Article

2013-09-29 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

It's Russia, Not America, That Has Most To Fear In Syria

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by trailing wife 2013-09-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top
File under: al-Qaeda

#1 Dear Richard, how's the weather in Andromeda galaxy?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2013-09-29 01:43|| 2013-09-29 01:43|| Front Page Top

#2 ...am pretty sure the Rooskies learned a few things from their Excellent Afghanistan Adventure and are unlikely to repeat the dumb stuff...Our "Idiot Savant In Chief" had his a$$ handed to him over Syria, but the MSM Whirl-O-Matic is in overtime trying to find / fabricate from whole cloth something, nay ANYTHING to make Champ look like the international leader he shall never be...

Posted by Uncle Phester 2013-09-29 11:01|| 2013-09-29 11:01|| Front Page Top

#3 You miss the point uncle. The author thinks Putin is accountable to "international community" (the author & his tranzi pals). He'd probably shocked to find out that Putin thinks of them.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2013-09-29 13:07|| 2013-09-29 13:07|| Front Page Top

#4 So the logic here is that if Putin backs the secularists in Syria, he'll get terror attacks in Russia? Well, we backed the jihadists ("mujahideen") in Afghanistan, and we've had more killed by jihadists in a single large-scale terror attack than all of the large scale terror attacks in Russia put together. For Russia, Syria is an ideal locale for focusing the energies of Russian jihadists. Ultimately, the Alawites (and secular Sunnis in Syria) are helping the Russians kill jihadists without Russia being directly responsible. And that's not such a bad thing. The bonus is avoiding the fall of yet another domino in the Russian sphere of influence. If the Alawites win, they (and other non Sunni Arab minorities, including Sunni Arab secularists) will owe the Russians forever.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2013-09-29 18:03|| 2013-09-29 18:03|| Front Page Top

#5 ZF: Assad backed the "brave guerrilla resistance" in Iraq, and look where they are now. Syria, shooting at his troops.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-09-29 19:50|| 2013-09-29 19:50|| Front Page Top

#6 #5 ZF: Assad backed the "brave guerrilla resistance" in Iraq, and look where they are now. Syria, shooting at his troops.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain

The enemy of my enemy is my...oops...never mind...

Posted by Uncle Phester 2013-09-29 20:51|| 2013-09-29 20:51|| Front Page Top

#7 Maxim 29: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less.

(Maxim 6: If violence wasn't your last resort you failed to resort to enough of it.)

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-09-29 20:58|| 2013-09-29 20:58|| Front Page Top

#8 ZF: Assad backed the "brave guerrilla resistance" in Iraq, and look where they are now. Syria, shooting at his troops.

Assad had a choice - suppress the Sunnis raring to fight in Iraq who were being lavishly funded by Gulf Arab businessmen - thereby attracting the ire of jihadists who would have made Syria the theater of an Iraq-like guerrilla war, except without Uncle Sam's $100b a year in military assistance, state-of-the-art American technology and 100K GI's to fight the guerrillas for him. Bottom line is that any action against Sunnis fighting in Iraq would have reminded Sunnis that a Sunni majority was being ruled by Alawite pagans/apostates. His strategy was sound - avoid any interference with efforts of Sunni warriors to fight Uncle Sam. As I see it, his problem was that Uncle Sam withdrew before killing off all the motivated Sunni jihadists. But the US is, in a backhanded way, Assad's great benefactor - it killed off large numbers of freelance Sunni warriors. The folks in Syria today are the minor leaguers.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2013-09-29 21:48|| 2013-09-29 21:48|| Front Page Top

#9 The enemy of my enemy is my...oops...never mind...

Alawites are beset on all sides by enemies. Short of a special refugee designation allowing them to head West, an Alawite in Syria would logically view all Western democracies as his enemy because of their proselytization and economic and military pressure in favor of democracy, combined with their opposition to partition, which is a death sentence for traditionally despised minorities in diverse countries like Syria. The West might be a lesser enemy than the Sunni world, which harbors genocidal views about Alawites, but it is still the enemy of the Alawite people. Someone who wills the means ultimately wills the ends.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2013-09-29 21:56|| 2013-09-29 21:56|| Front Page Top

#10 I think your analysis is misguided; I think that the Saudis and the Gulf City-States weren't thinking of Shia vs. Sunni stuff being the main conflict until after we got the Defeat Administration in office in 2009. They not only feel safe enough from America now to dedicate arms to other tasks, like Syria... they feel the administration's on their side, as if "we" have a dog in the Sunni/Shi'a divide. It really makes me wonder about the rumors Zero's a Moslem.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-09-29 23:25|| 2013-09-29 23:25|| Front Page Top

#11 They not only feel safe enough from America now to dedicate arms to other tasks, like Syria

The governments have never been in danger from the US. Private individuals are using their personal fortunes to raise private armies in Syria that they hope eventually to use against their home governments. It's a mistake to view governments and everyone they rule marching in the same direction, in the Arab world or anywhere else. There are any number of factions and interest groups there just as there are here. Syria became an issue simply out of sheer opportunism - Sunnis dislike infidels, but they dislike heretics/apostates/pagans like the Alawites even more. The Arab Spring was a chance to remove them from power and take revenge for all the years they slaughtered Sunni radicals rather than being slaughtered by them. The only reason Alawites get the time of day is because Syria is run by Alawites, and Alawites are of Arab ethnicity. Now that they've gotten an excuse to take the Alawites out, the Sunni facade of tolerance has not merely slipped - it's fallen off entirely.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2013-09-29 23:48|| 2013-09-29 23:48|| Front Page Top

#12 Unfortunately, Putin + Dimitri may not have a choice, espec iff the Bammer is going to PCorrectly-Deniably claim the poor US, Global Economy, the Sequester, Debt Crisis, + now Shutdown as reasons for the US to N-O-T send in the USDOD iff Al-Qaeda, etc, foreign Hard Boyz succeed in overthrowing Assad.

The AQ affiliates are going all-out to dominate or eliminate Syria's domestic Rebels, + Kurds, to cut down on inter-Militant competition + make sure that the country's civil war is between them + Assad, + ONLY between them + Assad AMAP ASAP ALAP.

This is why many in the Pentagon now support putting US ground troops in Syria despite Assad's agreement to give up Chemical Weapons, NOT BECAUSE OF ASSAD PER SE BUT BECAUSE OF THE RISE OF AQ + FOREIGN MILITANT GROUPS VEE DOMESTIC REBS.

THE SCENARIO IS QUITE REAL THAT THE US COULD POTEN END UP RELYING EVEN ON IRAN + HEZBULLIES + IRGC TO STOP A POST-ASSAD, QAEDA/FOREIGN MILTERR CONTROLLED ISLAMIST SYRIA.

OH THE BORSCH-MANITY!

Posted by JosephMendiola 2013-09-29 23:51|| 2013-09-29 23:51|| Front Page Top

23:51 JosephMendiola
23:48 Zhang Fei
23:43 trailing wife
23:37 newc
23:37 JosephMendiola
23:35 newc
23:32 JosephMendiola
23:25 Thing From Snowy Mountain
23:23 JosephMendiola
22:42 Thrans Splat1574
22:38 Herb Gloluger9960
22:34 Herb Gloluger9960
22:28 Uncle Phester
22:02 Procopius2k
21:56 Zhang Fei
21:48 Zhang Fei
21:17 Uncle Phester
21:04 SteveS
20:59 SteveS
20:58 Thing From Snowy Mountain
20:53 SteveS
20:51 Uncle Phester
20:46 JosephMendiola
20:40 RandomJD