Russian boots on the ground in Syria, fighting for Assad

[Valmy]

The Euros were primarily behind the move to help oust Gadhafi right? Still it was a bad idea to get involved.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well there was massive unemployment in Libya, and rampant corruption, and total dictatorship.  When demonstrators protested, Gaddafi lost it and send in troops with guns blazing and killed hundred of people.  A number of big regime players went rebel.  That situation was going to hell no matter what NATO did.  With no intervention maybe Gaddafi hangs on, but most likely in the same way that Assad has hung on.

[Norgy]

The Euros were primarily behind the move to help oust Gadhafi right? Still it was a bad idea to get involved.

Yes, yes it was on both counts.

We have collectively fucked up the cradle of humanity so much we owe them thousandfold to help the refugees.

[The Brain]

America should have tried to get rid of Gaddafi. Maybe by airstrike?

[derspiess]

Let's be honest.  Does anyone actually have a problem with this?

Hell no.

[Caliga]

America should have tried to get rid of Gaddafi. Maybe by airstrike?

[alfred russel]

Perhaps because of the broken clock thing, I think Putin may have been right on the Syria issue.

[jimmy olsen]

Russia and even Germany acts while America snoozes.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/04/the_largest_failure_of_the_obama_era_127985.html

The Largest Failure of the Obama Era

By Michael Gerson - September 4, 2015

WASHINGTON -- One little boy in a red T-shirt, lying face down, drowned, on a Turkish beach, is a tragedy. More than 200,000 dead in Syria, 4 million fleeing refugees and 7.6 million displaced from their homes are statistics. But they represent a collective failure of massive proportions.

For four years, the Obama administration has engaged in what Frederic Hof, former special adviser for transition in Syria, calls a "pantomime of outrage." Four years of strongly worded protests, and urgent meetings and calls for negotiation -- the whole drama a sickening substitute for useful action. People talking and talking to drown out the voice of their own conscience. And blaming. In 2013, President Obama lectured the United Nations Security Council for having "demonstrated no inclination to act at all." Psychological projection on a global stage.


Always there is Obama's weary realism. "It's not the job of the president of the United States to solve every problem in the Middle East." We must be "modest in our belief that we can remedy every evil."

But we are not dealing here with every problem or every evil; rather a discrete and unique set of circumstances: The largest humanitarian failure of the Obama era is also its largest strategic failure.

At some point, being "modest" becomes the same thing as being inured to atrocities. President Bashar al-Assad's helicopters continue to drop barrel bombs filled with shrapnel and chlorine. In recent attacks on Marea, Islamic State forces have used skin-blistering mustard gas and deployed, over a few days, perhaps 50 suicide bombers. We have seen starvation sieges, and kidnappings, and beheadings, and more than 10,000 dead children.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has changed her country's asylum rules to welcome every Syrian refugee that arrives. Syrians have taken to calling her "Mama Merkel, Mother of the Outcasts." I wonder what they call America's president.

At many points during the last four years, even relatively small actions might have reduced the pace of civilian casualties in Syria. How hard would it have been to destroy the helicopters dropping barrel bombs on neighborhoods? A number of options well short of major intervention might have reduced the regime's destructive power and/or strengthened the capabilities of more responsible forces. All were untaken.

This was not some humanitarian problem distant from the center of American interests. It was a crisis at the heart of the Middle East that produced a vacuum of sovereignty that has attracted and empowered some of the worst people in the world. Inaction was a conscious, determined choice on the part of the Obama White House. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus advocated arming favorable proxies. Sunni friends and allies in the region asked, then begged, for U.S. leadership. All were overruled or ignored.

In the process, Syria has become the graveyard of American credibility. The chemical weapons "red line." "The tide of war is receding." "We don't do stupid [stuff]." These are global punch lines. "The analogy we use around here sometimes," said Obama of the Islamic State, "and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant." Now the goal to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State looks unachievable with current strategy and resources. "The time has come for President Assad to step aside," said Obama in 2011. Yet Assad will likely outlast Obama in power.

What explains Obama's high tolerance for humiliation and mass atrocities in Syria? The Syrian regime is Iran's proxy, propped up by billions of dollars each year. And Obama wanted nothing to interfere with the prospects for a nuclear deal with Iran. He was, as Hof has said, "reluctant to offend the Iranians at this critical juncture." So the effective concession of Syria as an Iranian zone of influence is just one more cost of the president's legacy nuclear agreement.

Never mind that Iran will now have tens of billions of unfrozen assets to strengthen Assad's struggling military. And never mind that Assad's atrocities are one of the main recruiting tools for the Islamic State and other Sunni radicals. All of which is likely to extend a war that no one can win, which has incubated regional and global threats, and thrown a small body in a red T-shirt against a distant shore.



(c) 2015, Washington Post Writers Group

[celedhring]

Perhaps because of the broken clock thing, I think Putin may have been right on the Syria issue.

Yeah, just automatically opposing anything the West does will eventually make you right some times by default, it's not like we are always right.

[Syt]

Russia doesn't get what the fuss is about.

http://tass.ru/en/russia/818572

No secret in Russian-Syrian military technical cooperation — Russian Foreign Ministry

Cooperation with Damascus in its fight against the threat of terrorism is Russia's official position

MOSCOW, September 3. /TASS/. Media reports about Russian military planes in Syria have already been disavowed by Russia's Defense Ministry and presidential administration, Russian Foreign Ministry's official spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

"I saw reports about Russian planes on the Syrian territory. I also saw comments on this matter by Russia's Defense Ministry and presidential administration that disavowed this information. There is nothing to add here," Zakharova said.

"Sensational statements are often made about military-technical cooperation between Russia and Syria - that it grows or decreases," she said. "We see them in different parts of the world. And it is always made to sound sensational. We say that we never tried to make a secret out of this. This is our consistent position connected with assisting official Damascus in its fight against the terrorism threat," the diplomat stressed.

Zakharova also noted that Russia "regularly raises on platforms of international organizations" issues of protecting Christians in Syria. "This is one of the most important topics in the context of the Syrian settlement," she stressed.

Russia continues military-technical cooperation with Syria in the routine mode, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Thursday.

"Russia maintains [military-technical] cooperation with Syria and supports it. This is a consistent process," Peskov said answering a journalist's question on whether the format of military-technical cooperation between the two countries has changed.

On Wednesday, Peskov refuted media reports about possible participation of Russian Armed Forces in airstrikes against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization. "You should not believe these media reports," Peskov told journalists.

Several foreign media outlets reported earlier that Russian aviation may take part in carrying out airstrikes against IS positions in Syria. Reports said equipment has already been transferred to carry out the operation.

[Martinus]

Let's be honest.  Does anyone actually have a problem with this?

This.

[Valmy]

The Largest Failure of the Obama Era

LOL. Yes history clearly shows we should have intervened massively in Syria. What a great idea that would have been. Then instead of one dead kid on a beach we would be personally responsible for thousands we blew up ourselves...and the situation would be no better.

[Berkut]

The Largest Failure of the Obama Era

LOL. Yes history clearly shows we should have intervened massively in Syria. What a great idea that would have been. Then instead of one dead kid on a beach we would be personally responsible for thousands we blew up ourselves...and the situation would be no better.

I don't really agree with the article per se, but your response is silly.

The argument being made is not that there should be/have been a "massive intervention". The argument being made is that Obama should have done...something.

[Valmy]

The argument being made is that Obama should have done...something.

We did do some things and they were all disastrous failures. Doing more things seems like a poor recommendation.

[DGuller]

Obama's greatest mistake was bluffing when it came to chemical weapons and Assad.  Obama's greatest correct decision was saying "oops, you got me, I've got nothing" when Assad called.