Obama Claims His Critics Forced Him to Make a Mess of Syria

Dayuhan--do you read the comments I have posted here--we have been funding as well as has the UAE and KSA the FSA from day one and in Jordan there has been a central training center and a military operations center for going on over two years especially since the TOW hunter killer teams were vetted, trained and deployed--and the TOWS continue to flow.

Do you not fully understand it--we are already in the game.

So if we are in the game then influence as best as one can --do not run from what you have been already doing--this is exactly what Obama is doing--forgetting he is in the game via the CIA whether he likes it or not.

By allowing the FSA to work with other anti Assad groups via their funding sources and weapons flows ensures in the end a place for a US voice in settling who takes over from Assad.

You seemingly forget that it has been largely the FSA and sometimes working with the JN that has pushed the Assad Army literally back to the gates of Damascus--not IS and certainly not the Kurds.

Actually not a bad game plan---flow money, trainers, weapons and let those in the country fight to determine their future--with NOT a single US boot on the ground. Remember I said it is all about "perception".

In the end Syrians must decide their future whether secular and or Islamist--it is their choice not ours--but if we help at least we have a voice.

THIS should have been the eastern Ukrainian solution BUT there Obama became totally frightened of Putin's nuclear threats and retreated.

The Ukrainians have all along stated just give us the TOW, night vision glasses, counter battery radars, and some kind of secure comms and we will do the fighting.....as it is our country to defend.

The "logic", to the extent that there is any, seems to be that if Putin wants to jump into the sh!thole, we have to do it too. Only place that goes is one where everybody is neck deep in sh!t.

Seriously, what realistic end state goal do you hope to achieve by funding and arming FSA?

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425003/putin-obama-nato-defeat

The Coming Defeat of NATO

by Matthew Continetti
October 3, 2015 12:00 AM

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, established in 1949, has 28 members devoted to the idea of collective security. Prediction: By the time President Obama leaves office in 2017, the NATO pledge of mutual defense in response to aggression will have been exposed as worthless. Objectively the alliance will have ceased to exist. The culprits? Vladimir Putin — and Barack Obama. Right now the world is focused on the Middle East: Russian jets and bombers, operating from an expanding air base in Syria, strike opponents of dictator and war criminal Bashar al-Assad. The Russians say they are going after Islamic State — but there’s no evidence they are doing so. Nor do they have reason to, considering the aim of Putin’s war is to preserve Assad’s rule and to expand, for the first time in decades, Russia’s sphere of influence into the Middle East. Key to Putin’s strategy, write analysts Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, is the doctrine of “reflexive control”: establishing facts on the ground “in such a way that the enemy chooses Russia’s preferred course of action voluntarily, because it is easiest and all the others appear much more difficult and risky, if not impossible.”

Doesn’t have to be this way. Moscow’s propaganda notwithstanding, Russia is a weak state with a deteriorating military capability, whose claim to great power status is based on its nuclear arsenal. But, by acting decisively and provocatively, Putin has found the means by which to reassert Russian sovereignty and preeminence and ward off challenges to his authoritarian regime.

Revisit Putin’s 2007 speech to the Munich security conference, where he said “the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world.” The expansion of NATO, he went on, “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.” Then came the threat: “Russia is a country with a history that spans more than 1,000 years and has practically always used the privilege to carry out an independent foreign policy. We are not going to change this tradition today.”

The next year the governments of Germany and France, frightened by Putin’s rhetoric and reliant on Russian energy and arms deals, scuttled the U.S. attempt to offer NATO membership to the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine. Deprived of NATO’s security guarantee, both of these small and poor and new democracies became open prey. Putin invaded Georgia in 2008. He continues to exert influence there. The techniques of reflexive control found their ultimate patsy in Barack Obama. When it became clear in 2013 that the president had no interest in enforcing his red line against chemical weapons use in Syria, Putin and his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov pounced. Lavrov suggested in public that Russia would assist the United States in “destroying” Assad’s WMD stockpile.

Obama, whose greatest fear is a major deployment of U.S. ground forces in the Middle East, couldn’t help saying yes. Suddenly America was partnering with the governments of Russia and Syria (and by extension Iran) to inspect and remove the munitions. This decision not only averted U.S. intervention and guaranteed Assad’s survival. It allowed Assad to gas his population in the future. In 2014, when protests forced Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych to flee to his backers in Moscow, Putin saw an opportunity to reclaim Ukraine from the West. His military buildup on Ukraine’s eastern border deterred NATO from harsh reprisals when the Russian parliament annexed Crimea.

The techniques of maskirovka — disinformation and deceit — provided cover for Russia’s arming and training and staffing of anti-Kiev “rebels” in the east. Sanctions and nasty words have not exacted enough of a cost to stop Putin from instigating and perpetuating a civil war whose death toll is in the thousands. President Obama has overruled his advisers and refuses to provide lethal defensive arms for pro-Western Ukrainians, believing, amazingly, that helping Kiev defend itself would “escalate” the situation. The Ukraine conflict is now frozen — Putin can switch it on and off at will. His goals remain: to efface Western pretentions to ideological and military supremacy, and to replace President Petro Poroshenko with a Kremlin stooge. The techniques of reflexive control found their ultimate patsy in Barack Obama.

Two weeks ago, in a phone call with its prime minister, Vice President Biden signaled America will support Montenegro’s application for NATO membership. Good for him. But we should recognize nonetheless that this move is a fig-leaf. It obscures the fact that Obama would otherwise be the first president in a generation not to preside over an expansion of NATO. So the White House supports a strategically insignificant nation surrounded by member states. Woo-wee. It’s a metaphor for this administration’s lackadaisical commitment to the alliance — and for Europe’s.

The Kremlin has noticed this ambivalence. Russian intervention in Syria is about more than propping up Assad. Russian leadership of a pro-Assad coalition that includes Iran and Iraq effectively displaces America as the most influential external power in the region. Russian provocations have forced Washington to plead for “de-confliction,” handing Moscow freedom of action over Syrian, and possibly Iraqi, airspace. And the location of the Russian base opens an additional front in Putin’s war against NATO.

Less than 50 miles from the border of Turkey — a NATO member — the Bassel al-Assad airbase gives Putin’s air force the ability to buzz and overfly not only Turkey but also U.S. allies Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. “It also would allow,” write the Kagans, “his aircraft to shadow the U.S. Sixth Fleet around the Eastern Mediterranean. He could force Turkey and its NATO allies to establish standing combat air patrols along the southern Turkish border.” The chances of a deadly incident increase every day. Putin is boxing in NATO.

His next target is the Baltic States. Last Sunday on 60 Minutes, he explained that the reason he has called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the worst thing to happen in the last century” is that, “in an instant, 25 million people found themselves beyond the borders of the Russian state.” His goal is to reclaim them — to unify Russians living abroad in the Baltics, in Ukraine, and beyond.

Putin’s Air Strikes in Syria Are Merely the Latest Example of the Obama Doctrine’s Failure Raimonds Vejonis, president of Latvia, tells the Wall Street Journal that Russian sorties over the Baltic nations are on the rise.

In his full interview with Charlie Rose, Putin singled out Lithuania: “More than half of the citizens have left the country,” he lied. “Can you imagine a situation where more than half of the Americans left the territory of the United States? It would be a catastrophe!” Try this scenario: Sometime in the next 16 months, civil unrest breaks out in one or more of the Baltic States. It’s the Russian population, calling for “independence” from the central government and closer ties to Moscow. Fighting erupts as Russian tanks mass along the border and jets fly over Riga or Vilnius or Tallinn. They are all targets. Take Vilnius: While there are few ethnic Russians in Lithuania, it is the land bridge between Mother Russia and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Supplying Kaliningrad would be Putin’s casus belli.

The Baltic authorities call on NATO to respond — invoking Article Four of the charter, which requires consultations, and possibly Article Five, requiring force. But the West is distracted. Europe is overwhelmed by crises in Greece and Ukraine, by the U.K. referendum to leave the E.U., by ongoing Muslim migration to the north. The United States is occupied by its presidential election, by Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan, by economic shocks. The cries for assistance go unheard. The Obama administration has refused even to try to secure permanent forward bases in the Baltics — which would provide a credible deterrent — apparently due to the belief that providing for a real defense is “provocative.”

We are too busy, too self-absorbed, too confused to worry about promises made years ago. Obama won’t arm the Ukrainians. What makes us think he’d defend the Lithuanians or Latvians or Estonians? Before the White House recovers from its “surprise” at events in the Baltics, Putin will have achieved his strategic goals and established reflexive control over the situation. President Obama and Chancellor Merkel and Secretary of State Kerry are sure to proclaim that the arc of history will defeat Russia, even as they accommodate themselves to Putin’s reality. NATO will be exposed as a covenant without the sword. And millions of East Europeans will come under Vladimir Putin’s thumb. Victims of the Kremlin’s avarice. Victims of Obama’s weakness.

The drumbeat of the Obama failures just keep on beating--AND has anyone seen a full court press conference by this President on Syria and or the Assad war crimes against his own civil society--NOT a single peep, tone, word or statement.

Putin winning despite RU weakness, setting precedents for defying, breaking US primacy http://nyti.ms/1Gq0suj

Obama is assisting in a massive way Putin to achieve his three core geo political goals---truly not sure why he is adamant on assisting Putin other than he must agree with the three geo political goals.

1. discredit and damaging NATO
2. discredit and damaging the EU
3. totally disconnecting the US from Europe and the ME

Putin is well underway in achieving all of these points with Obama's assistance--why is that??

The US is not responsible for Syrians. We sat back and did nothing when several million Congolese died and many more suffered horribly during a civil war... because like it or not, the only way for the US to resolve such a situation is to take over and run the place as a colony, which is not politically acceptable or sane. How is Syria any different, beyond getting more media coverage?

Like most of those advocating intervention or engagement, you're not addressing the most basic questions:

What is the end state goal? Is it realistically achievable?

What practical strategy exists for achieving that goal?

How do you propose to extricate if your strategy succeeds? If it fails?

Only getting worse----

Tens of #Saudi Islamic Scholars: Every Muslim is obliged to counter #Russia|n Crusaders in #Syria & fund Jihadists.. pic.twitter.com/G6Yg3b3g90

After #Russia’s intervention, #Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood has declared jihad obligatory on every able-bodied Muslim: pic.twitter.com/hRaJb4eyiL

Russian ROC declared a "Holy War"--looks like they will get one----and I t will not stop at the Russian borders.

Russia is now motivating the anti Assad forces---not so sure they fully understand this----

Multiple operation rooms and closer coordination have been announced over the past couple of days in Syria, including Homs and Damascus.

People overstate the potential impact of Russia's intervention & underestimate what the rebels could still do, in areas like Homs & Damascus

Rebels' western/regional backers aren't hapless. In fact we all know rebels in the south are often restrained & pressured not to go too far.

So the rebels & their backers still have more leverage than utilised, in contrast to Russian & Hiz+Iran that already did almost their worst.

Here are those rag tag TOW guys again in action--the FSA has a number of hunter killer teams that roam for targets and are especially active during offenses.

Syria #Quneitra Rebels target tank during Tall al Ahmar-battle with TOW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbeOG8y09fs …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=33.207526&lon=35.867229&z=15&m=b …

For a rag tag group Russia is lending them creditability in their fighting skills----NOTICE not a single Western leader ie Obama, Hollande and or Merkel has called Putin out on this???? Especially since Putin declared himself in a Russian TV announcement IS was and is the Russian target???

Russian TV poses the FSA area as the ISIS positions. pic.twitter.com/FN1lUOARD5

Saudi foreign minister: Putin's rationale in Syria "inconceivable" - CBS News

http://zziipp.eu/?u=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-arabia-foreign-mi… …

It always behooves us to look back at history to understand the present...

2011: A UN Security Council resolution threatening action against Syria's deadly crackdown on protests has been vetoed by Russia and China.

Remember Putin vetoed in 2011 BUT in 2013 he blames Assad---

This from 2013 - Vladimir Putin admits Bashar al-Assad responsible for Syrian uprising - via @Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10114247/Vla… …

So for the lack of follow through we are at where we are now in Syria--AND Obama should have seen this coming.....especially when the NSC numbers over 700 individuals--someone should have seen it coming??

ACTION then would have saved literally hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of refugees----- International Relations 101--it really is sometimes that simple--the use of power.

BUT this President blames others for his sheer lack of action.

When there is an utter lack of US leadership------remember the concept of "perception"--the Sunni Gulf states and I am assuming quietly in the back--Turkey NO longer believe the US is doing or going to do anything and that includes protecting their own proxy--- thus their pending decision to move.

Talk about the lack of Putin to "see unintended consequences"--this is one he did not envision.

Gulf states plan military response as Putin raises the stakes in Syria http://gu.com/p/4dxyd/stw

I had some serious concerns about Putin triggering a WW3 in the Ukraine BUT are we not seeing the potential of now a global Sunni Shia war--that is why Obama is so wrong with his theories of international relations--sometimes there has to be an adult in the room that all will at least listen to.

AND that "adult" must be able to project hard power if needed to get everyone's attention in that room. IR 101 taught in every college class on the subject of "power" and the use of "power".

BUT remember Obama was trained as a lawyer NOT in IR or PS.

This article should be read----says almost the same thing I just posted--NO adult to be seen for miles. When reading it keep in the back of your mind--the "perception thing".

Russian fighter jets launched from a new airbase in Syria have persuaded western critics to mute their demands for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad, but another group of his opponents sees Moscow’s intervention as more provocative than decisive.

Regional powers have quietly, but effectively, channelled funds, weapons and other support to rebel groups making the biggest inroads against the forces from Damascus. In doing so, they are investing heavily in a conflict which they see as part of a wider regional struggle for influence with bitter rival Iran.

In a week when Russia made dozens of bombing raids, those countries have made it clear that they remain at least as committed to removing Assad as Moscow is to preserving him.

“There is no future for Assad in Syria,” Saudi foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir warned, a few hours before the first Russian bombing sorties began. If that was not blunt enough, he spelled out that if the president did not step down as part of a political transition, his country would embrace a military option, “which also would end with the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power”. With at least 39 civilians reported dead in the first bombing raids, the prospect of an escalation between backers of Assad and his opponents is likely to spell more misery for ordinary Syrians.

“The Russian intervention is a massive setback for those states backing the opposition, particularly within the region – Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – and is likely to elicit a strong response in terms of a counter-escalation,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

As the Syrian civil war has unfolded, Saudi Arabia has been clear about its position, say analysts. “Since the beginning of the uprising in Syria, the view in Riyadh has been that Bashar al-Assad must go. There is no indication what-soever that Riyadh will change this position,” said Mohammed Alyahya, associate fellow at the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh.

“What is clear to Riyadh and its regional allies is that the recent Russian and Iranian escalation will only create a more unstable region and spill more blood,” he said.

Riyadh has focused support on rebels in the south, say analysts, while allies Turkey and Qatar have reportedly backed northern rebels, including conservative Islamist militias such as Ahrar al Sham.

That group, in alliance with the al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al Nusra, recently reached a local ceasefire deal with Assad in the north. Its success in taking on government forces is thought to have been one trigger for the Russian bombing campaign and put them among the jets’ first targets.

“Most probably, the coming efforts will focus on boosting the effectiveness of major coalitions, co-ordination and co-operation between the most influential and effective groups in Syria,” said regional analyst Ali Bakeer.

Concerns that Assad’s government could collapse, leaving a dangerous power vacuum, had persuaded the allies to support a push for a political transition as well as backing fighters, but the Russian bombing campaign changed that calculation, he said.

“There is a high-level, very close co-operation and co-ordination between Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. They are almost on the same page in Syria.”

Turkish support has been hampered by domestic turmoil, as it prepares, in effect, to rerun a controversial election after a ceasefire with Kurdish groups collapsed. Qatar and Saudi Arabia, however, clearly have the funds, connections and political will to respond to Moscow’s escalation.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are already embroiled in an expensive and bloody war in Yemen that may limit both their military and financial resources. They have also so far deferred to western bans on transferring hi-tech weapons – including missiles that could take down aircraft – over fears that they might change hands in the chaos of the war and be used against their makers.

“The uncertain question today is the degree of power combined with efficiency that regional powers will be willing to bring to the table,” said Barnes-Dacey. “Do the Saudis now try to take matters decisively into their hands, including by providing rebels with sophisticated weaponry long denied them?

“The new [Saudi] king [Salman] has shown a willingness to be much more assertive and take measures into the kingdom’s own hands. If the Saudis see the situation slipping out of their hands, and there is a real sense that the Iranians are consolidating their position in Syria, you could see much stronger response.”

That is unlikely to go as far as troops on the ground, however, and not only because so many assets are already tied up in Yemen.

“A Saudi military role would be too much of an escalation,” said analyst Hassan Hassan, author of Isis: Inside the Army of Terror. “It’s seen as far from Syria, not seen as a direct security threat. With Yemen, people have accepted [Saudi] hegemony for years, unlike Syria, where Iran is seen as dominant.

“The best way to respond to the Russian intervention is to engage the rebels more and step up support so they can face down the escalation and create a balance on the ground,” he said. “The Russians will [then] realise there are limits to what they can achieve in Syria, and modify their approach.” But the wider regional struggle for influence between Saudi Arabia and Iran makes it almost impossible for Riyadh to walk away, whatever the cost.

Saudi officials are particularly worried that the Americans might retreat from their strategy of containing Iran, following the landmark deal struck in July to curb Tehran’s nuclear programme in return for lifting international sanctions.

“Tensions really are escalating in the wake of the nuclear deal,” said Jane Kinninmont, a senior research fellow at international think tank Chatham House. “Saudis feel that the US and the rest of the international community are doing nothing about this, and they are trying to be at the forefront of efforts to contain Iran.”

In this context, there may be a small amount of relief in Riyadh over the Russian role, as stepped-up importance for Moscow could edge out some of the Iranian influence.

“Is there a trade-off here? The more one has Russia, the less one has Iran. I imagine that’s one of the ways Russians are selling the idea to Saudis not to look at this negatively,” said Daniel Levy, Middle East and North Africa programme director at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

But, overall, the risks from escalation go beyond Syria, he said. “The degree to which Tehran and Riyadh are now in a confrontation mode across a number of regional hotspots is worrisome,” said Levy. “Who can act now as the de-escalating mediator?

“Americans are not in a position to do that, nor Russians, and Iran and Saudi Arabia are not sufficiently talking to each other … you’re now left with almost no one at senior levels on the respective sides who can engage with each other. This is going to be a dangerous place.”

You're basically saying continue to do what we have been doing, but we now need to give the Islamists MANPADS. I don't know how much we have supported the KSA, but taking out a few tanks with TOEs isn't a game changer. Assad and ISIL are still in the fight, though both have been weakened. Russia is still a wild card, we will see what their impact is over the weeks to come. I recall our first air attacks on ISIL, they were made for our T.V. audience, and here we are three years later. I don't think Russia will make much of a difference unless they bring a lot more to the fight than they have now.

Simple ---support the Arab Sunni army FSA that was formed via the CIA and others based out of Jordan.

They have been highly successful with professionally trained, vetted and battlefield proven TOW hunter killer teams that have rocked the Assad army and has led to a number of battle loses bringing in the Russians.

Provide the MANPADs under the same mechanism and let the Russians know it--the perception on the battlefield that they are there is enough to cause the RuAF to change tactics---BUT we hear out of DC--who say we cannot do that because what if it causes the Russians to escalate--heck we do nothing and still they escalate so we might as well give them at least a true reason to escalate. We saw the same Russian drill in eastern Ukraine with threats if we do something--we held back and yet Russia still escalated.

We have been supporting FSA for over two years now and they are actually moderate for Islamists.

Obama is fearful of supplying now MANPADs as they do need them to counter the RuAF attacks--due to the fear they will fall into the wrong hands--my comment--eastern Ukraine is already awash with Russian MANPADs and it is only a matter of time before they hit the black markets as have the Russian RGOs--the thermobaric rocket launcher which has been seen on the market for the right price.

Simple knowledge that MANPADS are in a high number in the environment creates the perception of air space denial--even if never used.

My fear if the news this evening is accurate and it is--the more moderate groups are trending towards JN simply to survive the Russian air attacks.

If anything Putin has achieved something along the lines of unintended consequences--driving the over 70 anti Assad groups towards a centralized political and military command.

AND if we fail to honestly support the moderate groups they will become more radicalized and we will never regain their trust.

If you have worked with say Iraqi's ---trust was a big issue with them--I do not know how many times I heard--"we do not trust you since you invaded us".

The FSA overrun Assads forces in Quneitra capturing weapons & ammo
https://youtu.be/misql8UyIPM

Even in the face of heavy Russian air strikes they still beat the SAA.

BTW the info war around the FSA is probably one of the best kept secrets in the last two years--US media constantly called them ineffective and small--small and ineffective they are not.

That so called proxy FSA won a major battle today and drove Assad forces back towards Damascus -------even in the face of heavy Russian air strikes trying to turn the tide of the fighting ------

Incredible TOW hit by FSA Suqour al-Ghab on a group of Assad forces and Russian officers reportedly.

http://youtu.be/iWzGe5i_WuI

Why do you keep complaining about a "do nothing" President when you obviously haven't a clue what you want to see done? Wailing and rending of garments is really pretty pointless if it's all you have to offer.

The FSA is simply not a viable proxy. Isn't now, never was.

I don't think you "get it". The US has no need to be involved in Syria. No pressing national interest is at stake. There is no friend or ally of the US in the picture. There is no viable proxy in the picture. There is no coherent, practical, and achievable strategic goal. There is no exit strategy. So what in that picture demands that the US wade in and sink into a mess? Perception? What good has intervention ever done for perceptions of the US in the ME?

You should really either explain clearly and concisely what you think should be done or stop ranting about what isn't being done.

The Boston University--- my old stomping grounds--quoted Professor is someone who I have respect for his opinions in the area of IR as that was my specialty field--is totally correct.

Go back and reread the link and article I posted here on the utter lack of true US IR analysts and linguists---

After reading both articles---ask yourself--is Obama in a "retrenchment" or is he moving the US into an isolationist period--I pick isolationism.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/end-pax-americana_1039617.html?p…

The End of Pax Americana

Obama’s ‘accomplishment.’

Oct 12, 2015, Vol. 21, No. 05 • By LEE SMITH

The United States, President Obama said at the U.N. General Assembly last week, “worked with many nations in this assembly to prevent a third world war—by forging alliances with old adversaries.” Presumably, the president was not referring to his deeply flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the recent agreement that the White House has marketed as the only alternative to war with a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. Rather, it seems he was referring to the post-World War II period, when the United States created and presided over an international order that prevented an even larger, potentially nuclear, conflict with the Soviet Union. Now, that Pax Americana may be ending.

Indeed, Russia’s airstrikes against CIA-vetted Syrian rebels last week looked like a punctuation mark. When the secretary of state holds a joint press conference with Moscow’s foreign minister after Russia has decimated American proxies bearing American arms, we are not witnessing anything like a return to the Cold War. Rather, we’re witnessing a new order being born. It is an order that is being designed by others, without any concern for American interests.

Its cradle is not the conference rooms of the U.N., but the killing fields of Syria. After four and a half years, the Syrian civil war and the refugee crisis it has spawned threaten to disrupt two zones of American vital interest, the Persian Gulf and Europe.

America’s Cold War prosperity depended on our ability to trade with the rest of the world across both oceans. The United States built a powerful blue-water navy and far-flung bases as tokens of our willingness to protect our allies and stand up to their, and our, adversaries. What facilitates both trade and the movement of a military as large as America’s is access to affordable sources of energy, which is why the security of the Persian Gulf has been a vital American interest for 70 years.

The nuclear agreement with Iran signals that Obama doesn’t see things this way. From his perspective, no core American interest would be threatened by either the domination of the Gulf by revolutionary Iran or the likelihood that other regional powers will go nuclear. The JCPOA told American partners in the Middle East that the old alliance system was finished. Israel and Saudi Arabia would get stiff-armed, and Iran would get to call plays in the huddle. What Obama sought, as he said in a New Yorker interview, was a “new geopolitical equilibrium.”

Vladimir Putin understood Obama’s rhetoric and actions as confirmation of what he’d already surmised. Putin showed NATO to be a paper tiger when he moved against Georgia, then ordered a Russian crew based in Syria to shoot down a jet flown by NATO member Turkey, then annexed Crimea, to little response. In July, the JCPOA opened the way for Russian and Iranian cooperation in Syria. The Americans, Putin understood, had no stomach for a fight. But the White House may have helped create the conditions for a conflict much larger than the war already underway in Syria, a conflict that could someday force the United States to defend its vital interests.

“There already is a third world war underway,” says Angelo Codevilla, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University. “It’s the war between Sunnis and Shiites. It’s a world war because it engages people all around the world who happen to be Muslims.”

Codevilla thinks it unlikely that the war will expand past the Middle East but notes that Pakistan, a nuclear Sunni power, could present problems. In any event, the Obama administration has little ability to shape outcomes. “Once you seize a position by force, as the Russians have,” says Codevilla, “you are in the diplomatic driver’s seat. Putin is schooling the U.S. foreign policy establishment in foreign affairs. He has put his armed forces not at the service of Bashar al-Assad, but at the service of Russian interests.”

And Obama? The White House believes in a balance of power without winners and losers, an abstract international system with room for every nation to pursue its rational interests. But this is fantasy: Whatever order exists belongs to the power that imposes it. The Syrian war threatens two of the pillars of the order we formerly led.

“At what point does the Syrian conflict create political instability in places like Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing states in the Persian Gulf?” asks Walter Russell Mead, professor of foreign policy and humanities at Bard College. “As long as nothing is happening to block the oil flow, it’s the refugee flow that makes Syria an international issue.”

But even before the refugees, European security services were overwhelmed trying to keep tabs on potential jihadist recruits traveling from Europe to the Middle East and back. The influx of hundreds of thousands more migrants from the region is likely to generate political instability and could carry the war between Sunnis and Shiites into Europe.

To stem the refugee crisis, the White House is broadly hinting it is willing to go along with Tehran and Moscow and let Assad stay in power, at least for now. But it is Assad and his allies—not, as the administration seems to suggest, the Islamic State—who are responsible for the vast majority of the refugees. If the Obama administration accommodates Russia and Iran on Assad, it will be acquiescing in a plot to extort and destabilize Europe.

In the Gulf, Mead says, “if the Sunnis continue to feel that they’re losing an existential conflict with Iran, they may move toward a closer relationship between governments and radical groups. Keeping oil money out of the hands of truly radical jihadists has been a core U.S. interest since September 11, but if the Gulf states don’t feel we are keeping our part of the bargain by providing security, they could take matters into their own hands.”

Of course, another option for the Gulf states would be to enlist Russia, which, unlike the Obama administration, has shown its willingness to act on behalf of its own interests. Now that Obama has forsaken America’s post-World War II patrimony, life is more dangerous for America and its allies. This won’t be easy to reverse, no matter who succeeds Barack Obama.

An the Russian altered state of reality just keeps on marching along----

Russian info war is going all in----this is far far different to the info war practiced in the Ukraine----

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20...st-russia.html

Obama's Weakness Forces Middle East to Turn to Russia

While the US is getting cold feet on their future actions in the region Russia is taking decisive steps despite sanctions and a downturn in its economy. The US policy in the Middle East failed, the author wrote.

"The Syrian opposition trained by Washington gave up to the al-Nusra Front. The Iraqi army failed to defeat ISIL despite the support from the US," the article read.

The US spent $90 billion for the war on terrorism but it was all in vain. After Washington withdrew its troops from Iraq in 2011 President Barack Obama refused to start another war in the Middle East.

"Putin is realizing the weakness of the US, and he is taking on America's worldwide hegemony. This is why Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have turned to Moscow for help," Eytan Gilboa, Director of the Center for International Communication at Bar-Ilan University, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

"This resulted in Putin taking the lead," he said.

The weakness of Washington also provoked violence and instability in other regions. For example, recently the Taliban seized Kunduz province. Despite the fact that the Taliban has not been active recently, the group is still undefeated and would try to regain the areas they had to leave before.

In Iraq, the army supported by the US is taking losses and cannot defeat ISIL. It pushed Iraq to cooperate with Syria, Iran and Russia to create a coordination information center to collect data on terrorists.

What is more, despite the fact that the US supported Kurdish fighters — the most effective against ISIL — now Washington is helping Turkey to fight against Kurds, the author wrote.

The US hoped that after the Iranian nuclear deal Tehran would stabilize the situation in the region.

"However, after the sanctions had been lifted Iran turned to cooperation with Russia. Other countries in region are also asking Putin for help," Gilboa said.

<i>Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS are now in a race to recruit foreign fighters that want a piece of Russia.</i>

So how is that a problem for us?

They both hate us. They want to kill each other. And you want us to stop them?

Why?

Dayuhan, Outlaw is just as frustrated but more vocal than many of the rest of us (although I see COL (ret) Jack Jacobs sounded off!). But since you asked:

<blockquote>Be clear: the question on the table is very simple. What do you want the US to do?</blockquote>

We had plenty of earlier options to include air attacks on Syria’s air defenses, helicopters, ground and air forces which now are impossible with Russian aircraft protecting them. The Turks wanted some kind of buffer zone early on that we could have helped facilitate.

<blockquote>You can't "abandon" a fight if you weren't in it in the first place, and there is <strong>no faction in Syria that is in any way entitled to US support.</strong></blockquote>

What about the Kurds? What of the 250,000 everyday Syrian Sunnis who were killed by Assad’s forces and millions more turned into drowning/fleeing refugees? What about Israel and our GCC friends threatened by ISIL and Iran? What about NATO friends and Jordan/Lebanon being economically hurt and threatened by terror from both refugees and Hezbollah? You worry about exit strategies, but why exit? As Senator McCain points out we have had troops in Germany and Korea for decades. We have had troops in the Balkans, Kuwait, and Sinai for well over a decade with relatively few casualties.

To duplicate those low casualties, there are places NATO and GCC/Kurd allies could base and conduct raids in relative safety. The Kurd buffer zone in northern Iraq and Syria is one. We could get other NATO nations to join us in claiming Article 5 (refugee and ISIL infiltration/expansion threat) if the Turks object. If the Turks and the Iraqis block airspace access we could enter through Jordan and Saudi Arabia flying over eastern Syria to resupply our Northern Kurd area FOBs. If we solely fly point A to B to raid in Syria rather than drive/walk and get blown up or captured, the casualties will be minimal.

Daniel Goure wrote a recent article about Souda Bay in Crete, Greece where we could base and fly to northern Syria if the Turks still allowed use of their airspace while simultaneously helping the Greek economy and Mediterranean refugees. We could lease a cruise ship and fill it with refugees brought to Guantanamo Bay and/or Virgin Island refugee camps.

Agree that the Russians will overextend themselves with current conflicts and low oil prices plus sanctions. That is not a reason to ignore our potential role earlier, now, and into the future. I speculate that Putin is more concerned about having a sea port in Syria and that by protecting the Alawites he could probably retain that port indefinitely even if Assad and the rest of Syria falls.

That is the first step to a Sunni remainder of “Syria” with a small Kurd sector in the north. With continued NATO air attacks and air assaults with attack helicopter raids on ISIL, that more moderate Sunni and Kurd “Syria” with an Alawite mountainous coast could be a relatively peaceful friend at some point while thwarting Iranian expansion and reassuring Sunni GCC friends. No build. No attempt to win hearts and minds. Iraq Shiites will have to fix their own problems as long as we at least protect their Kurds and offer a safer Syrian space for Iraq Sunni refugees and relocators.

The new “Gray Zone” white paper mistakenly attributes high recent OIF/OEF costs to lower costs of a continuous U.S. presence throughout the world to deter conflict. The Russians and Chinese have few friends abroad so they essentially make their own bases as we see in the South China Seas (IIRC someone ;) wrote in SWJ about that opportunity for us) or now build bases adjacent to or in East Ukraine, in Crimea, areas of Georgia, and now in Syria. Our NATO and Pacific allies, likewise, should be more willing to play that game rather than weakly protesting, avoiding 12nm of their “islands,” and relying solely on covert and SF/SOF action.

Subic Bay seems on the table once again and plenty of other Philippine Islands could support Army and Marine Pacific Pathways forward presence. Poland and Baltic states could support rotating NATO ground forces. There are times to be more overt in the name of deterrence and a balanced Joint approach to “Gray Zones” and areas of active conflict.

There are currently three Sunni armies with the emphasis on armies---one being around the FSA, one is IS and then a loose group around JN.

The US has been dealing with FSA via Jordan and yes while Islamist--they are not fundamentalists--a major point in the eyes of the US--this is the term "moderates" the US is currently using.

The FSA has been with the TOW the lead attack army and is making solid advances against Assad-AND they have been gaining on IS in areas IS controls---NOW Russia is bombing them instead of the declared goal of IS--SO what does the US say and or do---not a swinging thing.

So if are in the FSA and inclined towards the US even as an Islamist and watch the US basically abandon you THEN what is your "perception of the US"?????

The Syrian issue will be settled by Syrian themselves and any outsiders should do well in positioning themselves as much as possible with those that want to talk to it--abandon them now in the face of Russian attacks and you will miss again a chance to influence the outcome--influence not control.

NOW this development----

Agence France-Presse ✔ @AFP

#BREAKING Russia ready to consider air strikes in Iraq if Baghdad asks: senior diplomat

If you have listened to the Lundis audio interview you would have heard exactly how the groups in Syria have slowly radicalized to this point because we the US could not jump over our 9/11 shadow and realize that moderates can in be Islamists but moderates do not necessarily translate into enemies of the US.

We had a red line that should have been carried out after the chemical attack that killed 1400--that alone would have lent creditability to the US as a "perception" to those on the ground that at least we had a humanitarian view of protecting Syrians regardless of political slants.

Secondly the Syrians have been massively and are still being heavily bombed with barrel bombs which are also mixed with chlorine gas that has been verified.

A NFZ would have ended the Syrian bombings of their civilians cutting back on the refugee flows and dead children seen in videos around the world--again a "perception" that the US at least cared about Syrian civilians.

Now a NFZ is out of the question and that is exactly what Putin had in mind as he understood the west was heading in that direction.

The TOW is on the ground in Syria and it has been extremely effective and actually has led to the recent collapses of the Assad army--more need to get into Syria AND now MANPADs to counter the Russia air strikes as well as the Syrian AF bombings.

BUT both will never happen with this President as he is a great one for talk but not action.

BTW the supplier of the TOWs and the training for the TOW hunter killer teams has never been named.

BTW --the above could have been done without picking a proxy --just dealing correctly with all the groups by trying to find a common ground to at least talk to them---humanitarian aid--should have been flown in months ago--was blocked by the Russian UNSC veto three times--not a murmur from the US.

<i>Syria's war now is a civil war wrapped in a proxy war entangled with a holy war and enmeshed with yet another holy war.</i>

That sounds like a most excellent reason to stay out of it.

Sometimes there's no clear idea on how to handle a problem because it's not our problem to handle. If we have no clear and compelling national interest at stake and no practical, achievable end state goal... that may be a sign that we're best off sitting this one out. Is it somewhere graven in bronze that the US must slam its swinging schlong into every rat trap on the planet?