Off Topic Mali attack

Up until Russia became directly involved this was a shepharding exercise for the U.S. Use your sheepdogs to manouevre events (no matter how slowly) to meet your ends. In fact you can say the more chaos the better. Up until that point, Assad was just a proxy and considered the eventual fall guy.

Now Russia is involved, the whole strategic plan has changed. It's Russia vs America playing out a chess game without directly engaging each other. The end game is all about Assad imo. The rest is all immaterial, including ISIS.

The only thing that matters is how the ground war plays out - whether it's all done through proxy or whether Russia/U.S. put troops in.

 

The US has changed their goal. At least short-term. They claim they don't want Assad out immediately... Not like a Saddam Hussein removal. That want him gradually removed from power without upsetting the institutions.


... Whatever that means. I have a somewhat humourous image of Assad having pieces cut off him each week until it's just a head left. How else can he be removed gradually?

He's either el Presidente or el goneo.

 

Yeh ofcourse, but the U.S. has always been manouvering for that. Originally they wanted him out asap bcos they thought the rebels would come in and be pro-west. Then ISIS come in and scupper that so they rearrange strategy. Now the Russians are directly involved, the US rearrange strategy again but the end game remains the same. Ofcourse, the Russians were doing the same. Feeding Assad to keep him bombing the **** out of the rebels. Then ISIS turn up, the US is arming the Kurds and the Syrian rebels far more than they were in the past, Russia wants to protect its interest and has decided to go in.

Personally I don't think this will go to World War 3, it's simply not important enough. It's just geo-politics - one part of a much wider aim to control the region. The U.S. seized an opportunity through the Arab Spring to try and get Assad out. It seemed a good idea at the time (opportunism moreso than planned). And while that's still achievable they'll continue but if it doesn't happen, they'll say fck it and move on to strengthen their position elsewhere in the region.

 

I don't think it will be WWIII either... But I bet 10 years from now Syria either won't exist as a country or there will still be a stalemate over power.

The end result will probably be Russia and the US divying it up and creating a nominally Western facing state and a Russian propped state.

 

any attempt to somehow annex Syria between the super powers will be met with complete carnage in the region.

No way that'll happen

 

Good shout

I just hope it doesn't destabilise the region any further. Ppl don't realise how much Syria has sheltered and supported Palestinian and Iraqi refugees over decades. Puts every European country to shame. These will be displaced and will probably end up in the arms of the extremists (if they aren't already). Also the importance of balance that Shia states provide to the region and why they're necessary. I want Hezbollah and Iran to remain strong to counter the corrupt dictatorships and twisted sunni extremism that is growing in the region. As well as to keep alive any chance of an eventual viable Palestinian state.

 

Its the same mistake as we have all made time and again in the region. Drawing lines on a map we think suit us in the short term ignoring natural tribal boundries....

Problem now is do the tribes even know where the traditional boundries are anymore...there has been that much migration and upheaval in the region.

A federation of tribal lands sharing the total resources equally would be best encompassing the lands of Lybia, Syria and Iraq but Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey would not tolerate it.

Whatever happened to the Arab League anyway?

 

The biggest waste of space in the world. Unless it's about carving up oil trade, it's a meaningless entity.

 

Its a shame...although riddled with Peril if it could have been used to set up a peace keeping force made up of the Arab nations and UN..then you can remove western powers from the equation. Create a federation and police it with the peacekeeping force until infrastructure is rebuilt and regional economies brought back up and running. Unlike Africa the region is swimming in money to pump into making it a success.

Its likely to fail due to the never ending tribal politics but at least it would give the west (if willing of course) to distance themselves from the solution. Ideally but now in fantasty land a solution to a Palestine state could be incorporated into this including a UN peace keeping force to seperate Israel and the New PL state.

Obviously Israel would hate it as they like the current destablisation but Israel needs to learn that it will be protected from attack but nothing else from now on.

 

I don't know how much success or failure the African Union peacekeepers have achieved? Not a lot would be my guess.

 

My experience of the ruling classes in most Arab states are that they are ignorant, corrupt people with more money than intellect or skills. I'll give you Saudis as an example. For ages they housed American airbases and purchased American airplanes. And who flew them? American pilots. They didn't have an air force, and when they finally did have some trained, they simply accompanied American sorties. When you have nations like that, who don't have the skills or training or real military heirarchy to defend themselves, how can they be expected to defend others. Same with most of the Arab nations. It's a lazy, self-indulgent approach where money can buy you everything from outside.

 

True. I think what we in the west have to get through our heads is that even the very best resolution if it occurs in the region is not going to resemble the democracies we have. We got ours after hundreds of years of revolution and evolution and a gradual journey towards secularism. They can not skip from the start to end of that process.

And I do not mean that in a patronising way. Take a look at Russia...we all thought with the Downfall of the USSR that democracy would just take over but it was too soon.

China would probably be a better model for the region to follow as their changes, painfully slow have been happening post globalisation.

 

I think the other problem is that this process needs to happen without external interference. I think the process of the democracy in the ex-USSR balkan states hasn't been helped by America trying to look after it's strategic aims. It clearly got Russia's backs up, and they have felt threatened ever since Ukraine, Armenia, Azherbhaijan etc have been courted for American/NATO military bases.

Algeria in the 1990's is another example. And I'd add in Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It doesn't matter who the fck they vote in, let them. They'll go through revolution and evolution many times (as you said) and hopefully, eventually they'll come out the other side much better. The very least you'll achieve is progress as a civilisation. Although, with the complexities and irrational behaviour of tribal and sectarian parties, it will be a very painful process tbh.

 

Never mind folks, Charlie boy has cracked the terrorism problem.

It's not him making deals with Arab Monarchs for UK weapons manufacturers
It's not geopolitics.
It's not consistently bombing Muslim countries to allow extremism to flourish
It's not illegal wars for oil
It's not Egypt and NATO backed Sisi locking up 10s of thousands of innocent people who dared protest (literally 40.000) in ultra violent prisons. (major recruiting ground)
It's not the world bank causing famine in Somalia, not the destruction of Libya Afghanistan.
It's not Saudis and Arab Emirates and other Gulf state funding and arming, nor religious division.

None of that it's this

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Good article on IS recruiting in Egyptian prisons from the Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/24...es-in-brutal-prisons-run-by-u-s-backed-egypt/

 

The Middle East has been, is and always will be a ****ing total ****ing mess of a madhouse. It will never be sorted.

 

It won't be a direct annexation. It will be more along the lines of N. Korea/S. Korea with the government's of the region being set up in such a way that one part will be democratic but with huge obligations to West and a few American military bases and the other will have a puppet dictator who knows how best to tongue Putin's chocolate starfish.

I'm not suggesting Russia and US will annex territory directly but neither side is going to allow the other to set up the kind of state they would want so it will end up split.

 

TBF there's a direct link between global warming and conflict on this board

 

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Very good

Milk reveals a little more of himself, desperate to much for the agreement of the herd that he liked Tobes laughy face