Syria Disintegrating: Part 2

[Habbaku]

So this is what the Arab Spring has come to.

[alfred russel]

So its Assad plus Kurds plus Russia plus Iran vs. ISIS and whatever else is out there?

[mongers]

So its Assad plus Kurds plus Russia plus Iran vs. ISIS and whatever else is out there?

Could be, but I think it's best to put the Kurds further away from Assad, as it's more a marriage of convienence, as before IS the Kurds (YPG) had clashed with the Syrian army and force them out of some Kurdish areas.

[DGuller]

Wouldn't it be nice if Russia and Turkey crossed paths over this?  An established fascist country against a fascismifying country.

[alfred russel]

Wouldn't it be nice if Russia and Turkey crossed paths over this?  An established fascist country against a fascismifying country.

They already have historical animosity, plus rather serious misalignment over the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

[jimmy olsen]

Wouldn't it be nice if Russia and Turkey crossed paths over this?  An established fascist country against a fascismifying country.

And a NATO ally, so I'd rather they not.

[Valmy]

That would be a step in the right direction.  I see no material gain for the US and little in the way of moral gain.  It's like Lebanon in the 1980's.  If we try to intervene we'll just get burned.  The only right move is not to play.

Yep.

[Valmy]

Wouldn't it be nice if Russia and Turkey crossed paths over this?  An established fascist country against a fascismifying country.

No that would be terrible but it would never happen. Erdogan would never fight his hero.

[Tamas]

Wouldn't it make sense for the US to now quietly and gradually pull out of the anti-ISIS bombing?

I mean Putin will bound to fight them if he wants to get Assad back. And if there is no risk of a US-Russia dogfight match or A-10s gatling gunning vacationing Russian soldiers, then it seems like a win-win situation for me: if Putin succeeds, and Assad is back in power the chaos is over, ISIS is mostly gone, and Putin can be proud about bossing over a brutal ethnic cleansing that would commence. And the western world could pose in moral superiority as much as it likes.
On the other hand, if Putin fails he will still cause losses and headache to ISIS and tie down Russian resources that could be more destructive elsewhere.

To me it seems Putin gave an awesome play to the West and it would be good to not discard it just for some short term internal PR gain.

[Admiral Yi]

That would be cutting and running on the Kurds, the only friends we have in the neighborhood.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

That would be cutting and running on the Kurds,

and not for the first time either.

The Kurds better get a real state out of all this.

[Razgovory]

That would be cutting and running on the Kurds, the only friends we have in the neighborhood.

Well except for that big NATO ally in the north, that little country full of Jews along the cost, that country with the Pyramids down south and all those gulf states we have bases in.

[DGuller]

I think the emphasis was on friends rather than allies.  We have a lot of unsavory allies in the region, but I'd say that only Kurds and Israelis would qualify as friends.  And out of those two, only Kurds would qualify as trustworthy friends.

[Eddie Teach]

"The Kurds" are a pretty broad group and I'm not sure they're necessarily our friends. For instance, the PKK were commies.

Even assuming they can be reduced to those groups that have been working with the US in Iraq, that could easily be considered a marriage of convenience.

[Razgovory]

I think there are caveats on the Kurds as there are on everyone else.  The State Department declared the PKK a terrorist group a while back.  Despite the animus towards Erdogan the US still does joint exercises with Turkey.