[pikachu]

Attention: long post is long.


Why the Syrian Opposition will NEVER unite.

There have been repeated attempts to unite the Syrian opposition and statements promising unification, but we see that nothing ever came out of that. The opposition remains just as disunited and distrustful of each other as ever, with mutual accusations and occasional armed clashes erupting between various brigades operating under the FSA banner, between FSA brigades and Salafist brigades (often accusing each other of mistreating the local population, raping and looting, etc), between FSA brigades and Kurdish brigades, between Salafist brigades and Kurdish brigades, etc.

We can see this lack of coordination clearly in how the opposition completely failed to agree on how to react to the UN ceasefire proposal, with some brigades agreeing to the ceasefire, others agreeing but raising impossible preconditions, and others yet rejecting the ceasefire altogether. In light of that we see that Assad was right when he said earlier, essentially "how can we negotiate ceasefire if there is no united opposition to negotiate with?"

There are many reasons for this state of affairs to exist and persist, and in fact outlive the fall of the Assad regime should it occur.

The reasons for this persistent and incurable divisiveness of the opposition are the following:
-Geographical dispersion of the brigades and their inability to communicate effectively with one another. This leads to the emergence of local leaders, chains of command, and the strengthening of clan-based and geographic-based allegiance over allegiance to some higher structure. Thus for example we have Homs-based brigade leaders openly saying that they don't take orders from anyone but themselves, while accusing the Aleppo-based brigades of being Turkish pawns.
-Radically different goals and ideologies exist among the opposition. The Salafists don't want to accidentally sign up for a "liberal-democratic" vision of Syria under a Franco-Turkish mandate, the Kurds seek autonomy above all else and don't really care much for regime change, the secularists don't agree with the aims and practices of either Salafists or the MB, many secular opposition parties refuse to engage in armed confrontation altogether and demand peaceful changes, others participate with the SNC, etc.
-Third, and definitely the most important factor, is the fact that the opposition has many sponsors with competing interests in the region. Think Afghanistan. The broad anti-Soviet coalition opposing the government of Afghanistan allowed the mujahedeen to wage a successful insurgency for many years, but it also prevented it from ever becoming anything like a united army. Thus the collapse of the Communist government in 1992 did not end the civil war, but only exacerbated it, as the anti-Soviet coalition collapsed and its various sponsors began looking for a return on their investments. Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, US, China, all began to look distrustfully at each other as the country descended into ever-deeper violence and previously mostly-peaceful Kabul turned into a place of non-stop shelling.

The same thing is very likely to happen in Syria should the Assad government fall. The coalition opposing Assad is perhaps not quite as broad as the one opposing the Soviets in Afghanistan, but it is broad enough so that chaos is all but guaranteed. Let's go through them to see why meaningful unification is absolutely impossible:
-First there is France which has never really stopped seeing Syria and Lebanon as its rightful mandates. It supports mostly the secular opposition forces within the SNC and FSA, but they are a minority within those organizations. So France is very reluctant to recognize the SNC and insists on a formation of some new structure, it also backs prominent former regime members like Rifat al-Assad, Manaf Tlass, and Riad Hijab (who openly admits that his defection was made possible thanks to the efforts of the French intelligence), hoping to use them in some way in the future administration. Until they are included in the top leadership, France refuses to fully throw its weight behind the SNC the way it did with the TNC in Libya.
-There's Turkey, backed by Germany as usual. It prefers to work through the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the dominant force within SNC and the FSA. Turkey has no qualms with the MB, given that it is ideologically very close to the Turkish brand of moderate Islamism and that there has been no conflict of interest between the two thus far. There might be one in the near future, however, given that Egypt is now under a brotherhood-led government. But Egypt is currently too preoccupied by its own problems and has almost nothing to offer to the Syrian opposition beyond moral support, so there is little room for competition there.
-There's our old pals Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They have a lot to offer to the Syrian opposition in the form of cash, arms, volunteers, logistics, connections, moral support, etc, but they also hate the Muslim Brotherhood almost as much (though not quite as much) as they hate Assad and Iran. Both Egypt and Turkey are old rivals and enemies of the Saudis, and their current aggressive support for the MB is coming closer and closer to becoming an existential threat to the Saudi regime and its allies. Look at the recent events in Kuwait and Jordan, for instance, the two Saudi-allied countries right on KSA's periphery. While I don't think that full-scale armed confrontation between those two regimes and the Muslim Brotherhood is likely at this point, their intense rivalry is evident and future wars, particularly in Jordan, are very likely if the Assad government falls to an MB-dominated force. Qatar and the KSA look at the rise of the MB with great worry, with Qatar's police chief repeatedly making public statements denouncing the MB and urging Qatari citizens to stay away from that organization. Still though, Qatar appears to be more open to supporting the MB, while Saudi Arabia clearly prefers ANY option to an MB-led Syria, their statements indicate that they wouldn't even mind that much if Tlass or the secularists took over as long as the MB was excluded. Either way, both try to avoid pouring arms and cash into some "united Syrian opposition" led by the MB and they prefer to work through their trusted proxies and ideological friends: Salafists, Wahhabis, Jihadists, you know them. They operate completely separate from the FSA and pursue their own agenda. Of course that doesn't stop the Saudis, like everyone else, from publically insisting every other day that the Syrian opposition should unite against the regime.
-There's the Erbil government of Iraqi Kurdistan and there's the Turkish PKK which are competing over the sympathies of the Syrian Kurds, with Erbil backing the KNC while the PKK backs the PYD. Both are however united in opposition to the FSA/SNC since they refuse to recognize any real Kurdish autonomy. The SNC cannot afford to compromise on this issue because it would be both very unpopular with the Syrian Arab people AND it would piss off Turkey, their primary backer. The Kurdish parties cannot compromise on this either since, well, it's their main reason for existence. So they are at an impasse and meaningful cooperation is impossible. Among the Kurdish parties, the PYD currently has the upper hand (thanks to Assad basically handing the Syrian Kurdistan to them on a plate), but small scale (and sometimes big scale) clashes have between reported between it and the KNC, the FSA, the Salafists, aaaand the Syrian regime.
-There's Russia, which really has no particular love for Assad or his Alawite clan, and would be okay if the top leadership changed as long as the regime remained intact and the Russian interests in the country were safeguarded. Hence Russia is the primary supporter of the so-called "peaceful opposition" to Assad and regularly meets with the loyal opposition figures like Qadri Jamil and the like, and tries to prop them up as an alternative to Assad that does not involve full Iraq-style de-Ba'athification. So this makes yet another political force that is denounced by most other factions of the opposition, except the Kurdish PYD and some other minor ones.
-Oh and hey, there's Israel, backed by the US and Britain. They are anti-Assad officially, but they don't do much to that end as of now, since Assad's fall is not necessarily in their interest. Israel's only real interest is that Syria remains as fucked up as it is today for as long as possible, so that no real threat to Israel emerges to the north in the near future. Thus I expect it to do what it can behind the scenes to ensure this outcome. Israel is not interested in either Salafist Syria spreading Jihad to Palestine, or Iranian-allied Syria supporting Hezbollah and "Palestinian Islamic Jihad" and the like, or MB-led Egypt/Turkey allied Syria that would sandwich the country on both ends end prop up Hamas. All viable options are bad ones for Israel except one: to keep Syria as chaotic as it is today so that Muslims keep fighting each other and forget about the whole Palestinian issue in general or that Israel even exists. Because who cares if Israel even has the right to exist or not if everyone is preoccupied in fighting over Syria? No one. Awesome! The American approach is mostly the same except that the US is afraid that it if Syria gets too chaotic, the US will be forced to step in and occupy the country like it did Afghanistan, and the Americans don't seem to have much appetite for that shit right now. Israel would love it though.

Syria is really unfortunate to be in a very tough geopolitical spot, this is the reason why it has always been very unstable politically with one coup after another. If the anti-Assad militias take Damascus, there won't be a united Syria, there will be an Afghanistan redux.

[Rich]

Analysis much appreciated. I particularly admire your efforts in keeping abreast of Kurdish politics. I've never got a full grip on Kurdish politics. Glad to see some focus on Israel. They're keeping nice and quiet. But I'm sure they're ready to act when the time is ripe. I don't know if its feasible but a Druze buffer state north of the Golan might well be of interest to them. If Assad is to survive long term in the region he'll have to ally with Israel.

[Kallinikos]

I see you have done extensive reading and are aware of a lot of the details.

On you first three points:
Yes they are geographically divided and it predates the war, Syria is a country where two villages separated by 3 kms can have different religions and very different accents. The country is divided in different tribes and different broad dialect zones, and a lot of people put their local identity higher than the national.

The SNC is rather discredited and while they never had much audience inside the country, foreign governments too are starting to distrust them, their lack of representativity and efficiency.

There are varying political affiliations in the opposition, but the rallying point is clearly religion and even more so among the armed rebels. The demographics among them are overwhelmingly sunni and rural and they are getting increasingly fanaticized. I'm not sure that at the level of the fighter, ideologies are much refined. But their sponsors generally impose their own, and their prefered political aims. Naturally, they already fought between themselves, and threaten each other. There was a case when one salafist group wanted to blow up a school which was opposed by the leader of another militia, presented as a "moderate" islamist.

Despite all these divisions, there is the unifying goal of overthrowing Assad and taking on the Alawis. Some say there are from 200 to 300 groups. They do work together, at times, and we witnessed their use of encrypted communication equipment and satellite photographs offered by the West. Yet, these divisions must certainly strain their efforts, and if the regime were to disappear it is hard to believe they would cooperate, and wouldn't find reasons to fight each others.

On the international aspect of the conflict:
- France works with its allies in Lebanon, yet the maronite patriarch was reportedly very angry at Sarkozy. The traditional role of France as the protector of Arab christians is no longer trusted. It seems to me, depsite their option with Tlass, that they are ok with a Muslim Brotherhood in the Turkish vein, as is the Western community generally. Yet their hand isn't very strong there, and they have a lot of resentment about this, one intelligence officer said that the Assads are the ones with the most French blood on their hands. Right now, Hollande is much more Gung-ho on Mali, than with Syria where it seems France has no longer the power to make a difference on its own.
- Turkey looks it's willing to work with France, as said, but they know they can't do much alone and need more than France, they need the US onboard. They have a lot of schemes for Syria and acted the most so far, but seem to be afraid that their influence isn't enough to stabilize the situation, so they are afraid of doing more. They don't want the refugees, and don't take them anymore but know that pressing further will only lead to more humanitarian disasters and candidates for emigration, contamination of chaos.
- I think you underestimate Qatar's support of the MB, as it is widely quoted. Gulf monarchies dislike them because they push for islamic republics and threaten their dynasties, but Qatar fears less for its tiny population drowned in the migrants, and reportedly the Thani faily accounts for 20% of them (!). Saudi Arabia, yes, doesn't want the MB at all and supports salafis. The Thanis and Saud being cousins, and clearly hating each others since the Saud threatened Hamad's power, there's something of a little war of influence between the two. Aapparently they insist that the groups they support don't work together, not exactly a working team of allies these two.
- the KRG is apparently trying to work with Turkey, the KNC but also the PYD, which some analysts insist is just the PKK, they can't afford to be completely estranged from them. Of course these incompatible allegiances will lead to problems, may be are they trying to blackmail Turkey in some way
- Russia, I think, is interested to bolster the Shiah arc hence the arm deal with Baghdad. What they lose in influence with the wider Arab world, they can regain it and probably more with these countries, Iran especially if it is indebted to them. The need to put Turkey in its place, are thinking of eventual pipelines projects linking Europe to the Gulf...There is also the question of sovereignty, they want to stop that R2P nonsense. One important angle to their involvement is I think, that they can't let this kind of western meddling succeed, because they feel this kind of sneaky, illegal interventionism could be used some day with their muslims and ethnic minorities. Same remark for China.
-Israel, yes they are happy but they know that managed chaos isn't hard science, it may not be something that can be adequately controlled if it degenerates. Overall they are more watchers than actors. They know that in the struggle of minorites, they have in fact the same problem as a minority in an ocean of Sunnis, and one day they could find a common ground with the minorities. The letter of Assad great grand father to Léon Blum comes to mind. So I assume they must be interested in preserving some diversity down there, but in fact they know that their influence so far is minimal and better keep a low key attitude.

[Canis_Lupus]

Syria is only a part of the puzzle, probably the most important one. We've got to see the bigger picture. Konstantine Gordeev wrote a very interesting piece.Forget about his nationality for the time being. Focus on facts. It connects the dots. However no one can entirely predict what is going to be the final outcome of this controlled chaos. The chaos often gets out of the control.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2 ... lypse.html

Oil, Uranium, Apocalypse

Konstantin GORDEEV | 26.10.2012 | 00:00

The tectonic political shifts in North Africa and the Middle East have been grabbing the headlines for the last couple of years as regimes across the regions collapsed, a military intervention swept over Libya, the civil war in Syria heated up prompting expectations of the Western crackdown on B. Assad's regime, and Israel threatened to wipe out – by nuclear strikes, potentially - the Iranian nuclear facilities. Watchers are left wandering what contours the future shaped by the recurrent escalations will take and what cost mankind will have to pay for the transition. The only rival theme in the media is the world economic crisis which has been raging since 2008… It fleetingly appeared a number of times that the worst was over for the global economy, but problems re-emerged to reach unprecedented proportions, with Greece almost in the state of free fall, Spain, Italy, and Portugal in serious danger, and prospects for the Eurozone dimming daily. One must be hopelessly naïve to believe that things happen on a global scale incoherently, and, the interconnection between Europe and the Middle East being a given, the troubles and destinies of the two may also be related.

Chronicles Reopened

Upon scrutiny, the current dynamics can be traced back to the 1950ies – 1970ies, the early phase of globaization. The profoundly conflictogenic character of the process remained latent till the Gulf War but, since surfacing in 1991, never receded to the background for long.

1999. NATO launched an aggression against Yugoslavia, brushing off the international law and citing sinister concepts like coercion to peace, humanitarian interventions, etc.

September 11, 2001. The common myth dictates that a group called Al Qaeda blew up the Twin Towers in New York shortly after the G8 summit which convened in Genoa to proclaim globalization a fundamental world policy and defying it – a de facto punishable offense.

2001. NATO occupied Afghanistan under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

2003. The Western coalition popped by the same group of countries as in Afghanistan occupied Iraq. Also in 2003, the US unveiled the Greater Middle East project aimed at a deep overhaul of country borders in the region comprising the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, South Asia, and the post-Soviet Central Asia (Fig. 1) [1,2].

Fig. 1. The Greater Middle East

2006. Col. Ralph Peters (Ret.) who formerly served as the US military intelligence officer published in the Armed Forces Journal an opinion piece titled “Blood Borders. How a Better Middle East Would Look” which included a hypothetic map of the region with the existing states scissored according to the populations' religion and ethnicity. The paper ignited major controversy which was premised in an assumption that it reflected the US Administration's vision for the region (Fig. 2). Roughly at the same time US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice floated in the discussion of the war between Israel and Lebanon the term “the New Middle East” to designate an alternative to the Greater Middle East [4]. Shortly thereafter, Peters published “Never Quit the Fight”, a treatise which featured the same map accompanied by a number of bold arguments. The book is currently in use in the US Army for for instruction purposes.

Fig. 2. Blood Borders as drawn by Col. Peters

December, 2010 – present. The Arab Spring instigated by the US intelligence community and implemented in line with the concept of chaos control spread like fire across the space from Morocco to Syria (Fig. 3). In the case of Libya, the upheaval became a prologue to a full-blown intervention carried out by a concert of NATO, various mercenaries, and terrorist groups, Al Qaeda spotted in the ranks.


Fig. 3 The pace of the Arab Spring [6]

Geopolitics Revisited

It was clear on multiple occasions – when the Turkish military expressed concern that the Blood Borders plan called for clipping their country or when, in May, 2011, President Obama urged Israel to revert to the 1967 borders [7] - that the scandalous map compiled by Col. Peters was not his private invention but actually shed light on one of the US foreign-policy strategies. The outcry from Turkey was simply ignored and Obama's statement was later written off by the US Administration as a slip of the tongue, but, for example, the unofficial hearings on the creation of a Baluchistan state, an event chaired by Congressman Dana Tyrone Rohrabacher and featuring Col. Peters as a guest star, revived the feeling that the strategy was officially on the table [8]. Then, the question arises naturally about the US motivation behind the intention to recompose the world's crucial region [9].

It is an open secret that neither exporting democracy nor sustaining peace in the Middle East play any roles in Washington's real agenda. The number one unreported aim must be to place the markets in the affected area under the control of international financial groups, number two being to secure the routes for feeding to the West the energy and other resources found massively in the Middle East. The same routes will surely serve as avenues for illicit transit such as drug and human trafficking, with an eye to tilting the demographic balances and undermining the living standards in the countries enjoying a decent socioeconomic climate.

The blood borders suggested by Col. Peters should make the above goals achievable in line with the “divide et impera” conventional wisdom. In essence, the New Middle East promises individual reservations to every of the region's ethnic or religious groups.

As a result, the countries with regional leadership potentials are seen in Washington as prime targets and are hit hardest by the Arab Spring or in the offensives sold as anti-terrorist campaigns. Regional heavyweights should also expect more trouble to be bestowed on them as the blueprint authored by Col. Peters materializes. The US plans do not end with hammering Iraq and Afghanistan into pieces and sending a wave of unrest across North Africa and a major portion of the Middle East. Every country to fall victim to the onslaught also finds itself plunged into the chaos of tribal and sectarian strife and, as the map unveiled by Col. Peters shows, these are the problems Israel, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait should expect to meet with. It should be noted in the context that the Greater Middle East, serially destabilized and left in the grip of a pool of Western corporations, grows increasingly insulated from Russia which used to be an influential power in the region in the Soviet era, and, importantly in today's settings, from China.

The US agenda of struggle over the Greater Middle East evokes similarities with John Spykeman's concept of seizing Rimland, the edges of the territory of the former USSR which, if controlled by the US, could be used to isolate Russia. The world has changed since the time when the dogmas of geopolitics came into being, and currently China rather than Russia appears to be the main counterforce to the US expansion. That should explain the US interest in converting a part of the Greater Middle East into a strategic foothold casting a shadow over Central Asia [10].

Col. Peters' revisionist map of the Greater Middle East promises to Washington the power over the expanses interfacing in the north with the post-Soviet Transcaucasia and Central Asia, both adjacent to Russia's pipeline routes and resourceful East Siberia as well as to the energy-rich Caspian region and Uzbekistan. Part of the problem for Moscow is that under the arrangement key parts of the Russian territory would become vulnerable to attacks by mid-range weapons. In the east, the Greater Middle East reaches out via Afghanistan and Pakistan, the country which may be next on the destabilzation list, and via the US-friendly India - to China, whose vulnerabilities to mid-range armaments also increase.

In fact, the US ambitions concerning the Caucasus and East Siberia should worry China nearly as much as Russia, considering that Beijing, the top buyer of Iran's oil (supplying 20% of domestic demand for fuel with the help of the import), risks being cut off from vital resources (Fig. 4) [10].

Fig. 4. Iran's oil import

Overall, the Middle East may grow into a carcass of a new Rimland, this time encircling China. The country will be confronted with the Greater Middle East foothold from the west, with Japan and Okinawa - in the east, with India, Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea backed by US naval bases sitting on Guam and the Philippines – in the south, and with Central Asia and East Siberia, both easy for the US to occupy - in the north. The unfolding conflict over the oil and gas deposits in the proximity of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands highlighted the strategy of blocking China's access to much-needed energy resources [12].

The US and NATO will have to go a long way to accomplish the objectives outlined above. As of today, the configuration Col. Peters dreams of is not there, and the new Rimland – a barrier around China akin to the one that the USSR had to deal with in the Cold War epoch – has not been built yet. It would take Washington ages to put the whole to-do list into practice step by step, but things are apparently being rushed since President Bush rolled out the anti-terrorist campaign and especially since the Arab Spring commenced.

[pikachu]

Overall I agree with you, Kallinikos, just a few comments though.

It seems to me, depsite their option with Tlass, that they are ok with a Muslim Brotherhood in the Turkish vein, as is the Western community generally.

That may be so, especially since like you said their hand is not particularly strong. But it does seem to me that in both Libya and Syria France pursues a policy of promoting the inclusion of former regime elements in the leadership roles and protection of minorities.

I think you underestimate Qatar's support of the MB, as it is widely quoted.

Yes, I have read about the supposed Qatari support for MB, but I tended to dismiss it because it came mostly from pro-Assad sources and it just didn't make much sense to me why Qatar would promote this organization, especially since its own police chief constantly launches verbal attacks against it. [Edit: oooooh I just got what the problem is. I confused Qatar with UAE, it's UAE's police chief who hates MB, not Qatar's] I know that in the past, both Saudi Arabia and Qatar used to support MB and MB-affiliated organizations such as Hamas, for instance, in attempt to undermine the secular regimes which were at the time a bigger threat to them, but as both states are Wahhabist in nature it seemed that their preferred proxies in the end were Salafist. And today the MB is beginning to turn into a serious threat of its own. It would seem like Qataris should be afraid that after the MB is finished with Syria and Jordan, they'll go after the Thani family as well, especially since as you've said, a lot of the country's population is not even Qatari in origin. But perhaps they think they're immune to the threat for some reason.

Russia, I think, is interested to bolster the Shiah arc hence the arm deal with Baghdad.

Why would Russia have any particular interest in the Shia arc? Russia doesn't want a very strong Iran on its southern border, because Iran is a historical competitor that is actually in a pretty good position to challenge Moscow's interest in the region should it chose to do so. Today Iran is an "ally" of sorts, but who knows, what if tomorrow it reaches an accommodation with the US and becomes an enemy? Then Russia will surely regret having promoted the Shia arc instead of balancing it out with Turkey. You always have to plan for the worst and keep things like this in mind. Russia has an interest in preserving a regime in Syria that is tied to it economically, historically, militarily, but whether it is pro-Iranian or more pro-Turkish is of practically no consequence. Everything the Russian leaders said so far seems to indicate precisely this approach. And yes of course opposition to foreign intervention is also a matter of principle partly, but note how Russia had no problem violating this principle when it OKed the intervention in Libya. Clearly, the "principle" factor is not the biggest one here. I'm also not sure about the pipeline factor. The potential sources for the nabucco pipeline are Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan. The main source has to be Iran, without it the pipeline is unlikely to ever be finished. Not sure how Syria could even play into that, Syria has almost no natural gas of its own I think, neither does it serve as any transport hub. So I don't see any pipeline factor here really.

[Typhoon]

And yes of course opposition to foreign intervention is also a matter of principle partly, but note how Russia had no problem violating this principle when it OKed the intervention in Libya.

As said before the Russians were caught out by Libya, they never expected the humanitarian intervention to snowball into regime change as it did. Had they managed to work this out they would never have allowed the resolution to slip past.

[pikachu]

As said before the Russians were caught out by Libya, they never expected the humanitarian intervention to snowball into regime change as it did. Had they managed to work this out they would never have allowed the resolution to slip past.

Really? A resolution that called for protection of civilians by "any means possible except ground invasion" could not possibly snowball into regime change? No one is as dumb as that, especially the leadership of the great powers. Either way though, the very fact that the resolution was passed was a manifestation of the "responsibility to protect". Regime change only had to occur because Gaddafi kind of gave them no other choice.

[Rich]

Regime change only had to occur because Gaddafi kind of gave them no other choice.

I disagree. Compromise between Qadaffi and the opposition was impossible without an an outside force occupying the place and imposing a compromise. For America, NATO, Turkey Egypt or anyone else occupying Libya was about as attractive as sawing their testicles off with a rust hack saw. Peace keeping and power sharing, transitions etc only work when both sides have reached a stalemate and have exhausted themselves. Even then they're a fairly thankless task, with whining liberal lefties complaining you if you haven't established full civil liberties including gay marriage within two weeks of arriving. As for the text of the resolution, you're right of course the Russians knew what it meant. What was incredible was how much the West nations actually tried to keep to the letter of the ridiculous and utterly unworkable motion.

[Far-Right Sage]

Pikachu, that was a good analysis of the situation you churned out there (concerning the Syrian opposition) - I agree. One point that folks forget is that the Russkies have never particularly cared about Assad's fate one way or the other, but they absolutely will not allow the Syrian state, their most significant Middle Eastern partner for decades, to fall to a Western-backed bloc as that would spell disaster and set an even more disturbing precedent than Libya.

In reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, it has become especially clear since they have attained power in Egypt, that this organization is becoming more of a Western Trojan horse into the region than anything the Saudis could hope to control.

[Rich]

but they absolutely will not allow the Syrian state, their most significant Middle Eastern partner for decades, to fall to a Western-backed bloc as that would spell disaster and set an even more disturbing precedent than Libya.

I don't think the precedent will bother them particularly as there's not much left in terms of partners of Russia's outside of its neighbourhood. I'm fairly sure that Russia wants to see the US take out Iran's nuclear programme at some point. They won't want a nuclear Iran as a nuclear Muslim neighbour on their southern marches as a permanent geo political feature. However they don't want to leave America and Sunni petro terrorism dominant and they want to make America pay a very heavy price. They want the America Iran war to kill three birds with one stone:

1: get rid of Iran's nuclear programme for the foreseeable future

2: completely destabilise and overthrow American hegemony in the Middle East and North Africa and the status quo in the Middle East

3: massively reduce the supply of Gulf oil for a long period of time.

The Syrian state in its old form is indefensible. Russia should be looking ahead to the formation of Alwarite/ Druze/ (a) Christian successor state(s). There's an opportunity there as the American political elite is absolutely addicted to sucking Sunni Muslim cock. Russia needs to get on the right side of history. They were over South Serbia and South Ossettia but generally they're not, nearly always ending up allying with worthless buffoons like Qadaffi. The number one country that Russia should focus its relations with is Iraq. If America is to remain a friend of the Sunnis then long term it must be an enemy of Iraq. Russia should build up Iraq and then start invoking right to protect for the Shia in the Gulf.

[pikachu]

Compromise between Qadaffi and the opposition was impossible without an an outside force occupying the place and imposing a compromise

I'm not sure about that.I've addressed it a while ago in a different thread, but basically at the beginning of NATO intervention there seemed to be a real chance for ceasefire that Gaddafi missed. Of course, the UK and France took the most hostile tone from the beginning, but NATO as a whole and the UN were actually pretty tame with their demands, all they really demanded was a genuine commitment to ceasefire, and the rebels were actually prepared to accept that given how badly they were doing at that time.The whole intervention was designed supposedly to protect Benghazi, had the government forces not marched on definatly to attack Benghazi in the face of obvious consequences (and in the face of a ceasefire they've just declared), there would have been simply no way to justify NATO bombing, and all the analysts of the day seemed to agree that in such scenario, NATO would have to step back and deal with a divided Libya. Of course later on ceasefire became more difficult to achieve for obvious reasons, but even then had the government been very clear, vocal, and unambigulous about it, it might have been possible. Except of course it never did that, insteaed it just gave vague and rambling offers promising to "negotiate", sent contradictory messages, sometimes in secret for some reason, of course no one took them seriously any more.

nearly always ending up allying with worthless buffoons like Qadaffi

That was in 1970s though, he wasn't as much of a worthless buffoon back then. Ever since then it was mainly the French who supported him, would you say they've made a mistake?

As for Syria, I dont think a partition of the country is either likely or desirable. Druze and Christian states for instance are pretty impossible. The best solution is probably a Lebanon-like agreement where the minorities basically get a collective veto over the decisions of the Sunni majority.

[Far-Right Sage]

Qaddafi's never been a buffoon in his own country. He's arguably been the most defining figure in Libyan history of the 20th century, so to characterize him as such is not only inaccurate; it's so much Orientalist garbage and an attack on the collective Libyan people. He was seen as a clown on the international stage ostensibly because he didn't wear Western attire and business suits, camped in a traditional Bedouin tent when on state visits, and didn't perform fellatio on some of the crooked Goldman Sachs codgers. Aisha was correct - he was one of the last "real leaders". Enjoy your future when the head of every nation resembles a JPMorgan Chase C.E.O.

As for the ceasefire, Pikachu, I believe it's silly to blame those events on the Libyan government because outside forces propping up the rats were not acting rationally and were interested in only one result. Moussa Ibrahim was quite right to say that his state was charged with the most ridiculous "crimes", only to not have a single shred of evidence ever presented to them or anyone else in the world.

[Social_Critic]

Those who rule a military/nationalist dictatorship have a tendency to die of natural causes. But in today's world, such natural causes involve bullets penetrating flesh. Kaddafi was such a dictator, and he died as he should have. I think the Syrians are in a similar situation, the regime will fall, and those who fail to escape will be shot.

[Igor Antunov]

I think the Syrians are in a similar situation, the regime will fall, and those who fail to escape will be shot.

So where do you propose the 4 million non-sunni Syrians escape to?

[Stormsmith]

for those of you following this matter, here's a front line report:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/10/30/f-stoffel-syria-aleppo.html

[Far-Right Sage]

And now it emerges that another Syrian priest has been found tortured and executed in Qattana, near Damascus, after a ransom of a million dollars could not be paid by family or fellow clergy to the rats. These people, the Syrian Christians, are heirs to an ancient heritage in that country.

It's unfortunate that the miserable cowards are so gutless that they have taken hostages amongst the sacred towns and cities they violate and uses them as human shields; otherwise, the use of gas against these pieces of fecal matter would be absolutely ideal.

[Stormsmith]

I hope this isn't the start of a retro-movement, to the 1980's in Lebanon, when men like Terry Waites (CofE) and Col. Higgens, and about two dozen others were kidnapped and ransomed. No good can come of it.

[Il Duce]

Lets be objective here. Just like government forces where a fraction may have participated in slaughtering innocents, the rebels would have have the same issue.

[Far-Right Sage]

In actuality, the government has not been kidnapping religious leaders as in Qattana or performing ethnoreligious cleansing of population groups as was done to the Druze and the Christians in Homs to foment sectarian strife. Il Duce, whatever you say, it is not a "fraction" and so on and so forth. It is a terrorist movement of traitors terrorizing their own country on the behalf of others, and they deserve to be identified and condemned for it every single solitary step of the way.

[Il Duce]

Contrary to what you suggest, these rebels are not united as a whole. There are numerous factions with their own , ideology and rules of engagement. No doubt some will be committing atrocities against minorities and those who appear to be Ba'athist sympathizers.

That said, the government has a large 'conscript' army. Elements of it are poorly trained and disciplined so it would be no surprise some of them will be even going against Bashar's wishes. The Shahiba or whatever they are called are almost equal to the rats you hate so much, but only serve the government.