The Syria Analysis Thread

Niccolo and Donkey Tuesday 28 May 2013

Lots of news today.

Obama asks Pentagon to plan for a no-fly zone in Syria

President Obama’s dual-track strategy of continuing to pursue a political solution to the two-year-old uprising in Syria while also preparing for more direct U.S. military involvement includes authorizing the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the first time to plan for multilateral military actions inside Syria, the two officials said. They added that no decisions on actually using force have yet been made.

“The White House is still in contemplation mode but the planning is moving forward and it’s more advanced than it’s ever been,” one administration official told The Daily Beast. “All this effort to pressure the regime is part of the overall effort to find a political solution, but what happens if Geneva fails? It’s only prudent to plan for other options.”

Canada sides against Anglo-America-France :

link

Summary

The state department briefing has ended. Acting deputy spokesperson Patrick Ventrell said the United States:
• Supports the easing of the EU arms embargo on Syria, saying the step "gives the flexibility of specific EU member states to support the opposition as they see fit." Easing the embargo sends a message to Assad "that support for the opposition is only going to increase," Ventrell said.
• Will not change its policy based on the EU decision. "I wouldn't relate the two between an EU decision and our internal decision-making."
• Opposes Russian sales of anti-aircraft missiles to the Assad regime . "We think that's a mistake... They've described it as fulfilling existing contracts... We're going to continue to work with them."
• Sees no contradiction in its policy on arms shipments to Syria. "We've seen how the regime uses these arms. When we're talking about the opposition, that's a different group."
• Condemns Hezbollah involvement in Syria. "It's destabilizing to Syria but it's destabilizing to Lebanon as well."
• Ventrell declined to say whether the state department had advance warning of Senator John McCain's visit to Syria Monday. "We are in touch with various members of Congress about their travel overseas," Ventrell said. McCain supports arming the rebels.

Free Syrian Army commander Salim Idriss has warned Hezbollah to remove its fighters from Syria or "we will take all measures to hunt" them, "even in hell."
Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper reported on Idriss' remarks on Al-Arabiya:

"If the attacks of Hizbullah against Syrian territory do not stop within 24 hours, we will take all measures to hunt Hizbullah, even in hell," he told Al-Arabiya news channel, addressing President Michel Suleiman, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi and U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon.
"I will no longer be bound by any commitments I made, if a decision to stop the attacks... is not taken and implemented," said Idriss, who heads the supreme military council of the Free Syrian Army.
"I can no longer restrain the fighters" of the FSA, he added without saying what concrete action they might take.
"We are being subjected to a genocide conducted by Hizbullah," charged Idriss.
"I hope that everyone will excuse the Free (Syrian) Army" for retaliating, he said.

Niccolo and Donkey Tuesday 28 May 2013

More from the source above:

Summary

Here is a summary of today’s key events so far:

• Russia has said it is going to go ahead with a delivery of anti-aircraft missiles to the Syrian government in order to deter “hotheads” from getting involved in the country’s civil war.

• The move comes hours after the EU dropped its arms embargo on the Syrian rebels after Britain and France threatened to scupper all embargoes against Syria, which were about to lapse. William Hague, the UK foreign secretary, denied the Russian move was connected to the EU’s.

• Britain and France say they could start supplying arms to the Syrian rebels now if they wanted to, but they don’t yet. Hague said the main aim of the EU move – which was opposed by the other 25 countries in the union – was to force Bashar al-Assad to the negotiating table.

• Salam Idris, the commander of the Free Syrian Army umbrella rebel group, and the man Hague named as being a probable conduit of any arms shipment, said he was “ very disappointed ” the FSA would not be getting weapons immediately, and said he had run out of patience with the international community.

• Israel condemned Russia’s move, and to a lesser extent Europe’s. It is worried a new influx of weapons could be used against its own cities and citizens.

• Middle East expert Professor Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics suggested Russia and Iran – Assad’s other key backer – would be keen to see him step down as soon as his seven-year term is up in 2014. He was sceptical about Hague’s theory that the threat of arming the rebels would force Assad to negotiate, and felt it was highly probable that European arms would reach Islamist extremists once they got into Syria.

• Eyewitness testimony and graphic video footage seems to support claims that one of the worst atrocities of the Syrian civil war was carried out in three neighbouring districts in Bayda and Baniyas earlier this month, the BBC reports .

• A Syrian TV correspondent was killed covering the fighting near Qusair yesterday . Yara Abbas, who worked for the state-owned Al-Ikhbariyah TV, was attacked by rebels who ambushed the car carrying her and her crew, the Syrian information ministry said.

• The Lebanese army has said it is investigating the attack on a checkpoint in which three soldiers were killed and its troops are searching for the gunmen.

Niccolo and Donkey Tuesday 28 May 2013

Vuk Stubby Theo

[IMG]

SweetLeftFoot Wednesday 29 May 2013

8

They reckon there's 500 Aussie passport holders, usually Sunni Lebanese, over fighting, most with Al Nusra.

Niccolo and Donkey Wednesday 29 May 2013

300 with al-Nusra from the Balkans alone, none of which are of Arab stock of course. One is from my hometown.

SweetLeftFoot Wednesday 29 May 2013

Assad right all along on that one.

We were talking about this at work and one of the young reporters said he'd like to go be with the rebels. I said if I was going to fight on either side, I'd fight for Assad.

Got a few looks.

Niccolo and Donkey Wednesday 29 May 2013

The West can't even be bothered to formulate an argument to up their support for his ouster. Chemical Weapons/WMD has failed plus they have the added factor of al-Nusra being the key fighting force despite their promotion of rivals who are doing fuck all in actuality.

SweetLeftFoot Wednesday 29 May 2013

Oh yeah, Assad is winning and winning well.

The gameplan appears to be cut off the jihadis in the north and hold them, and deal with the rest.

Then turn on the jihadis in the north with active Russian diplomatic cover pointing out al Nusra is proscribed.

If Nusra stands and fights, it could get all Tamil Tigers, but I expect they'll slink back over the border.

Niccolo and Donkey Wednesday 29 May 2013

Hezbollah going all out is a game-changer which is why Anglo-America-France-Israel-Qatar-RSA wants to speed things up and get a no-fly zone in there ASAP. If Qusair falls to Assad, then Damascus and Latakia are linked and the rebels are split.

SweetLeftFoot Wednesday 29 May 2013

Yeah, it really is the crucial fight now. I don't see how they get an NFZ in though before Assad and Hezbollah can split the rebels. Also, the NFZ in itself isn't everything unless they start taking out Syrian air defence system, which again Russia won't allow.

This is the big strategic fight (far bigger than Iraq IMO where Russia and Iran were content to aid the locals in varyiong ways to bleed the Americans).

This is an existential fight now.

The Syria Analysis Thread

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