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Paul Merrell

Syria may turn out to be Obama's defining legacy | Asia Times - 0 views

www.atimes.com/ay-turn-obamas-defining-legacy

Auction 2016 war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Russia Aleppo

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • By M.K. Bhadrakumar October 5, 2016 9:54 AM (UTC+8) Share 0 Tweet Print Email Comment 0 Asia Times is not responsible for the opinions, facts or any media content presented by contributors. In case of abuse, click here to report. On Monday, the Barack Obama administration fulfilled its week-old threat to suspend bilateral talks with Russia over the Syrian crisis. Does this signal that the dogs of war are about to be unleashed? The thought may seem preposterous but tensions are palpable. US spy planes are spotted ever more frequently in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea over Russian bases, especially Tartus and Hmeimim in Syria.
  • Russia has deployed SA-23 Gladiator anti-missile and anti-aircraft systems in Syria, the first-ever such deployments outside Russia. Western analysts see it as a pre-emptive step to counter any American cruise missile attack. Russia is not taking any chances.
  • Moscow factors in that the US may use some rebel groups to ensure that Russian “body bags” are sent to Moscow, as threatened explicitly by US state department spokesman John Kirby last week. Moscow suspects American involvement in the missile attack on the Russian embassy in Damascus — “Brits and Ukrainians clumsily helped the Americans”, a Russian statement in New York said on Tuesday. Indeed, passions are running high. There could be several dozen western intelligence operatives trapped with the rebel groups in east Aleppo. Clearly, the turning point was reached when the US and western allies undertook a fierce air attack on the Syrian army base at Deir Ezzor lasting an hour and killing 62 government troops. The US explanation of that being an accident lost credibility, since within an hour of the airstrike, extremist groups of al-Qaida followed up with ground attack as if acting in tandem.
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  • Trust has consequently broken down. The Russians are convinced that the US was never really interested in separating the moderate groups from extremists despite repeated promises, because Washington sees a use for al-Qaida affiliates, which happen to be the only capable fighting force to push the ‘regime change agenda in Syria. Put differently, Russians are inclined to agree with what Tehran has been saying all along. Moscow, therefore, switched tack and put its resources behind the Syrian operations to capture the strategic city of Aleppo and the military campaign is within sight of victory.
  • That is, unless there is US intervention in the coming days to tilt the military balance in favor of extremist groups trapped in the eastern districts of Aleppo with supply lines for reinforcements cut.
  • With no prospect of getting reinforcements, facing relentless air and ground attacks from the north and south, the rebels are staring at a hopeless battle of attrition. The point is, with the fall of Aleppo, the Syrian war becomes a residual military operation to purge the al-Qaida affiliate Jubhat al-Nusra from Idlib province as well, which means regime forces would secure control over the entire populous regions of Syria, all main cities and the entire Mediterranean coast. In a nutshell, the Syrian war ends with President Bashar al-Assad ensconced in power. The specter of “total victory” for Assad haunts Washington. It explains the string of vituperative statements against Moscow, betraying a high level of frustration. Theoretically, Obama can order missile attacks on the victorious Syrian government forces, but that will be like pouring oil on fire. On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry warned the Pentagon that any US military intervention to remove Assad would result in “terrible tectonic shifts” across the region.
  • In considering the war option, Obama has three things to take into account. First, Washington’s equations with Ankara and Riyadh are hugely uncertain at the moment and both regional allies are key partners in Syria.
  • Second, Turkish President Recep Erdogan is unlikely to gamble on another confrontation with Russia when his country’s legitimate interests in Syria can be secured by working in tandem with President Vladimir Putin at the negotiating table.
  • Third, and most important, Obama is unlikely to lead his country into a war without any clear-cut objective to realize when the curtain is coming down on his presidency. In this current state of play, Assad stands between the West and the deluge.
  • But what rankles is that Russian victory in Syria would mark the end of western hegemony over the Middle East, and historians are bound to single it out as the defining foreign-policy legacy of Obama’s presidency. Certainly, Moscow cannot but be sensing this. Russia may offer at some point a face-saving exit strategy — but only after the capture of Aleppo. After all, there is really no hurry between now and January to salvage Russia-US ties.
  • The debris of Russia’s ties with the US lies all around and no one knows where to begin a clean-up. Relations got worse when Obama called the Kremlin leadership “barbarous” in regard to Aleppo. Then, on Monday, Moscow explained its decision to suspend cooperation in getting rid of excess plutonium (that could be used to make nuclear weapons) as being due to “the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions” by the US. This was a decision that Moscow could have deferred until Obama left office. After all, it meant suspending the sole Russian-American nuclear security initiative carrying Obama’s imprimatur. However, Moscow couldn’t resist depicting a Nobel Prize winner who promised to ensure “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” as someone who actually enhanced the role of nuclear weapons in the security strategy of the US.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16
     
    If you haven't been following the Syrian War in the last couple of weeks, you'd have missed that the U.S. government has gone bats**t crazy lately, since the ceasefire agreement Kerry negotiated with Lavrov fell apart because the U.S. couldn't deliver its fundamental promise to separate the "moderate" Syrian opposition from Al-Nusrah and ISIL The U.S. problem was two-fold: [i] the Pentagon mutinied and ended all talk of intelligence sharing with Russia by bombing a Syrian Army unit, killing over 60 and wounding over 100, followed within minutes by a coordinated Al-Nusra ground attack; and [ii] all the "moderate Syrian opposition groups refused the U.S. instruction to separate from the head-choppers, saying that ISIL and Al-Nusrah were their brothers-in-arms. (In fact, there are no "moderate" Syrian rebels; just agents of ISIL and Al-Nusrah who fly a different flag when it's time to pick up their supplies and ammunition from the U.S.) What's the Empire of Chaos to do when the mercenaries refuse to obey orders? So with all major elements of al-Nurah surrounded in an East Aleppo noose with the knot rapidly tightening (Aleppo will be taken before Hillary takes her throne), it's up to Obama to decide whether to unleash the Pentagon to save the CIA's al-Nusrah from destruction. He can't kick that can down the road to Hillary (or Donald). MSM is flooding its viewership with anti-Putin propaganda of the most vituperative kind as well as horror stories about all those poor freedom fighters and their kids being ruthlessly killed by Russia in East Aleppo. James Clapper dutifully trotted out an announcement of sorts blaming the Russian government for attempting to hack the U.S. election process, so Hillary could red-bait Donald's "I'd get along with Putin" position in the last debate. The choice must be painful for Obama. Does he want his legacy to be the President who lost the Middle East or the President who waged a war of aggression to protect al-Qaeda from destructio
Paul Merrell

Russia Confirms Anti-Aircraft Systems Aren't Part of Syria Withdrawal - 0 views

russia-insider.com/...ri21961

war & peace Russia Syria russian-drawdown S-400 Pantsir-S

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Dec 17 - No Cached
  • S-400 and Pantsir-S anti-aircraft weapon systems will remain in Syria despite the recently announced withdarawal of Russian forces, Viktor Bondarev, former Commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces and Chairman of the Defense, and Security Committee of Russia’s Federation Council revealed on December 13. According to the Russian state-run news agency TASS, Russia is not going to reduce its anti-aircraft capabilities in the country. Some number of helicopters, warplanes and military personnel still involved in the ongoing anti-terrorist efforts will also remain.
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Dec 17
     
    Russia will keep in Syria its abilities to knock down U.S. and Israeli warplanes.
Paul Merrell

Chinese Troops Arrive in Syria to Fight Uyghur Rebels - 0 views

jcpa.org/rive-syria-fight-uyghur-rebels

war & peace Syria China Uyghurs

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Dec 17 - No Cached
  • The Syrian conflict has an endless capability to surprise analysts as seemingly every other day a new element, unprecedented in the Syrian civil war, comes to the surface. Such is the case with the arrival of the first Chinese Army special forces unit, “the Night Tigers,” to Syria’s Tartous port on the Mediterranean, according to reports in Arab media close to the Assad and Tehran regimes (the Al-Mayadeen TV channel).2 The Night Tigers were dispatched by Beijing to fight the Uyghurs, the Muslim Chinese ethnic group fighting with the rebel forces against the Assad regime. According to these press reports, Beijing planned to send two units from the Special Operations Forces – the “Tigers of Siberia” and the “Night Tigers” – to assist Assad’s regime against Chinese Uyghurs fighting with radical Muslim organizations in Syria. However, unlike the news reporting about the arrival of the “Night Tigers,” no confirmation has been received yet on the second unit. According to the Syrian ambassador to China, some 5,000 ethnic Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang province are presently in Syria. President Assad stressed the “crucial cooperation” between Syria and Chinese intelligence against Uyghur militants last year. Following the visit of Chinese Admiral Guan Yufi mid-2016 to Syria, the Chinese military has been present in Syria to train Syrian forces on Chinese-made weapons, intelligence gathering, logistics, and field medicine.3
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