 percent of the territory, but it rules between 55 and 72 percent of the population left inside Syria. The rebels control 45 percent of the territory and 17–34 percent of the population, while the Kurds control no more than 5 percent of the territory with 5–10 percent of the population.

Because both UNHCR reports and other data show that a large majority of refugees and internally displaced persons come from the rebel-held zones, we may refine our figures a bit and conclude that more than two-thirds of the Syrian population still left in the country resides in government-held territory and less than one-quarter in the rebel-held zone. But it is difficult to be any more exact than that. [...]

He concludes:

[...] Again, the population density differs considerably between different areas. For example, the Islam Army controls a very small territory in the East Ghouta region outside Damascus, which represents less than 0.1 percent of Syria’s surface territory. But this area is densely inhabited and contains perhaps 350,000–500,000 people, meaning that the Islam Army controls 2–3 percent of the Syrian population.

The Islam Army is on its last leg. Its leader Zahran Alloush, the Saudi puppet scumbag who likely was behind the August 2013 chemical weapons attack, is awaiting death holed in at a farm in rural Douma.

Says Blachance:

As Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot note in their new book, Les chemins de Damas: “it’s better to be as wrong as everyone else than to be right alone.”

Better for your "reputation", that is. True dat.

 

[HoverBoarder]

Interesting interview with a french Syria pundit who did some research on the numbers and comes to the same conclusions one gets by understanding the map I posted.


He concludes:

Very interesting article. He really has done a lot of metrics based research, and he very succinctly gets to the heart of the issue

In the December 2011 edition of Outre-Terre, a French geopolitical journal, you wrote an article entitled “Géographie de la révolte syrienne.” It described a Syrian conflict predetermined by social and sectarian factors, with an armed opposition almost entirely rooted in the Sunni Arab majority population—particularly among disaffected social groups such as the rural poor—whereas minority and upper- and middle-class areas either remained passive or actively supported the president. It was one of the first comprehensive studies of the sectarian and socioeconomic dimensions of the conflict, published long before such arguments became commonplace in the media, at a time when both sides were still in complete denial about Syria’s sectarian problem. How did you arrive at these conclusions?

I wasn’t surprised by the outbreak of crisis in Syria. Rather, I found it surprising that the country hadn’t exploded a few years earlier, given that its socioeconomic indicators were all in the red. There were social tensions related to poverty, territorial tension between the center and the periphery, and sectarian tension—and they all overlapped.

The 1991 Infitah, or economic opening, and the accelerated liberalizing reforms under President Bashar al-Assad created a social inequality that proved impossible to manage for Syria’s rigid bureaucracy, while simultaneously increasing sectarian frustrations, notably against the Alawites. The old Baathist system had by then been exhausted. Syria’s economy was in urgent need of some breathing space, but the young president could not turn Syria into a “tiger economy.” It would have challenged the entire system of power that had been methodically constructed by his father.

We therefore moved into a civil war that would quickly shatter Syria’s fragile sectarian coexistence, which had in the preceding years relied more and more on repression and less and less on the redistribution of Syria’s national wealth.

...

From the beginning, the Syrian conflict was sectarian, social, and political. These three factors were interrelated, because sectarian divides are everywhere in Syria. The revolt started in an attempt to get rid of Assad, the state bureaucracy, the Baath Party, the intelligence services, and the general staff of the Syrian Arab Army. But all of these bodies are packed with Alawites, over 90 percent of whom work for the state.

A very real problem, and one that Assad seems less and less interested in seriously addressing.

From the same site you linked to, another article goes into this in greater detail.

Why the Assad Regime Is Going to Moscow

When the Geneva II talks finally commenced in early 2014, Moallem’s government delegation sought to wriggle free of this commitment to political transition and shift the subject to terrorism. Since the collapse of the Geneva II process in February 2014, the changing domestic and international situation has further emboldened the regime. Assad now apparently refuses to restate his acceptance of the Geneva communiqué and he seems eager for it to disappear from public view....

So far, the only opposition groups coming to Moscow are those closest to Assad and to the Russians, but the Syrian government has still made sure to keep its escape routes open. Since agreeing to the Russian initiative, the Assad government and its representatives have consistently stressed the preliminary and non-decisive nature of the Moscow talks. Assad’s adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, (who is expected to be part of the government delegation) says that the Moscow meeting is simply a “consultative preparatory dialogue with the opposition to discuss the basics according to which a dialogue conference must be arranged,” meaning that nothing can be decided in January and that any real talks would take place under a different framework.

For the Syrian government, then, this is merely the start of a process—one that Assad will at a later stage certainly try to relocate to Damascus and bring under his own control, while stripping it of Geneva-inspired talk about a political transition.

In other words, the Assad message is "submit or die," and any serious talk about solving the problems that led to the civil war in the first place are ignored and replaced with a discussion solely on terrorism.

 

[trustbutverify]

In other words, the Assad message is "submit or die," and any serious talk about solving the problems that led to the civil war in the first place are ignored and replaced with a discussion solely on terrorism.

Which, I believe, was Assad's survival strategy right from the start. Brutalizing reformist protesters was going to get him exactly where it got his fellow iron-fisted brutes in the ME; dead or in a jail cell. However, a war against Islamic lunatics...that could work.

 

[CapelDodger]

Which, I believe, was Assad's survival strategy right from the start. Brutalizing reformist protesters was going to get him exactly where it got his fellow iron-fisted brutes in the ME; dead or in a jail cell. However, a war against Islamic lunatics...that could work.

I think the Ba'athist regime leadership analysis was that those other leaders weren't brutal enough at the beginning of their troubles. They fully expected to smash the protests in the bud.

I doubt they expected much of an Islamist element, and there wasn't for the first year or two. Their difficulties were more about having entire army units defect to the opposition, which is always a bummer for reigning regimes. It was somehwat later that Islamists started leaking in from western Iraq, where the centre was failing to hold.

I don't think geriatric Ba'athists, who still dominate the Syrian regime, understand Islamists at all. Ba'athism itself is a rejection of religion, blaming it for the backwardness of the Arab world back in Imperial days (with a lot of justification, in my opinion). They've never tried to understand Sunni Islam's influence on the population, they've just suppressed it to the extent they could (while protecting minority religions to gain their loyal support). That was true of Ba'athist Iraq as well, and of the Shah's Iran and Nasser's Egypt for that matter. If they could have stamped out religion they would have.

With the abject failure of secular regimes since the Imperial retreat, up have popped people saying Islam is the solution, not the problem. A short period of ISIS rule should disabuse people of that idea. People want peace and order, but not the peace of the grave which jihadis offer. A better offer is needed; what it'll be I don't know but it'll be authoritarian. See Egypt; with the examples of Syria, Iraq and Libya to witness, reasonable Egyptians must think they got away lightly from this "Arab Spring" adventure.

 

[CapelDodger]

In other words, the Assad message is "submit or die," and any serious talk about solving the problems that led to the civil war in the first place are ignored and replaced with a discussion solely on terrorism.

I think the Assad regime is aiming at carving out a strategically sound territory for itself where it can hold out until the world at large recognises them as the the only solution available. Which could be a very long wait. Or, given the antiquity of the old guard, maybe not. A new generation making the right noises and perhaps delivering a few Assad heads in sacks, old school ... it could work.

 

[LSSBB]

Oil...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/w...-lure-russia-away-from-syrias-assad.html?_r=0

 

[CapelDodger]

Oil...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/w...-lure-russia-away-from-syrias-assad.html?_r=0

Interesting. I doubt it'll work, though.

Firstly, is it credible that Saudi Arabia will cut back production for Russia (and, collaterally, Iran)? Putin isn't the trusting sort at the best of times so they'll have to move first - after which, why should Putin bother to keep up his side?

Secondly, Syria has symbolic value as the last remnant of the USSR's sphere of influence. I don't see Putin giving that up. With money tight and Russian nationalism off the leash he needs symbols more than ever.

If I turn out to be wrong I'm sure I can depend on someone to remind me.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Ba'athism itself is a rejection of religion, blaming it for the backwardness of the Arab world back in Imperial days (with a lot of justification, in my opinion). They've never tried to understand Sunni Islam's influence on the population, they've just suppressed it to the extent they could (while protecting minority religions to gain their loyal support). That was true of Ba'athist Iraq as well, and of the Shah's Iran and Nasser's Egypt for that matter. If they could have stamped out religion they would have.

With the abject failure of secular regimes since the Imperial retreat, up have popped people saying Islam is the solution, not the problem. A short period of ISIS rule should disabuse people of that idea. People want peace and order, but not the peace of the grave which jihadis offer. A better offer is needed; what it'll be I don't know but it'll be authoritarian. See Egypt; with the examples of Syria, Iraq and Libya to witness, reasonable Egyptians must think they got away lightly from this "Arab Spring" adventure.

I wish a (rule 10) named Bremmer, and his boss Bush, had understood what you just wrote. It was a common understanding among some people well before 2003, particularly those who tried to understand Saddam and why he guessed wrongly in 1991.

 

[Childlike Empress]

The Islam Army is on its last leg. Its leader Zahran Alloush, the Saudi puppet scumbag who likely was behind the August 2013 chemical weapons attack, is awaiting death holed in at a farm in rural Douma.

The psycho has announced this morning on his twitter account(!) that hundreds of missiles would rain down on Damascus, and he followed through. Indiscriminite shelling of the old town from his hole in Ghouta, apparently 15 deaths so far. People are trying to get his account banned but that won't help the victims. See #DamascusUnderAttack

 

[CapelDodger]

I wish a (rule 10) named Bremmer, and his boss Bush, had understood what you just wrote. It was a common understanding among some people well before 2003, particularly those who tried to understand Saddam and why he guessed wrongly in 1991.

What I wish some people would understand is that Saddam was as Muslim as my dog until he screwed up in 1991 and was in desperate need of any help he could get. All of a sudden he starts visiting mosques to pray instead of kill people and half the Islamic world falls for it. Saddam really did fight a War on Islam for decades and would have bulldozed every mosque with their imams inside if he could have got away with it.

The stupid ... It burns! It burns!

OK, with that off my chest, what do you think was Saddam's wrong guess and why did he make it?

 

[HoverBoarder]

I think the Assad regime is aiming at carving out a strategically sound territory for itself where it can hold out until the world at large recognises them as the the only solution available. Which could be a very long wait. Or, given the antiquity of the old guard, maybe not. A new generation making the right noises and perhaps delivering a few Assad heads in sacks, old school ... it could work.

Maybe, but as long as Assad doesn't address the almost complete alawite dominance over all other sects in Syria, than it will just continue the war without any hope for a peace settlement.

The regime thinks they have the upper hand, but given the current military dynamics, it is unlikely that the civil war will end for at least a decade or more unless they decide to actually negotiate with the Syrian people.

 

[CapelDodger]

Maybe, but as long as Assad doesn't address the almost complete alawite dominance over all other sects in Syria, than it will just continue the war without any hope for a peace settlement.

The regime thinks they have the upper hand, but given the current military dynamics, it is unlikely that the civil war will end for at least a decade or more unless they decide to actually negotiate with the Syrian people.

Lebanon on a larger scale, another frozen conflict. The map is filling up with them.

The Alawite dominance over other non-Sunni minorities is preferable to domination by the majority Sunnis, as ISIS does its best to confirm every day. There is no "Syrian people", there are just people who live in a place called Syria because that's what the Sykes-Picot agreement between the French and British decided, less the bit called Lebanon which the French carved from the Syrian bit in the 1920's. Which they were at liberty to do under the Sykes-Picot agreement. The French got their bit of the Ottoman Empire to play with, the British got theirs. Lines proving it were drawn on maps signed by accredited diplomats and are still referred to today as if they might mean something.

Damascus has existed without most of what is now called Syria for thousands of years. It's well placed to live with a frozen conflict, and better placed than any of its enemies.

 

[HoverBoarder]

Lebanon on a larger scale, another frozen conflict. The map is filling up with them.

The Alawite dominance over other non-Sunni minorities is preferable to domination by the majority Sunnis, as ISIS does its best to confirm every day.

There are about 1.62 billion Sunnis in the world, and a few million people living under ISIS rule, and I can guarantee that at least a majority of them do not want to be.

Assad on the other hand is right up there with some of the most brutal and coldhearted mass murderers there is. Willing to torture, kidnap, and mass murder his way to power. There are a LOT of Syrians who would rather have a alternative that doesn't mean death and subjugation for the majority of people living in the country.

HOWEVER, given all of that, you may be right. Right now there is not much of an alternative. The best option is probably to work with the regime to find some kind of political solution.

There is no "Syrian people", there are just people who live in a place called Syria because that's what the Sykes-Picot agreement between the French and British decided, less the bit called Lebanon which the French carved from the Syrian bit in the 1920's. Which they were at liberty to do under the Sykes-Picot agreement. The French got their bit of the Ottoman Empire to play with, the British got theirs. Lines proving it were drawn on maps signed by accredited diplomats and are still referred to today as if they might mean something.

Damascus has existed without most of what is now called Syria for thousands of years. It's well placed to live with a frozen conflict, and better placed than any of its enemies.

That applies to every single country in the entire world.

 

[jimbob]

the Saudi puppet scumbag who likely was behind the August 2013 chemical weapons attack, is awaiting death holed in at a farm in rural Douma.

I thought the evidence tended to point towards the regime, which had denied then admitted having nerve agents?

 

[Childlike Empress]

I thought the evidence tended to point towards the regime, which had denied then admitted having nerve agents?

The "regime" has never denied having chemical weapons, to the contrary. If you want to know more about Alloush and his connection to the events, I suggest you click on the link I provided instead of cutting it out of your quote of my post.

btw, the terrorist was banned from twitter finally after some serious efforts.