Civil War in Syria

[bgwah]

A little surprised this isn't a bigger story...

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/world/europe/russia-syria-dead.html

[Angel of Death]

The latest twist is that the Syrian government appears to be teaming up with the Kurds, at least for the purpose of defending Afrin against Turkey.

[Sir Mohamed]

The latest twist is that the Syrian government appears to be teaming up with the Kurds, at least for the purpose of defending Afrin against Turkey.

I wonder how long that lasts. Neither Turkey nor Assad are interested in more autonomy for the kurds, let alone a state.

[dead0man]

Syria/Assad/his cronies is/are probably a lot more open to the idea now than they were a decade ago.

[Tender Branson]

Rebels are leaving East Ghouta, after being bombed to ashes by Assad & Co:

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http://www.india.com/news/agencies/jihadists-to-be-evacuated-from-syrias-ghouta-rebel-group-2935799

[CatoMinor]

I wonder if the Turks will become the common enemy that ends up reuniting the Syrians in the end if they continue to push deeper into Syria.

[Tender Branson]

East Ghouta almost fully liberated from the rebel forces.

I wonder what Assad will do next ... move north to fight them in Idlib ? Or clear the remaining rebel pockets first south to Damascus and close to Israel and in the South-Western desert ?

Plus, the filthy Turks have almost taken the Afrin region. I hope the invading Turks get purged at some point later on and be removed from Syria.

[Crumpets]

East Ghouta almost fully liberated from the rebel forces.

I wonder what Assad will do next ... move north to fight them in Idlib ? Or clear the remaining rebel pockets first south to Damascus and close to Israel and in the South-Western desert ?

Plus, the filthy Turks have almost taken the Afrin region. I hope the invading Turks get purged at some point later on and be removed from Syria.

Almost certainly invade Dara'a Province.

[CatoMinor]

East Ghouta almost fully liberated from the rebel forces.

That's one word you could use, I suppose.

[America Needs R'hllor]

East Ghouta almost fully liberated from the rebel forces.

That's one word you could use, I suppose.

Ah, the clean, unique smell of freedom...
Wait, no. It's actually sarin nerve gas

[ingemann]

East Ghouta almost fully liberated from the rebel forces.

That's one word you could use, I suppose.

I in general doesn't use it, mostly to avoid dcomment like this. But honestly it's the correct word to use. It wasn't freedom loving freedom fighters who hold East Ghouta, it was a mix of genodical Islamists and bandits, who have had controlled over it. So compared to that I guess the people have been liberated, because while it's a repressive Regime which replaced the Rebels, it was still vastly preferable.

[ingemann]

East Ghouta almost fully liberated from the rebel forces.

That's one word you could use, I suppose.

Ah, the clean, unique smell of freedom...
Wait, no. It's actually sarin nerve gas

Maybe we should also just accept any news we get from Palestinians as the truth without checking up on it.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Dozens killed in apparent chemical weapons attack on civilians in Syria, rescue workers say

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This looks so obviously stupid for Assad, and so obviously convenient for Western war hawks, that I am immediately suspicious and skeptical.

[Mr. Morden]

This looks so obviously stupid for Assad, and so obviously convenient for Western war hawks, that I am immediately suspicious and skeptical.

Not sure how it's stupid for Assad.  He's gotten away with chemical weapons attacks in the past, and he'll continue to do so in the future.

[Helsinkian]

Trump is now calling him "Animal Assad" on Twitter.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This looks so obviously stupid for Assad, and so obviously convenient for Western war hawks, that I am immediately suspicious and skeptical.

Not sure how it's stupid for Assad.  He's gotten away with chemical weapons attacks in the past, and he'll continue to do so in the future.

Well, I haven't been following the war super-closely, but from what I've been reading the Syrians-Russians-Iranians have it mostly won at this point. And Trump was just talking about pulling out last week.

So it Assad (or whoever calls the shots) is risking pulling the US back in in a big way, against the miniscule military benefit of a single act of terror. So it seems like a really dumb move.

[Mr. Morden]

This looks so obviously stupid for Assad, and so obviously convenient for Western war hawks, that I am immediately suspicious and skeptical.

Not sure how it's stupid for Assad.  He's gotten away with chemical weapons attacks in the past, and he'll continue to do so in the future.

Well, I haven't been following the war super-closely, but from what I've been reading the Syrians-Russians-Iranians have it mostly won at this point. And Trump was just talking about pulling out last week.

So it Assad (or whoever calls the shots) is risking pulling the US back in in a big way, against the miniscule military benefit of a single act of terror. So it seems like a really dumb move.

Depends on what you mean by "mostly won".  Assad is winning, and not in any danger of losing any more territory.  Yet, it'll still take years for him to reclaim all the lost territory, if he ever manages to do it.

Last year's chemical weapons attack resulted in a single air strike from the US in response, and I'm not sure why this would be any different.  Trump already said that he wants to leave Syria anyway.  Maybe this'll help convince him to stay around a little longer.  But stay around in order to do what?  Attack ISIS more?  Assad would be fine with that.  Go to war against Assad?  I don't see any reason to believe that's going to happen.

[King Lear]

Their is absolutely no evidence Assad carried out this “Chemical Attack”, with the exception of exaggerated statements and doctored videos, from American-backed Sunni Rebels. Honestly, does it make sense for Assad to use Chemical weapons right after Trump said that he wanted to withdraw from Syria (this would have been one of his few good decisions). Now, the Neocons have all the doctored evidence they need to launch a military intervention to overthrow Assad and turn Syria into a failed state (like they did to Libya and Iraq), and I’m sure the “Liberal” CNN and MSNBC are so happy that Trump finally said something mean to Putin, and is on the verge of overthrowing the “evil” Assad (never mind the fact that he’s actually the good guy who’s killing Terrorists and defending the Shi’a Muslims and Christians from being slaughtered).

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This looks so obviously stupid for Assad, and so obviously convenient for Western war hawks, that I am immediately suspicious and skeptical.

Not sure how it's stupid for Assad.  He's gotten away with chemical weapons attacks in the past, and he'll continue to do so in the future.

Well, I haven't been following the war super-closely, but from what I've been reading the Syrians-Russians-Iranians have it mostly won at this point. And Trump was just talking about pulling out last week.

So it Assad (or whoever calls the shots) is risking pulling the US back in in a big way, against the miniscule military benefit of a single act of terror. So it seems like a really dumb move.

Why is it dumb?  The Syrian regime likely thinks (and correctly in my opinion) that the risk of a significant response to this by the US is minimal.  It makes a lot of realpolitik sense for them to be doing this to areas that are still resisting their rule. Disproportionate force against those still resisting them combined with a relatively light hand against those who have resigned themselves to their continued rule (if they can get those in the areas still struggling against them to believe that light hand actually exists) would be an excellent tactic to bring the fighting to a relatively quick end on their terms.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This looks so obviously stupid for Assad, and so obviously convenient for Western war hawks, that I am immediately suspicious and skeptical.

Not sure how it's stupid for Assad.  He's gotten away with chemical weapons attacks in the past, and he'll continue to do so in the future.

Well, I haven't been following the war super-closely, but from what I've been reading the Syrians-Russians-Iranians have it mostly won at this point. And Trump was just talking about pulling out last week.

So it Assad (or whoever calls the shots) is risking pulling the US back in in a big way, against the miniscule military benefit of a single act of terror. So it seems like a really dumb move.

Why is it dumb?  The Syrian regime likely thinks (and correctly in my opinion) that the risk of a significant response to this by the US is minimal.  It makes a lot of realpolitik sense for them to be doing this to areas that are still resisting their rule. Disproportionate force against those still resisting them combined with a relatively light hand against those who have resigned themselves to their continued rule (if they can get those in the areas still struggling against them to believe that light hand actually exists) would be an excellent tactic to bring the fighting to a relatively quick end on their terms.

I suppose it comes down to how likely whoever is calling the shots in Syria is that the US won't launch a major intervention. It seems to me that some faction of the US government really wants to make sure Assad goes down, and giving them any excuse is bad judgement.


But maybe Syria's Russian patron has given them reason to be very confident that the US won't take any decisive action. I suppose is Trump really is a Russian agent  then this horrible attack does make a certain sort of evil sense.

[kelestian]

This looks so obviously stupid for Assad, and so obviously convenient for Western war hawks, that I am immediately suspicious and skeptical.

Not sure how it's stupid for Assad.  He's gotten away with chemical weapons attacks in the past, and he'll continue to do so in the future.

Well, I haven't been following the war super-closely, but from what I've been reading the Syrians-Russians-Iranians have it mostly won at this point. And Trump was just talking about pulling out last week.

So it Assad (or whoever calls the shots) is risking pulling the US back in in a big way, against the miniscule military benefit of a single act of terror. So it seems like a really dumb move.

Depends on what you mean by "mostly won".  Assad is winning, and not in any danger of losing any more territory.  Yet, it'll still take years for him to reclaim all the lost territory, if he ever manages to do it.

Last year's chemical weapons attack resulted in a single air strike from the US in response, and I'm not sure why this would be any different.  Trump already said that he wants to leave Syria anyway.  Maybe this'll help convince him to stay around a little longer.  But stay around in order to do what?  Attack ISIS more?  Assad would be fine with that.  Go to war against Assad?  I don't see any reason to believe that's going to happen.

US rockets destroyed about quarter of operational Syrian war planes year ago.

[America Needs R'hllor]

Honestly, we often assume complete rationality and centralization about international players, but this is not the case. the Syrian government isn't completely rational, just like any other government, and there are major organizational constraints- ie, the government is basically made of organizations and agencies, all with their own routine plans and interests, so it doesn't surprise me that the Syrian army has seen fit to use, again, chemical weapons, regardless of what Trump said a week ago. They did it many times before, it became a part of their standard plans, so they just did it again when the need arose. There's nothing awfully surprising or illogical here.
But of course, King Lear will keep thinking that it's a Zionist-American conspiracy to take down his hero Assad, and nothing will change his robotic mind

[CatoMinor]

The Assad forces have made HUGE gains in recent weeks in the rebel-held countryside between Aleppo and Hama:

Link 1

Link 2

The destruction of the rebels is imminent this year ...

These are pretty useful maps.

[Crumpets]

So... Sputnik has just posted out of the blue that Assad is definitely still in Syria. They say that local news reports were claiming he fled to Iran, but as a big consumer of Middle East news, I can say I definitely didn't see anything like that today, and after a bit of digging, I still can't find articles along those lines. Something fishy seems to be going on.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201804111063419213-syria-bashar-assad-family-source/

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Why would Assad flee Syria when his side is winning the war? This seems like fake news designed to demoralize the Assadists.