Obama’s Endless War

Question: Should we consider an "endless war" as a good thing; this, rather than as a bad thing?

Rationale: If a great nation is involved in an "endless war" against much weaker opponents, this would seem to indicate:

a. That the great nation has not made such a grave, politically-unsustainable error (think increase its forces on the ground) as would cause it (the great nation) to (a) lose political support at home and abroad, (b) provide fodder for the recruitment of many more enemy fighters and, ultimately, (c) force the great nation to lose/abandon the war and, indeed, the region/the theater. (As was the case with Vietnam and French Indochina?) And

b. That the great nation -- via ways and means other than increasing its forces on the ground (a move which plays directly into the hands of one's much weaker opponents' "political attrition" strategy) -- had (a) retained political support at home and abroad, (b) prevented the recruitment of huge new numbers of enemy fighters and, thus, had (c) achieved the ability to stay on and fight on in the region indefinitely.

(This, providing that the great nation -- via these much more intelligent and politically-sustainable means/measures [ex: the use primarily of air and special forces?] -- might, over time, attrite both its much weaker opponents' willingness, and indeed its much weaker opponents' ability, to stay in the fight.)

Conclusion: In the light offered above, an "endless" (i.e., a long but politically-sustainable) war must be seen more in terms of this being a good thing, not a bad thing. Yes?

This confrims that in fact the USAF coalition has in fact stopped flying CAS missions against IS for the FSA...WHY is that?????

BUT WAIT I thought Obama was in a massive fight against IS?????

Sharp reduction of Intl Coalition support for Rebels vs #ISIS in N. #Aleppo last week: 21 ISIS targets destroyed, -60% from 2 weeks ago (52)

Does he not want success in fighting IS??.....BUT WAIT not from local Syrians...BUT from Kurds where the USAF is constantly flying CAS for them....

There have been some who have proposed something similar to a Syrian and IS strategy largely ignored by the Obama WH........

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ex....epWSSToX.dpuf

EXCLUSIVE: US drone strike in Syria killed mediator trying to rein in al-Qaeda -

TWO key portions of a long article well worth reading and asking why did this not come from the NSC and or WH......

Empowering hardliners

Similar efforts to rein in al-Qaeda’s Syria branch through co-opting "moderate" members was suggested last year by retired US Army general and former CIA director David Petraeus.

In 2006, Petraeus was in charge of US military operations in Iraq when Americans started paying Sunni groups, some of whom had previously fought the US, to cut ties with and fight al-Qaeda in Iraq as part of the "Anbar awakening".

Two years later, Petraeus told politicians in Washington that the strategy had reduced US casualties, increased security and saved money.

The question in Syria, he told CNN in September, was “whether it might be possible at some point to peel off so-called 'reconcilables' who would be willing to renounce Nusra and align with the moderate opposition (supported by the US and the coalition) to fight against Nusra, ISIL, and Assad”.

Both Nusra and Gamaa al-Islamiyya's designations by the US as terrorist groups would make it difficult – if not impossible - for the US to engage or use someone like Taha directly as a go-between.

But Robert Ford, the former US ambassador to Syria and a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute in Washington, says the US should be talking with Islamist groups who are not on the list, including Ahrar, which advocate that Syrians should decide how their country is ruled in the future.

Ford, who wrote about this strategy last year, said he had given this advice to high-level policy makers, including US President Barack Obama, repeatedly.

“The smart American policy is to engage with groups like Ahrar and Jaish al-Islam that, in turn, are able to peel people away from Nusra and bring them into groups that accept that there must ultimately a political process to decide the future of Syria’s political governance,” Ford told MEE.

MEE contacted the US State Department, Department of Defence and the Centcom military command to comment on Taha’s death and ask whether the US should be considering a strategy similar to that advocated by Petraeus and Ford.

The State Department referred questions to the Department of Defence which did not respond, nor did Centcom.

Quote:
Distrust of Islamists

Ford said he believes the Obama administration, including policy makers and some analysts advising them, has not attempted this approach because it has “an instinctual distrust of Islamists".

“They have an inability to understand what is a jihadi versus what is a Salafi versus what is a Muslim brother,” he said.

“They don’t see any way for Assad to be removed and so their inclination - if forced to choose between Assad and Islamists – they’ll just go with something secular like Assad, mainly out of instinct.”

And while the US may have listed Nusra and Gamaa al-Islamiyya as terrorist organisations, Hassan, the Chatham House fellow, said regional backers of the groups are interested in supporting the kind of work Taha attempted to accomplish.

“The Americans are not on the same page,” he said.

“[The US military] doesn’t think about what Petraeus thinks. That’s not their strategy. Their strategy is to kill as many of these people as possible, disrupt the leadership, and prevent any sort of coalitions.

"They want to just basically disperse jihadists whenever and wherever they find them.”

Meanwhile, the lack of nuanced understanding, at least publicly, of the differences between Islamists in Syria drives militants to further extremes, said the sources familiar with Taha’s trip. His killing, they said, is an example of the exact ramifications of this broadbrush policy.

"Now after this air strike," said one of the sources, "basically we empowered the hardliners. I am not even sure the US knew who exactly was in the car."

"I’m sure [Taha] was not a friend of the US and the US was not a friend of him,” said the fighter. But with Taha’s mission in Syria "there were common interests".

“What would you like to face – an Islamist group that believes in a national project and a Syria after the war, or do you want to face a group with a global ideology?”

For those SWJ readers/commenters who still fully believe we are "winning against IS" using the current Obama WH Syrian/IS strategy or maybe no strategy...need to pay attention to this from yesterday's Syrian 2016 thread comment. I had linked to an article written in Turkey that alludes to the fact that all Obama actions are in fact driving the Syrian moderates and they are moderates in Syrian into the arms of JaN (AQ)and that Obama is totally failing in his "war on IS"....OR that maybe he wants them in the arms of JaN (AQ)?????

You will notice in the Syrian 2016 thread from yesterday I posted a number of comments concerning the fact that the USAF coalition seems to be flying somewhere else in the ME but it is not attacking literally hundreds of IS targets inside Syria in support of the moderate FSA who has been constantly attacking IS while the US Kurdish proxy YPG/SDF has parked itself in a quiet corner and is attacking FSA...NOT IS....with US/Russian CAS support when they need it.

QUOTE:
CrowBat...confirms your thoughts on Obama driving the FSA into JaN.......

QUOTE:
You know, eventually, I don't even care if I'm right or wrong: I'm simply collecting data. Result of studying data is statistics, and statistics is speaking clear language.

Look: roughly 500 Saudis and about 300 Bosnians, Macedonians, Kosovars, perhaps even few Moslem Serbs (from Sandzak, southern Serbia) were routed into Syria to join the JAN the last few weeks.

I have no clue how they eventually reached their destination - nor time to try finding out. But they all turned up in Idlib and were trained there too. That's 800 people. It doesn't matter whether it's actually 500 or 1000, or really 800. What matters is that somebody issued a call for them to come, and nothing was undertaken against that person. Somebody then transported, fed, and trained them too. And nobody stopped them underway, nobody attacked their training camp, nobody interrupted the supply chain keeping them fed, and dressed, and getting potable water. Nobody at least attempted to hit their HQ.

Instead, Russians are bombing hospitals; Assadists are bombing IDP camps or IRGC troops (the latter by mistake), only to get visited by various parliamentaries from the EU and congratulated for 'fighting Daesh'; Americans are either flying their UAVs in circles over Incirlik, or playing 'we can't find Daesh' in northern Syria, or explaining everybody that it's more important to respect Iranian and Kurdish interests in Syria than help Turks avert Daesh killing 30+ of their citizens (in Kilis and in the last week alone); French are massacring entire families in Abu Kamal (but who cares: that's Daesh-held territory, 'nothing is confirmed', besides, Russians did the same even more often)... and, what a surprise then, anybody else trying to mix there is just finding him/her-self neck-deep in BS...

...and nobody of all of them actually gives a damn about the very people this all is about: Syrians.

Think about all of this and draw your own conclusions, everybody.

My conclusion happens to be that that somebody there was so endlessly dumb, so idiotically stupid as to think about himself as some kind of giant statesman that's in a position to sell Syria and its population of 24+ million to a combination of a high-class thief and his hodgepodge of genocidal sectarian murderers, a gang of quasi-religious-fanatics declaring themselves representatives of God on Earth, and a megalomaniac that's trying to heal his inferiority complex by ruining whatever was left of his own country and half the Europe.

And when that didn't quite work... oh hell: then force them (Syrians) into making their choice - a choice fitting solely the Western primitive prejudice: either Assad or extremists. After all, 'they do not understand any other language but that of violence'... isn't that what we've all been taught about Syria and Syrians for the last 70+ years...?

Well... Oblabla can be sure about one thing: he's going to be remembered for a very, very, very long time. That's guaranteed. At least a century is going to pass before the mess he - partially - left to happen and - partially - created intentionally, is going to be sorted out again.

CrowBat is offline

Think about it.....have we all be basically spun over Syria, IS and yes spun even about AQ?? Yes we have by a 38 year old foreign policy guru "novelist".

BTW some ME specialists with a long history of the ME would in fact say to the face of this Obama WH you are lying about IS and AQ and especially what is ongoing in Syria....BUT their voices are not being heard.... only that of Rhode's spin and that is dangerous for a democracy.

RC...you keep mentioning Germany and I mentioned they are far more concerned about Russia as that is an existential threat to them and the closet direct military threat to them.....IS is not....nor will ever be even with off and on terror attacks.....the same goes for the entire EU.

That awkward moment when #Russian TV films German "nationalists", waving #Russian flags.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeYrTvldhzg …

More #Russian media awkwardness
German right-wing extremists are indeed (also) pro-#Russian

Berlin yesterday
Pro-Russian/anti-German propaganda is beginning to bear fruit.
Neo-Nazis march with Putin's tricolour.

The Russian propaganda machine Sputnik International stated there were 5,000 anti Merkel demonstrators....actually they never broke more than 2,000 and there was a counter demo of over 5,000 and 3,000 police involved to keep the two groups apart.

What RT wants to portrait is that Germany sinks in nationalist, far right violence.
What they actually show as that this scum is pro-#Putin.

Russia fully understands that it is Merkel who is keeping the Russian EU sanctions in place...replace her and the sanctions come down..thus the Russian propaganda campaign against her and Germany right now.

In the last polling Germans are now finally far more aware of the Russian threat to them...56% than say one year ago at 24%.......

We have got to get the argument back to "who" is more of an overall long term "existential threat" Russia or IS?....I have always since Crimea stated...Russia....

RC....this confirms what I have been saying...WHILE FSA is attacking IS..you will notice the Obama/CIA/CENTCOM proxy YPG/SDF is sitting quietly and not attacking IS......BUT WAIT they are suppose to be attacking that is why Obama is supporting them.........or claims that is the reason.

AND the USAF is nowhere to be seen and I thought they were in the IS fight..BUT the Assad AF is attacking FSA NOT IS just as the RuAF was attacking 97% of the time FSA NOT IS??

Daraa:
Rebels launched a new offensive vs. ISIS...so Assad resumed air strikes on rebels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQPAdRLY1WQ …

RC...BTW you do not hear much in the US MSM about these Saudi events...

Saudi soldier killed in gunbattle with militants
http://reut.rs/1XfbxJZ
Third deadly ISIS/troop clash in the Kingdom in a week

If this pace keeps up you will in fact see the KSA leading an Islamic unit into Syria.....

RC......taken from the Syrian 2016 thread that indicates that the so called Obama/Kerry highly touted successful Syrian/IS defeat strategy that is actually driving the moderate and non affiliated Syrians into the arms of JaN (AQ) and IS......

That cannot be the Obama strategy???? You will notice it is all about delivery of weapons, supplies and funds......

RC...you will notice the comment that while the FSA and their affiliates are struggling to get supplies and weapons WHILE JaN is not regardless of what Obama and DoD is saying....

Notice the comments on the combat learning abilities of JaN as they roll up victory after victory against the IRGC.....

Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
Exchange by CrowBat.....

Rebels have proven best way 2 defeat pro-Regime forces is fighting by uniting own forces & opening several fronts. "Regime" is less flexible

Not really. It is rather so that Oblabla has managed to convince mainstream/moderate insurgents, that the best way of fighting this war is to join Jihadists of the JAN: the latter are receiving supplies undisturbed, all the time.

Compare this with Oblabla's practice of all the time curbing the flow of supplies to insurgents....

Thanks to him - and his cooperation with Putler - within a month or so it's really going to become 'impossible' to distinguish mainstream/moderates from the JAN...

Anyway, the operation in southern Aleppo is run by the JAF (Jaysh al-Fateh), which is reconstituted, that's right: but now officially consisting only of the JAN's and Jund al-Aqsa's Jihadists, and the Ahrar ash-Sham - i.e. Wahhabists and Salafists, respectivelly.

The recently reinforced Faylaq ash-Sham - which is meanwhile also 'rather Islamist than mainstream' - might be participating too, at least in supportive function (primarily with its artillery).

BTW, below a very interesting reconstruction of how the JAF isolated the Liwa Fatimioun in Khan Touman and then destroyed a large part of this IRGC formation. After bushwacking Liwa Fatimioun in this style, on 5 May, the JAF went and bushwacked the newly-arrived Liwa Mazandaran (IRGC regulars from the 25th Kerbala Division IRGC) in al-Hmerah (NE from Khan Touman), yesterday, too.

If correct, it's an indication of the JAF's HQ learning a lot - from the IRGC. Namely, that's the way the IRGC used to operate against Iraqi Army, back in the mid- and late 1980s, or against the JAN and Daesh in Syria of late 2013. It only seems that IRGC's new arrivals are simply not of the same sort like it's original cadre of 'advisors' in Syria: meanwhile they're better at 'playing incompetent Assadists'.

Iran Supreme Leader says "US current policy hinges on confronting Islam, Shia and Iran."

BUT does it really....??

I’m sorry Outlaw I don’t buy it.

The threat from the extreme far-right is just domestic politics. Look at the implosion of the conservative political voice in the US as a consequence of a Right-wing loud-mouthed property flipper who considers himself the true voice of the GOP. It is just a matter of time before it all blows over. The people will speak and the GOP will have to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and carry on. Hopefully somewhat wiser from the experience.

You have spent a great of time describing the 8 stages of non-linear warfare the Russians have been directing at NATO and the EU so I don’t accept a law-enforcement issue ala Red Brigade, Baader Meinhoff, Action Direct etc. or the political implications the far-right poses is remotely as pressing as the implications the slaughter that is currently underway in Syria has regards the security of the EU.
The strategic threat posed by the actors responsible for Syria - directed at Europe in general, and Germany in particular, suggests to me the failure in political leadership is first and foremost in the 28 Capitals of those countries under direct threat i.e. Berlin, Paris, London, Warsaw, Kiev etc. and the apathy of the general populations that inhabit those 28 EU nation-states.

A combined EU/Turkish army would have much more resources than any US expeditionary force and an unlimited number of recruits. Needless to say the acceptance of a European led/equipped prominently Muslim Army would have significant advantages over the past two US dominated efforts.

The message of such a show of intent need not be complex. Assad, the Fruitcake, the Mad Mullahs and all their cronies leave Syria or face invasion by a million-man conventional Army.

I dare suggest the no-brainer advantages of a EU / Turk Army massed on the Syrian border waxes much of the thinking within the WH. So I’ll pose the question to you again. Why aren’t the folks enjoying the sunshine on the Unter Der Linden talking about how best to send their children to Turkey and face the need to fight to defend the EU way of life?

Wer fur Auftragstaktik?

RC

For those that can remember the good ole days and I certainly know Obama and Kerry missed this.....REMEBER the "Non Aligned Movement" from the Cold War days...they are very much still alive and well....and being played by Iran...those so called Obama "moderates'......

It's like back-to-the-future. A hostile ideological government using the "Non-Aligned Movement" to attack the US.

120 nations accuse US top court of violating law over Iran

By EDITH M. LEDERER

May. 5, 2016 7:16 PM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The 120-nation Nonaligned Movement headed by Iran accused the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday of violating international law by ruling that nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets can be paid to victims of attacks linked to the country.

A communique issued by the NAM's Coordinating Bureau follows an Iranian appeal to the United Nations last week to intervene with the U.S. government to prevent the loss of their funds. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the ruling an "outrageous robbery, disguised under a court order."

The NAM, comprising mainly developing countries, called the U.S. waiver of "the sovereign immunity of states and their institutions" a violation of U.S. international and treaty obligations.

It called on the U.S. government "to respect the principle of state immunity" and warned that failing to do so will have "adverse implications, including uncertainty and chaos in international relations." It also warned that a failure would also undermine the international rule of law "and would constitute an international wrongful act, which entails international responsibility."

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on April 23 that the families of victims of a 1983 bombing in Lebanon and other attacks linked to Iran can collect nearly $2 billion in frozen funds from Iran as compensation.

The court's ruling directly affects more than 1,300 relatives of victims, some who have been seeking compensation for more than 30 years. They include families of the 241 U.S. service members who died in the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.

Iran denies any links to the attacks.

Iran's U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo asked that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon circulate the NAM statement to the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council.

The NAM called for "dialogue and accommodation over coercion and confrontation" to peacefully settle disputes.

In last week's letter, Iran's Zarif appealed to secretary-general Ban to use his good offices "to induce the U.S. government to adhere to its international obligations, put an end to the violation of the fundamental principle of state immunity."

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in response that "U.S. laws and the application of those laws by the courts of the United States comport with international law."

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Thursday that the letter is being studied.

Iran has also complained to the United States that it is locked out of the international financial system.

It accused the U.S. of failing to fulfill its obligations under last year's nuclear deal which was supposed to give the Iranians relief from crippling economic sanctions in exchange for curbing their nuclear program.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who met Zarif on April 22, said the United States would not stand in the way of foreign banks or firms doing business with Iranian companies that are no longer subject to U.S. sanctions. He said the administration was willing to further clarify what transactions are now permitted with Iran, and he urged foreign financial institutions to seek answers from U.S. officials if they have questions.

WONDER what the 38 year old "messaging guru" novelist has for an answer to this.....????

Obama administration set a narrative on AQ/jihadism/ISIS. A lot of people followed without questioning.
That narrative was & is wrong.

Thomas Joscelyn ‏@thomasjoscelyn
I've written a bunch of articles (& testified before Congress) explaining that their definition of AQ is not logical/factual

Thomas Joscelyn ‏@thomasjoscelyn
It is understandable that everyone is focusing on how Rhodes/WH spun the Iran deal.
Folks, they did the same thing on AQ/ISIS/jihadism.

Did the Obama WH actually give Putin's RuAF and Assad a "green light to bomb Aleppo"....this is actually a very valid question.

CENTCOM repeatedly stated that Aleppo was controlled by Nusra/AQ (JaN) when true area specialists knew otherwise...SO why did CENTCOM keep repeating it?

Warren's statement about Nusra and #Aleppo was wrong. Anyone aware of the situation knew.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/06/america-is-silent-as-aleppo-is-mass… …

By CENTCOM's stating that Aleppo was under control of JaN then Russia and Assad could in fact "legally" bomb JaN BECAUSE they controlled Aleppo....as JaN in Geneva 2 could be bombed at will.......

Words have meanings and words can cause an unintended impact if not wisely chosen.

So was the US actually complicit in the indiscriminate Russian/Assad killing of civilians in Aleppo????

WOW...those Obama "Iranian moderates" hard at work again.......

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered one of his most anti-American speeches in years @TheIranPulse
http://almon.co/2nkm

BUT WAIT was it not the Obama foreign policy guru "novelist" who "convinced us" there were moderates in Iran thus the need for the Iran Deal....???

The remaking of the ME in the image of Iran was certainly not the "messaging" from the Obama foreign policy guru "novelist"...was it?

Bill...reference the war crime committed this week by the RuAF in their air strike on a recognized IDP camp killing over 30 and wounding over 200 and that included women and children...

The DoS/Kerry...nothing directly from Obama response was ..."there is no excuse for this"...AND that was about it.

THEN today with no US info war response which should have been immediate, concise and clearly stated...."air strikes" on refuge camps is in fact a war crime.

Totally under the rubric of "too much vodka"....

Moscow suggest that "Nusra" is the one who attacked the IDP camp in rural Idlib killed 30 ppl 2 days ago.

BUT WAIT..the last time I checked neither Nusra/AQ, nor IS nor for that matter the FSA.......NONE of them have an AF......sure a couple of drones but nothing capable of dropping 250/500 lb bombs......

NICE... Russian flown SU24 bombs an IDP camp with a precision air strike THEN "false flags" it as Nusra/AQ.....

Eyewitness to attack on Idlib IDP camp tells @semaandiana @amnestyonline that one strike hit a school tent. 8 kids among the dead

AND outside of the initial US response nothing more was said was it.....?

That my friend is the Obama "novelist" foreign policy for Syria.....

At least Qatar condemned the airstrikes on refugee camp in Idlib with "Criminal acts against innocent women & children must not pass w/o accountability"

A tad different from the DoS statement of "no excuse"....

Outlaw:

From COL Joseph J. Collins' "More Lessons from a Long War" Small War Journal article of today:

"In future campaigns, when angry politicians call for American troops to take Raqqa or assault Mosul, the proper response to those advocating U.S. “boots on the ground” should be: “then what?” Keep asking that question until your interlocutor can explain how risky military operations will lead to some sort of effective governance. This will be a tough issue for a liberated Mosul and an even tougher issue for Raqqa in civil war-torn Syria."

(See the concluding paragraph of his added "Lesson 1.")

Note: COL Collins' "then what" question appears to mirror a similar question posed by the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Ms. Maria Zakharova, in 2015:

“The problem is that the West cannot show one example of how they would manage the Syria story right after,” Ms. Zakharova said. “What is the West planning to do right after? Do they have a magic wand that will transform Syria from civil war to economic prosperity?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/08/world/europe/russia-answers-us-critic…

This is really worth reading although a long long read......

https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/...-on-in-aleppo/

Whose Side is America on in Aleppo?

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 6, 2016

Quote:

Whatever pretence there was left in Syria’s “cessation of hostilities” (CoH)—which was never more than a reduction in hostilities—enacted at midnight on 26/27 February is now at an end. Russia and the regime of Bashar al-Assad have never ceased attempts to militarily weaken the armed opposition and escalated with a concerted campaign of aerial bombardment against Aleppo City on 22 April. The insurgency fully mobilized in response on 5 May with a major offensive south of the city. The dynamics set in place by Russia’s intervention—the bolstering of the Assad regime and the strengthening of extremist forces in the insurgency—have been in full view with this latest crisis, as has the longer-term trend of the United States moving toward the position of Assad, Russia, and especially Iran in Syria.

Jaysh al-Fatah and the Aleppo Offensive

The Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) coalition that drove the regime from Idlib City in March 2015 and expelled it from Idlib Province in September was reconstituted on Monday. Faylaq al-Sham (The Syrian Legion/Corps) has rejoined Jaysh al-Fatah, having left over ideological disagreements with Jund al-Aqsa, a group that started as an al-Qaeda front and is now—after its al-Qaeda leadership left—trending into the Islamic State’s (IS’s) orbit. Probably for this reason, Jund al-Aqsa has been excluded from Jaysh al-Fatah this time around. Faylaq al-Sham is a moderate Islamist group that has been drawn closer to the West recently, including having been seen in the last few months operating TOW anti-tank missiles, while expanding its influence throughout Aleppo. The only other change is the addition of the largely-Uyghur al-Hizb al-Islami al-Turkistani fil Bilad al-Sham (The Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria, or TIP)*, a Jihadi-Salafist group that is heavily dependent on Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch.

Jaysh al-Fatah retains as its dominant forces al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. Of the other components of the original Jaysh al-Fatah: the smaller Islamist groups Ajnad al-Sham (not to be confused with al-Ittihad al-Islami li-Ajnad al-Sham, the Sufi rebel group in East Ghouta that recently merged its forces in that area with Faylaq al-Rahman) and Liwa al-Haqq remain, as does Jaysh al-Sunna, a small, non-ideological faction that was absorbed by Ahrar in February.

When the offensive began in the early afternoon (British time) yesterday, it honed in on the regime-held Khan Tuman, south-west of Aleppo City, with reports of fighting in the adjacent district of al-Khalidiya and insurgent shelling against Barnah and Khalasa. It is likely that the intention is to clear the ground for a run at the important town of al-Hader further to the south and just east of al-Eis, which al-Nusra-led insurgents took over temporarily on 2 April and where a regime plane was shot down on 5 April. Iranian-led forces conquered al-Eis on 12 April, sapping the momentum of this insurgent push. The next attempt was not long in coming, however, when simultaneous offensives in southern Aleppo, Latakia, and Hama erupted on 18 April.

It was Ajnad that made the first formal announcement that Jaysh al-Fatah was moving in southern Aleppo and Ajnad and Jund al-Aqsa were the most visible for some time in terms of the social media and video output from Aleppo. Soon enough the centralized—effectively al-Nusra—output began. Al-Nusra deployed suicide bombers in Khan Tuman and the town appears to have fallen overnight. A video allegedly showing the capture of a member of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was filmed from a drone. Later in the day, Jaysh al-Fatah disclosed their capture of a foreign Shi’a jihadist, very likely an Afghan Hazara of Liwa Fatemiyoun, one of the many IRGC-run militias on which the Assad regime is now dependent for any offensive capacity and increasingly for defence, too.

Concurrent with this, in Zahraa district and New Aleppo on the western edge of Aleppo City and near the nearby military base, mainstream rebels vetted by the West recommenced an assault they had begun on 3 May, when Jaysh al-Tahrir (which contains the U.S.-vetted Division 46), Liwa Suqour al-Jabal, Division Sixteen, and (less formally in the U.S.-supported camp) al-Jabhat al-Shamiya (The Levant Front) were seen using TOWs.

Russia, meanwhile, was in the middle of staging a concert in Palmyra, a city whose partially-choreographed exchange between the pro-Assad coalition and IS had been the cause of such misplaced optimism in March when the propaganda of Assad guarding the boundary for civilization was so credulously accepted by so many. The concert was evidently meant to reinforce that narrative, but the pro-regime coalition’s responding to the Aleppo offensive by bombing the Kamouna refugee camp in the far-north of Idlib Province, thirty miles away from Aleppo City, killing thirty people and burning down more than fifty tents, was surely a far better indication of what Vladimir Putin and his client mean by “modern civilization“.

Al-Qaeda and the United States

The waves of insurgent offensives in Aleppo certainly have been pushed by al-Nusra, which found that during the reduction of violence the moderate opposition was reinvigorated. Without extreme violence imposed on Sunni communities by the Assad regime and its enablers, al-Nusra’s tactical usefulness to the opposition was diminished. For the first time in more than three years it was possible to hold peaceful protests of the kind that began the uprising. The nationalist, revolutionary discourse re-asserted itself, and it wasn’t long before al-Nusra cracked down, in Maarat al-Numan on 11 March, leading to a counter-reaction that threatened its long-term durability in Syria.

Needing to undermine the CoH, al-Nusra met with armed opposition leaders on about 20 March, Charles Lister reports. “They presented some convincing arguments,” an opposition commander who attended one of the meetings said. The argument doubtless will have been that the pro-regime forces continued their war against the rebellion, albeit at a lower level and in a more localized fashion, while the rebels were restrained from responding. This kind of one-sided restraint was never going to last, so al-Nusra had plenty to work with. “But,” added the commander, “mostly, it seemed we were being threatened: If we didn’t join the operation, we would be seen as an enemy.”

The U.S. has in recent weeks put a renewed emphasis on getting the mainstream rebellion to separate itself militarily from al-Nusra. While a defensible (and ultimately necessary) goal, the method has not been. As one FSA commander put it to Lister: “Don’t you think we would prefer not to have al-Nusra in our trenches? They represent everything we are opposed to. Sometimes, they are the same as the regime. But what can we do when our supposed friends abroad give us nothing to assert ourselves?” But rather than—finally—empower the moderate armed opposition so that it is not dependent on al-Nusra, instead, the U.S. effectively leveraged the prospect of Russian atrocities against its own allies and in practice tried to have them surrender Aleppo City to the pro-Assad forces.

On 20 April 2016, as Russia was clearly building up to an attack on Aleppo City, Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for Operation INHERENT RESOLVE, came very close to saying that the U.S. position was one of support for Russia’s airstrikes against Aleppo City. While “concerned” about the Russian moves, said Col. Warren, “it’s primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo, and of course, al-Nusra is not part of the cessation of hostilities.”

But the eastern part of Aleppo City that is out of regime control is not held “primarily” by al-Nusra. The pro-regime coalition recently took control of parts of north-western Aleppo Province, cutting the final Aleppine supply-line for the rebellion into Turkey on 2 February. The pro-regime coalition broke the incomplete sieges on Nubl and Zahra the next day and began to move against the provincial capital after that. Al-Nusra had withdrawn from northern Aleppo in August 2015—and remains largely absent from that area, having no more than 100 fighters in the Azaz pocket—redeploying those forces from Aleppo to Idlib. On 26 January 2016, as the pro-regime forces were advancing in Aleppo, al-Nusra sent a convoy of up to two-hundred vehicles that by one estimate constituted 1,000 fighters to Aleppo City. This immediately provoked resistance, however, especially from the local, Free Syrian Army-style groups but also from Ahrar al-Sham, and by mid-February more than two-thirds of al-Nusra’s arrivals had been sent out of Aleppo City, either taking up residence in the south (and some in the west) of Aleppo Province or returning to Idlib Province, where al-Nusra is strongest.

Key: Red (regime), Green (rebels and Jabhat al-Nusra), Yellow-Green (Kurdish PYD), Black (Islamic State). [Original map by Thomas van Linge]
Key: Red (regime), Green (rebels and Jabhat al-Nusra), Yellow-Green (Kurdish PYD), Black (Islamic State). [Original map by Thomas van Linge]
So, al-Nusra has a presence in Aleppo City, and Ahrar al-Sham, too, is present, as is the Abu Amara Special Forces, a unit of 300 rebels led by Muhanna Jaffala, which joined Ahrar in October while remaining somewhat autonomous. But the rebel-held areas of Aleppo City are overwhelmingly under the control of Fatah Halab (Aleppo Conquest), an operations room that specifically excludes al-Nusra.

Continued.....

For what it's worth, IMO, President Obama's understanding of the strategic nature of ISIL is FAR more accurate than that of Mr. West.

I can see Mr. West's point if this were a Clausewitzian conflict between the US and ISIL (and if ISIL were not the government of what is possibly the weakest state on the planet throwing pathetic threats at the strongest state on the planet); but that is simply not the case. Do not apply Clausewitz to every problem, but do heed his sage advice, Mr. West: "Know what kind of war you are in." Or, when a political conflict is perhaps not really war at all...

I would also direct Mr. West to a particularly relevant insight from Sun Tzu:
“Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy. Next best is to disrupt his alliances by diplomacy. The next best is to attack his army. And the worst policy is to attack cities.”

“Thus, those skilled in war subdue the enemy's army without battle. They capture the enemy's cities without assaulting them and overthrow his state without protracted operations. Their aim is to take all under heaven intact by strategic considerations. Thus, their troops are not worn out and their gains will be complete. This is the art of offensive strategy.”

What Sun Tzu advices is essentially what the President meant when he told the Generals and Admirals across the river to "defeat ISIL" - but what was sent in the spirit of Sun Tzu, was heard in the dogma of Western Clausewitz/Jomini based doctrine. The Generals (and their like-minded pundits like Mr. West) are frustrated that they have been given little of what they would need to impose a defeat in the terms they have interpreted the President's guidance. Perhaps they should ponder what type of defeat they might be able to effect with what they have been given? Particularly if they consider their mission in the context of the resources, authorities and permissions they have been given, it becomes clear that they must first step back and reframe how they think about the problem and then seek a victory in the context of that advised by Sun Tzu.

ISIL is employing a UW strategy. Counter the strategy, Generals. To simply attack the forces and seek to take their cities is folly, and is specifically what the President told you NOT to do. If anyone deserves to be frustrated with this campaign, it is not the Generals, it is the President.

It is not too late to turn this around. But the longest journey begins with the first step, and we have yet to take that step.

Outlaw:

RantCorps question to you below went something like this:

The problems of the Middle East and Russia are much more European problems than they are American problems.

("After all it is the Europeans who are the target of the Fruitcake, the Mad Mullahs and the ‘Bare-chested Idiot on a White Horse’ so IMHO they (the Europeans) should take the lead." ... "After all it is European kids who are being machine-gunned whilst clubbing or hanging out drinking lattes."

Based on this understanding, he then asks why are not the Europeans generally, and the Germans specifically:

a. The one's taking the lead -- in producing viable strategy/strategies -- to deal with these primarily European problems; this, rather than the U.S.?

And, why are not the Europeans generally, and the Germans specifically,

b. Supplying both the majority of the funding -- and the majority of the military forces (i.e., the "bodies;" the "youth") -- needed to see the military requirements of these missions through?

(Note #1: We should understand, I believe, that a strategy of retrenchment is, indeed, specifically designed to cause, for example, the Europeans (etc.), to shoulder more of their own tasks.)

(Note #2: One cannot, I believe, associate Woodrow Wilson with retrenchment before, during and/or after World War I; quite the opposite. The American people and their representatives, however, are to be properly [a] associated with the policy of retrenchment and/or isolationism following WWI and to be [b] properly blamed with what occurs post-the "war to end all wars." This, I believe, is the proper understanding/argument. Wilson, it is said, actually died trying to overcome such retrenchment/isolationism of ideas of the American people and their representatives.)

No amount of "messaging" can cover up the massive killing of IFPs today in Syria....WHICH reflects a total Obama FP failure as the safe zones were recommended to him years ago ..AND he said no then and again this week.....then the massive killing of defenseless civilians in an IDP camp.........

Obama: Syria safe zone is a "practical problem".
Couple of days later..
White House: no excuse for air strike on Syria refugee camp.

Bill...back to the Obama smoke and mirrors he sold the American public and that is what again....messaging equals FP.......????

How most Americans heard the #Iran deal presented "was largely manufactured for the purpose for selling the deal"

Obama info warfare against the American public sounds much like Putin and his info warfare for his public does it not.....no wonder our allies have no earthly idea what Obama wants...not really sure he even knows outside of being the best intellectual in the room which has never equated to a great FP......

Hate to have been right for the last two solid years.........

Bill...now back to my major complaint with Obama and his endless war or better yet a none engagement of IS......

Go back to the SWJ WaPo article where the Obama WH argued that in fact their Syrian/IS strategy was working...it was just you and me we "did not get it" and you and me "just needed MORE messaging" in order to "get it".....

When it is all said and done and the historians get their hands on the Obama period you will be wondering just "how much messaging we have been fed by this WH".....and we are the people who put him in office.....

REFERENCE this messaging campaign of the Obama WH.....directed against Us citizens......

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-be…

The Aspiring Novelist Who Became
Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru

How Ben Rhodes rewrote the rules of diplomacy for the digital age.

By DAVID SAMUELSMAY 5, 2016

Picture him as a young man, standing on the waterfront in North Williamsburg, at a polling site, on Sept. 11, 2001, which was Election Day in New York City. He saw the planes hit the towers, an unforgettable moment of sheer disbelief followed by panic and shock and lasting horror, a scene that eerily reminded him, in the aftermath, of the cover of the Don DeLillo novel “Underworld.”

Everything changed that day. But the way it changed Ben Rhodes’s life is still unique, and perhaps not strictly believable, even as fiction. He was in the second year of the M.F.A. program at N.Y.U., writing short stories about losers in garden apartments and imagining that soon he would be published in literary magazines, acquire an agent and produce a novel by the time he turned 26. He saw the first tower go down, and after that he walked around for a while, until he ran into someone he knew, and they went back to her shared Williamsburg apartment and tried to find a television that worked, and when he came back outside, everyone was taking pictures of the towers in flames. He saw an Arab guy sobbing on the subway. “That image has always stayed with me,” he says. “Because I think he knew more than we did about what was going to happen.” Writing Frederick Barthelme knockoffs suddenly seemed like a waste of time.

“I immediately developed this idea that, you know, maybe I want to try to write about international affairs,” he explained. “In retrospect, I had no idea what that meant.” His mother’s closest friend growing up ran the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which then published Foreign Policy. He sent her a letter and included what would wind up being his only piece of published fiction, a short story that appeared in The Beloit Fiction Journal. It was titled “The Goldfish Smiles, You Smile Back.” The story still haunts him, he says, because “it foreshadowed my entire life.”

It’s the day of President Obama’s final State of the Union address, Jan. 12, and the news inside the White House is not good. Luckily, the reporters on the couch in the West Wing waiting room don’t know it yet. The cream of the crop are here this early p.m. for a private, off-the-record lunch with the president, who will preview his annual remarks to Congress over a meal that is reported to be among the best in the White House chef’s repertoire.

“Blitzer!” a man calls out. A small figure in a long navy cashmere overcoat turns around, in mock surprise.

“You don’t write, you don’t call,” Wolf Blitzer, the CNN anchorman, parries.

“Well, you can call,” shoots back his former colleague Roland Martin. Their repartee thus concluded, they move on to the mutually fascinating subject of Washington traffic jams. “I used to have a 9:30 hit on CNN,” Martin reminisces. “The office was 8.2 miles from my home. It took me 45 minutes.” The CBS News anchor Scott Pelley tells a story about how members of the press destroyed the lawn during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and were told that they would be allowed back once the grass was replanted. The National Park Service replanted the grass outside the White House, but the journalists weren’t allowed back on the lawn.

Unnoticed by the reporters, Ben Rhodes walks through the room, a half-beat behind a woman in leopard-print heels. He is holding a phone to his ear, repeating his mantra: “I’m not important. You’re important.”

The Boy Wonder of the Obama White House is now 38. He heads downstairs to his windowless basement office, which is divided into two parts. In the front office, his assistant, Rumana Ahmed, and his deputy, Ned Price, are squeezed behind desks, which face a large television screen, from which CNN blares nonstop. Large pictures of Obama adorn the walls. Here is the president adjusting Rhodes’s tie; presenting his darling baby daughter, Ella, with a flower; and smiling wide while playing with Ella on a giant rug that says “E Pluribus Unum.”

For much of the past five weeks, Rhodes has been channeling the president’s consciousness into what was imagined as an optimistic, forward-looking final State of the Union. Now, from the flat screens, a challenge to that narrative arises: Iran has seized two small boats containing 10 American sailors. Rhodes found out about the Iranian action earlier that morning but was trying to keep it out of the news until after the president’s speech. “They can’t keep a secret for two hours,” Rhodes says, with a tone of mild exasperation at the break in message discipline.

As the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, Rhodes writes the president’s speeches, plans his trips abroad and runs communications strategy across the White House, tasks that, taken individually, give little sense of the importance of his role. He is, according to the consensus of the two dozen current and former White House insiders I talked to, the single most influential voice shaping American foreign policy aside from Potus himself. The president and Rhodes communicate “regularly, several times a day,” according to Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, who is known for captaining a tight ship. “I see it throughout the day in person,” he says, adding that he is sure that in addition to the two to three hours that Rhodes might spend with Obama daily, the two men communicate remotely throughout the day via email and phone calls. Rhodes strategized and ran the successful Iran-deal messaging campaign, helped negotiate the opening of American relations with Cuba after a hiatus of more than 50 years and has been a co-writer of all of Obama’s major foreign-policy speeches. “Every day he does 12 jobs, and he does them better than the other people who have those jobs,” Terry Szuplat, the longest-tenured member of the National Security Council speechwriting corps, told me. On the largest and smallest questions alike, the voice in which America speaks to the world is that of Ben Rhodes.

Like Obama, Rhodes is a storyteller who uses a writer’s tools to advance an agenda that is packaged as politics but is often quite personal. He is adept at constructing overarching plotlines with heroes and villains, their conflicts and motivations supported by flurries of carefully chosen adjectives, quotations and leaks from named and unnamed senior officials. He is the master shaper and retailer of Obama’s foreign-policy narratives, at a time when the killer wave of social media has washed away the sand castles of the traditional press. His ability to navigate and shape this new environment makes him a more effective and powerful extension of the president’s will than any number of policy advisers or diplomats or spies. His lack of conventional real-world experience of the kind that normally precedes responsibility for the fate of nations — like military or diplomatic service, or even a master’s degree in international relations, rather than creative writing — is still startling.

Part of what accounts for Rhodes’s influence is his “mind meld” with the president. Nearly everyone I spoke to about Rhodes used the phrase “mind meld” verbatim, some with casual assurance and others in the hushed tones that are usually reserved for special insights. He doesn’t think for the president, but he knows what the president is thinking, which is a source of tremendous power. One day, when Rhodes and I were sitting in his boiler-room office, he confessed, with a touch of bafflement, “I don’t know anymore where I begin and Obama ends.”

Standing in his front office before the State of the Union, Rhodes quickly does the political math on the breaking Iran story. “Now they’ll show scary pictures of people praying to the supreme leader,” he predicts, looking at the screen. Three beats more, and his brain has spun a story line to stanch the bleeding. He turns to Price. “We’re resolving this, because we have relationships,” he says.

Price turns to his computer and begins tapping away at the administration’s well-cultivated network of officials, talking heads, columnists and newspaper reporters, web jockeys and outside advocates who can tweet at critics and tweak their stories backed up by quotations from “senior White House officials” and “spokespeople.” I watch the message bounce from Rhodes’s brain to Price’s keyboard to the three big briefing podiums — the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon — and across the Twitterverse, where it springs to life in dozens of insta-stories, which over the next five hours don formal dress for mainstream outlets. It’s a tutorial in the making of a digital news microclimate — a storm that is easy to mistake these days for a fact of nature, but whose author is sitting next to me right now.

Rhodes logs into his computer. “It’s the middle of the [expletive] night in Iran,” he grumbles. Price looks up from his keyboard to provide a messaging update: “Considering that they have 10 of our guys in custody, we’re doing O.K.”

With three hours to go until the president’s address to Congress, Rhodes grabs a big Gatorade and starts combing through the text of the State of the Union address. I peek over his shoulder, to get a sense of the meta-narrative that will shape dozens of thumb-suckers in the days and weeks to follow. One sentence reads: “But as we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands.” He retypes a word, then changes it back, before continuing with his edit. “Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks, twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages — they pose an enormous danger to civilians; they have to be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence.”

Watching Rhodes work, I remember that he is still, chiefly, a writer, who is using a new set of tools — along with the traditional arts of narrative and spin — to create stories of great consequence on the biggest page imaginable. The narratives he frames, the voices of senior officials, the columnists and reporters whose work he skillfully shapes and ventriloquizes, and even the president’s own speeches and talking points, are the only dots of color in a much larger vision about who Americans are and where we are going that Rhodes and the president have been formulating together over the past seven years.

CONTINUED............

Outlaw:

RantCorp posed this very interesting question to you below, but you may have missed it because of our exchange:

BEGIN QUOTE

Until a European and Turkish Army masses on the Syrian border I don’t see why anyone else should be involved. After all it is the Europeans who are the target of the Fruitcake, the Mad Mullahs and the ‘Bare-chested Idiot on a White Horse’ so IMHO they should take the lead. Faced with such a commitment the US would certainly follow.

I suggest you ask some of the younger people drinking coffee on the Unter Der Linden if they feel the need to fight in Syria to avert the crisis that is impacting Germany more than anywhere else. I would be interested to know their attitude to take up the fight. After all it is European kids who are being machine-gunned whilst clubbing or hanging out drinking lattes.

Furthermore most of Europe travel on Gulf oil. The average American kid couldn’t find Syria on a map, but then they’re not being murdered watching Rock bands, and fracking - despite the Fruitcake’s best efforts - has made the US a net oil exporter.

Granted we don’t appear to have a viable strategy and you’ve pointed out that in spades. However, youself being uniquely qualified and positioned, perhaps you could find out why the Germans in particular, and the Europeans in general (who are under attack), appear to have less of a Grand Strategy than we have.

END QUOTE

(Outlaw: To read RantCorps' entire reply-to-comment, see his "by RantCorp | April 29, 2016 - 4:57am" entry below.)

Is Obama and Kerry truly interested in defeating IS or are they just in it for the "going through the motions until January 2017"....

Rebels lost Khirbat Tel Sha‘īr, Khalfatli, Baghidin, the gas plant, Qarah Mazr'ah, Qarah Kubri, Dalhah and Al-Mazra'ah as-Suda since yday.

Situation for rebels along the Syr-Tur border is catastrophic.
Map shows #ISIS gains during last 24 hours.

NOT a single effort by both Turkey and the US to assist FSA in pushing back against a strong IS counter offensive.....high number of IS targets are available BUT it appears that Turkey and especially the US is not interested in damaging and or degrading IS....

Apparently all this Obama Kerry talk is just talk when it comes to actually attacking constantly IS....

BUT WAIT....did not Russian verify to both the US and the UNSC that Assad regime was CW free....then just how does Putin explain this.....?????

Report that Assad regime used CWs against ISIS, likely Sarin. Would be first time Sarin was used since '13 massacre
http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.717294 …

APPARENTLY Putin lied to both the US and the UNSC...but what the heck it is just IS....so that is OK....so the Russian lie does not count does it with the Obama WH...???

Russia says it will NOT pressure Assad to stop bombarding Aleppo. At least they are honest.

And Obama and Kerry........?

This is a sad and yet brutal statement concerning the total failure of the Obama FP whether in eastern Ukraine or now in Syria.....AND written on 9 FEB and where are we now in Aleppo???

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-era-of-us-abdication-on-syr…

Enough is enough — U.S. abdication on Syria must come to an end

By Michael Ignatieff and Leon Wieseltier
February 9

Michael Ignatieff is the Edward R. Murrow professor of practice at the Harvard Kennedy School. Leon Wieseltier is the Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy at the Brookings Institution.

As Russian planes decimate Aleppo, and hundreds of thousands of civilians in Syria’s largest city prepare for encirclement, blockade and siege — and for the starvation and the barbarity that will inevitably follow — it is time to proclaim the moral bankruptcy of American and Western policy in Syria.

Actually, it is past time. The moral bankruptcy has been long in the making: five years of empty declarations that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go, of halfhearted arming of rebel groups, of allowing the red line on chemical weapons to be crossed and of failing adequately to share Europe’s refugee burden as it buckles under the strain of the consequences of Western inaction. In the meantime, a quarter-million Syrians have died, 7 million have been displaced and nearly 5 million are refugees. Two million of the refugees are children.

This downward path leads to the truly incredible possibility that as the Syrian dictator and his ruthless backers close in on Aleppo, the government of the United States, in the name of the struggle against the Islamic State, will simply stand by while Russia, Assad and Iran destroy their opponents at whatever human cost.

It is time for those who care about the moral standing of the United States to say that this policy is shameful. If the United States and its NATO allies allow their inglorious new partners to encircle and starve the people of Aleppo, they will be complicit in crimes of war. The ruins of our own integrity will be found amid the ruins of Aleppo. Indiscriminate bombardment of civilians is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. So is the use of siege and blockade to starve civilians. We need not wait for proof of Assad’s and Vladimir Putin’s intentions as they tighten the noose. “Barrel bombs” have been falling on bread lines and hospitals in the city (and elsewhere in Syria) for some time. Starvation is a long-standing and amply documented instrument in Assad’s tool kit of horrors.

Aleppo is an emergency, requiring emergency measures. Are we no longer capable of emergency action? It is also an opportunity, perhaps the last one, to save Syria. Aleppo is the new Sarajevo, the new Srebrenica, and its fate should be to the Syrian conflict what the fate of Sarajevo and Srebrenica were to the Bosnian conflict: the occasion for the United States to bestir itself, and for the West to say with one voice, “Enough.” It was after Srebrenica and Sarajevo — and after the air campaign with which the West finally responded to the atrocities — that the United States undertook the statecraft that led to the Dayton accords and ended the war in Bosnia.

The conventional wisdom is that nothing can be done in Syria, but the conventional wisdom is wrong. There is a path toward ending the horror in Aleppo — a perfectly realistic path that would honor our highest ideals, a way to recover our moral standing as well as our strategic position. Operating under a NATO umbrella, the United States could use its naval and air assets in the region to establish a no-fly zone from Aleppo to the Turkish border and make clear that it would prevent the continued bombardment of civilians and refugees by any party, including the Russians. It could use the no-fly zone to keep open the corridor with Turkey and use its assets to resupply the city and internally displaced people in the region with humanitarian assistance.

If the Russians and Syrians sought to prevent humanitarian protection and resupply of the city, they would face the military consequences. The U.S. military is already in hourly contact with the Russian military about de-conflicting their aircraft over Syria, and the administration can be in constant contact with the Russian leadership to ensure that a humanitarian protection mission need not escalate into a great-power confrontation. But risk is no excuse for doing nothing. The Russians and the Syrians would immediately understand the consequences of U.S. and NATO action: They would learn, in the only language they seem to understand, that they cannot win the Syrian war on their repulsive terms. The use of force to protect civilians, and to establish a new configuration of power in which the skies would no longer be owned by the Syrian tyrant and the Russian tyrant, may set the stage for a tough and serious negotiation to bring an end to the slaughter.

This is what U.S. leadership in the 21st century should look like: bringing together force and diplomacy, moral commitment and strategic boldness, around an urgent humanitarian objective that would command the support of the world. The era of our Syrian abdication must end now. If we do not come to the rescue of Aleppo, if we do not do everything we can to put a stop to the suffering that is the defining and most damaging abomination of our time, Aleppo will be a stain on our conscience forever.

A case can in fact be made that the Kerry and Obama non actions in Syria are actually in full support to those actions being undertaken by Putin in Syria...case in point...both Kerry, DoD and the spokesperson for the DoS have repeatedly stated "JaN" controls Aleppo....which those that fully understand the opposition and where they are located know is a and this is hard to say....."blatant lie" on the part of the US.....

Question is just why does the US continue to make those statements when they know they are lies.....????

These statements actually gave Assad and Putin a "green light" to move on and bomb Aleppo under the guise of "we are attacking JaN"......

THIS is coming in from the ME and the comments are telling.......

As #Assad/#Russia bombard the nationalist opposition in #Aleppo City, that opposition is driving #IS from towns in eastern Aleppo Province.

Issam Al Reis ‏@south_front_sy
If regime brutality does not stop in #Aleppo our forces will respond in the south. Syrian blood is the same whether in Aleppo or #Damascus

Becoming obvious that #US is now actively engaged w #Russia in the liquidation of #Syria's oppo & rebels.
#Aleppo excluded from truce-

Obama's complicity in Asad's crimes now goes much beyond inaction, as he now deliberately enables onslaught on Aleppo

Obama admin had no obligation to parrot Russia's rhetoric about Nusra in Aleppo. They've helped Putin-Asad reshape the narrative. Complicit

The mighty resistance; Obama must be proud, again. #Iran calls for boys to fight as CHILD SOLDIERS in #Syria