Official Syrian Conflict Thread

[thatrapsfan]

You admit that there is nothing the west can do to solve the conflict and bring stability back but at the same time chastize those who don't want the US specifically to get further involved. This seems contradictory. Given the dismal state and almost hopeless realities right now, then to me it sounds like the best solution is to stay out and at least not spend millions of dollars and possibly kill more people on using American military to bomb the place.

Also admit that at this point Assad government is the only thing resembling stability in the near future and admit defeat on this front. As I think you and others have stated, the time of regime overthrowing with minimal issues has passed. The game is lost. No reason to sink anymore cost and help prolongue the situation further. This isn't being supportive of Assad and you can at the same time thing if he got a bullet in the head , it wouldn't be too bad. But maybe once the country stablizes somewhat that can be a less destructive option .

Second paragraph you quoted, says no action may be in American interest. But few opponents of military action against the regime frame it this way. Its often posited as a way to look out for Syrian civilians and end the war, and I think thats a fantasy.

I am not "chastising" anyone either. I think I am engaging directly with the facts of the conflict, even if unfavourable, while most opponents of any action are arguing on invented ground. Whether it is through claiming that chemical attacks were staged, that the only hurdle towards the end of the conflict is the U.S. role, or by acting as if regime and its foreign backers play defenisve roles, I think its clear many opponents of military action make up facts to bolster their position.


I dont think its debatable that there are few good, clear-cut options. But I do not think a scorched earth Assad campaign, with zero political concessions, will ever lead to stability. As it stands the Syria controlled by Assad is a rump state, propped up by a dizzying amount of local and foreign militias, and foreign armies. It will likely also get worse, not better as his campaign moves along. What do you think he will do to the hundreds of thousands he's sent on population transfers to Idlib? The inevitable Idlib campaign, which will be framed as part of the War on Terror, will probably be the most gruesome yet.

As I said an attack that degrades his air force, and some of his command and control capability would possibly open the door to his backers forcing him into political concessions. That's not a fool proof strategy, sure, but the current status quo will ensure more refugee exoduses and huge death tolls are ahead.

 

[Birnin Zana]

What does the West have to do with whether the war continues or not? What actions can the US make tomorrow that will wind down the conflict? I don’t see any. Opponents of any military action want to have their cake and eat it too. The determining factor on whether the status quo will change, is whether Assad remains in power or not. You can not wish into existence a peaceful, stable Syria as long as the regime and its backers are fully committed to zero political concessions.

If anything yesterday’s strike emphasizes that the main aims of the American presence continue to be focused on the anti ISIS mission. The attacks were extremely contained, by design, to avoid much direct impact on the regime outside of its chemical weapons ability. The US even sent a message to rebels in Southern Syria, warning them that the action should not be interpreted as direct action against the regime.


Opponents of military action against the regime seem to be arguing with strawmen sometimes and they never revisit their arguments after action actually takes place Last night was no different. We heard constant refrains that any strike would be catastrophic. It took place, nothing apolcalyptic happened, and they don’t revisit this claim. If you want to have a direct influence on the political situation, then IMO attacks on the regimes Air Force and command and control at least open the door to changing their political calculus. But make no mistake, that while advocating zero action may be in American interest, it does little to end the war.

The bold is my issue though: Assad is still in power and there’s little evidence that he’ll be losing power anytime soon, so long as Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah back him up. He continues to gain ground. This was the situation yesterday, and this remains the situation now.

Assad’s fate is the crux of this whole situation, even from a geopolitical standpoint. Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah benefit if Assad stays in power, one way or the other. Israel and Saudi Arabia benefit by having Assad out. The US initially tried training some of the rebel forces during the Obama years, so they aren’t bystanders in this either. Then they funded the Kurds via the SDF, which yielded a lot of results against ISIS, but further complicated the conflict altogether by drawing Turkey’s involvement. The fact that this new round of attacks were this contained shows how complicated this war has become, and how useless this overall endeavor is becoming.

Unless the West can find away to get Assad out without destabilizing the country and/or ending up in an open conflict with Russia, Iran, etc, then they are wasting their time. Their focus should be to find a way (preferably political) to help end the war or just move on.

The fight against ISIS is finally winding down. What happens when ISIS is taken care of? The US stays indefinitely like Tillerson said not long ago? Or the US decides to focus on Assad, further complicating an already complicated situation?

For the record, I’m not an Assad apologist or an Assad supporter. He is a brutal dictator who comitted war crimes many times. That is a fact. I just want the war to end. The war ending is far better than this deadly, complicated, never-ending shyt show we’ve witnessed for seven years. It’s gone for far too long.

 

[Hood Critic]

US was officially in Syria long before Russia, over a year before. Remember, Congress refused to authorize intervention in 2013 but Special Forces went in anyways. Russia intervened officially in September 2015. There are a ton of covert ops happening in Syria from all sides. It's really a dirty war.

The CIA was in Syria prior to 2013 to influence a coup against Assad. Russia intervened militarily in the civil war in 2015 but had been backing Assad's regime for years prior.

This BBC article from 2012 about the Port of Tartus significance and the Russian response to downplay its utility sheds light on the geo-political game that's being played.

How vital is Syria's Tartus port to Russia?

 

[ShenJingPoQi]

It's patently untrue, however. A rag-tag poorly trained group of Syrian army corpsman who probably barely even know how the missile defense platforms work shot down over 70% of the missiles the most militarily advanced nation in human history threw at them?

It's propaganda. The number is probably around the 13-18 that a lot of sources have reported on which is well within a reasonable margin for error.

The US would run through Iran's army like a knife through butter.

More outlandish things have occurred. Serbia shooting downing F-117A, Iran bringing down RQ-170 drone and North Korean Missile locking on and firing at SR-71 Blackbird.

Iranians must be loving the electronic side of this war. They now have to ability secretly to test their radar against Israeli, American, Russia, and Europeans stealth warplanes. They most likely testing the radar capability of Bavar 373 and other air defense systems. Iran, Russia, China, North Korea are huge winners of this war. F22 are in the skies of Syria, they couldn't ask for a better testing ground, it's like candy to the major world players.

 

[Hood Critic]

 

[Colilluminati]

All that was left was pretty much Raqqa...

They had lost roughly all their territory in Iraq and the Mosul offensive was three months from completion before Cheeto was sworn in...

He literally did nothing but let Obamas planning and tactics play out there course...

We going to give him credit for what Obama did?

Yes, they've lost almost all their key holdings, Mosul fell, they've been almost 100% ousted from Iraq other than the occasional feint or skirmish, they have lost over 2/3rds of their oil revenue and are left with the barren wastes of Syria and Al Raqqa and pieces of Idlib and Deir El Ezzor as their last strongholds, with most of Idlib and El Ezzor lost to the Russians and Syrian regime.

ISIS is a shell shambling to it's inevitable death, there's nothing left of the fore it was, it possesses no ability to project and it's leadership is all but gone.

You guys are just rambling a bunch of nothing Obama defeated Isis? Don’t you mean Obama funded and supplied Isis as long as he could ? How does Obama fight Isis and the actually military of Syria? He didn’t do a fukking thing but constantly build Isis up . He only bombed Isis when he had to protect ANOTHER terrorist organization he was funding/protecting .


Let’s get serious .Russia who went into Syria and made Isis fall back . I know it’s hard tO believe because MSNBC told y’all different , but we gotta stick with the facts .

Russia beat the brakes off Isis and then Trump took away the money from “rebels”

There were no more “accidental” air drops of money,food,weapons and everything else the military kept dropping by “accident” under Obama



Now this homo Trump is ready to play the same game . He’s gonna fight off Isis and the Syrian military


Both of them nikkas fukking idiots . Obama and Trump . Just get the fukk out the country already.

All these people MURDERED because AMERIKKKA won’t go away . NOT because ISIS or the Syria military .

 

[Foxmulder]

Trumps plan is working, even this thread is distracted from collusion

Never fails. Drop a couple bombs everything else is forgotten. Isn’t there a fukking Syria thread at the top of the page. Get this shyt the fukk outta here.

 

[Orbital-Fetus]

Isn’t there a fukking Syria thread at the top of the page. Get this shyt the fukk outta here.

i'll see what i can do.

 

[BoBurnz]

You guys are just rambling a bunch of nothing Obama defeated Isis? Don’t you mean Obama funded and supplied Isis as long as he could ? How does Obama fight Isis and the actually military of Syria? He didn’t do a fukking thing but constantly build Isis up . He only bombed Isis when he had to protect ANOTHER terrorist organization he was funding/protecting .


Let’s get serious .Russia who went into Syria and made Isis fall back . I know it’s hard tO believe because MSNBC told y’all different , but we gotta stick with the facts .

Russia beat the brakes off Isis and then Trump took away the money from “rebels”

There were no more “accidental” air drops of money,food,weapons and everything else the military kept dropping by “accident” under Obama



Now this homo Trump is ready to play the same game . He’s gonna fight off Isis and the Syrian military


Both of them nikkas fukking idiots . Obama and Trump . Just get the fukk out the country already.

All these people MURDERED because AMERIKKKA won’t go away . NOT because ISIS or the Syria military .

Spouting a bunch of random conspiracy idiocy doesn't dismiss from the reality of what happend in Syria. I've been paying intimate attention to this conflict since it began in early 2012 when the first generals began to defect and began the Homs offensive. You have literally no idea what you are talking about, you have no idea what the situation there is, how it developed, why it developed the way it did and how things have happened since.

Yes, ISIS was brought down in large part due to the Obama administration, in conjunction with the Iraqi government which the Obama administration propped up and kept the Iraqi army afloat to recoup and re-train in order to take back the country. Which they did despite over 2/3rds of the army deserting when ISIS began it's first offensive into the country. I personally consider the US keeping Iraq above water and the army together during that period to be one of Obama's few, but shining, foreign achievements that should be lauded.

Russian intervention has had a base minimal impact against ISIS until last year, they have predominantly focused on fighting in Damascus, Homs, Hama, Aleppo and destroyed most of the remaining radicalized factions of the in-name only FSA which had been entirely co-opted by hardline islamists. The Russian's had zero impact in driving ISIS from Iraq and the US has made literally thousands of strikes on key ISIS positions in the Lev and has absolutely slaughtered their leadership.

The US funded the few remaining cells within the FSA and elsewhere that were controllable elements, more often than not, Jabat Al-Nusra would come in and kill off an FSA batallion and simply steal their equipment, that's how they became so well armed and organized so quickly. Jabat Al-Nusra and ISIS are not and were never allies, and ISIS grew because many FSA battalions and regiments defected when they realized the war was unwinnable or that throwing their lot in with the caliphate was better than death.

ISIS is an Iraqi based organization, fam.

 

[BoBurnz]

And moreover, you think Russia and Turkey and the Saud weren't the primary arms dealers here?

The house of Saud has the blood of these people on their hands, Iran has the blood of Damascus on its hands. The US funded some bad people who did some heinous things and they should be called to task for it, but don't sit there and peddle this bullshyt propaganda like everybody else in the world isn't just as dirty and just as complicit in Syria burning to the ground.

Every regional power threw far more guns, manpower and supplies than the US could ever hope to throw into the situation. Welcome to the harsh, unforgiving realities of geopolitical power projection and wars by proxy.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Reading the TLR thread on this makes me happy none of them nikkas are in government. Crazy asses.

Loath as I am to admit this, the Baathists have won this war, the rest is simply but attrition and more needless deaths and, maybe, hopefully, the advent of Kurdistan which would sooth a lot of issues (other than Turkey but fukk them) and help ease the region into some form of basic stability.

Though Bashar Al-Assad is still a monster for gassing his own people repeatedly and I hope before this ends that he gets a bullet to the temple. Don't believe the Russian party line, this was all a song and dance by Russia through the Syrian regime and re-enforced by US and NATO hard power projection. Putin was always going to back down, this was always going to be a show of force to embarrass one side or the other, and next year if the war is still ongoing we will do it all again like we have for the last 4-5 years since this war turned into an Islamist insurgency and the last vestiges of the FSA were overrun by Jihadists and Wahabbists because NATO abandoned them in 2013.

Those negros would have everyobne on this planet losing sleep.

 

[ZoeGod]

The problem is that Al Assad doesn't want stability. He wants this insurgency to continue in perpetuity as it gives him reasonable justification to wield absolute power and continue his campaigns of detainment and mass execution of dissenters that present not a military, but political and social threat to his continued exploitation of the Shi'a, Sunni, and Christian people of Syria, while Latakia remains nearly untouched by the war and the Alawite minority get fat and full off the corpse of the country.

This is exactly what he wants, we can lament the fact and acknowledge that it's wrong while also understanding there are no options other than the current situation to diffuse it.

From everything the regime has been doing it seems to be is use population transfer to crush the rebellion. Basically those oppose the regime are departed to Idlib. Its does a few things. One is it basically turns a national armed insurrection into a Islamist insurgency in one province. Two it prevenst future insurrections. Basically you depart the people who oppose you elsewhere and fill those ares with regime loyalist and foreign fighters along with their families. And another is you send battle harded rebels all in one place where they will liekly be more bitter and radicalized. Idlib has become the Kandahar of Syria. It will will become a jihadist/islamist playground that even those who support the rebels will be uncomfortable to support. The West will simply ignore Syria as they will see the war has morphed into a jihadist insurgency. In the long run Turkey will eventually take Northern Syria from the Kurds. And they will dump all their Syrian refugees into Northern Syria. The rebels will join the TFSA. And the TFSA will fight against the Al Nusra's and TIP in Idlib. Northern Syria will become a Turkish FSA micro state. And a cold peace will be agreed. basically you will have two Syrias. One where the regime control and the other where the entire oppostion will be departed to and be recruited to be Turkish proxies against Kurdish separatist.

 

[Wargames]

 

[Dr. Acula]

You guys are just rambling a bunch of nothing Obama defeated Isis? Don’t you mean Obama funded and supplied Isis as long as he could ? How does Obama fight Isis and the actually military of Syria? He didn’t do a fukking thing but constantly build Isis up . He only bombed Isis when he had to protect ANOTHER terrorist organization he was funding/protecting .


Let’s get serious .Russia who went into Syria and made Isis fall back . I know it’s hard tO believe because MSNBC told y’all different , but we gotta stick with the facts .

Russia beat the brakes off Isis and then Trump took away the money from “rebels”

There were no more “accidental” air drops of money,food,weapons and everything else the military kept dropping by “accident” under Obama



Now this homo Trump is ready to play the same game . He’s gonna fight off Isis and the Syrian military


Both of them nikkas fukking idiots . Obama and Trump . Just get the fukk out the country already.

All these people MURDERED because AMERIKKKA won’t go away . NOT because ISIS or the Syria military .

Man almost every line of this post is wrong.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Some of us are actually in the military and or spouses are in the military so maybe this is just message board fodder for you. shyt like this has real life implications for nikkas like me

saying a lot while saying nothing.

Thats nice though. I appreciate your service.