The man has tortured and killed thousands of his own citizens. Considering his misrule is what started the syrian civil war, I do not know how much stability he would bring.
I really disagree with this. An oppressive and violent nation state is far less dangerous than an expansionist/transnational terror theocracy. The Syrian government has probably killed more people than IS, but this is due to their power disparity, not their relative evilness. I mean imagine IS with a functional air force.
For much of the Afghan War, more civilian casualties were caused by NATO forces than the Taliban. I don't think this necessarily implies that NATO is worse than the Taliban/AQ.
Yeah, like
As bad as Saddam was, good luck making the case that toppling him was a net good
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
I don't think Trump knows about it- his transition team has a lot of old-school Russiaphobes on it and they might have "neglected" to mention it to him.
If he had I'm sure Spicer would be on a plane right now. Trump has repeatedly said that he considers getting involved in the Syrian war a big mistake and that we should team up with Russia and Assad to stabilize the region and fight ISIS.
edit- a policy which I'm rather in favor of. Obama got involved far too late, after all the moderates had been killed, and any Astroturf groups we try to set up keep getting beaten up by the AQ-affiliated jihadists who take their U.S.-donated weapons.
I halfway agree with this. Obama's Syria policy was pretty terrible in my opinion, up until the Russian intervention. After that, the US gradually reduced support for the rebels and focused on supporting the YPG/SDF in their war against IS. In recent weeks the US has been frequently bombing Jabhat Fatah ash-Sham, the strongest rebel group and former official AQ affiliate (now officially separate, but unofficially still connected, IMO). In other words, the US is now bombing the two greatest threats to the Syrian government, JFS and Islamic State. Since US support to the rebels was generally classified, it's difficult compare our current level of support to that of a couple years ago, but I'm confident that it's significantly less, if we're still arming them at all. I don't see dozens of Syrian tanks getting wiped out by TOWs anymore, at least.
I strongly disagree with your view that the US should join Russia in directly supporting the Assad government, though. While I don't regard the rebels any more positively than the government, the latter is undeniably a brutal and tyrannical regime, and is widely hated throughout the region. Aside from the moral issues involved in helping an authoritarian state violently crush all opposition, such an act would destroy what remains of US credibility with much of the Arab world (or, if all credibility is already destroyed, would make it harder to alter negative perceptions), and that includes most of the governments and the people of the region. Given the widespread presence of Iranian troops and to a lesser degree Hezbollah and Iraqi Shia militia in Syria, we would be providing arms or air support to several official enemies and US-designated terrorist groups. It would fuel the salafi-jihadist argument that the US and Russia are secretly part of a Crusader coalition to destroy Sunni Muslims, and further the (accurate and widespread) perception of the US as a supporter of brutal dictatorships in the region.
If IS was still as powerful as they were at their peak, or if al-Qaeda and its allies were on the verge of defeating the government, perhaps one could reasonably argue in favor of such an about face, despite the considerable downsides. But IS is a shell of its former self and continues to suffer losses, and the Russian/Iranian intervention seems sufficient to overpower the Jaysh al-Fatah rebel alliance and allied groups. If your desired outcome for the war is the defeat of the Sunni Islamic militant factions, it looks like that is what's happening already.
What's your opinion of US support for the SDF (Kurdish-led force responsible for defeating IS in northern Syria, now gradually advancing toward Raqqa)? They are not engaged in active conflict with the government and have been a great ally in the fight against IS, and while they're not as saintly as some of their advocates make them out to be, I'd say they are the least morally objectionable faction in the war (it seems presumptuous to make moral judgment of militant groups in Syria from my comfy chair in Maine, but oh well). Their proposed solution to the war - decentralization of powers and some degree of regional autonomy for various parts of Syria - seems like the best idea proposed by anyone so far. Much better than the useless US/rebel refrain of "Assad must go" or Assad's "kill all the 'terrorists' and control the whole country with an iron fist."
Overall I approve of the Obama administration's strategy in Syria for the past year or so. I vehemently opposed it before that, and argued about it frequently here, but as the situation changed the Obama administration adapted in a pretty intelligent manner, in my opinion. I still wish the US had never backed the rebels in the first place, but right now I have few complaints.
I think the US needs to accept a multi state solution. Partition the area along the actual cultural lines rather than the old colonial boundaries.
I disagree. I have yet to hear any Syrian faction advocate partition. Even the YPG says they want to remain part of Syria, just as an autonomous region. Convincing the government to accept some level of federalization would probably be difficult, but probably not as difficult as convincing them to abandon chunks of their country wholesale. The rebels want to overthrow the government, but want Syria to remain a single state. IS wants a global caliphate, but no one cares about their opinion anyway.
I'm not sure whether the states created from such a partition would actually be viable or not. Particularly the hypothetical Sunni state along the Euphrates. Then again, it's not clear how viable Iraq and Syria were to begin with.
Perhaps the US and Russia could get the UNSC to approve some sort of partition, but if none of the Syrians actually want that, you're essentially just imposing a new set of boundaries against the will of the populace. I think autonomy or decentralization of the state is better than a forced partition. That's what Iraqi Sunnis advocated in the years between the US withdrawal and IS's reemergence, and some are again advocating that for Anbar and Ninevah. They still want to be part of Iraq, but they want a greater degree of local control.
Also, I think you may be placing too much emphasis on sectarian and ethnic identity. Those factors play a role, but so does regional and global geopolitics. The religious/ethnic analysis applies a bit better to Iraq, which was divided fairly clearly on those lines, but in Syria it's nowhere near that simple. For most of the war, most of the people fighting on the "Alawite government's" (I hate that term) side were Sunnis. I don't know if this is still true given the amount of Shia foreign fighters recruited by the government, but at the very least there are still lots of Sunnis on the loyalist side, in addition to the Alawites and probably some Christians. The SDF is an alliance of Syriac Christians, Arabs, and (predominantly) Kurds. The rebels are more homogeneous, basically all Sunni Muslims.
Unrelated article, but still no word as to whether the US will attend Russia's peace talks on Syria set to commence on Monday.
It also wasn't clear if the Trump administration would accept an invitation to attend Russian-supported Syria peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Monday.
Trump has made a great point about seeking closer cooperation with Moscow on counterterrorism and security matters. Obama's special envoy for Syria, Michael Ratney, has indicated he is willing to attend, but the transition team hadn't instructed him to make the trip. Spicer said an announcement was expected soon.
Would seem an odd thing to miss, all things considered.
I am wondering whether this is actually "unrelated" to Gabbard's visit.
From the article I posted:
Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, visited Trump in New York after the election. They had a “frank and positive conversation in which we discussed a variety of foreign policy issues in depth,” she told CNN.
She said Trump had requested the meeting to talk about Syria and counterterrorism.
Ok, now consider that along with (from same article):
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who has charged the Obama administration with funneling money to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria
Perhaps Trump intended to cut the remnants of the outgoing administration out of the process for these reasons? And maybe Gabbard is serving a role as a sort of informal special envoy instead? Have there been any other updates on this?
The man has tortured and killed thousands of his own citizens. Considering his misrule is what started the syrian civil war, I do not know how much stability he would bring.
This isn't a completely flawed qualification--but it is an imperfect qualification, if it makes any sense.
The United States government is funding, supplying and even arming political and military organizations that have tortured and killed thousands of Syrians. So what does that same about them? What does it say about us? Well, probably not as much as it says about our executive leaders for the last decade.
"Yes, but they do it less..." is a qualification but, again, very imperfect. The Syrian government has fewer combatants who carve out people's hearts and eat them, then publicize it. Even the disparate Kurdish fighting factions regularly kill civilians in their combat operations.
I think the US needs to accept a multi state solution. Partition the area along the actual cultural lines rather than the old colonial boundaries.
It's a lot more difficult in the face of American revulsion to the idea of a multi-state Iraq (which historically has had problems of regional factionalism equal to, or substantially worse than, that of Syria.) By their nature, any multi-state future of Syria will include new nations with Iiredentist objectives in Iraq. It's backfired historically: the United States naturally supported the independence of Soviet republics from that supranational federation, but when local states within the new republics wanted to merge across borders--for examples, Ossetians in Georgia, or minorities in Armenia and Azerbaijan--suddenly that unwavering support was a lot less unwavering.
I think the US needs to accept a multi state solution. Partition the area along the actual cultural lines rather than the old colonial boundaries.
Also, I think you may be placing too much emphasis on sectarian and ethnic identity. Those factors play a role, but so does regional and global geopolitics. The religious/ethnic analysis applies a bit better to Iraq, which was divided fairly clearly on those lines, but in Syria it's nowhere near that simple. For most of the war, most of the people fighting on the "Alawite government's" (I hate that term) side were Sunnis. I don't know if this is still true given the amount of Shia foreign fighters recruited by the government, but at the very least there are still lots of Sunnis on the loyalist side, in addition to the Alawites and probably some Christians. The SDF is an alliance of Syriac Christians, Arabs, and (predominantly) Kurds. The rebels are more homogeneous, basically all Sunni Muslims.
The sectarian line of thinking is one that simply explains general, dominant trends of conflict within the region. However, the same socio-politial-economic forces that drive inter-state conflict still otherwise apply to the Middle East. I have little confidence in believing that a Middle East carved up by sectarian lines will be peaceful.
Take, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Suppose the US were to march in and divide them up now into two states along their current divisional lines. That's not going to be the end of the conflict. They don't agree on where those lines should be!
It'd be like dividing the house into two halves, one for each bickering sibling. Someone's iPod's gonna be on the other side. No fair that the television remote is on their side. Etc, except these siblings have armies ready to change where the tape line is once the parents leave the house. (Also, note that each "sect" will occasionally subdivide; Fatah and Hamas were once arguably the same "side". We would have divided out a Palestinian state, seen it fall into civil war, and then emerge as an aggressive actor towards Israel, resuming the conflict all over again.)
Gabbard is a warmongering asshole and opportunist.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
I like the Kurds but Obama would totally have thrown them under the bus in any peace deal. Not sure about Trump. Imho the only reason why they're asking to still be part of Syria is because five minutes after they get their own state Erdogan's going to roll over the border to go all Armenia 2.0 on them.
The US has often supported the Kurds where possible but has always put Turkey's happiness ahead of them as an absolutely key NATO ally
(arguably even more key than the UK or France, nuclear states, due to their location and very large military)
Plus the Pentagon doesn't like commies and there are plenty of Kurdish Marxists around
That said, I think the US these days would much prefer to deal with the Kurds than Turkey or other local groups, I reckon. There's a degree of strategic necessity that keeps them apart but a remarkably secular group, reliable, very capable fighters who actually put US air support to good use? I reckon Obama would have thrown them under a bus but I reckon he also probably would have thought "man I wish Erdogan didn't fucking hate the Kurds so much"
And really, fuck Erdogan. What you gonna do if the US doesn't back your attacks across the south border and tells you to leave the Kurds the fuck alone? Leave NATO? No way pal, not with Russia on the other side of the border bearing that centuries long torch of wanting Constantinople back.
Handful of news tidbits from today's morning coffee internet adventure:
US claims to have killed "over 100" Jabhat Fatah ash-Sham fighters in a strike on a training camp in Idlib Province. I'm always skeptical when it comes to casualty numbers reported by a faction's enemy, but pro-rebel/JFS twitters and such seemed to corroborate a devastating strike. The US has occasionally bombed JFS (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) over the last few years, but in the last couple months or so they've been doing so much more frequently. Early in the war, the US attacks on JaN were said to be focused on the elements of the international AQ leadership present in Syria. The US avoided striking typical JaN commanders or rank and file, since JaN was intertwined with US-backed rebels who would side with JaN before the US if it came down to it. The rate of strikes on JFS more recently is more evidence that the US has essentially given up on the Syrian rebellion (outside of the SDF).
The US also bombed two IS camps near Sirte in Libya; the Pentagon again claims to have killed scores of fighters. The city of Sirte, IS's base in Libya, was retaken by mostly Misratan militias after a couple months of grueling street fighting, with the help of an absurd number of US airstrikes. The presence of scores of fighters in camps nearby shows that despite the decisive defeat, IS has not given up on Libya - an IS spokesman called the loss in Sirte a "temporary trial" and claimed that its fighters still roam the deserts, while sleeper cells wait in cities in towns.
In Saudi Arabia, two suicide bombers detonated themselves during a firefight with security forces in Jeddah. For being a bastion of Wahhabi ideology, the KSA suffers relatively few attacks compared to many other countries in the region (maybe that's partly why, in addition to better economic and security conditions). However, many Saudis have gone to fight on various foreign battlefields, and both al-Qaeda and Islamic State have called for the overthrow of the House of Saud.
A bomb in a vegetable market in a Shia-majority town or neighborhood Pakistan has killed and wounded dozens. Pakistan has a bunch of militant/terrorist groups with varying focuses, but anti-Shia attacks are especially common. I've heard it described as a slow motion genocide. I'm not really sure why anti-Shia violence is so common in Pakistan, given its distance from the main sectarian battle grounds of the Middle East. Being a Shia in a Shia minority country must be pretty terrifying at this point.
A bombing kills many at a displaced persons camp near the border with Jordan in Syria. Over the last year, violence in southern Syria has been pretty minimal compared to the rest of the country. No one has claimed responsibility but I assume IS is to blame, especially since they have a small chunk of territory in Syria's southwest corner. My first reaction was "Why bomb a fucking refugee camp?" but AJE reports that anti-IS rebel factions use the camp as a base. Not really sure that's fair for the refugees.
And lastly, the Turkish/rebel vs. IS battle for al-Bab continues to go pretty poorly. The city is pretty small, but despite the presence of considerable numbers of Turkish troops and armor backing the northern rebels, they've been unable to penetrate the city thus far, and have suffered considerable losses in trying. I'm not really sure whether this is due to the incompetence of Turkey's rebel allies, if Turkish soldiers aren't well versed in urban warfare, or if IS is just going balls to the wall in defense in an attempt to humiliate Turkey. Both the US and Russia have launched air strikes in support of the Turkish offensive, although not a ton - the US is focused on Raqqa and Mosul, while Russia seems focused on helping the SAA repel a dangerous new IS offensive on besieged Dayr az-Zawr.
I think the US needs to accept a multi state solution. Partition the area along the actual cultural lines rather than the old colonial boundaries.
Also, I think you may be placing too much emphasis on sectarian and ethnic identity. Those factors play a role, but so does regional and global geopolitics. The religious/ethnic analysis applies a bit better to Iraq, which was divided fairly clearly on those lines, but in Syria it's nowhere near that simple. For most of the war, most of the people fighting on the "Alawite government's" (I hate that term) side were Sunnis. I don't know if this is still true given the amount of Shia foreign fighters recruited by the government, but at the very least there are still lots of Sunnis on the loyalist side, in addition to the Alawites and probably some Christians. The SDF is an alliance of Syriac Christians, Arabs, and (predominantly) Kurds. The rebels are more homogeneous, basically all Sunni Muslims.
The sectarian line of thinking is one that simply explains general, dominant trends of conflict within the region. However, the same socio-politial-economic forces that drive inter-state conflict still otherwise apply to the Middle East. I have little confidence in believing that a Middle East carved up by sectarian lines will be peaceful.
Take, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Suppose the US were to march in and divide them up now into two states along their current divisional lines. That's not going to be the end of the conflict. They don't agree on where those lines should be!
It'd be like dividing the house into two halves, one for each bickering sibling. Someone's iPod's gonna be on the other side. No fair that the television remote is on their side. Etc, except these siblings have armies ready to change where the tape line is once the parents leave the house. (Also, note that each "sect" will occasionally subdivide; Fatah and Hamas were once arguably the same "side". We would have divided out a Palestinian state, seen it fall into civil war, and then emerge as an aggressive actor towards Israel, resuming the conflict all over again.)
Surely it's just going to be a smaller scale India/Pakistan? Though whether that is a good or bad thing compared to the current status quo I've no idea - but it'd be very painful in the short term and I wouldn't write off a whole bunch of states ending up in the same situation as Israel and Palestine in the long run as new governments use the violence to entrench power.
I think the US needs to accept a multi state solution. Partition the area along the actual cultural lines rather than the old colonial boundaries.
Also, I think you may be placing too much emphasis on sectarian and ethnic identity. Those factors play a role, but so does regional and global geopolitics. The religious/ethnic analysis applies a bit better to Iraq, which was divided fairly clearly on those lines, but in Syria it's nowhere near that simple. For most of the war, most of the people fighting on the "Alawite government's" (I hate that term) side were Sunnis. I don't know if this is still true given the amount of Shia foreign fighters recruited by the government, but at the very least there are still lots of Sunnis on the loyalist side, in addition to the Alawites and probably some Christians. The SDF is an alliance of Syriac Christians, Arabs, and (predominantly) Kurds. The rebels are more homogeneous, basically all Sunni Muslims.
The sectarian line of thinking is one that simply explains general, dominant trends of conflict within the region. However, the same socio-politial-economic forces that drive inter-state conflict still otherwise apply to the Middle East. I have little confidence in believing that a Middle East carved up by sectarian lines will be peaceful.
Take, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Suppose the US were to march in and divide them up now into two states along their current divisional lines. That's not going to be the end of the conflict. They don't agree on where those lines should be!
It'd be like dividing the house into two halves, one for each bickering sibling. Someone's iPod's gonna be on the other side. No fair that the television remote is on their side. Etc, except these siblings have armies ready to change where the tape line is once the parents leave the house. (Also, note that each "sect" will occasionally subdivide; Fatah and Hamas were once arguably the same "side". We would have divided out a Palestinian state, seen it fall into civil war, and then emerge as an aggressive actor towards Israel, resuming the conflict all over again.)
Surely it's just going to be a smaller scale India/Pakistan? Though whether that is a good or bad thing compared to the current status quo I've no idea - but it'd be very painful in the short term and I wouldn't write off a whole bunch of states ending up in the same situation as Israel and Palestine in the long run as new governments use the violence to entrench power.
The Indo-Pakistani wars are also unique in that they're conflicts that, historically, the United States has had comparitively little (or no hand) in the peace process--exactly the opposite for a "short war", especially given Pakistan's had such a close relationship with the United States historically. That sort of changed in 1999 with the Washington accords, but that was still subtle by Washington's standards.
The US has long played arbiter (both successfully and in failure) in the Palestinian conflict. For the post-colonial Indo-Pakistani wars, the closest power to doing that consistently was the Soviet Union (they handled literally all negotiations in the second one, and arbitrated in the third one)--and they're not around anymore. Post-Soviet Russia remains in India's camp and thus Moscow appears less unbiased, and the American relationship with Pakistan has only grown in complexity (and unpredictability I'd argue). The influence vacuum may've been filled by China in part, returning a little more to a scenario like in 1947, where both combatants were most beholden to international pressure.
Whatever the case, Washington has a lot more weight in Israel/Palestine.
I think the US needs to accept a multi state solution. Partition the area along the actual cultural lines rather than the old colonial boundaries.
Also, I think you may be placing too much emphasis on sectarian and ethnic identity. Those factors play a role, but so does regional and global geopolitics. The religious/ethnic analysis applies a bit better to Iraq, which was divided fairly clearly on those lines, but in Syria it's nowhere near that simple. For most of the war, most of the people fighting on the "Alawite government's" (I hate that term) side were Sunnis. I don't know if this is still true given the amount of Shia foreign fighters recruited by the government, but at the very least there are still lots of Sunnis on the loyalist side, in addition to the Alawites and probably some Christians. The SDF is an alliance of Syriac Christians, Arabs, and (predominantly) Kurds. The rebels are more homogeneous, basically all Sunni Muslims.
The sectarian line of thinking is one that simply explains general, dominant trends of conflict within the region. However, the same socio-politial-economic forces that drive inter-state conflict still otherwise apply to the Middle East. I have little confidence in believing that a Middle East carved up by sectarian lines will be peaceful.
Take, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Suppose the US were to march in and divide them up now into two states along their current divisional lines. That's not going to be the end of the conflict. They don't agree on where those lines should be!
It'd be like dividing the house into two halves, one for each bickering sibling. Someone's iPod's gonna be on the other side. No fair that the television remote is on their side. Etc, except these siblings have armies ready to change where the tape line is once the parents leave the house. (Also, note that each "sect" will occasionally subdivide; Fatah and Hamas were once arguably the same "side". We would have divided out a Palestinian state, seen it fall into civil war, and then emerge as an aggressive actor towards Israel, resuming the conflict all over again.)
Surely it's just going to be a smaller scale India/Pakistan? Though whether that is a good or bad thing compared to the current status quo I've no idea - but it'd be very painful in the short term and I wouldn't write off a whole bunch of states ending up in the same situation as Israel and Palestine in the long run as new governments use the violence to entrench power.
The Indo-Pakistani wars are also unique in that they're conflicts that, historically, the United States has had comparitively little (or no hand) in the peace process--exactly the opposite for a "short war", especially given Pakistan's had such a close relationship with the United States historically. That sort of changed in 1999 with the Washington accords, but that was still subtle by Washington's standards.
The US has long played arbiter (both successfully and in failure) in the Palestinian conflict. For the post-colonial Indo-Pakistani wars, the closest power to doing that consistently was the Soviet Union (they handled literally all negotiations in the second one, and arbitrated in the third one)--and they're not around anymore. Post-Soviet Russia remains in India's camp and thus Moscow appears less unbiased, and the American relationship with Pakistan has only grown in complexity (and unpredictability I'd argue). The influence vacuum may've been filled by China in part, returning a little more to a scenario like in 1947, where both combatants were most beholden to international pressure.
Whatever the case, Washington has a lot more weight in Israel/Palestine.
So what are we saying? Russian led peace talks lead to an India/Pakistan type situation whilst US-led talks lead to Israel/Palestine, or that dividing up countries along tribal/religious/ethnic borders is sometimes not much better than geographic ones?
More I think about it, the more it seems like splitting up along cultural lines is a 'common sense' solution to a difficult problem and wonder if Ireland and South Africa are better examples of the way to go than just splitting countries up.
I think the US needs to accept a multi state solution. Partition the area along the actual cultural lines rather than the old colonial boundaries.
Also, I think you may be placing too much emphasis on sectarian and ethnic identity. Those factors play a role, but so does regional and global geopolitics. The religious/ethnic analysis applies a bit better to Iraq, which was divided fairly clearly on those lines, but in Syria it's nowhere near that simple. For most of the war, most of the people fighting on the "Alawite government's" (I hate that term) side were Sunnis. I don't know if this is still true given the amount of Shia foreign fighters recruited by the government, but at the very least there are still lots of Sunnis on the loyalist side, in addition to the Alawites and probably some Christians. The SDF is an alliance of Syriac Christians, Arabs, and (predominantly) Kurds. The rebels are more homogeneous, basically all Sunni Muslims.
The sectarian line of thinking is one that simply explains general, dominant trends of conflict within the region. However, the same socio-politial-economic forces that drive inter-state conflict still otherwise apply to the Middle East. I have little confidence in believing that a Middle East carved up by sectarian lines will be peaceful.
Take, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Suppose the US were to march in and divide them up now into two states along their current divisional lines. That's not going to be the end of the conflict. They don't agree on where those lines should be!
It'd be like dividing the house into two halves, one for each bickering sibling. Someone's iPod's gonna be on the other side. No fair that the television remote is on their side. Etc, except these siblings have armies ready to change where the tape line is once the parents leave the house. (Also, note that each "sect" will occasionally subdivide; Fatah and Hamas were once arguably the same "side". We would have divided out a Palestinian state, seen it fall into civil war, and then emerge as an aggressive actor towards Israel, resuming the conflict all over again.)
Surely it's just going to be a smaller scale India/Pakistan? Though whether that is a good or bad thing compared to the current status quo I've no idea - but it'd be very painful in the short term and I wouldn't write off a whole bunch of states ending up in the same situation as Israel and Palestine in the long run as new governments use the violence to entrench power.
I'm just using Israel/Palestine as an example to highlight the fact that conflict in the Middle East is not driven purely by the fact that the national borders in the Middle East do not match up with where people live. There are many other factors driving conflict in the Middle East, and the fact that these have largely taken a backseat to sectarian conflict over colonial borders doesn't mean that these factors wouldn't be sufficient alone to drive conflict absent misdrawn colonial borders.
Natural resources, including water and oil, would remain major drivers of conflict, as would religious divisions (see: Saudi Arabia and Iran do NOT border each other), as would political ideologies, as would dynastic frictions (see: Yemen). Military conflict was rampant in the Middle East even before the arrival of the colonial European powers. Its nature may have been different and its quantity lessened, but it's not as though the Middle East had reached some peaceful detente before the Europeans came and upset it all.
Ah yes, but what are the good news from the MENA area?
Uhh. Some Israelis protested against Trump outside of the American embassy. Not very significant in the grand scheme of things but the presence of some solidarity is good or whatever.
SDF took a decent sized town and seem to have cut off IS from crossing the Euphrates west of Raqqa:
So more bad news than good, but not totally bad! But yeah that was a rough trek through al-Jazeera earlier, even by al-Jazeera standards
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told cabinet ministers Sunday that he was prepared to give the Palestinians a “state minus.”
“What I’m willing to give the Palestinians,” the prime minister said in the weekly meeting, according to Hebrew reports, “is not exactly a state with full authority, rather a state minus. This is why the Palestinians do not agree.”
Netanyahu was responding to Science Minister Ofir Akunis (Likud), who told the ministers that he opposes the prime minister’s position and rejects a two-state solution. The minister insisted that this is also the official stance of the Likud party, according to the Haaretz daily.
“If you would listen to the details of my position I’m sure that you would not oppose it,” the prime minister told Akunis.
[...]
Why are they even bothering to pretend it isn't apartheid at this point?
I think the US needs to accept a multi state solution. Partition the area along the actual cultural lines rather than the old colonial boundaries.
Also, I think you may be placing too much emphasis on sectarian and ethnic identity. Those factors play a role, but so does regional and global geopolitics. The religious/ethnic analysis applies a bit better to Iraq, which was divided fairly clearly on those lines, but in Syria it's nowhere near that simple. For most of the war, most of the people fighting on the "Alawite government's" (I hate that term) side were Sunnis. I don't know if this is still true given the amount of Shia foreign fighters recruited by the government, but at the very least there are still lots of Sunnis on the loyalist side, in addition to the Alawites and probably some Christians. The SDF is an alliance of Syriac Christians, Arabs, and (predominantly) Kurds. The rebels are more homogeneous, basically all Sunni Muslims.
The sectarian line of thinking is one that simply explains general, dominant trends of conflict within the region. However, the same socio-politial-economic forces that drive inter-state conflict still otherwise apply to the Middle East. I have little confidence in believing that a Middle East carved up by sectarian lines will be peaceful.
Take, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Suppose the US were to march in and divide them up now into two states along their current divisional lines. That's not going to be the end of the conflict. They don't agree on where those lines should be!
It'd be like dividing the house into two halves, one for each bickering sibling. Someone's iPod's gonna be on the other side. No fair that the television remote is on their side. Etc, except these siblings have armies ready to change where the tape line is once the parents leave the house. (Also, note that each "sect" will occasionally subdivide; Fatah and Hamas were once arguably the same "side". We would have divided out a Palestinian state, seen it fall into civil war, and then emerge as an aggressive actor towards Israel, resuming the conflict all over again.)
Surely it's just going to be a smaller scale India/Pakistan? Though whether that is a good or bad thing compared to the current status quo I've no idea - but it'd be very painful in the short term and I wouldn't write off a whole bunch of states ending up in the same situation as Israel and Palestine in the long run as new governments use the violence to entrench power.
The Indo-Pakistani wars are also unique in that they're conflicts that, historically, the United States has had comparitively little (or no hand) in the peace process--exactly the opposite for a "short war", especially given Pakistan's had such a close relationship with the United States historically. That sort of changed in 1999 with the Washington accords, but that was still subtle by Washington's standards.
The US has long played arbiter (both successfully and in failure) in the Palestinian conflict. For the post-colonial Indo-Pakistani wars, the closest power to doing that consistently was the Soviet Union (they handled literally all negotiations in the second one, and arbitrated in the third one)--and they're not around anymore. Post-Soviet Russia remains in India's camp and thus Moscow appears less unbiased, and the American relationship with Pakistan has only grown in complexity (and unpredictability I'd argue). The influence vacuum may've been filled by China in part, returning a little more to a scenario like in 1947, where both combatants were most beholden to international pressure.
Whatever the case, Washington has a lot more weight in Israel/Palestine.
So what are we saying? Russian led peace talks lead to an India/Pakistan type situation whilst US-led talks lead to Israel/Palestine, or that dividing up countries along tribal/religious/ethnic borders is sometimes not much better than geographic ones?
More I think about it, the more it seems like splitting up along cultural lines is a 'common sense' solution to a difficult problem and wonder if Ireland and South Africa are better examples of the way to go than just splitting countries up.
Both, unfortunately. After all, a lot of times those original geographic lines are drafted as a solution to ethnic conflict--and sometimes, like the British at the end of the Indian Raj, you really fuck it up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told cabinet ministers Sunday that he was prepared to give the Palestinians a “state minus.”
“What I’m willing to give the Palestinians,” the prime minister said in the weekly meeting, according to Hebrew reports, “is not exactly a state with full authority, rather a state minus. This is why the Palestinians do not agree.”
Netanyahu was responding to Science Minister Ofir Akunis (Likud), who told the ministers that he opposes the prime minister’s position and rejects a two-state solution. The minister insisted that this is also the official stance of the Likud party, according to the Haaretz daily.
“If you would listen to the details of my position I’m sure that you would not oppose it,” the prime minister told Akunis.
[...]
Why are they even bothering to pretend it isn't apartheid at this point?
So thus far, Trump's secret plan to defeat ISIS involves empowering them first, it seems.
*(Other articles (WSJ / Bloomberg) noted explicitly that our ambassador is only there to observe. This is less clear in the CNN article, but it seemed to have more detailed information overall)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told senior ministers he was lifting restrictions on settlement building in East Jerusalem, an official said on Sunday, immediately after the city's municipal government approved permits for the building of hundreds of new homes in the area.
The official, who asked not to be named, said Netanyahu told the ministers of the move at a meeting where they also decided unanimously to postpone discussing a bill proposing the Israeli annexation of the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, home to 40,000 Israelis near Jerusalem.
A brief statement issued after the discussion by the ministerial forum known as the Security Cabinet, said work on the bill would be delayed until after Netanyahu meets the new U.S. President, Donald Trump.
Israel's government is racing to erase any hope left for a two state solution.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. says Russia’s claim that its warplanes flew a joint mission over Syria with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group is “rubbish.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces in Syria had received coordinates of IS targets near al-Bab on Sunday “from the U.S. side via hotline with the international coalition headquarters.”
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman, almost immediately labeled the Russian claim as propaganda.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. does have routine “deconfliction” talks with Russia to avoid unintended aerial incidents in Syria’s crowded skies. But Davis says there have been no changes to that arrangement, and the U.S. has insisted for months that it has no coordination or sharing of targets with Russia.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told senior ministers he was lifting restrictions on settlement building in East Jerusalem, an official said on Sunday, immediately after the city's municipal government approved permits for the building of hundreds of new homes in the area.
The official, who asked not to be named, said Netanyahu told the ministers of the move at a meeting where they also decided unanimously to postpone discussing a bill proposing the Israeli annexation of the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, home to 40,000 Israelis near Jerusalem.
A brief statement issued after the discussion by the ministerial forum known as the Security Cabinet, said work on the bill would be delayed until after Netanyahu meets the new U.S. President, Donald Trump.
Israel's government is racing to erase any hope left for a two state solution.
I wish to speculate on how the various Arab states are going to respond to this, but I have no basis for doing so. Would someone care to do so for me?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told senior ministers he was lifting restrictions on settlement building in East Jerusalem, an official said on Sunday, immediately after the city's municipal government approved permits for the building of hundreds of new homes in the area.
The official, who asked not to be named, said Netanyahu told the ministers of the move at a meeting where they also decided unanimously to postpone discussing a bill proposing the Israeli annexation of the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, home to 40,000 Israelis near Jerusalem.
A brief statement issued after the discussion by the ministerial forum known as the Security Cabinet, said work on the bill would be delayed until after Netanyahu meets the new U.S. President, Donald Trump.
Israel's government is racing to erase any hope left for a two state solution.
I wish to speculate on how the various Arab states are going to respond to this, but I have no basis for doing so. Would someone care to do so for me?
There will be talk but most of the Arab states that have historically fought Israel are either too weak militarily to do anything but censure or tied in through trade.
In addition to trade ties greatly benefiting their economy, Jordan also doesn't have the most friendly relationship with the Palestinians. Remember the Black September group responsible for Munich? They are named after a period of conflict between the Jordanian government and Palestinian refugees that was in response to the kingdom cracking down on Palestinian militants launching cross border attacks into Israel. Jordan also saw the PLO presence and activities as an attempt to co-opt the kingdom. So at least one close Arab country has deep seated reasons not to get involved beyond verbal disagreement.
Syria is in the middle of a civil war with very little internal sovereignty, and Lebanon is concentrating on Syria.
The Saudis would have something to say. But their main concern seems to be Iranian ambitions and the Yemen war.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. says Russia’s claim that its warplanes flew a joint mission over Syria with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group is “rubbish.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces in Syria had received coordinates of IS targets near al-Bab on Sunday “from the U.S. side via hotline with the international coalition headquarters.”
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman, almost immediately labeled the Russian claim as propaganda.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. does have routine “deconfliction” talks with Russia to avoid unintended aerial incidents in Syria’s crowded skies. But Davis says there have been no changes to that arrangement, and the U.S. has insisted for months that it has no coordination or sharing of targets with Russia.
Strange day.
US denies Russian charges of engaging in cooperative tactics to defeat terrorists.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. says Russia’s claim that its warplanes flew a joint mission over Syria with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group is “rubbish.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces in Syria had received coordinates of IS targets near al-Bab on Sunday “from the U.S. side via hotline with the international coalition headquarters.”
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman, almost immediately labeled the Russian claim as propaganda.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. does have routine “deconfliction” talks with Russia to avoid unintended aerial incidents in Syria’s crowded skies. But Davis says there have been no changes to that arrangement, and the U.S. has insisted for months that it has no coordination or sharing of targets with Russia.
Strange day.
At least they're not bombing Syrian military holdouts in ISIL territory.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. says Russia’s claim that its warplanes flew a joint mission over Syria with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group is “rubbish.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces in Syria had received coordinates of IS targets near al-Bab on Sunday “from the U.S. side via hotline with the international coalition headquarters.”
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman, almost immediately labeled the Russian claim as propaganda.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. does have routine “deconfliction” talks with Russia to avoid unintended aerial incidents in Syria’s crowded skies. But Davis says there have been no changes to that arrangement, and the U.S. has insisted for months that it has no coordination or sharing of targets with Russia.
Strange day.
At least they're not bombing Syrian military holdouts in ISIL territory.
I've always suspected that strike was called in by a rebel group. They see Syrian Army fighting IS and they figure "Fuck if we care who gets killed"
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. says Russia’s claim that its warplanes flew a joint mission over Syria with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group is “rubbish.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces in Syria had received coordinates of IS targets near al-Bab on Sunday “from the U.S. side via hotline with the international coalition headquarters.”
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman, almost immediately labeled the Russian claim as propaganda.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. does have routine “deconfliction” talks with Russia to avoid unintended aerial incidents in Syria’s crowded skies. But Davis says there have been no changes to that arrangement, and the U.S. has insisted for months that it has no coordination or sharing of targets with Russia.
Strange day.
US denies Russian charges of engaging in cooperative tactics to defeat terrorists.
I think they did it for two reasons.
1) The peeps in the Pentagon still don't like the Russians.
2) You know how bad we are in the Collateral damage department? The Russians may actually be worse. Don't really want that splashing back on us. Any more than it would due to our own fuckups.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. says Russia’s claim that its warplanes flew a joint mission over Syria with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group is “rubbish.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces in Syria had received coordinates of IS targets near al-Bab on Sunday “from the U.S. side via hotline with the international coalition headquarters.”
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman, almost immediately labeled the Russian claim as propaganda.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. does have routine “deconfliction” talks with Russia to avoid unintended aerial incidents in Syria’s crowded skies. But Davis says there have been no changes to that arrangement, and the U.S. has insisted for months that it has no coordination or sharing of targets with Russia.
Strange day.
At least they're not bombing Syrian military holdouts in ISIL territory.
I've always suspected that strike was called in by a rebel group. They see Syrian Army fighting IS and they figure "Fuck if we care who gets killed"
Yeah, those rebels with their reconnaissance aircraft and satellite photography.
On the other hand, I generally decry anything resembling a conspiracy theory for ten years, going "tut tut tut" the whole time.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. says Russia’s claim that its warplanes flew a joint mission over Syria with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group is “rubbish.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces in Syria had received coordinates of IS targets near al-Bab on Sunday “from the U.S. side via hotline with the international coalition headquarters.”
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman, almost immediately labeled the Russian claim as propaganda.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. does have routine “deconfliction” talks with Russia to avoid unintended aerial incidents in Syria’s crowded skies. But Davis says there have been no changes to that arrangement, and the U.S. has insisted for months that it has no coordination or sharing of targets with Russia.
Strange day.
US denies Russian charges of engaging in cooperative tactics to defeat terrorists.
I think they did it for two reasons.
1) The peeps in the Pentagon still don't like the Russians.
2) You know how bad we are in the Collateral damage department? The Russians may actually be worse. Don't really want that splashing back on us. Any more than it would due to our own fuckups.
Oh, definitely on 2. Any precedent set regarding our giving them targets could easily be exploited later when they accidentally(?) bomb a hospital.
We can accidentally bomb our own hospitals, thank you very much.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. says Russia’s claim that its warplanes flew a joint mission over Syria with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group is “rubbish.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces in Syria had received coordinates of IS targets near al-Bab on Sunday “from the U.S. side via hotline with the international coalition headquarters.”
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman, almost immediately labeled the Russian claim as propaganda.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. does have routine “deconfliction” talks with Russia to avoid unintended aerial incidents in Syria’s crowded skies. But Davis says there have been no changes to that arrangement, and the U.S. has insisted for months that it has no coordination or sharing of targets with Russia.
Strange day.
At least they're not bombing Syrian military holdouts in ISIL territory.
I've always suspected that strike was called in by a rebel group. They see Syrian Army fighting IS and they figure "Fuck if we care who gets killed"
Yeah, those rebels with their reconnaissance aircraft and satellite photography.
On the other hand, I generally decry anything resembling a conspiracy theory for ten years, going "tut tut tut" the whole time.
I don't think of it as a conspiracy. I think of it as unintended consequences. IIRC we had special forces teaching some rebel groups how to call in and designate airstrikes. There are some of them who really wouldn't give a shit who got killed in a situation like that. Kill a bunch of IS? Gravy for the rebels. Kill a bunch of Syrian soldiers? Different kind of gravy.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told senior ministers he was lifting restrictions on settlement building in East Jerusalem, an official said on Sunday, immediately after the city's municipal government approved permits for the building of hundreds of new homes in the area.
The official, who asked not to be named, said Netanyahu told the ministers of the move at a meeting where they also decided unanimously to postpone discussing a bill proposing the Israeli annexation of the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, home to 40,000 Israelis near Jerusalem.
A brief statement issued after the discussion by the ministerial forum known as the Security Cabinet, said work on the bill would be delayed until after Netanyahu meets the new U.S. President, Donald Trump.
Israel's government is racing to erase any hope left for a two state solution.
I wish to speculate on how the various Arab states are going to respond to this, but I have no basis for doing so. Would someone care to do so for me?
There will be talk but most of the Arab states that have historically fought Israel are either too weak militarily to do anything but censure or tied in through trade.
In addition to trade ties greatly benefiting their economy, Jordan also doesn't have the most friendly relationship with the Palestinians. Remember the Black September group responsible for Munich? They are named after a period of conflict between the Jordanian government and Palestinian refugees that was in response to the kingdom cracking down on Palestinian militants launching cross border attacks into Israel. Jordan also saw the PLO presence and activities as an attempt to co-opt the kingdom. So at least one close Arab country has deep seated reasons not to get involved beyond verbal disagreement.
Syria is in the middle of a civil war with very little internal sovereignty, and Lebanon is concentrating on Syria.
The Saudis would have something to say. But their main concern seems to be Iranian ambitions and the Yemen war.
I am more concerned about the Arab public's reactions to expanded Israeli colonization than those of the Arab states.
I'm seeing a lot of reports of fighting between Jabhat Fatah ash-Sham, Jund al-Aqsa, and other rebel groups in Idlib. The tensions between the various strands of the rebellion may be boiling over. Combined with recent US strikes on JFS, this could be a major boon to the government and a nail in the rebellion's coffin.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. says Russia’s claim that its warplanes flew a joint mission over Syria with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group is “rubbish.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces in Syria had received coordinates of IS targets near al-Bab on Sunday “from the U.S. side via hotline with the international coalition headquarters.”
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman, almost immediately labeled the Russian claim as propaganda.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. does have routine “deconfliction” talks with Russia to avoid unintended aerial incidents in Syria’s crowded skies. But Davis says there have been no changes to that arrangement, and the U.S. has insisted for months that it has no coordination or sharing of targets with Russia.
Strange day.
At least they're not bombing Syrian military holdouts in ISIL territory.
I've always suspected that strike was called in by a rebel group. They see Syrian Army fighting IS and they figure "Fuck if we care who gets killed"
I doubt this theory, mainly because no rebel group was close to Dayr az-Zawr and none had been present in the region for a long time. It's the center of IS territory in Syria, only broken by the besieged SAA holdout.
I think it was either an accident, as the US says, or an attempt to remove the SAA's final stronghold in eastern Syria, as Russia and the Syrian government say.
I'm seeing a lot of reports of fighting between Jabhat Fatah ash-Sham, Jund al-Aqsa, and other rebel groups in Idlib. The tensions between the various strands of the rebellion may be boiling over. Combined with recent US strikes on JFS, this could be a major boon to the government and a nail in the rebellion's coffin.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. says Russia’s claim that its warplanes flew a joint mission over Syria with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group is “rubbish.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces in Syria had received coordinates of IS targets near al-Bab on Sunday “from the U.S. side via hotline with the international coalition headquarters.”
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman, almost immediately labeled the Russian claim as propaganda.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. does have routine “deconfliction” talks with Russia to avoid unintended aerial incidents in Syria’s crowded skies. But Davis says there have been no changes to that arrangement, and the U.S. has insisted for months that it has no coordination or sharing of targets with Russia.
Strange day.
At least they're not bombing Syrian military holdouts in ISIL territory.
I've always suspected that strike was called in by a rebel group. They see Syrian Army fighting IS and they figure "Fuck if we care who gets killed"
I doubt this theory, mainly because no rebel group was close to Dayr az-Zawr and none had been present in the region for a long time. It's the center of IS territory in Syria, only broken by the besieged SAA holdout.
I think it was either an accident, as the US says, or an attempt to remove the SAA's final stronghold in eastern Syria, as Russia and the Syrian government say.
Thanks for the overview of the situation. I always think of the Syrian civil war as pretty fluid, so I never really think of areas as being held by one group or another,
Posts
Yeah, like
As bad as Saddam was, good luck making the case that toppling him was a net good
I strongly disagree with your view that the US should join Russia in directly supporting the Assad government, though. While I don't regard the rebels any more positively than the government, the latter is undeniably a brutal and tyrannical regime, and is widely hated throughout the region. Aside from the moral issues involved in helping an authoritarian state violently crush all opposition, such an act would destroy what remains of US credibility with much of the Arab world (or, if all credibility is already destroyed, would make it harder to alter negative perceptions), and that includes most of the governments and the people of the region. Given the widespread presence of Iranian troops and to a lesser degree Hezbollah and Iraqi Shia militia in Syria, we would be providing arms or air support to several official enemies and US-designated terrorist groups. It would fuel the salafi-jihadist argument that the US and Russia are secretly part of a Crusader coalition to destroy Sunni Muslims, and further the (accurate and widespread) perception of the US as a supporter of brutal dictatorships in the region.
If IS was still as powerful as they were at their peak, or if al-Qaeda and its allies were on the verge of defeating the government, perhaps one could reasonably argue in favor of such an about face, despite the considerable downsides. But IS is a shell of its former self and continues to suffer losses, and the Russian/Iranian intervention seems sufficient to overpower the Jaysh al-Fatah rebel alliance and allied groups. If your desired outcome for the war is the defeat of the Sunni Islamic militant factions, it looks like that is what's happening already.
What's your opinion of US support for the SDF (Kurdish-led force responsible for defeating IS in northern Syria, now gradually advancing toward Raqqa)? They are not engaged in active conflict with the government and have been a great ally in the fight against IS, and while they're not as saintly as some of their advocates make them out to be, I'd say they are the least morally objectionable faction in the war (it seems presumptuous to make moral judgment of militant groups in Syria from my comfy chair in Maine, but oh well). Their proposed solution to the war - decentralization of powers and some degree of regional autonomy for various parts of Syria - seems like the best idea proposed by anyone so far. Much better than the useless US/rebel refrain of "Assad must go" or Assad's "kill all the 'terrorists' and control the whole country with an iron fist."
Overall I approve of the Obama administration's strategy in Syria for the past year or so. I vehemently opposed it before that, and argued about it frequently here, but as the situation changed the Obama administration adapted in a pretty intelligent manner, in my opinion. I still wish the US had never backed the rebels in the first place, but right now I have few complaints.
I'm not sure whether the states created from such a partition would actually be viable or not. Particularly the hypothetical Sunni state along the Euphrates. Then again, it's not clear how viable Iraq and Syria were to begin with.
Perhaps the US and Russia could get the UNSC to approve some sort of partition, but if none of the Syrians actually want that, you're essentially just imposing a new set of boundaries against the will of the populace. I think autonomy or decentralization of the state is better than a forced partition. That's what Iraqi Sunnis advocated in the years between the US withdrawal and IS's reemergence, and some are again advocating that for Anbar and Ninevah. They still want to be part of Iraq, but they want a greater degree of local control.
Also, I think you may be placing too much emphasis on sectarian and ethnic identity. Those factors play a role, but so does regional and global geopolitics. The religious/ethnic analysis applies a bit better to Iraq, which was divided fairly clearly on those lines, but in Syria it's nowhere near that simple. For most of the war, most of the people fighting on the "Alawite government's" (I hate that term) side were Sunnis. I don't know if this is still true given the amount of Shia foreign fighters recruited by the government, but at the very least there are still lots of Sunnis on the loyalist side, in addition to the Alawites and probably some Christians. The SDF is an alliance of Syriac Christians, Arabs, and (predominantly) Kurds. The rebels are more homogeneous, basically all Sunni Muslims.
I am wondering whether this is actually "unrelated" to Gabbard's visit.
From the article I posted:
Ok, now consider that along with (from same article):
Perhaps Trump intended to cut the remnants of the outgoing administration out of the process for these reasons? And maybe Gabbard is serving a role as a sort of informal special envoy instead? Have there been any other updates on this?
In other news, ISIS is destroying more ancient Roman architecture in Palmyra:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/20/middleeast/palmyra-isis-theater/index.html
This isn't a completely flawed qualification--but it is an imperfect qualification, if it makes any sense.
The United States government is funding, supplying and even arming political and military organizations that have tortured and killed thousands of Syrians. So what does that same about them? What does it say about us? Well, probably not as much as it says about our executive leaders for the last decade.
"Yes, but they do it less..." is a qualification but, again, very imperfect. The Syrian government has fewer combatants who carve out people's hearts and eat them, then publicize it. Even the disparate Kurdish fighting factions regularly kill civilians in their combat operations.
It's a lot more difficult in the face of American revulsion to the idea of a multi-state Iraq (which historically has had problems of regional factionalism equal to, or substantially worse than, that of Syria.) By their nature, any multi-state future of Syria will include new nations with Iiredentist objectives in Iraq. It's backfired historically: the United States naturally supported the independence of Soviet republics from that supranational federation, but when local states within the new republics wanted to merge across borders--for examples, Ossetians in Georgia, or minorities in Armenia and Azerbaijan--suddenly that unwavering support was a lot less unwavering.
The sectarian line of thinking is one that simply explains general, dominant trends of conflict within the region. However, the same socio-politial-economic forces that drive inter-state conflict still otherwise apply to the Middle East. I have little confidence in believing that a Middle East carved up by sectarian lines will be peaceful.
Take, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Suppose the US were to march in and divide them up now into two states along their current divisional lines. That's not going to be the end of the conflict. They don't agree on where those lines should be!
It'd be like dividing the house into two halves, one for each bickering sibling. Someone's iPod's gonna be on the other side. No fair that the television remote is on their side. Etc, except these siblings have armies ready to change where the tape line is once the parents leave the house. (Also, note that each "sect" will occasionally subdivide; Fatah and Hamas were once arguably the same "side". We would have divided out a Palestinian state, seen it fall into civil war, and then emerge as an aggressive actor towards Israel, resuming the conflict all over again.)
(arguably even more key than the UK or France, nuclear states, due to their location and very large military)
Plus the Pentagon doesn't like commies and there are plenty of Kurdish Marxists around
That said, I think the US these days would much prefer to deal with the Kurds than Turkey or other local groups, I reckon. There's a degree of strategic necessity that keeps them apart but a remarkably secular group, reliable, very capable fighters who actually put US air support to good use? I reckon Obama would have thrown them under a bus but I reckon he also probably would have thought "man I wish Erdogan didn't fucking hate the Kurds so much"
And really, fuck Erdogan. What you gonna do if the US doesn't back your attacks across the south border and tells you to leave the Kurds the fuck alone? Leave NATO? No way pal, not with Russia on the other side of the border bearing that centuries long torch of wanting Constantinople back.
US claims to have killed "over 100" Jabhat Fatah ash-Sham fighters in a strike on a training camp in Idlib Province. I'm always skeptical when it comes to casualty numbers reported by a faction's enemy, but pro-rebel/JFS twitters and such seemed to corroborate a devastating strike. The US has occasionally bombed JFS (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) over the last few years, but in the last couple months or so they've been doing so much more frequently. Early in the war, the US attacks on JaN were said to be focused on the elements of the international AQ leadership present in Syria. The US avoided striking typical JaN commanders or rank and file, since JaN was intertwined with US-backed rebels who would side with JaN before the US if it came down to it. The rate of strikes on JFS more recently is more evidence that the US has essentially given up on the Syrian rebellion (outside of the SDF).
The US also bombed two IS camps near Sirte in Libya; the Pentagon again claims to have killed scores of fighters. The city of Sirte, IS's base in Libya, was retaken by mostly Misratan militias after a couple months of grueling street fighting, with the help of an absurd number of US airstrikes. The presence of scores of fighters in camps nearby shows that despite the decisive defeat, IS has not given up on Libya - an IS spokesman called the loss in Sirte a "temporary trial" and claimed that its fighters still roam the deserts, while sleeper cells wait in cities in towns.
In Saudi Arabia, two suicide bombers detonated themselves during a firefight with security forces in Jeddah. For being a bastion of Wahhabi ideology, the KSA suffers relatively few attacks compared to many other countries in the region (maybe that's partly why, in addition to better economic and security conditions). However, many Saudis have gone to fight on various foreign battlefields, and both al-Qaeda and Islamic State have called for the overthrow of the House of Saud.
A bomb in a vegetable market in a Shia-majority town or neighborhood Pakistan has killed and wounded dozens. Pakistan has a bunch of militant/terrorist groups with varying focuses, but anti-Shia attacks are especially common. I've heard it described as a slow motion genocide. I'm not really sure why anti-Shia violence is so common in Pakistan, given its distance from the main sectarian battle grounds of the Middle East. Being a Shia in a Shia minority country must be pretty terrifying at this point.
A bombing kills many at a displaced persons camp near the border with Jordan in Syria. Over the last year, violence in southern Syria has been pretty minimal compared to the rest of the country. No one has claimed responsibility but I assume IS is to blame, especially since they have a small chunk of territory in Syria's southwest corner. My first reaction was "Why bomb a fucking refugee camp?" but AJE reports that anti-IS rebel factions use the camp as a base. Not really sure that's fair for the refugees.
And lastly, the Turkish/rebel vs. IS battle for al-Bab continues to go pretty poorly. The city is pretty small, but despite the presence of considerable numbers of Turkish troops and armor backing the northern rebels, they've been unable to penetrate the city thus far, and have suffered considerable losses in trying. I'm not really sure whether this is due to the incompetence of Turkey's rebel allies, if Turkish soldiers aren't well versed in urban warfare, or if IS is just going balls to the wall in defense in an attempt to humiliate Turkey. Both the US and Russia have launched air strikes in support of the Turkish offensive, although not a ton - the US is focused on Raqqa and Mosul, while Russia seems focused on helping the SAA repel a dangerous new IS offensive on besieged Dayr az-Zawr.
Surely it's just going to be a smaller scale India/Pakistan? Though whether that is a good or bad thing compared to the current status quo I've no idea - but it'd be very painful in the short term and I wouldn't write off a whole bunch of states ending up in the same situation as Israel and Palestine in the long run as new governments use the violence to entrench power.
The Indo-Pakistani wars are also unique in that they're conflicts that, historically, the United States has had comparitively little (or no hand) in the peace process--exactly the opposite for a "short war", especially given Pakistan's had such a close relationship with the United States historically. That sort of changed in 1999 with the Washington accords, but that was still subtle by Washington's standards.
The US has long played arbiter (both successfully and in failure) in the Palestinian conflict. For the post-colonial Indo-Pakistani wars, the closest power to doing that consistently was the Soviet Union (they handled literally all negotiations in the second one, and arbitrated in the third one)--and they're not around anymore. Post-Soviet Russia remains in India's camp and thus Moscow appears less unbiased, and the American relationship with Pakistan has only grown in complexity (and unpredictability I'd argue). The influence vacuum may've been filled by China in part, returning a little more to a scenario like in 1947, where both combatants were most beholden to international pressure.
Whatever the case, Washington has a lot more weight in Israel/Palestine.
So what are we saying? Russian led peace talks lead to an India/Pakistan type situation whilst US-led talks lead to Israel/Palestine, or that dividing up countries along tribal/religious/ethnic borders is sometimes not much better than geographic ones?
More I think about it, the more it seems like splitting up along cultural lines is a 'common sense' solution to a difficult problem and wonder if Ireland and South Africa are better examples of the way to go than just splitting countries up.
I'm just using Israel/Palestine as an example to highlight the fact that conflict in the Middle East is not driven purely by the fact that the national borders in the Middle East do not match up with where people live. There are many other factors driving conflict in the Middle East, and the fact that these have largely taken a backseat to sectarian conflict over colonial borders doesn't mean that these factors wouldn't be sufficient alone to drive conflict absent misdrawn colonial borders.
Natural resources, including water and oil, would remain major drivers of conflict, as would religious divisions (see: Saudi Arabia and Iran do NOT border each other), as would political ideologies, as would dynastic frictions (see: Yemen). Military conflict was rampant in the Middle East even before the arrival of the colonial European powers. Its nature may have been different and its quantity lessened, but it's not as though the Middle East had reached some peaceful detente before the Europeans came and upset it all.
SDF took a decent sized town and seem to have cut off IS from crossing the Euphrates west of Raqqa:
So more bad news than good, but not totally bad! But yeah that was a rough trek through al-Jazeera earlier, even by al-Jazeera standards
Netanyahu looks like he starting to drop more of the pretensions he sometimes pretended to have under Obama.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-says-palestinians-can-have-a-state-minus/ Why are they even bothering to pretend it isn't apartheid at this point?
Both, unfortunately. After all, a lot of times those original geographic lines are drafted as a solution to ethnic conflict--and sometimes, like the British at the end of the Indian Raj, you really fuck it up.
(they never stop fighting)
So thus far, Trump's secret plan to defeat ISIS involves empowering them first, it seems.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/chinese-leader-calls-for-palestinian-state-with-east-jerusalem-capital/
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/22/middleeast/explaining-astana-talks/index.html
*(Other articles (WSJ / Bloomberg) noted explicitly that our ambassador is only there to observe. This is less clear in the CNN article, but it seemed to have more detailed information overall)
This is all just weird. We definitely picked the wrong day to quit not sniffing glue as a foreign policy.
Israel's government is racing to erase any hope left for a two state solution.
Strange day.
I wish to speculate on how the various Arab states are going to respond to this, but I have no basis for doing so. Would someone care to do so for me?
There will be talk but most of the Arab states that have historically fought Israel are either too weak militarily to do anything but censure or tied in through trade.
In addition to trade ties greatly benefiting their economy, Jordan also doesn't have the most friendly relationship with the Palestinians. Remember the Black September group responsible for Munich? They are named after a period of conflict between the Jordanian government and Palestinian refugees that was in response to the kingdom cracking down on Palestinian militants launching cross border attacks into Israel. Jordan also saw the PLO presence and activities as an attempt to co-opt the kingdom. So at least one close Arab country has deep seated reasons not to get involved beyond verbal disagreement.
Syria is in the middle of a civil war with very little internal sovereignty, and Lebanon is concentrating on Syria.
The Saudis would have something to say. But their main concern seems to be Iranian ambitions and the Yemen war.
US denies Russian charges of engaging in cooperative tactics to defeat terrorists.
At least they're not bombing Syrian military holdouts in ISIL territory.
I've always suspected that strike was called in by a rebel group. They see Syrian Army fighting IS and they figure "Fuck if we care who gets killed"
I think they did it for two reasons.
1) The peeps in the Pentagon still don't like the Russians.
2) You know how bad we are in the Collateral damage department? The Russians may actually be worse. Don't really want that splashing back on us. Any more than it would due to our own fuckups.
Yeah, those rebels with their reconnaissance aircraft and satellite photography.
On the other hand, I generally decry anything resembling a conspiracy theory for ten years, going "tut tut tut" the whole time.
Oh, definitely on 2. Any precedent set regarding our giving them targets could easily be exploited later when they accidentally(?) bomb a hospital.
We can accidentally bomb our own hospitals, thank you very much.
I don't think of it as a conspiracy. I think of it as unintended consequences. IIRC we had special forces teaching some rebel groups how to call in and designate airstrikes. There are some of them who really wouldn't give a shit who got killed in a situation like that. Kill a bunch of IS? Gravy for the rebels. Kill a bunch of Syrian soldiers? Different kind of gravy.
I doubt this theory, mainly because no rebel group was close to Dayr az-Zawr and none had been present in the region for a long time. It's the center of IS territory in Syria, only broken by the besieged SAA holdout.
I think it was either an accident, as the US says, or an attempt to remove the SAA's final stronghold in eastern Syria, as Russia and the Syrian government say.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-stoning-un-children-united-nations-a7349861.html
Edit: This is from October, I saw it in a Google news feed and assumed it was from recent days, still interesting however.
Thanks for the overview of the situation. I always think of the Syrian civil war as pretty fluid, so I never really think of areas as being held by one group or another,
?!?