Syria is disintegrating

[derspiess]

So what's the best thing for the US/West?  On a base level I'd love to get rid of Assad and end all of Syria's shenanigans with sponsoring terrorism, cozying up to Iran, etc.

But if he & his Allawite buddies fall, in immediate terms I fear for the Christian minority as well as the Kurds.  Past that, there's a good chance we'll get a Sunni regime that is no more friendly to the US & sponsors other terrorist groups.

Maybe a prolonged conflict will keep both sides distracted for a while

[Razgovory]

So what's the best thing for the US/West?  On a base level I'd love to get rid of Assad and end all of Syria's shenanigans with sponsoring terrorism, cozying up to Iran, etc.

But if he & his Allawite buddies fall, in immediate terms I fear for the Christian minority as well as the Kurds.  Past that, there's a good chance we'll get a Sunni regime that is no more friendly to the US & sponsors other terrorist groups.

Maybe a prolonged conflict will keep both sides distracted for a while

I don't think anyone knows what the best course of action is.  The whole region is full of lunatics.  Nobody know what to do with them.

[Ed Anger]

Fuck Syria. Screw 'em all.

[Razgovory]

Fuck Syria. Screw 'em all.

This is as good as any answer.  I do wonder if the Iraqi Kurds will intervene if the Syrian Kurds are being molested.

[MadImmortalMan]

Assad is my wildcard in the 2012 death pool. 

[derspiess]

The one thing that amuses me about the Syria unrest is that my second-generation Syrian immigrant uncle is pretty much indifferent to it all.  His older siblings (who were born in Syria) always tended to keep cultural traditions & whatnot, but he pretty much ignored it all.

[Admiral Yi]

Best course of action is for the Gulf States to buy a lot of weapons for the good guys.  The US continues offering kind words of support and keeps on making Russia and China look bad in the UN.

[Razgovory]

I was happy to see them burning the Russian flag.  I didn't know anyone elses flag even could burn.

[derspiess]

I was happy to see them burning the Russian flag.  I didn't know anyone elses flag even could burn.

Israeli flags apparently burn really well (particularly the crudely-made ones with oblong Stars of David).  I believe Danish flags are also flammable.

edit: Oh, and the kind of British flags you can buy these days in Argentina are apparently not flame-proof.

[FunkMonk]

I would support a French mandate of the Syrian provinces.

[Sheilbh]

I was happy to see them burning the Russian flag.  I didn't know anyone elses flag even could burn.

Israeli flags apparently burn really well (particularly the crudely-made ones with oblong Stars of David).  I believe Danish flags are also flammable.

edit: Oh, and the kind of British flags you can buy these days in Argentina are apparently not flame-proof.

The Argentines and Uruguayans were burning their flags over that bridge.  British flags get burned a lot in Iran too.  German and EU flags have been burned in Greece recently.  It's really quite common.

[Tamas]

I was happy to see them burning the Russian flag.  I didn't know anyone elses flag even could burn.

Israeli flags apparently burn really well (particularly the crudely-made ones with oblong Stars of David).  I believe Danish flags are also flammable.

edit: Oh, and the kind of British flags you can buy these days in Argentina are apparently not flame-proof.

The Argentines and Uruguayans were burning their flags over that bridge.  British flags get burned a lot in Iran too.  German and EU flags have been burned in Greece recently.  It's really quite common.

But but but but, our nazis were so proud of themselves recently, for being TEH FIRST EVAH to burn an EU flag


Is there any chance for the Mid-East to avoid becoming an extension of Africa (in terms of being a sucky place of constant tribal conflicts nobody else gives a fuck about), without ending up with the Great Powers tangling with each other, inevitable triggering an Archudke Ferdinand event?

[Sheilbh]

Is there any chance for the Mid-East to avoid becoming an extension of Africa (in terms of being a sucky place of constant tribal conflicts nobody else gives a fuck about), without ending up with the Great Powers tangling with each other, inevitable triggering an Archudke Ferdinand event?

The success of Africa in the last decade's an unreported story.  Generally the economy's been booming, there's more democracy, measures of quality of life are improving and so are governance indicators.  There's still problems and wars and, you're right, no-one cares.  But from what I've read Africa looks at its most hopeful and optimistic since decolonisation

But you're right that Syria's a real worry.  It seems most like the Balkans before WWI.  All the regional powers have a stake and it wouldn't take much to suck them all in.  As Marc Lynch said in an article I posted earlier Syria could well go the way of Lebanon.

Best course of action is for the Gulf States to buy a lot of weapons for the good guys.  The US continues offering kind words of support and keeps on making Russia and China look bad in the UN.

The good guys are the still overwhelmingly peaceful protesters, whose resilience is incredible.  Syria isn't like Libya at this point, it's not clearly split into an armed revolt and there's still large protests in cities like Damascus and Aleppo.  It's a lot messier.

I'm less clear on who the Free Syrian Army are, the fact that they're apparently receiving a lot of support from the Saudis and the Gulf is more of a worry than a positive.

Maybe a prolonged conflict will keep both sides distracted for a while

That's a very unpredictable situation though.  The best situation is that the regime collapses and the Assad's leave.  There are several million Alawites living in a mountainous region (once home of the Assassins), with Syria's only ports and that includes a Russian naval base.  I think the worst case scenario for them is becoming like the Kurds in Iraq. 

A prolonged conflict will see more Iranian involvement - as we have no - more Saudi involvement - as we have now - and I think it's probable that the Turks and Israelis would also be in touch with armed groups.  A proxy conflict involving those countries is a rather flammable and certainly shouldn't be something we hope for.

Edit:

But but but but, our nazis were so proud of themselves recently, for being TEH FIRST EVAH to burn an EU flag

Oh dear

British Tory MPs have burned EU flags back in the nineties.  It's old hat.  But then nazis aren't known for novelty.

[derspiess]

The good guys are the still overwhelmingly peaceful protesters, whose resilience is incredible.  Syria isn't like Libya at this point, it's not clearly split into an armed revolt and there's still large protests in cities like Damascus and Aleppo.  It's a lot messier.

That's your protest fetish speaking

But seriously, I'm hesitant to grant them the "good guys" label.  It's hard not to sympathize with them given the Syrian government's brutality, but I'll wait & see how they handle being in power if/when it happens.  So far I haven't been too impressed with the "good guys" in Egypt.

A prolonged conflict will see more Iranian involvement - as we have no - more Saudi involvement - as we have now - and I think it's probable that the Turks and Israelis would also be in touch with armed groups.  A proxy conflict involving those countries is a rather flammable and certainly shouldn't be something we hope for.

It would be volatile and unpredictable, for sure.  Still, I wonder if it wouldn't be nice to have a long, contained, conflict in that region between two groups that both hate us.

[KRonn]

 

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/22/military-thousands-of-troops-needed-to-secure-syrian-chemical-sites/?hpt=hp_t1

Military: Thousands of troops needed to secure Syrian chemical sites

By Barbara Starr

The U.S. military has calculated it could take more than 75,000 ground troops to secure Syria's chemical warfare facilities if they were at risk of being looted or left unguarded, CNN has learned.

The conclusion comes from a military analysis of options for Syria that the Department of Defense is preparing for president should he request it, according to a senior U.S. official.

Securing Syria's chemical sites would be "extraordinarily difficult" given the scope of the problem, a Department of Defense official told CNN.Both officials would only speak on the condition their names not be used because they were talking about military planning.

The U.S. military believes there are 50 chemical weapon and production sites spread across the country with additional storage sites and research centers as well. The cities of Hama, Homs and al Safira, and the port city of Latakia are all believed to house production facilities.

The analysis was provided by the United States' Central Command, which has been considering how the U.S. military would handle potential scenarios should U.S. troops be called in, according to a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge of the situation.

While the number is large - nearly as many as are currently serving in Afghanistan - any actual deployment should it ever come to that would undoubtedly be significantly smaller than the planning suggested. U.S. officials continue to insist the American position is to push for a diplomatic solution.

"In terms of a military action to secure a part of the country, that is not currently a policy we are pursuing," said White House spokesman Jay Carney on Wednesday.

The U.S. intelligence community currently believes Syria's weapons sites are secured by the regime, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress last week.  But the senior U.S. official who spoke to CNN said the "nightmare scenario" is what would happen if that situation changes and the regime suddenly fall apart, or the fighting gets to the point that the international community believes military intervention is necessary to secure the chemical weapons.

In that type of conflict scenario - in which American or other countries' troops would be entering a hostile environment - air power would also have to be used to destroy Syria's air defenses, which are considered to be capable, the official said. That portion of any campaign could take weeks.

A defense official told CNN's Chris Lawrence last week that while the U.S. "continues to monitor the overall situation in Syria," there are "ongoing discussions specific to the location of, and security around, the various components of their chemical weapons program."

"Syria probably has one of largest programs in the world," said Leonard Specter with the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "It has multiple types of chemical agents." Specter said the stocks include World War I-era gases like chlorine and phosgene as well as more modern nerve gases. 

The United States is paying particular attention to the possibility of the weapons falling into the hands of extremists, in the event the government loses control of certain areas or splinters among itself, the defense official said.

"There would be kind of a vacuum that would lend itself to extremists operating in Syria which is particularly troublesome in light of the large network of chemical warfare, (chemcial biological weapons), weapon-storage facilities and other related facilities that there are in Syria," Clapper said.

The senior U.S. official said American military commanders are continuing to strongly advocate for a political and diplomatic option in Syria rather than a military one. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Clapper have already voiced concerns publicly about arming opposition groups who are not well known to the United States.

But the official also notes the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad itself still has military cards to play. So far the regime has not used its chemical or biological capability or any military aviation units against protestors. If Syrian attack helicopters were called in, he said, "that would be very significant."

"They haven't demonstrated any interest or any intent to use those," Demspey said in an interview that aired this weekend on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS."