Russia & USA played the game of good cop / bad cop, it's naive to think they've different objective to the situation in Syria , it is a dirty job that Russia had to do it the difference if there is one ,might be in the way each wants to approach it israel security had given a priority since day one , an occupied "Golan height " is fatal for israel. and how it remains quiet for 4 decades gave Assad an edge here as a clear choice for regional security. Israeli officials made it clear from the beginning the less of two evils : a democratic or religious fanatic government in Syria that will wage a war that is inevitable , the less of the two evil is a dictator in Assad and his shiite allies ,what ever threats to Israel that may carry is going to be limited in comparison to larger Sunni demographic Iran failure to crack down on rebels forced Russia to intervene the US put pressure on its allies to not supply rebel with sophisticated weapon and controlled quantities ISIS case had been used like WMD a decade earlier , a threat used to create excuses /persuade the public and such 90% of Russian air strikes /Assad and shiite militias was aimed to target Rebels *confirmed by US officials Turkey (alone) with help of Syrian Free Army had enforced within a month a 300 miles of safe zone , they had little to none of resistance from ISIS that just proves ISIS rapid expansion did not make sense, Trump's call on this topic was correct the Patience and resistance of Syrian people complicated the situation , a few 'd thought they could stand all this time despite all the insane savage Russian military campaign: they do not control more than 35% of Syria France is a few steps ahead of everyone in the west morally and in understanding of the situation, which give a reason why they've been attacked by terrorists more than anyone else
I watched this last night. I don't envy the people who have to make decisions about what to do there. A dozen groups with a dozen different goals--it's so complicated, it looks hopeless. "The Kurds are good allies and great fighters, but Turkey won't let us use the nearest airbase because they hate them...All these groups want to kill ISIS, but they also want to kill these other groups, and we can only find 60 people who'll promise not to kill the other groups, but oops, they're all lying...Now Russia's bombing the groups we kind of like...And now our closest allies are inundated with a couple of million refugees..." Then you hear Trump say sneak attacks are the answer.
"Bomb the **** out of them" is always a solution for the simple-minded who can't be bothered to think about nuance and consequences.
Having been to Syria several times on business and having relatives that still live in the Middle East; I have to strongly disagree. Assad is Yeah.... except the vast majority of Syrians had absolutely no idea what would happen. Further, a majority of Syrians supported Assad. I don't believe that Assad is some wonderful ruler, but he is not on the scale of Saadam Hussein. Further, I know that Hussein was a secularist, many of his closest advisors were Christian... and he only turned to traditional Islam when he had to. Say what you want about Hussein, but he kept militant Islam at bay when he ran the country.
There is a choice in Syria between stabilizing a country at the cost of American soldier lives or leaving it to fall into chaos. We've made many mistakes across administrations. This stuff isn't easy and there is always hindsight. Clearly democracy isn't a cure all, and dictatorships aren't either. Radicalism is a danger to every sane global entity so that's not an option either. In the case of Syria, we should have overthrown Assad before Russia got involved, and installed a coalition gov't design that they would be forced to compromise to govern and thus preventing any radical element from ever gaining enough power to create another Iran. While some may say this is not our problem - it is our problem as the problems in the middle east whomever you want to blame does come back to haunt us.
i know a lot of syrians and even those who lives in US/Canada are afraid to say a single word against Bashar for fear of their relatives fate because he won an election with 99% of the votes! or multiple made up no. used to promote this propaganda. every ME alleged democracy end up with something close to this. Assad/Hezbollah/Iran were popular when they were campaigning against Israel, syrian families sheltered millions during battles but now it's just the opposite, they are the enemy to just about every syrians not alawwai, and israel all the sudden looks good or at last they can't be this bad in comparison most syrians whether they are pro Assad or against him agree on one thing: Assad is nothing more than a puppet , he can not do a single thing on his own. Saddam remains relatively popular to this day Saddam,Gaddafi,Assad,those in power in Yemen,Algeria,Sudan etc they've one thing in common: secular army generals who took power after military coup many of elderly jews 70+ that i know are non- or anti-religion and they've this remark when it comes to religion : where was God when 6 millions jews killed!! that been said, religious/and nonreligious Syrians have common goals ,they're no longer going to live under this regime , to emphasize on their religious affiliation is irrelevant at this point
So, minus a war, they are pretty much the same...well, except I don't recall reading about Assad conducting modern-day Salem witch trials. Is either presidential candidate planning on bombing Salafi Arabia, or is it one of the few brown countries that we cannot bomb?
Are you going to extend this attitude toward Salafi Arabia, which conducts modern-day Salem witch trials? Or are you going to allow business to trump this attempt at moral-shaming?
Have I ever come across as pro Saudi before? If the Saudi's rose up against their leaders, I'd be all for it, and it would be the fault of their leaders for not buying off the people properly.
Saudi is seen regionally by the majority of people of ME ( those who know the situation very well) as the 2nd most popular government after Erdogan in Turkey
If only Assad agreed to the Qatari pipeline, Saudi Wahabia and Qatar wouldn't have invaded Syria via ISIS.
I'm not sure why you keep changing the subject to Saudi Arabia. Syria is crap. I don't approve of Saudi Arabia either, and haven't been a fan of theirs. The two can both be bad, but only one has a humanitarian crisis on their hands right now.
I haven't been to Syria, so I don't have the benefit of that like you do. I have talked to people who have been there and have a lot of knowledge about the government in Syria, so that and the limited news coverage is all I can use to judge the situation there as well as Assad.
pipelines now ! Assad was a very close ally to Qatar before they distant them self away from him after his shitty bloodbath . everyone with normal brain cells knew this , speaking of brain damage , it may caused by this
Poor Palestinian who defends his shitty new country in Saudi Wahabia at all costs. Your life sucks in Saudi and you don't even know it. Enjoy those subsidies for as long as you can. Do us a favor and don't watch those types of videos. I know it makes it hard for you and your Wahabi friends to not strap a bomb to yourselves and blow up everything when you see things like that
What we already knew. Saudi, Qatar, US, Turkey, Israel and a host of other nations are behind what's happened and happening in Syria.
At this point Syria is a football being kicked around. Iran, Russia and most the Middle East (in addition to the countries you listed) all have an interest in Controlling Syria. They were far better off under Assad prior to the war.
Assad is allowed to have allies. We don't get to pick who Syria chooses to do business with (Russia and Iran). This was always about to the ability to deliver energy to Europe. Saudi is losing market share so they chose to go to war with Syria.
there's a number of reasons why we're involved and supporting certain groups within syria but the main reason is to hurt iran. iran and syria are very close to one another- assad is a shiite who rules over a majority sunni country. they're economic trade partner's and regional allies... mainly it's saudi's are the main force behind the overthrow of assad, israel is second in line as assad is no friend to the israeli's. the US is more or less going along with these two regional forces. the US has been hesitant it seems in getting too entrenched in this conflict and have made a proxy out of it. USSR wants to keep some cold war allied secular- assad in power who is no friend to the US. its pretty much syria, iran, USSR vs. saudi arabia, israel, the US
