Thread: The Syrian political question.

Originally Posted by gunnut

No oil.

Lebanon, Somalia & Kosovo

Right,no shortage of idiots killing people for nothing to gain.

Originally Posted by Mihais

Bollocks about the spillover.You want it quiet,you let Assad smash a few heads and you get the desired result.On the other hand if you want to use the opportunity to settle a few scores with Assad, fight Iran through proxies and/or pave the way for an attack on Iran,you pat the rebels on the back.

This is how AMB Rice put it on May 30 at the UN..

The reality is—as I said in our discussion—it’s hard to see that there are any more than three potential outcomes at this stage. The political process—which is so crucial to the success of any transition, which is the purpose of the Annan plan—is thwarted by the ongoing, escalating, expanding violence perpetrated by the government and the reality that the opposition cannot possibly be expected to come to the table while the violence is intensifying, escalating, and the government is lying about it. So those three outcomes are as follows:

The first and best outcome would be for the government of Syria to finally and immediately implement its commitments under the Annan plan as it’s obliged to do under UN Security Council resolutions. That is what Kofi Annan is pressing for, and that is the surest and best way for this to get back on track and for there to be still a live prospect of a political solution. At this point, however, that does not seem to be a high probability scenario.

The second scenario would be—in the absence of that happening very quickly, that the government fulfills its commitments—would be for this Council to assume its responsibilities and to put additional pressure on the Syrian authorities to meet its commitments. And that pressure could include sanctions of the sort that have been alluded to and discussed, and we were among those that raised that possibility.

Now, in either of those first two scenarios, the Annan plan survives, the unity of the Council is preserved, and there is a path forward aimed at putting the political process on track.

In the absence of either of those two scenarios, there seems to me to be only one other alternative, and that is indeed the worst case, which seems unfortunately at the present to be the most probable. And that is that the violence escalates, the conflict spreads and intensifies, it reaches a higher degree of severity, it involves countries in the region, it takes on increasingly sectarian forms, and we have a major crisis not only in Syria but in the region. The Council’s unity is exploded, the Annan plan is dead, and this becomes a proxy conflict with arms flowing in from all sides. And members of this Council and members of the international community are left with the option only of having to consider whether they’re prepared to take actions outside of the Annan plan and the authority of this Council.

That scenario obviously is the one we all have sought to avoid through support for the Annan plan. The decision rests, in the first instance, with the Syrian government, whether it will fulfill its commitments. And if it does, then the opposition has an obligation to reciprocate. If it doesn’t, this Council has a responsibility to act and act swiftly and surely. And if we don’t, then we are all resigning ourselves to a third scenario, which we still hope to avoid and that is why we continue to support the Annan plan. And that is why we are continuing to work with colleagues in the Council on a collective way forward.

U.S. Bolsters Ties to Fighters in Syria | WSJ | Jun 13 2012

U.S. Bolsters Ties to Fighters in Syria
CIA Helping With Logistics but Not Arms, Officials Say
By JAY SOLOMON And NOUR MALAS
Updated June 13, 2012, 9:10 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations against President Bashar al-Assad's forces, according to senior U.S. officials.

As part of the efforts, the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department—working with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and other allies—are helping the opposition Free Syrian Army develop logistical routes for moving supplies into Syria and providing communications training.

U.S. officials also are considering sharing intelligence with the Free Syrian Army, or FSA, to allow the rebels to evade pro-Assad forces, which are believed to be getting intelligence, arms and communications support from Russia and Iran, the officials said. Iran it denies it is involved in Syria; Russia says the arms it sells Syria aren't used in the crackdown.

Details of the deepening U.S. involvement comes as many international and local observers say Syria's deadly 15-month conflict has reached new lows. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that "the situation is spiraling toward civil war."

The CIA's heightened role is seen by some as a sign of growing U.S. seriousness about the military effort against the Assad government. U.S. officials also think that added pressure could force the regime to agree to a cease-fire.

The U.S. in many ways is acting in Syria through proxies, primarily Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, say U.S. and Arab officials. Saudi Arabia is particularly fixated on overthrowing Mr. Assad, said Arab officials, viewing it as a way to settle scores with an arch foe and weaken its chief regional rival Iran.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are providing the funds for arms, Arab officials and Syrian opposition leaders say. The Obama administration hasn't agreed to arm the FSA, the U.S. officials stressed. Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday denied charges by Syria and others that the U.S. has armed the rebels.

The U.S.'s stepped-up links with the FSA are also part of an effort to gain a better understanding of the rebels' capabilities and of the identities and allegiances of fighters spread in disparate groups across the country, the U.S. officials said. The U.S. officials remain wary of some rebels' suspected ties to hard-line Islamists, including elements of al Qaeda. They acknowledge the FSA doesn't represent all parts of the insurgency against the Assad regime.

But the administration hopes that their growing contacts will result in a more-organized fighting force that will shed more-troublesome associations.

"Some of [this communication] is dedicated to figuring out who these people are by talking to them," said a U.S. official briefed on Syria. "We're not going to give out weapons and comms to people who can't figure out how their chain of command works."

The U.S. operatives are drawing on their experience in Libya, and are conveying the message that the FSA needs to professionalize its ranks and better organize itself to receive further assistance, the official said.

"Recognizing that the phenomenon is not going to go away, we want it to have a command and control structure, and be responsive to civilian leadership at the local level," said a Western official who has worked with the Syrian opposition.

The U.S. has had diplomatic contacts with Syrian dissidents for more than six months. The CIA and State Department began stepping up contacts with the FSA around March, according to U.S. officials and Syrian opposition groups, due in part to the rising concerns about the presence of extremist groups, especially after twin bombings in Damascus that month.

In April, Mrs. Clinton said publicly that the State Department would begin providing communications equipment to the Syrian National Council, the umbrella group that brings together Syria's main political opposition. Privately, American officials have acknowledged that much of this gear will end up with the FSA.

The State Department and CIA declined to comment.

U.S. defense officials and Syria analysts believe the FSA has grown into an increasingly sophisticated fighting force in recent months, after getting routed in the central Syrian city of Homs in February.

The flow of ammunition has increased to the FSA through Syria's northern border with Turkey, they said. And the FSA's internal command structure appears more organized and able to communicate to a sprawling mix of insurgent groups operating across the country.

The rebels have obtained increasingly lethal roadside bombs in recent months, as well as anti-tank rockets, say rebels and U.S. officials.

This week, Syrian rebels began to say publicly they are able to intercept government military communications. Rebel commanders also say new, secure communications between their ranks have allowed them to organize larger defections.

On Sunday, rebels said they had briefly overtaken an air-defense base that held advanced surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft vehicles. The FSA's operation to target the al-Ghanto missile base north of Homs is outlined in a series of videos posted on YouTube said to have been shot by rebels.

In the videos, commanders describe the orchestrated defection of soldiers and officers at the base, as well the swift regime attack that followed. It appeared to leave the area around the base on fire and destroy the arsenal of weapons and ammunition, said rebel officers involved in the alleged operation.

In one video, an officer says the missile base was completely destroyed in bombing by government helicopters after rebels there seized some weapons and ammunition. It isn't clear what weaponry they may have made away with, but the reported incident illustrates a growing boldness among rebel fighters in attempting larger-scale operations.

"In the past two months, the rebels have shown renewed vigor.…They are pressing the regime on a lot of areas," said Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "The FSA is stretching the regime's capabilities."

U.S. and Arab officials believe Mr. Assad is increasingly losing control of the Syrian countryside, even though he maintains power in cities like Damascus, Aleppo and Latakia. On Wednesday, the government said it regained control of Haffa, a rebellious city perched atop the mountainous Latakia coast, a government stronghold.

The president is also seen losing his ability to control supply routes connecting his forces to northern Syria and the coast.

"There's a stalemate in which the government controls key major cities. But once you get off the main highway, the rebels basically own it," said Joseph Holliday, an analyst at Washington's Institute for the Study of War.

The political resurgence of the exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and only opposition group with experience in fighting the Assad regime, has also raised concerns in Washington that the loosely connected Syrian militias will pursue a bloody, chaotic and ultimately unsuccessful insurgency like the one the Brotherhood led in the 1980s.

To reassert influence, Syria's Brotherhood, a large faction in the opposition Syrian National Council, has bypassed its parent coalition and created its own military bureau to funnel funds and arms to fighters in Homs and parts of Hama.

Some of these fighters, desperate for support, say they are halfheartedly pledging political allegiance to the Brotherhood—a short-term promise they say they intend to later betray. Already, rebel fighters say rival militias have fought each other—and other unidentified fighters—in hourslong battles in Homs and Idlib.

In recent weeks, rebel fighters have responded to international calls to better centralize command of the fight. They have created nine military councils at the level of Syria's provinces led by appointed army defectors—rather than civilian fighters—that command smaller brigades. It is too soon to tell how such efforts will play out, with over 100 fighting groups spread across the country.

The growing instability in Syria is feeding a growing debate inside the Obama administration and allied governments about the potential need to intervene to stop the bloodletting inside Syria.

Washington is against taking military action in Syria without a formal mandate from the United Nations Security Council, something Russia and China have so far opposed. There is increasing talk of establishing buffer zones on Syria's borders with Turkey and Jordan to protect civilians from Mr. Assad's forces. Allies also have discussed providing greater security for U.N. monitors operating inside Syria.

These discussions come as senior American, Israeli and Arab officials have said in recent weeks that they are growing increasingly worried that Syria is degenerating into a failed state and that violence inside the country could spill into Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

In a worst-case scenario, these officials said, the country could split into zones: with Mr. Assad and his closest allies—Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah—maintaining control of Syria's northwest. Sunni extremists and Islamist fundamentalist groups, such as al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, could control other regions, while Kurdish groups would maintain their own areas.

Further feeding fears is the potential for Syria's large stockpile of chemical weapons to fall into the hands of Hezbollah or al Qaeda, as Mr. Assad's forces are no longer are able to secure arms depots. Such a threat, combined with the spreading violence, is causing some U.S. and allied officials to conclude that an intervention into Syria is inevitable at some juncture.

"Syria has the potential to be totally fragmented," said a senior Israeli official. "It has the potential to be the new model of Iraq. It will project into the whole region."

Originally Posted by Double Edge

Lebanon, Somalia & Kosovo

Bondsteel, AMBO? The later has something to do with oil Just saying.

Now this is interesting
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/wo...-to-syria.html

Originally Posted by troung

Does this piece of shit make up part of the "up to 13k killed" list people are using to try and get us to fight this one?

There is the deadline of Jul 15 where UN monitors have to quit Syria.

Originally Posted by Double Edge

Trying to get a handle on what is happening and what to expect in Syria. This article does a decent job of that. It also offers an alternative. Something that has not been forthcoming when it comes to thinking about Syria.

The dominant view on this board is keep the hell out and leave them to their own devices.

Largely yes but there are little things that can assist in a positive way with that.

Syria Is Not a Problem from Hell | Foreign Policy | May 31 2012


Syria Is Not a Problem from Hell
But if we don't act quickly, it will be.
BY ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER | MAY 31, 2012

Nothing to be done. It's impossible. Stalemate at the United Nations. These are the mantras that continue to accompany ever more violent and wrenching pictures of massacres and daily killings in Syria. The country has been "sliding toward civil war" for months now without any meaningful change in the international response. The Russian government originally seems to have calculated that President Bashar al-Assad could crush the opposition the way Vladimir Putin crushed the uprising in Chechnya, but that degree of brutality would have brought international intervention for sure. The "Annan Plan" is becoming a synonym for hypocrisy and inaction. The Friends of Syria diplomatic strategy of choking the Syrian economy ever tighter is paying off in food shortages and rising prices, but has offered no evidence that the Sunni business class has the will or the means to effect a coup. And the Alawites appear to be closing ranks; indeed, massacres like last week's slaughter in al-Houla guarantee an increasingly bloody retribution if and when the tide finally turns.


I say "if" and not just "when" because Lebanon teaches us that an even more violent and chaotic version of the present conflict can endure for years, but with the added dimension of growing radicalization of many opposition forces and the provision of a new cause and new territory for al Qaeda-linked or inspired insurgents from Iraq, Yemen, and even Pakistan. These elements truly are the "foreign terrorists" Assad inveighs against; their presence and their IED and car-bomb tactics will solidify support for Assad in Damascus and Aleppo and drive Syria's Alawites ever more deeply into the arms of Iran. At the same time, trouble spills over into Lebanon as Syrian government troops chase Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces across the border, a scenario that could be replicated in Jordan and Turkey. All the while, Syria's Kurds are freer to unite with their Iraqi cousins, with dreams of an expanded Kurdish autonomous zone that is a nightmare for the Turkish government. Add chemical weapons, and the designs of Iran, Israel, Qatar, Russia, and Saudi Arabia into the mix and long-term destabilization of the region's security and economy looms.

An alternative exists, one that grows clearer and nearer every day. Three months ago, I proposed in the New York Times that the Arab League and Turkey, backed by NATO members, should provide a limited number of specialized anti-tank and anti-mortar weapons to Syrian towns willing to declare "no kill zones" -- call them NKZs -- in their towns, meaning no attacks by the Syrian army, sectarian shabbiha militias, the FSA, or anyone else. Public safety, including for peaceful protesters, would be paramount. I suggested the United States provide communications and intelligence to enable the town authorities and any members of any military willing to enforce the NKZ to allow them to track the movements of Syrian government troops. And I suggested that drones from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States could fire on Syrian government tanks approaching NKZs.

This proposal was widely met with derision, particularly in the security community. But three months later, the United States has announced that it is providing intelligence and communication support to the FSA and openly countenancing the provision of arms by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Near the Jordan-Syria border, the U.S. military has just finished a massive military exercise with Jordan and 18 other countries. Ambassador Susan Rice told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Wednesday night that as a last resort "we," presumably meaning the Friends of Syria, must "look at options outside the U.N." Robert Baer, who spent more than two decades as a CIA case officer in the Middle East, said on another CNN program that it would be possible to use drones to take out tanks in Syria. And the Times of London came out in support of no-kill zones on its editorial page.

What is still missing is a plan. It is time to stand neither for the Syrian opposition nor against the Syrian government but against killing by either side. To tell any Syrian local officials willing to stand against killing -- whether a Local Coordinating Committee or simply a municipal government -- that they will receive weapons and air support against tanks, support that will be withdrawn if killing begins or continues, by anyone. All citizens of such towns should be instructed to photograph violence by anyone against anyone and upload it to a central website maintained by the U.N. or by the Friends of Syria, so that they become peace monitors.

Legally, the Friends of Syria can proceed without the U.N. Security Council's approval if the Arab League is willing to declare a threat to regional peace and security resulting from the ongoing violence in Syria. Given the current refugee situation and the clear potential for destabilization of neighboring countries, the league would be amply justified in doing so. Arab states are also entitled to ask for assistance from Turkey and any other countries. NATO could make the same move at Turkey's request, but need not do so for individual NATO members to assist the Arab League. International lawyers will debate the point, but Chapter VIII of the U.N. Charter governing regional arrangements arguably allows such action as long as the Arab League informs the Security Council of the measures it is taking for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Baer, the former CIA officer, also said on CNN that it was quite possible that the international community would not intervene in Syria until the level of killing reached Rwandan proportions. That is a horrific message to send both to the Syrian people and the Syrian government, not to mention similarly brutal governments around the world. Surely mass murder in the tens of thousands is enough for action, on both moral and strategic grounds. Many if not most readers will have objections to the plan proposed here. To them, I say: Either accept the status quo and recognize how much worse it is likely to get, or propose a plan of your own.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 university professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University.

I appreciate Ms. Slaughter, and her opinion, but I feel I have to respond for some vague reason. The people of Syria, are totally in charge of their nation. The army will not support Assad, if they feel that he is isolated, and that military force will not be of use. Assad has, I assume support, and Assad cannot exist without it. The world community is telling him, he has no support. He would have given up power, if this was the case.

The goal of American foreign policy is to advance our interest. While egalitarian principles of human rights are consistently mentioned, it's all about geopolitics. The principle being to cause instability in the region so that no one country can assume power. Syria and Iran's connection is a major concern. By ending the Assad regime, Iran looses a friend in the region and Russia it's Soviet Style base in Tartus.

But ultimately, this whole situation is really delegitimizing the United Nations. Other nations condemned the U.S. incursion into Iraq for its unilateral nature, but who is running the global system? I know in an ideal world we'd leave decisions up to leaders of various countries, but let's be pragmatic. That is never what happens.

What is the role of the EU if it cannot assure people are not massacred by a despotic regime. Now I change my track, to what extent is the U.S., Turkey, and various intelligence agencies supporting the opposition and then utilizing the Western Media as a propaganda apparatus? I do not say I believe this, but the situation in Syria just continues to simmer. There appears a void of leadership, as the U.S. is seemingly playing by the "Rules" of multilateralism of this world system.

Wars tend to bring more trouble, of course, instead of peace-lasting solution, but while eyes are looking ahead to this mess getting bigger and worse, let me just give a reminder of how Bashar al-Assad has come to power in Syria

...
“This man was not elected. His father died then he became president. And people do not know that he became president with the blessing of Madeleine Albright – she came and she bought into him as president. He was never elected and he brought on this referendum and for what?” asked Akram Abdul Dayem.
...
28/02/12 01:34 CET, Opposition raids Syrian mission in Cairo
http://www.euronews.com/2012/02/28/o...sion-in-cairo/

Your angst against America is misplaced. Best you turn your pleas and protestations to the east.

Turkey says has spent 400 mln lira on Syrian refugees

ISTANBUL | Tue Oct 16, 2012 5:05am EDT
Oct 16 (Reuters) - Turkey has spent 400 million lira ($220 million) from government finances on accommodating refugees from the crisis in neighbouring Syria, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said on Tuesday.

The number of Syrian refugees housed in camps in southern Turkey has exceeded 100,000, the Turkish disaster management agency (AFAD) said on Monday, a level beyond which Ankara had previously said it would struggle to accommodate more. ($1 = 1.8115 Turkish liras) (Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Daren Butler)

$2200 per capita? That's almost as how much Germany gives to aliens to go back to their home countries to start a biz or whatever.

USA is just a part of North America, on east from Asia's point of view. Regardless of geography, however, everyone pays for own guilts. Or you believe there is some sort of holy forgiveness, out of balance and mathematics, do you

Technically, USA is West of Asia Oh and is also the South in North America

Now, why is this important? And what was your point?