The the war will be over in days after US pulls its support for terrorists in the region. Those people are not even Syrians in their majority but mercenaries from poor countries or crackheads from "civilized" world who want to kill people for fun. They will go back as soon as paychecks stop.
4
The leaders fight and the masses perish - just like Germany, England, Poland, and Japan during world war II-
Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in the last couple of decade - Palestinians for the last 50 years. Yet we are quick to pass moral judgement on others.
As Jesus said, the one with clean hands cast the first stone.
3
Couldn't happen to a nicer country...
1
This article makes it very clear that no one is going to win this Syrian war. Just like the U.S. in the Middle East, Russia has set themselves up for humiliation.
The spoils of war will go to Assad, no one else. Unless someone manages to take Assad out of the picture.
5
it seems like the term "war crimes" doesn't carry the weight it used to. Just more stuff being fished out.
2
Assad, of course, could be a problem but it is nothing compare to problems that the US faces in Syria. It supports the coalition consisting of different factions with different objectives and different visions, sometimes conflicting with each other including militaries. None of the factions has country-wide support. Kurds are only ones that have organizational experience, but they are unacceptable to Turkey. To avoid conflict with Turkey, the US had to sacrifice Kurds pushing them in arm of the Syrian Government, especially because they didn't have much of confrontation with the Government to start with. And reconstruction carrot after Iraqi fiasco doesn't seem so appealing
2
Only one comment so far? The story seems to resist reduction to a simple morality play.
In other words: well reported.
1
Obama could have destroyed Syria's air force with ease, and someone could send in a mssile to take out Assad.
1
There is also the question of President Assad himself, who is persona non grata in the West for the war crimes committed by the Syrian government in its drive to keep him in power. How can you end the conflict, and rebuild the country with him still in power and collecting some of the benefits? That's a non-starter for any Western involvement and financial investment in a peace deal. It also brings us back to the original spark that started the war. Iran and Russia kept him in place, now he is their problem, and they have to come up with the solution.
8
What do you think is happening in Iraq? Mosul was virtually destroyed and American bombing alone killed thousands of civilians. The pretense that when we or our allies bomb cities it is okay, but it is a terrible war crime when done by our enemies is a belief only held by gullible Westerners.
8
Is USA still pushing for Assad must go policy? It used
to be a mantra for Hillary Clinton and Obama. Negotiations
won't succeed because the parties like USA, Gulf states
still insist on Assad's ouster despite losing war. The
tricky situation will arise in Kurdish controlled area
where both US and Turkey are involved. Syria had
sent forces to Afrin to help Kurds without
any success so far. USA is planning permanent base
in Kurdish region. May be Kurdish region is lost
and Assad has to reconcile to this fact.
1
Nice to know that the US sin't the only country that doesn't understand this region and is making a mess of things at the cost of great human tragedy.
Assad may remain in power, but he is left with a shell of a country with thousands of its citizens dead, and millions as refugees. What a wonderful Russian victory!
7
To all fairness, under the American plan, Syria would be still shell of the country, but also split between warring factions as Somali or South Sudan. Would it be better? For the US, maybe, for Syrians probably not.
2
Russia wants Syrian oil in addition to wanting to be a thorn in the side of the USA, hoping to over-extend the USA’s costs in the region, perhaps even hoping that will contribute to the bankruptcy of the USA and its economic collapse. The USA can only be defeated by economic collapse! Remember, Reagan’s efforts caused the USSR to go bankrupt. This is not a new game.
Are the Russians also hoping to leverage its position in Syria to address the sanctions that are having perhaps diminishing effects on Russia? Do they wish in the Middle East to be such a thorn in the side of the USA/Europe that both will acquiesce on Crimea and Ukraine?
For now, Russia will not get the Syrian oil and the Syrian oil will be available to rebuild North to Northeast Syria, areas under coalition control and might be governable as Petraeus taught us in Iraq. I think, eventually, if that form of government is successful and independent of B el Assad, Western Syria will have to collapse. The hope for Syria is that the areas that the USA/coalition control will cause the hewn tree of multiculturalism that used to represent Syrian culture to sprout and grow again over the next 30-50 years into a stable, peaceable nation.
1
yeah, yeah. The example of Iraq is truly inspiring. It was rebuild in the wonderful Democratic country with population that is happy beyond description. Same goes for Afghanistan. Surely, Syrians should expect no less.
2
So Russia backs its team Syria, we back our team Israel, we both get to “showcase our weapons”, lots of people die, millions lose their homes and flee to Europe creating a refugee problem from Lebanon to Britain, and the back room fighting over who gets the billions in contracts to rebuild the war torn nations begin, sounds like everyone is channeling their inner Dick Cheney.
15
Actually where backing our team Kurds, Isreal has had very limited overt action in this conflict. It also takes some very basic reading of the YPG political philosophy to know that we aren't going to "gets" billions in contracts. Iran is more likely to have a edge on developing those oil fields as it would prevent a Syrian government from interfering and the Iranians have a better approach to the the Kurdish question then the other regional economies.
1
Robert: Point taken and I agree, I was however referring not just to Syria, rather the entire Mid East affected by “the war on terror”, apologies I went a bit off topic; I realize this article refers to Syria specifically, perhaps to eliminate the conversation I was attempting to introduce. I find it hypocritical that we cherry pick regions that allow Russia to be the bad guy when we have obviously done so much more damage in the interest of Big Oil initially and now Israel along with the ever present military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about seventy years ago.
1