Sirija

[Prospero]

Ko mi je kriv kad ne followujem:
 
 
 
 

How Obama Goes to War (Syria Version)
by Micah Zenko
August 3, 2015

Free Syrian Army fighters carry their weapons as they walk on a frontline in Mork town on March 8, 2015. (Ashawi/Reuters)

 
On September 16, 2014, there was a brief exchange regarding the nascent war against the self-declared Islamic State—totally unnoticed at the time—between the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the secretary of defense:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): We are now recruiting these young men to go and fight in Syria against ISIL [islamic State], but if they’re attacked by Bashar Assad, we’re not gonna help them?
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel: They will defend themselves, Senator.
McCain: Will we help them against Assad’s air…
Hagel: We will help them and we will support them, as we have trained them.
McCain: How will we help them—will we repel Bashar Assad’s air assets that will be attacking them?
Hagel: Any attack on those that we have trained and who are supporting us, we will help ‘em.

 

 

Nine days later, then-Pentagon spokesperson Rear Adm. John Kirby further confirmed this policy position: “The secretary was clear in his testimony that, once we have trained opposition forces, should they come under attack, we would defend them.” Thus, this broad policy guidance—that the United States would “help” and “defend” any Syrian rebels that went through the Congressionally-mandated and Pentagon-directed train-and-equip program—was clear from the very beginning. However, the manner in which Obama administration officials refuse to publicly provide any further clarifying information about this highly consequential position reveals a lot about how it goes to war.

Every member of Congress or staffer who I spoke with in the past ten months was tremendously troubled by the lack of clarity about the U.S. commitment to these rebels and the likelihood that they would make a difference on the ground. Subsequently, on multiple occasions, policymakers appropriately pressed administration officials for further clarification of precisely when, how, and on what legal basis the United States would support and directly defend Pentagon-trained rebels. In short, they simply refused to provide an answer.

Starting with then-Secretary of Defense Hagel back in September: “We haven’t really done anything but come up with a concept.” Then, Secretary of State John Kerry in February: “Defending those who are engaged in the fight of ISIL, it seems to me, is an important part of defeating ISIL. But that’s a debate as to how that’s implemented that is taking place in the administration.” More recently, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter passed when asked again: “We have an obligation….We’re going to have to decide exactly under what conditions and what way we’ll make that tactical decision when we introduce them.”

These non-answers are essential to keep in mind given Adam Entous’ reporting in today’s Wall Street Journal. Weeks after the first small group of Pentagon-trained rebels were deployed back into northern Syria, the Obama administration has chosen to defend them against absolutely any force that attacks them. An unnamed senior military official is quoted as saying: “For offensive operations, it’s ISIS only. But if attacked, we’ll defend them against anyone who’s attacking them. We’re not looking to engage the regime, but we’ve made a commitment to help defend these people.”

 

This truly significant decision, which more deeply commits U.S. credibility and military power to the outcome of the Syrian civil war, comes not from behind a White House or Pentagon podium, but rather from an anonymous official speaking to a reporter. This should have been declared publicly by President Obama or Secretary Carter, who should have then been willing to answer some of the clarifying questions that administration officials have refused to address in Congressional hearings.

A final point about the way that the Obama administration goes to war is that the legal basis for this policy decision is totally unclear. As noted, administration officials have been questioned about this multiple times by Congress and been told basically, “we will get back to you.” On March 3, when Congress was still going through the motions of debating an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the Islamic State, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked Secretary Carter:

Under the authorization to use military force, can we protect the people we train against an attack by Assad?…
I’ve asked the White House general counsel this very question. And he told me very quickly, no. The AUMF would not allow the United States, to engage the air forces of Assad. That is not included within the authorization. So that to me is a very important point. Could you check with the White House and see where they come out on this at a later time?

Whether the White House ever provided an answer to this question is unknown, but it is now beside the point since Congress has still not authorized this latest open-ended war that began one year ago this week. Or, if there is a legal basis for which the Obama administration has made this latest policy decision to protect Pentagon-backed rebels from the Assad regime, it has never been stated publicly. Again, the White House or the Pentagon should immediately articulate this legal basis publicly, but given their pattern of behavior we certainly should not expect them to do so.

 

[Bane5]

sve je tu manje-vise uvijeno, ali ipak dovoljno jasno osim najvaznije cinjenice - koje su to snage unutar sirije koje ce imati zastitu USA i IC u borbi protiv IS-a (ali i svakoga ko ih napadne)?

[Prospero]

Zar nisu to New Syrian Forces?

[Gandalf]

^svih 60? ili onih 5 koji jos nisu zglajznuli? 

 

cela stvar je komicna. budzet projekta je minimalan, a uslovi za primanje regruta besmisleni - cela stvar deluje kao obican PR, da bi u Vasingtonu folirali kako nesto rade.

[Prospero]

Počeli su s 90 a wiki kaže da ih sada ima 1200, dakle ko Prva proleterska brigada. 

 

Msm, i meni deluje kao PR, i to dvostrani, gde se WH folira da radi nešto a ostali ih fol kritikuju što ne rade više ili što ne rade transparentnije. :D

Edited August 4, 2015 by Prospero

[Bane5]

objasnio ti je Gandalf.

nusra je zadnjih par dana prakticno neutralizovala komletnu ekipu USA regruta iz 2015 godine koji su imali obuku u turskoj.

toliko o njihovom broju i prici oko koje ne treba puno ni raspravljati.

ona je prilicno nevazna u ovom trenutku za desavanja sirom sirije.

[Gandalf]

Msm, i meni deluje kao PR, i to dvostrani, gde se WH folira da radi nešto a ostali ih fol kritikuju što ne rade više ili što ne rade transparentnije. :D

+ Rusi mogu da trtljaju o americkoj pogubnoj politici, anti-imperijalisticki blesani imaju dokaz da su Ameri poceli rat, JaN ce dobiti par ganc novih Tojota... svima dobro.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Gandalf

[Prospero]

@Bane

 

Pa jasno mi je da je to bušan kurton kad sam video brojke, ovo je 1 feel good pokušaj da se nešto kao uradi i udovolji ratobornijoj javnosti.

 

Pri tomee se ne bih posrao Obami na glavu zbog toga, ionako mislim da američko društvo zavređuje 1 kvalitetan reassessment ukupne vezanosti za B. Istok i svojih interesa tamo.

Sledeći prezident će ionako težiti jednom čvrstorukaškijem pristupu, so let'm have it.

 

 

@Gandalf

 

Da, ta ravan omnikorisnosti ovog zahvata mi je izmakla.

 

via TT

Edited August 4, 2015 by Prospero

[Prospero]

Iran nuclear deal opens door for Syria diplomacy

Bob Bowker

Previous Posts

 

14 avgust 2015 10:15

.

 

The US and Russia are reportedly promoting a concert-of-powers approach to new negotiations over Syria.

 

Although any movement toward a political solution will be limited by the unwillingness of ISIS and other Islamists to engage in such a process, recent intelligence contact between the Syrians and the Saudis, visits to Oman by senior Syrian officials and exchanges between Riyadh and Moscow suggest that a more pragmatic stance may be developing among the regional powers.

 

 

 

We may be seeing the start of a process, backed by Moscow and Washington, that will see a recalibration of the objectives of the key regional players in response to the realisation that the goals they hoped to achieve when the conflict began — notably, the removal of the Assad regime and the winding back of Iranian influence over the region's strategic outlook — now appear unattainable.

 

Crucial to this shift is the fact that the Iranian nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — has reshaped the regional strategic environment.

 

The deal demonstrates a willingness on the part of Washington and Moscow to work together (albeit in an adversarial overall relationship) when they judge their respective interests in the region may benefit. The deal also frees Iran to offer more military and financial support and reassurance to the Assad regime in support of Iranian interests, which include the preservation of Hezbollah's capacity to contain Sunni rebel forces in Syria and exert military pressure on Israel.

 

Further, the nuclear deal sends the message to the Saudis that, while Washington will remain active in Saudi Arabia's defence, the US will not be responsive to Riyadh's agenda when diplomacy can achieve better outcomes for US interests. This last factor is complemented by the death of King Abdullah, whose bitterness towards Assad was personal as well as a reflection of wider strategic concerns. Nor should one underestimate the importance for Saudi policy thinking of the emergence, under the patronage of King Salman, of officials with a sophisticated appreciation of the US political and policy environment under the Obama Administration.

 

Against that background, it now may not be beyond the Saudis and Iranians to endorse a negotiated deal catering to their respective interests in Syria as the best of a bad set of options.

 

That is particularly so if they conclude the Assad regime is now capable of surviving in some reduced form, and if the Russians and Iranians undertake to ease Bashar al-Assad out (to be replaced, of course, by someone from the regime) in order to secure their own interests.

 

For the Saudis, there is little to be gained by promoting an open-ended conflict in which the regime survived and the main potential non-state beneficiaries from the struggle — Islamic State and the forces associated with al Qaeda — remained fundamentally antagonistic to Saudi interests. For the Iranians, continuation of an Alawite regime, even in a diminished form and with or without Assad at the helm, together with Saudi acceptance of Iran's capacity to remain an influential player in what promises to be a crowded field of contenders for power in the rest of Syria, will remain paramount concerns.

 

This being the Middle East, we should not get carried away by such possibilities for policy pragmatism. However, as recently suggested by Graham Fuller, what might be on the cards following the Iranian nuclear deal (if it gets through the US Congress) is considerably more promising than anything seen for some time.

 

The only point on which I would disagree with Fuller is the notion that the Alawites would envisage, let alone implement, a power-sharing deal even remotely acceptable to the Sunnis. Unless the Assad regime were to collapse before a deal was done, the outcome in practice would probably be based around some sort of territorial disaggregation of Syria according to lines of military control. Assad and the Alawites would probably accept such an outcome.

 

Within such a territorial disaggregation, the struggles for turf, profit and political values would be complex and violent. Because Jabhat al Nusra and ISIS elements and their associates have greater muscle, the odds would favour the entrenchment of the extremist end of the Islamist spectrum in most areas outside the Alawite domain (perhaps with the exception of the areas dominated by Kurds and Druze). The non-ISIS and non-Jabhat al Nusra rebel opposition, especially the Western-backed Free Syrian Army and other forces currently supported from Jordan by the US and others, could well be placed at risk in the event of a deal being struck. The struggle for Damascus, in which Islamist groups are at the forefront of the fighting, would likely continue.

 

While there are therefore some grounds for optimism about diplomatic and political efforts to find a regional solution to the Syria conflict, even if the broad parameters of a deal were to be reached, the conflict may well continue with a somewhat different and more localised focus, and without much prospect for a resolution of its humanitarian consequences.

 

 

via TT

[Prospero]

Pogubljen vodeći arheolog

AUTOR: FONET

Palmira - Pripadnici organizacije Islamska država ubili su vodećeg sirijskog stručnjaka za antiku Kaleda al-Asada (81) u antičkom gradu Palmira, javila je agencija AP.

 

 

Al-Asadu, koji je 40 godina rukovodio iskopavanjima u Palmiri, je odsečena glava, a onda je njegovo telo ostavljeno da visi sa jednog od rimskih stubova na jednom od arheoloških nalazišta u Palmiri, javili su sirijski državni mediji i opozicioni aktivisti.

Sirijska državna agencija SANA je javila da je on pogubljen na trgu ispred muzeja posle mesec dana u zatočeništvu. Sirijska opservatorija za ljudska prava je saopštila da je nekoliko desetina ljudi prisustvovalo pogubljenju.

Načelnik odelenja za antikvitete i muzeje u Damasku Mamun Abdulkarim je izjavio za agenciju SANA da su pripadnici Islamske države od Al-Asada pokušali da saznaju gde su od njih sakrivene dragocenosti iz Palmire.

 

Stručnjaci strahuju da će islamski ekstremisiti uništiti antička arheološka nalazišta u Palmiri pošto su uništili jednu od statua lava iz drugog veka kada su zauzeli taj grad star 2000. godina prošlog proleća.

 

[Prospero]

Russia says Syria's Assad ready to share power

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia | By Denis Dyomkin

 

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is ready to hold snap parliamentary elections and could share power with a "healthy" opposition.

 

Russia, along with Iran, has been Assad's principle international ally in the war that has raged in Syria for four-and-a-half years and has claimed a quarter of a million lives.

 

Moscow has made clear it does not want to see Assad toppled and has seized on gains made by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq to urge his foreign foes, including the United States and Saudi Arabia, to work with Damascus to combat the common enemy.

 

"We really want to create some kind of an international coalition to fight terrorism and extremism," Putin told journalists on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, saying he had spoken to U.S. President Barack Obama on the matter.

 

"We are also working with our partners in Syria. In general, the understanding is that this uniting of efforts in fighting terrorism should go in parallel to some political process in Syria itself," Putin said.

 

"And the Syrian president agrees with that, all the way down to holding early elections, let's say, parliamentary ones, establishing contacts with the so-called healthy opposition, bringing them into governing," he said.

 

Moscow wants the U.S.-led coalition carrying out air strikes on Islamic State positions to coordinate with the Syrian and Iraqi armies and moderate anti-Assad rebel groups on the ground, as well as Kurdish forces.

 

Assad's enemies have refused to cooperate with Damascus, fearing that would help legitimize his rule in Syria, where the West and Gulf states say he is part of the problem, not the solution, and must go.

 

A flurry of recent high-level diplomatic contacts have so far failed to yield a breakthrough with the question over Assad being the main point of contention.

 

"If it's impossible today to organize joint work directly on the battlefield between all those countries interested in fighting terrorism, it's indispensable to at least establish some sort of coordination between them," Putin said.

 

He noted that the chiefs of general staff of armed forces of countries "sitting close" to the conflict visited Moscow recently on that. He gave no details.

 

Putin also said the West had itself to blame for the migrant crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the Middle East via the Mediterranean Sea and land routes across the Balkans, with many dying trying to reach the European Union.

 

Russia criticizes the West, especially the United States, for leading to the overthrow of Moscow-allied leaders in Iraq and Libya, where radical and extremist groups are now roaming.

 

"Naturally, first and foremost this is the policy of our American partners. Europe follows this policy blindly under the so-called allies' obligations, and then takes the brunt of it itself," Putin said.

 

 

(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Louise Ireland)

[dillinger]

Iskusniji predlažu taktiku iz Iraka i sa srpskih izbora.

 

 

Petraeus: Use Al Qaeda Fighters to Beat ISIS

 

To take down the so-called Islamic State in Syria, the influential former head of the CIA wants to co-opt jihadists from America’s arch foe.

 

Members of al Qaeda’s branch in Syria have a surprising advocate in the corridors of American power: retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus.

The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been quietly urging U.S. officials to consider using so-called moderate members of al Qaeda’s Nusra Front to fight ISIS in Syria, four sources familiar with the conversations, including one person who spoke to Petraeus directly, told The Daily Beast.

The heart of the idea stems from Petraeus’s experience in Iraq in 2007, when as part of a broader strategy to defeat an Islamist insurgency the U.S. persuaded Sunni militias to stop fighting with al Qaeda and to work with the American military.

The tactic worked, at least temporarily. But al Qaeda in Iraq was later reborn as ISIS, and has become the sworn enemy of its parent organization. Now, Petraeus is returning to his old play, advocating a strategy of co-opting rank-and-file members of al Nusra, particularly those who don’t necessarily share all of core al Qaeda’s Islamist philosophy.

However, Petraeus’s play, if executed, could be enormously controversial. The American war on terror began with an al Qaeda attack on 9/11, of course. The idea that the U.S. would, 14 years later, work with elements of al Qaeda’s Syrian branch was an irony too tough to stomach for most U.S. officials interviewed by The Daily Beast. They found Petraeus’s notion politically toxic, near-impossible to execute, and strategically risky.

 

It would also face enormous legal and security obstacles. In 2012, the Obama administration designated al Nusra a foreign terrorist organization. And last year, the president ordered airstrikes on al Nusra positions housing members of the Khorasan Group, an al Qaeda cadre that was trying to recruit jihadists with Western passports to smuggle bombs onto civilian airliners.

Yet Petraeus and his plan cannot be written off. He still wields considerable influence with current officials, U.S. lawmakers, and foreign leaders. The fact that he feels comfortable recruiting defectors from an organization that has declared war on the United States underscores the tenuous nature of the Obama administration’s strategy to fight ISIS, which numerous observers have said is floundering in search of a viable ground force.

According to those familiar with Petraeus’s thinking, he advocates trying to cleave off less extreme al Nusra fighters, who are battling ISIS in Syria, but who joined with al Nusra because of their shared goal of overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

Petraeus was the CIA director in early 2011 when the Syrian civil war erupted. At the time, he along with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reportedly urged the Obama administration to work with moderate opposition forces. The U.S. didn’t, and many of those groups have since steered toward jihadist groups like the Nusra Front, which are better equipped and have had more success on the battlefield.

How precisely the U.S. would separate moderate fighters from core members and leaders of al Nusra is unclear, and Petraeus has yet to fully detail any recommendations he might have.

Petraeus declined a request to comment on his views from The Daily Beast.

 

Privately, U.S. officials told The Daily Beast that any direct links with al Nusra are off the table. But working with other factions, while difficult, might not be impossible.

Still, the very forces that Petraeus envisions enlisting, and who may have once been deemed potential allies when they were fighting Assad, now may be too far gone. Moreover, there is no sign, thus far, of a group on the ground capable of countering ISIS, at least without U.S. assistance.

“As prospects for Assad dim, opposition groups not already aligned with the U.S. or our partners will face a choice,” one U.S. intelligence official told The Daily Beast. “Groups that try to cater to both hard-liners and the West could find themselves without any friends, having distanced themselves from groups like al Qaeda but still viewed as extremists by the moderate opposition and their supporters.”

News of Petraeus’s proposal comes at a potentially opportune moment for the Obama administration as it looks toward some resolution of the civil war in Syria. On Friday, Ambassador Michael Ratney, the newly-minted U.S. special envoy to Syria, set out to meet with Russian, Saudi, and United Nations officials in search of a political settlement to the conflict.

 

Like Petraeus, Ratney is in search of partners. He’s “trying to come up with options for some sort of political process, a political process that we know is going to have to include opposition groups and try to work through what that means and what that’s going to look like,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters last week. Kirby stopped short of saying just which opposition groups should be part of the discussion.

The U.S. has insisted that any negotiated settlement must not include Assad, even as Russia has hinted Assad must be a part of a deal. Assad himself said in a television interview last week that he will not work with U.S. allies in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

On the ground, the two most powerful anti-Assad forces are ISIS and al Nusra, and the U.S. won’t negotiate with either.

Petraeus’s strategy depends on a number of key assumptions, chiefly that U.S. intelligence and military officials would be able to distinguish who among al Nusra’s ranks is truly moderate and doesn’t share the terrorist group’s goal of replacing Assad with an Islamist government.

The former general isn’t the only ex-official who wants to talk to jihadist-linked fighters who share some, if not all, of the United States’ goals.

Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, has called for dialogue with Ahrar al Sham, a jihadist force he has called “probably the most important group fighting the Syrian regime now.”

In a recent article for the Middle East Institute, Ford said that the capture of the Syrian provincial capital of Idlib last March, which was attributed by some to al Nusra, really should be credited to Ahrar, which had more fighters in the battle.

“Ahrar is a key force on the battlefield, but Western media allots little space to describe it beyond saying it is hard-line or jihadi,’” Ford wrote. That label, he acknowledged, stems from Ahrar calling for an Islamic state in Syria, as well as its collaboration with al Nusra against Assad and ISIS. The group was also founded by a former deputy to the current al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

But, Ford insisted, “Ahrar is not a junior partner of Nusra; there are ideological and political differences between them.”

Some U.S. intelligence officials disputed that, and said Ahrar is currently on a charm offensive, trying to distance itself from Islamic groups like al Nusra and thus win support in Washington while it looks forward to grabbing power after Assad falls.

“Some groups will look to pave their way to a seat at the post-Assad table by seeking public support, such as Ahrar al Sham, while others will affirm their choice through their actions,” the U.S. intelligence official said.

The extent to which the U.S. opposes working with Ahrar, a group that swears it’s independent, points out just how difficult it would be to recruit members of al Nusra, which is al Qaeda’s official affiliate in Syria.

And yet that’s not out of the question. The more extreme ISIS becomes, the more other hard-line groups seem to soften by comparison. ISIS, with its filmed executions, organized kidnappings, and enslavement of women and girls, has become so barbaric that it has been isolated from other fighting groups on the ground, said Harmer, the military analyst.

“Alliances of convenience that would have been impossible two years are now plausible, and in some ways inevitable, because we are not willing to put boots on the ground,” Harmer said.

Al Nusra has played an arguably helpful role to the U.S. already, albeit indirectly and behind the scenes. In 2014, officials in Qatar reached out to their contacts with al Nusra to help free American journalist Peter Theo Curtis, multiple sources, including former U.S. officials familiar with the negotiations, have told The Daily Beast. Al Nusra elements were operating so closely with the American-backed Free Syrian Army at that time that American warplanes almost hit the moderate rebels as it was targeting the jihadists.

The U.S. has tried other means to field a sustainable ground force to confront ISIS. So far, none of them have worked reliably. The most successful ground force so far has been the YPG, a Kurdish element, which drove ISIS out of the northern Syrian city of Kobani and other nearby cities under the cover of U.S. airstrikes.

But since the U.S. struck a deal to allow combat flights from Turkey, which opposes emboldening Kurdish forces, doubts have surfaced over whether the U.S. would keep providing air support for the YPG as its seeks to take Syrian territory. So far, the YPG has not pushed for any more land, instead defending what it already has.

 

U.S. efforts to train local forces in Syria have faltered, as well. The first batch of 54 fighters trained by American military forces dissolved in August. Some fighters fled back to their homes in Syria. Others were captured by al Nusra. While the U.S. military has said it’s still training fighters, privately officials concede the group has fallen far short of expectations. At one point, the U.S. planned to train 15,000 fighters in three years.

 

Petraeus spoke on the record about his plans in a statement to CNN on Tuesday, after The Daily Beast published its report.

“We should under no circumstances try to use or co-opt Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, as an organization against ISIL,” Petraeus said. “But some individual fighters, and perhaps some elements, within Nusra today have undoubtedly joined for opportunistic rather than ideological reasons: they saw Nusra as a strong horse, and they haven’t seen a credible alternative, as the moderate opposition has yet to be adequately resourced.”

Petraeus said the U.S. should try “splintering [Al Nusra’s] ranks by offering a credible alternative to those ‘reconcilable’ elements of those organizations.”

Petraeus didn’t contradict any of The Daily Beast’s report.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/31/petraeus-use-al-qaeda-fighters-to-beat-isis.html

Edited September 7, 2015 by dillinger

[Zavrzan]

Iskusniji predlažu taktiku iz Iraka i sa srpskih izbora.

[Prospero]

Machine Guns and Barrel Bombs: The Battle for Syria's South (Part 1)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHJPXWglnpU

 

Ima nešto NSFW materijala

[Lord Protector]

 

Russia and Syria: The Die Is Cast

ISRAEL SHAMIR

 • SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

Despite doubts and denials, Russia is about to embark on an ambitious expansion of its Syrian presence, likely to change the game in the war-torn country. Russia’s small and dated naval repair facility in Tartous will be enlarged, while Jableh near Latakia (Laodicea of old) will become the Russian Air Force base and a full-blown Russian Navy base in the Eastern Mediterranean, beyond the narrow Bosphorus straits. The jihadi multitudes besetting Damascus are likely to be beaten into obedience and compliance, and the government of President Assad relieved from danger and siege. The war with Da’esh (ISIS) is to provide the cover for this operation. This is the first report of this fateful development, based on confidential and usually reliable Russian sources in Moscow.

The knowledgeable and Damascus-based French investigative journalist and dissidentThierry Meyssan noted the arrival of many Russian advisers. Russians began to share satellite imagery in real time with their Syrian allies, he added. An Israeli news site said “Russia has begun its military intervention in Syria” and predicted that “in the coming weeks thousands of Russian military personnel are set to touch down in Syria”. Russians promptly denied that.

President Bashar al Assad hinted at that a few days ago expressing his full confidence of Russian support for Damascus. First six MiG-31 fighter jets landed in Damascus a couple of weeks ago, as reported in the official RG newspaper. Michael Weiss in the far-right Daily Beast presented a flesh-creeping picture of a Russian penetration of Syria. Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper referred to Jableh as the second-base location.

Now we can confirm that to the best of our knowledge, despite denials (remember Crimea?) Russia has cast its lot and made a very important decision to enter the Syrian war. This decision may yet save Syria from total collapse and incidentally save Europe, too, from being swept by refugee waves. The Russian air force will ostensibly fight Da’esh, but probably (as Michael Weiss guessed) they will also bomb not just Da’esh but the US-allied opposition of al-Nusra (formerly al-Qaeda) and other non-Da’esh Islamic extremists for the simple reason that they can’t be distinguished from Da’esh.

The Russian Foreign Minister Mr Sergey Lavrov proposed to organise a new coalition against Da’esh including Assad’s army, Saudis and some opposition forces. The US envoy visiting Russia said that there is no chance that the Saudis or other Gulf states would agree to join forces with Bashar Assad. Russia still plans to build this coalition, but in the view of the American rejection, apparently President Putin decided to act.

Russia is worried by successes of Da’esh, as this force fights and displaces Christians in Syria, while Russia considers itself a traditional protector of these people. Russia is also worried that Da’esh may begin operations in Muslim areas of Russia, in the Caucasus and on the Volga River. And the US-led anti-Da’esh coalition didn’t do the trick.

The US and Turkey ostensibly fight Da’esh, but they have their own interests, quite different from those of Syrians, Europeans and Russians. Turkey fights the Kurds who are staunch opponents of Da’esh. The US uses the war with Da’esh as a smokescreen to fight the legitimate government of Bashar Assad who was recently re-elected by vast majority of the Syrians. Da’esh does not suffer much from the US raids, as opposed to the Syrian Army. Moreover, the US sent hundreds of trained terrorists to Syria after providing them with a military upgrade in Jordan and elsewhere. Recently David Petraeus called for the arming of Jabhat an Nusra so they would fight Da’esh. This silly idea was laughed out of court but it is far from dead.

The US and its allies have wreaked havoc in Syria. The US is far away and can enjoy the show. Europe is a loser once removed as it gets the flood of refugees. Turkey is a direct loser, as it gets refugees, terrorism, the rapid decline of President Erdogan’s popularity, and a drop of living standards, all this being due to its erroneous policies in Syria.

Now Russia has taken over the difficult task of saving the situation. If Erdogan, Obama, Kerry, and the Saudis had thought that Putin would drop Assad, now they are having a rude awakening from such delusions. The Russian position is rather nuanced. Russia will not fight for Assad, as it did not fight for [the Ukrainian President] Yanukovych. Russia thinks it is up to Syrians to decide who will be their president. Assad or somebody else – that’s an internal Syrian affair. On the other hand, Obama and his allies do fight against Assad. He had “lost his legitimacy”, they say. They have a problem with Assad, as they admit. Russia has no problems with Assad. As long as he is popular with his people, let him rule, Russians say. If some members of the opposition will join him, fine.

Russia does not intend to fight the armed opposition per se, as long as this opposition is ready for peaceful negotiations and does not demand impossible (say, Assad’s head). In real life, nobody can distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate groups and Da’esh. All of them are likely to suffer when the Russians will begin to do the job seriously. They’d better negotiate with the government and come for some arrangement. The alternative (destruction of Syria, millions of refugees, uprooting of Middle Eastern Christendom, jihadi attack on Russia proper) is too horrible to contemplate.

The War in Syria is fraught with dangers for Russia; that’s why Putin steered clear of direct involvement since 2011. The adversary is well armed, has some support on the ground, it has the wealth of the Gulf states and fanatic warriors likely to unleash a wave of terror attacks in Russia. The US position is ambiguous: Obama and his staff does not react on the growing Russian involvement. Thierry Meyssan thinks that Obama and Putin came to agreement regarding the need to defeat Da’esh. In his view, some American officials and generals (Petraeus, Allen) would like to undermine this agreement; so do the Republicans and the Neo-Cons.

Some Russian officials are worried. Perhaps Obama keeps mum in order to lure Putin into the Syrian War. Remember, the US enticed Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. Russian and American planes in the air over Syria could come to hostile encounters. Others say: shouldn’t Russia get involved in the Ukraine, rather than in Syria? But the apparent decision of Putin to enter war in Syria makes sense.

A war far away from home presents logistic challenges, as the US experienced in Vietnam and Afghanistan, but there is much less danger of war spilling into Russia proper. In the distant theatre of war, Russian army, navy and air force will be able to show their pluck.

If they will succeed, Syria will regain peace, refugees will return to their homes, while Russia will remain forever in the Eastern Mediterranean. Russian success will cool the warmongers in Washington, Kiev, Brussels. However, if they will fail, NATO will think that Russia is ripe for reaping and may try to move war close to home.

We can compare it with military campaigns on 1930s. The Russians under brilliant Marshal Zhukov soundly trashed the Japanese at Khalkhyn Gol in 1939, and the Japanese signed Neutrality pact with Russians and refrained from attacking Russia during the Soviet-German war. But the Red Army managed poorly against Marshal Mannerheim in Finland in 1940, and this encouraged Hitler to begin the war.

This time Russia will act within the international law framework, as opposed to Saddam Hussein’s adventure in Kuwait. While the US and Turkey bomb and strafe Syria without as much as ‘by your leave’ from the legitimate government of the state, Russia is coming by permission and by invitation of the Syrian authorities as their ally. There is a Mutual Defence Treaty between Russia and Syria. Syrian government offered Russians its facilities, airports and harbours for the defence purposes.

The Christian Churches of the Middle East welcome Russia and ask for its assistance in the face of the jihadi onslaught. The ancient Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem welcomed Russian involvement. The most high-ranking and politically active Palestinian clergyman, Archbishop Theodosius Atallah Hanna expressed his hope the Russians will bring peace to Syria and the refugees will return home.

For the Europeans, this is the chance to wean themselves from blind support of the US policies, to return millions of refugees home from European railway stations and hostels.

If it will work, this Putin’s initiative in Syria will count with his greatest achievements. He is playing his hand keeping cards very close to his chest, and this report is the first emanating from his vicinity.

Israel Shamir reports from Moscow

Edited September 12, 2015 by slow