generalspeaking

Western Stalwart Ally, Syria

"I can't imagine the U.S. would risk their bombers and drones being shot down by Syrian fighter aircraft or ground-to-air missiles. To avoid that, U.S. strikes would need to be done in co-ordination with Assad. This in turn would require a political somersault of truly dramatic proportions."
"In the face of [ISIS], a common enemy, the U.S. and probably the UK would be working with a regime we have been trying to unseat for the better part of three years. But the harsh truth is that events in what used to be called the Levant and Mesopotamia demand an accommodation with President Assad."
"This would be the mother of all U-turns. It would stick in the craw of many. But, as the great Victorian foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston once said, we have no permanent friends of enemies, only permanent interests."
Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador to the United States

"Like many Middle Eastern dictators before him, Assad hopes the West will accept him as the only bulwark against the very fanatics whom he has helped. But bluntly, he wants to be an arsonist and a fireman at the same time The question is whether he will get away with this time0honoured ploy.
David Blair, The Telegraph

"I don't see how you can contain the Islamic State over the medium term if you don't address their base of operations in Syria."
Robert Ford, former U.S. Ambassador to Syria

"Can they be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in Syria? The answer is no."
"That [sanctuary] will have to be addressed on both sides of what is essentially at this point a nonexistent border. And that will come when we have a coalition in the region that takes on the task of defeating ISIS over time."
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman, Joint chiefs of Staff

"We're not going to be restricted by borders. If you come against Americans, we are going to come after you."
""[Mr. Foley's beheading was a] terrorist attack [against America]."
"He's an American and we see that as an attack on our country when one of our own is killed like that."
"As we've done against Al-Qaeda around the world, we'll take whatever action is necessary to protect our people."
Ben Rhodes, US. deputy national security adviser

The U.S. administration is now faced with a situation they hoped would never arise. The relief the Obama administration and the American public felt with their pull-out of American troops from Iraq was far too short-lived. The Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had mightily displeased the United States which argued for an inclusive government, administering the affairs of Iraq in a fair and equitable manner encompassing the needs of the three majority groups: Sunni, Shiite and Kurd.

With Mr. Maliki Iraq was governed as a Shia-led government whose interest was narrowly focused on Shiite fortunes, to the neglect of the Sunnis and the Kurds. Although the Christian and other minority groups' needs were neglected, they weren't singled out for violent forced conversion to Islam, and death threats carried through with barbaric gusto.

The U.S. was none too eager to accommodate Mr. Maliki when he arrived in Washington to appeal for help in coping with Iraqi Sunni vengeance, and that was before the advent of the return of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham, transforming itself into the deadly pernicious Islamic State with its gains in both Syria and Iraq, becoming the overseers of six million unwilling Syrians and Iraqis in the process.


The many-headed hydra's brain appears to have been left behind in Syria, and intelligence advisers are now urging President Barack Obama to get behind the new government of Iraq which promises to administer its population equally, to aid them in pushing back the ferociously deadly advance of ISIS. Which can only be accomplished, according to the pundits and experts in the field by destroying ISIS first from Syria.

Should this be done, it could only be accomplished by some manner of league with the Syrian regime, if for no other reason than to avoid having to fight a double battle, against both the jihadist Islamists and the Syrian government.

And that is a bitter pill to swallow, if indeed that becomes unavoidable, inescapable, to ally themselves with the barbarism of a regime which had no compunction in slaughtering its own Sunni population which rebelled only when its Shiite government refused them equality of treatment and opportunities as citizens of the country.

And while Bashar al-Assad's continued assertion that it was not Syrian rebels his regime was battling but terrorists, Islamist jihadis, representing the grimmest type of humour, the fantastic has become reality.

Labels: Conflict, Iraq, ISIS, Islamists, Syria, United States

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, August 24, 2014