Questions

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1. You can end a “war” or rather a campaign without solving the underlying political problem/dispute. In that case you have stopped the fighting only temporarily and given an excuse it revives as was the case in the Hundred Years War and the series of 18th century Franco-British naval wars or the three sets of German wars 1870 – 1945 about the place of Germany in Europe. So you might end war by partitioning Syria but as with the partitioning of Palestine enough people will remain dissatisfied to continue in some form. The problem is a good example of the distinctions between legal and legitimate and the opinion governing the latter. Till 1914 it was not only legal but acceptable to fight a war for righteous reasons. Since 1918 all wars have become illegitimate – they exist but are wrong for a variety of reasons to do with the nature of war, its costs and effects beyond strict blood and treasure. @ Ted Belman:

2. @ Felix Quigley:
   That’s a different point and you may be right but you are ignoring What Iran is doing and the fact that Iran will them control Lebanon Syria and Iraq. Maybe that’s a bigger problem.

   The best thing is to split the country up.

3. Ted you were saying …bomb the shit out of Assad…the legal govt that is my point

   Rather the very opposite. America should defend assad against Jihadl

4. @ Ted Belman:Assad and Obama are against partitioning Syria so they say out loud. I am not sure if Putin cares as long as Russia’s interests are allocated for.

   Syria is already partitioned. The final borders are not yet drawn and the war will drag on. As long as Sunni jihadis keep pouring in and they keep being funded by Saudi Arabia and Turkey among others this war will keep going.

5. @ Bear Klein:
   Yes partition Syria and you have a chance to end the war. But both Obama and Putin are against this.

6. @ Felix Quigley:
   The point I was primarily making was that tiptoeing through the tulips only prolongs the war and increases the death toll. So had Obama attacked without rules of engagement meant to tie their hands, the war would have been long over and with a fraction of today’s death toll.

7. Only lunatics, the stupid, or antiSemites say Israel is responsible for the current situation in Syria. Israel has been providing humanitarian aid and trying to stay out of the quagmire. It is making sure it can not be abused on its border as much as possible without getting into this mess.

   Former Israeli Defense Minister Urges US to Recognize Iranian Threat More Pressing Than ISIS Defeat.

   Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Thursday urged nations to recognize the danger posed by Iran and to work to prevent it from exploiting the nuclear deal to redraw the political map of the Middle East in its favor.

   In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Ya’alon wrote that though American political leaders on both sides of the aisle consider defeating ISIS to be a top priority, a more crucial challenge is the “multifaceted threat of a militaristic, messianic” Islamic Republic, “much more menacing to Western interests than the Sunni thugs and murderers of Raqqah and Mosul.”

   Ya’alon — the Rosenblatt Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy – asserted that through the agreement it signed with world powers in July last year, the mullah-led regime has gained much more than it relinquished. “In exchange for postponing its military nuclear project, it achieved the lifting of many economic sanctions, an end to its political isolation and the loosening of restrictions on its ballistic missile program,” he wrote. In addition, he said, “[O]ut of the P5+1’s exaggerated fear of taking any steps that might give the Iranians an excuse to scuttle the deal, Tehran [also received] wide latitude to advance its influence throughout the region as it no longer fears a US-led ‘military option.’”

   He continued:

   The evidence of Iran’s rogue behavior is overwhelming. It is the prime backer of the genocidal Syrian regime, providing President Bashar Assad with funds, weapons and the support of Shiite militias. It supplies weapons, money and training to Hezbollah, using it as a strategic tool to undermine the legitimate role of the Lebanese government. In Yemen, Iran fans conflict by sending arms to the Houthi rebels. Elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, it uses proxies to undermine Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. In Israel’s neighborhood, Iran finances Palestinian Islamic Jihad and certain Hamas elements and provides them with the know-how to produce rockets, drones and other weapons. None of this has abated with the Iran nuclear deal; to the contrary, Iran has grown more aggressive on all fronts…And in 14 years, when critical restrictions will be lifted, the world may be in a worse position to prevent Iran’s nuclear project than ever before.

   According to Ya’alon, “It is not too late to repair the impression that the West — led by the United States — views Iran as part of the solution to the problems of the Middle East, rather than the chief source of the region’s instability and radicalism.” Indeed, he wrote, “Those who believed that the nuclear agreement would lead to a more moderate, open, reformist Iran, at home and abroad, regrettably suffer from wishful thinking. So long as the ayatollah’s regime governs Iran, there is no chance we will see a McDonald’s in Tehran. Instead, we will see more executions, more repression, more tyranny.”

   Ya’alon concluded that this is grasped by countries across the Middle East that used to be on opposing sides. “Today, Arabs and Israelis are in the same boat, facing Iranian-backed threats all around us; in terms of how to address these threats, we are also generally on the same page,” he stated. However, “What we lack is leadership from our traditional allies in the West, especially our good friends in America. Should President Obama or his successor shift priorities and lead a campaign to pressure Iran to end its destabilizing policies — applying the same type of pressure that forced Iran to negotiate on its nuclear program — it will find willing partners among both Arabs and Israelis.”

   https://www.algemeiner.com/2016/10/02/former-israeli-defense-minister-urges-us-to-recognize-iranian-threat-more-pressing-than-isis-defeat/

8. Who should rule Syria? Nobody
   Or at least not all of it. Grasp that and you can see a clear strategy for the West
   Jonathan Spyer

   The long civil war in Syria is still far from conclusion. Any real possibility of rebel victory ended with the entry of Russian forces last autumn — but while the initiative is now with the Assad regime, the government’s forces are also far from a decisive breakthrough. So who, if anyone, should the UK be backing in the Syrian slaughterhouse, and what might constitute progress in this broken and burning land?

   It ought to be fairly obvious why a victory for the Assad regime would be a disaster for the West. Assad, an enthusiastic user of chemical weapons against his own people, is aligned with the most powerful anti–western coalition in the Middle East. This is the alliance dominated by the Islamic Republic of Iran. It includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shia militias of Iraq, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. If Assad won, the Iranian alliance would consolidate its domination of the entire land area between the Iraq-Iran border and the Mediterranean Sea — a major step towards regional hegemony for Iran. So an Assad victory would be good for Islamism — at least of the Shia variety — and bad for world peace. It should be prevented.

   The controversy begins when one starts to look at the alternative to an Assad victory.

   In November last year, David Cameron claimed to have identified 70,000 ‘moderate’ rebels ready to challenge Islamic State in the east of Syria. That figure was a myth. Yours truly was among the very first western journalists to spend time in Syria with the rebels. I recently returned from a trip to southern Turkey, where I interviewed fighters and commanders of the main rebel coalitions. With no particular joy but a good deal of confidence, I can report that the Syrian rebellion today is dominated in its entirety by Sunni Islamist forces. And the most powerful of these are the most radical.

   The most potent rebel coalition in Syria today is called Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest). It has three main component parts: Ahrar al-Sham (Free Men of the Levant), a Salafist jihadi group; Jabhat al-Nusra, until recently the official franchise of al–Qaeda in Syria, now renamed Jabhat Fatah al-Sham; and Faylaq al-Sham (Legion of the Levant), whose ideology derives from the Muslim Brotherhood branch of Sunni political Islam.

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   Jaish al-Fatah dominates the main rebel-controlled area in Aleppo, Idleb, Latakia and northern Hama. Its various components seek the establishment of a state dominated by Islamic sharia law. There is no reason to suppose that Nusra’s recent renunciation of its al-Qaeda affiliation was anything more than tactical. When one speaks of the Syrian rebellion today, one is speaking of Jaish al-Fatah. The small ‘Free Syrian Army’ groups that still exist do so only with Jaish al-Fatah’s permission, and only for as long as they serve some useful purpose for it. In the now extremely unlikely event of the Islamist rebels defeating the Assad regime and reuniting Syria under their rule, the country would become a Sunni Islamist dictatorship.

   So if there is no British or western interest in a victory for either the regime or the rebels, what should be done with regard to Syria?

   First of all, it is important to understand that ‘Syria’ as a unitary state no longer exists. A rebel commander whom I interviewed in the border town of Kilis in June told me: ‘Syria today is divided into four projects, none of which is strong enough to defeat all the others. These are the Assad regime, the rebellion, the Kurds and the Islamic State.’ This is accurate.

   So the beginning of a coherent Syria policy requires understanding that the country has fragmented into enclaves, and is not going to be reunited in the near future, if at all.

   Various external powers have elected to back one or another element in this landscape. The Russians and Iranians are backing the regime. Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are supporting the Islamist rebels.

   The West, too, has established a successful and effective patron-client relationship — with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Dominated by the Kurdish YPG, but including also Arab tribal forces such as the Sanadid militia, this is the force which is reducing the dominions of the Islamic State in eastern Syria, in partnership with western air power and special forces.

   In contrast to the sometimes farcical attempts to identify partners among the Syrian Sunni rebels, the partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces works. Weaponry does not get passed on to or taken by radical jihadi groups, because the SDF is at war with such groups. Training and assistance produces a united force with a single chain of command. And this force captures ground and frees Syrians living under the vicious rule of Isis.

   On the commonsense principle that success should be built on, it is clear that the alliance with the SDF ought to be strengthened and grown. The West is committed, correctly, to the destruction of the Islamic State. The pace of the war against Isis needs to be stepped up. As witnessed in Nice, Würz-burg, Normandy and elsewhere in recent weeks, Isis is an entity that will make war on the West until it is destroyed.

   The destruction of the Islamic State by a strengthened SDF would lead to control of Syria east of the Euphrates by a western client of proven anti-terrorist credentials. Further west, the truncated enclaves of Assad and of the Sunni Arab rebels would remain. It is possible that, over time, the fragmentation of Syria would be formalised. But it’s equally likely that the various component parts would remain in de facto existence for the foreseeable future.

   What matters is that three outcomes be avoided: the Assad regime should not be permitted to reunite Syria under its rule, the Islamist rebels should similarly not be allowed to establish a jihadi state in the country, and the Islamic State should not be permitted to remain in existence. By strengthening the alliance with the SDF, utilising it and its allies to take Raqqa and destroy Isis in the east, and then allowing its component parts to establish their rule in eastern and northern Syria, these objectives can be attained. For a change, the US and its allies have found an unambiguously anti-Islamist and anti-jihadi force in the Middle East which has a habit of winning its battles. This is a success which should be reinforced.

   http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/who-should-rule-syria-nobody/

9. The state of US Jews is a result of trying to preserve the community excessively on sentimentality over Yiddish speaking Eastern Europe. The religion was treated as a gabble by heart set of observances and those in charge of education forgot to pick out, clarify and refurbish the philosophical “rebars” for use in a Western industrial urban society compared to the subsistence villages and market towns their (grand)parents had left. Anybody who wants Jews to remain Jewish in current profusion of material plenty and cultural prepacked choices needs to work out how to put to youngsters simply and cogently “What’s the point?” “What’s the [Earthly] reward?

10. Ironically the Syrian situation has turned into the Assad regime being the “good guys” or at least the “less nasty” guys! Do remember that the original Enlightenment liberals rebellion by civil demo was first shot down by Assad and then overtaken by the Islamists. If the opposition to Assad wins then there will be another Islamist God Squad country deporting all minorities and obsessing about women’s dress. If Assad wins the country remains and too weak for further foreign adventures but the minorities and modern thinking will have a chance even if the regime remains a “national security state” as the Arabs themselves call them.

11. Belman. If the US had bombed the shit out of Syria when the war began, instead of tip toeing through the tulips, just as Russia is doing now, wouldn’t it have saved hundreds of thousands of lives? To say nothing about destroying Iran’s vital ally and preventing Russia from gaining a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean.

    How about US stays at home as Trump intends and stop overthrowing legal governments or even illegal governments. It is nit the world’s policeman

    Belman. If the US defeated Assad what would they do afterwards? She wouldn’t know what to do with it as she didn’t in Iraq . All she could hope for is replacing the Assad regime with a Sunni one but she wouldn’t be able to prevent it from becoming Islamist.

    That is the intention of Hillery. It is obvious. The US is now creating al Nusra and it will be the new Al Qaeda. It is the role of the US and Britain to create Islam Sharia dictatorship

    The big problem is Israeli leadership. Is Israel at present backing al Nusra?

    Ross has talked here about Netanyahu being in alliance with the Saudis and the Gulf States, but they are al Nusra and are ISIS.

    Jews should be for a million reasons be very concerned about this ambiguity and about certain Jews using neocon language like “bombin the shit out of”

    And are we now in World War 3?

12. I gave up on American Jews years go, they are generally Jews only in name, the Bagel and smoked salmon Jews, who love to hear Jewish Jokes and etc. Makes them feel more Jewish, but they don’t do anything constructive to make that a reality, and they are attached to the Democrat anti-semitic party with an umbilical cord. Generations were born i it and there they stay.

    A handshake or photo with the Goyisher machers, who really lead them by thenose into their abased servitude, is certainly worth-to them- a large donation, ending as a proud picture on the wall, to be boasted about to their friends, who have their own boasts.

    They are so disgusting to this Jew, not particularly religious, but 100% Jew. To be religious is not the only mark of a Jew, it’s how he feels about being a Jew, one of the very few. I feel proud and special to be a Jew, and would shudder at ever being anything else.

    But Jews, as a rule, unfortunately carry ample seeds for their own destruction, the obsessive desire to be liked by Goyim, to be “one of the boys”….. Ugh.

13. And “Reform Judaism” (universalist) is at war with Israel!