The Syria Analysis Thread

10 posts

Boozin through Dixie
Same actors as before CIA, DoD and some in the the administration like McMaster wants this. So far not much has change
mkondich

mcmaster's role was diminished in the weeks after the strike
but theres still a level of influence

i dont think he ordered arming the kurds. as a petraeus mentee he would rather the idlib jihadists remain dominant, not kürt

mkondich

even today mcmaster was put on stand and tried to put on a strong face. he conflated russians and syrians with being a disruptive force - rhetoric that has been completely missing from public since the week of the strike. seems he's becoming more an outlier since they shut haley up from making such statements

Boozin through Dixie

Yes it has been nice not to hear Haley's mouth running lately. it seems impossible for the US to not have annoying UN ambassador

Niccolo and Donkey
[​IMG]
J-Mask {107}
Local Daimyo


We'll see what if any new spin the CIA will put on the use of their rebels under Trump
A Gleaming Leprosy
I don't know much about Syria but if it's anything like the Chinese Civil War the U.S. will say "the corrupt Assad regime is only interested in fighting the opposition, whereas our moderate rebels are doing all the real fighting against ISIS."
Local Daimyo
That's been the line all along. Only problem is that it's so not true that the US has been forced to use the YPG to fight ISIS; US would prefer to eliminate ISIS and replace them with pliant, rather than independent Sunni Arab jihadists but the "moderate" rebels are so shit tier the US can't even get them to fight ISIS effectively.

Taking this logic one step further people like Charles Lister say "it's Assad's misrule that allowed ISIS to exist and grow so he must be removed to actually eliminate ISIS". This is so stupid; in places that Assad controls, ISIS doesn't exist, and this position implies that removing Assad and casting the entirety of Syria into the resulting warlord dog pile would somehow be bad for ISIS. The arguments of Lister, Weiss and co. are very intellectually dishonest. Not that anyone here doesn't know that already.
Fitz