Considering the ineptitude of POTUS and his lack of a coherent strategy against ISIS, things may be interesting (not in a good way) soon since Russian troops have been reported in combat missions fighting against the “Syrian rebels” that POTUS is arming and flying air support. The risks run real high should an errant NATO bomb spill Russian blood.
Honestly I’d rather have pro Assad Russian troops fighting ISIS than Iranian militia.
Perhaps if Obama simply didn’t kick over this can of worms in the first place. Did we learn nothing from destabilizing the last “mostly secular” arab country with a brutal dictator?
If we had any kind of real leadership we would have left Putin running things in Syria and done our best to deal with our fiasco in Iraq. Instead we decided to make our fiasco in Iraq worse by expanding it to Syria and weakening the only guy keeping groups like ISIS under control.
I don’t really see this as bad thing considering Russia has a long history of dealing with Islamic militants with a positive outcome. But there is the whole geo-political chess game the West has been playing in the Middle East since before WWI so who knows . . .
Yep, and Obama overplayed his hand with empty threats over the use of chemical weapons. I’m surprised the Russians didn’t arrive last year, but I think Putin was letting Iraq go to shit a little more and letting some Iranians kill some ISIS guys. Basic Russian strategy is to let everyone you don’t care about kill each other and then arrive and clean up.
The video footage claimed to show troops and a Russian armoured vehicle fighting Syrian rebels alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s troops in Latakia.
It is reportedly possible to hear Russian being spoken by the troops in the footage.
According to Western diplomats, a Russian expeditionary force has already arrived in Syria and set up camp in an Assad-controlled airbase. The base is said to be in area surrounding Damascus, and will serve, for all intents and purposes, as a Russian forward operating base. In the coming weeks thousands of Russian military personnel are set to touch down in Syria, including advisors, instructors, logistics personnel, technical personnel, members of the aerial protection division and the pilots who will operate the aircraft.
Glad to see others understand the main motivation for our persistent attempts to remove Assad from power. Most are still in denial this is a series of moves to continue propping up the Petrodollar.
Most are still in denial that we were actively arming and training elements of Al Qaeda - who morphed into ISIS and we continued to support them.
Great read for those interested (this details the entire backstory of BRICS involvement and energy shifts to China via Pakistan and eventually a direct pipeline into China):
Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Qatar: Pipelineistan at work
The key (unstated) reason for Qatar to be so obsessed by regime change in Syria is to kill the $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, which was agreed upon in July 2011. The same applies to Turkey, because this pipeline would bypass Ankara, which always bills itself as the key energy crossroads between East and West.
It’s crucial to remember that the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline is as anathema to Washington as IP. The difference is that Washington in this case can count on its allies Qatar and Turkey to sabotage the whole deal.
This means sabotaging not only Iran but also the ‘Four Seas’ strategy announced by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2009, according to which Damascus should become a Pipelineistan hub connected to the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The strategy spells out a Syria intimately connected with Iranian – and not Qatari – energy flows. Iran-Iraq-Syria is known in the region as the ‘friendship pipeline.’ Typically, Western corporate media derides it as an ‘Islamic’ pipeline. (So Saudi pipelines are what, Catholic?) What makes it even more ridiculous is that gas in this pipeline would flow to Syria and then Lebanon – and from there to energy-starved European markets close by.
I have very mixed feelings on this.
For one thing, the Soviets wasting ISIS doesn’t hurt my feelings at all.
It would be amusing to see the VK pics of Vintorezed or mortared ISIS. The Soviets have never played nice or fair, but they do play for keeps.
That said…this is a legit ‘New World Order’ power shift where the Soviets are determining what goes on in places that affect others.
On its face it seems good but they are not our friends and anything beneficial to us is a coincidence.
It’s interesting times, that 15 years ago would’ve seemed really outlandish to most.
I’m not a geopolitical expert at all, but it doesn’t seem like anything really positive.
If true, surprised it took so long. That Russians might step in to maintain a pro Russian regime in Syria should come as a shock to no one. They already know the US/NATO is without teeth, and probably weighed their options and acted. The Russians and counter parts tend to have a much more realistic view of the region than the US does, and understand well removing a generally crappy regime that keeps their monsters in check is better than creating a vacuum that gets filled by far worse monsters every time.
Removal of said crappy oppressive regimes in that region does not result in freedom hugs all around and the growth of democracies and rainbow happy flags and tolerance for all. Never has, probably never will. The devil you know and all that.
We did the usual half in routine where we support the concept of freedom and democracy for others but not the costs. Freedom is not free and if not willing to be all in, don’t get in to begin with is my view.
There is going to be trouble with this. The US created, arms and trains ISIS. They are the West’s mercenary army to conquer lands that the bulk of us would revolt/AWOL if they tried to send you and I.
Russia knows that we will send the Wahabbists to their doorstep if they conquer Syria. Just as we did with the Mujihadeen in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Libya, Iraq and now Syria.
Same stuff I and a few others had been commenting around here some time ago but were ignored or ridiculed.
Now we bring some of the Sunni Wahabbists amongst the Syrian Shiite and Sunni trying to escape war. Yet we ignore the FACT that we are cozy with Wahabbist Saudi Arabia.
Tsk, tsk and shame on the nation as apathy, ignorance and arrogance consumes us.
“One cannot awaken a man who pretends to be asleep.”
This is good in my opinion. While Assad is not great, he is a whole lot better than an Islamist regime bent on subjugating and killing the West. The U.S. should have learned its lesson in the middle east - that democracy doesn’t work there (except in Israel) and that destabilization of countries under autocratic, relatively secular rule universally results in an Islamist regime taking control.
We should be supporting Assad. I hope the Russians help them drop the hammer on ISIS.
I don’t trust Putin one bit. I think he is dangerous and would kill his own mother if it helped him in any way.
I certainly hope that he is legitimately going to go after ISIS, but wouldn’t put ANYTHING past him.
I will wait and see, but it is pathetic to see how the West (North America and Europe) are dealing with ISIS, the “refugees”, and Islam in general.
That we are letting Putin be the hero here is downright pathetic.
With that said, I hope the Russians kill every last IS savage, and that they not fall for the soldier-of-Allah by night, civilian by day ruse that is SOP for Islamic militants the world over.
Right on the money.
As for whether we learned anything from destabilizing the last “mostly secular” arab country with a brutal dictator, we certainly did.
However, elite, reality-challenged politicians did not. The Muslim-In-Chief did learn, but we aren’t on the same team.
The US people (well, OK, let’s say half the US people) would, but the Muslims, Islamophiles, SJW’s and anti-Western Western leadership will not.
The defense ministry stated these games are “the most large-scale drill of 2015.” Military drills are conducted “at 20 sites across Russia’s central military district,” including the “Siberian Altai and southern Astrakhan regions.” From Deutsche Welle:
Military officials said the drills were aimed at testing the readiness of the military to “manage coalition groups of troops in containing an international armed conflict.”
Troops will simulate “blocking and destroying illegal armed formations during joint special operations,” the ministry said.
Twenty naval ships and up to 170 aircraft are taking part in the exercises, which run until Sunday, and will be observed, on at least one of the days, by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has positioned about a half dozen tanks at an airfield at the center of a military buildup in Syria, two U.S. officials said on Monday, adding that the intentions of Moscow’s latest deployment of heavy military equipment were unclear.
Moscow has come under increased international pressure in recent days to explain its moves in Syria, where the Kremlin has been supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a 4-1/2-year war.
The Pentagon declined to directly comment on the Reuters report, saying it could not discuss U.S. intelligence. But a U.S. Defense Department spokesman said recent actions by Moscow suggested plans to establish a forward air operating base.
Y’all are aware the Soviet army got their ass handed to them in Afg before?
They are stepping into a hornets nest-which is why the west including us (US) has been standing off. There is no ‘win’ there. We are learning our lessons. They apparently have not.
Not sure how serious i take Russian armed forces capability; seeing how utterly corrupt the Putin ‘administration’ is, morally and economically bankrupt, his deluded thinking and continuing posturing, this will be intersting to say the least. Only bad and worse options. All this is is Russia protecting naval acces if i see this correctly.
I think it is a bit more than Russia protecting its Naval bases.
I believe one of the reasons you’re so happy to fill up your vehicle right now is that oil prices are being heavily manipulated by a number of countries and putting pressure on production in Russia. Part of this application of pressure is due to the Saudi’s desire to run a pipeline right up through Syria and it will be controlled near Russia’s Naval Base. In order to do that the Saudi’s either needed Syria’s and Russia’s cooperation or to throw Assad out and install a more favorable government to make that pipeline work.
There is also the possibility of Iran cooperating with Syria and Russia. This makes the whole event a bit more interesting.
I don’t think we have some grand scheme to stay out of this mess, I think our foreign policy and Secretaries of State have blundered in to a mess and this is the result.
