Syria essay on TA

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2015/03/httpwwwwashingtoninstituteorgpolicy-analysisviewsyrian-regime-military-operations-against-isis.html

pl

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[The Beaver]

Colonel

Have you seen the latest:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31897389

{The United States will "have to negotiate in the end" with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Secretary of State John Kerry has said.

Speaking on the fourth anniversary of the civil war, Mr Kerry said the conflict was "one of the worst tragedies any of us have seen".

He said the US was pushing President Assad to begin negotiations again after two previous rounds of talks collapsed.}

[Babak Makkinejad]

Rephrasing:

The Nationalist Chinese approach to THE JAPANESE is part of its long-war strategy for the conflict, which now prioritizes targeting both Communist and non-Communist armed groups in important areas of western China, especially urban areas and the highways connecting them. It fights THE JAPANESE where and when important Nationalist Chinese interests are at stake. When such interests are not at stake, the Nationalist Chinese is content for THE JAPANESE to fight the rebels without interference and even to tacitly assist the group.
Fighting between Nationalist Chinese and THE JAPANESE forces is nontrivial, with each side probably suffering thousands of casualties -- with hundreds killed -- in sometimes vicious combat. Both sides have committed atrocities against the other, including executing and beheading prisoners.
In the Chinese war, the Nationalist Chinese is completely pragmatic regarding whom to fight with or against, as well as where and when to fight. This suggests that any U.S./coalition notion of the Nationalist Chinese as an ally in the war against THE JAPANESE needs to be approached carefully. At best, the Nationalist Chinese would be an unreliable ally, putting only limited effort into the fight while putting its own interests first, including cooperating with THE JAPANESE when deemed expedient. At worst, it would exploit any perceived or real cooperation with U.S. or coalition forces to further its political aims and reinforce its own military operations against the Chinese opposition."

[confusedponderer]

"He said the US was pushing President Assad to begin negotiations again after two previous rounds of talks collapsed."

The interesting question is why the "negotiations" "collapsed".

Negotiations imply a give and take in an attempt to reach an agreement.

Not so here: The US and the clowns they paid to play secular opposition made an unreasonable, maximalist demand. They insisted on nothing less than Assad's unconditional surrender, who held 13 out of 14 provincial capitals at the time, and still does, and was slowly succeeding in battle. Nobody would have accepted that deal.

With a demand like that coming from the US and her proxies the negotiations didn't "collapse", they were born dead. Deliberately so, IMO.

The only thing they succeeded in was them serving as supposed evidence to Assad's malicious intractability.

The Geneva talks allowed the US to check the box at the item "We tried diplomacy but that vile villain refused to listen to reason!" in the process of arguing that it was his intractability that forced a reluctant (irony alert) US to take up the banner of human rights and bomb Syria in order to save the poor Syrian people (a considerable number of which still support Assad) from the vile tyrrant (and have regime change after all).

At Geneva the US was simply going trough the motions of their attack script. They didn't negotiate in good faith.

It needed ISIS for the US to have second thoughts, and it is IMO only the prospect of ISIS controlling even larger a territory if they went after Assad that keeps the US from bombing him.

I think we have the Pentagon to thank for that getting across insight, for the goons at State, judging by their record and rhetoric, still fervently must wish to see Assad's head on a spike, and in light of their Russia policy, wouldn't mind war at all.

If there is a chance to screw Assad (or Russia) anyway, unchecked they'll go for it in a heartbeat.

The generic foreign policy vis a vis Syria and Russia is, as of now, one of US hostility. And that means that the US will lie, cheat, sandbag or renege on agreements as a standard operating procedure.

[lally]

Persons of interest can be tracked on twitter as they reveal more nuance about the true state of their networks and perspectives:

"Jeff White ‏@JeffWhite25 4h4 hours ago
#Syria US policy for SY has been consistently wrong. No negotiated settlement. Only a military outcome with an imposed settlement.
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Am Johnny ‏@AmJohnny_ 4h4 hours ago
@JeffWhite25 Is the Sultan all in w/ Ottoman troops & some of his hundreds of f16's? Or just allow Incirlik use and have the US do it?
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Jeff White
‏@JeffWhite25
@AmJohnny_ Probably depends on level of agreement on goals, strategy, etc. More agreement more commitment.
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4:00 PM - 16 Mar 2015"

I suggest that Jeff confer with the Israeli security establishment about what kind of operations they think should be mounted against the parties making up the resistance axis forces in Syria, and Iraq and Lebanon.

Unless the earth is scorched clean of missile threats from the countries with personnel engaged on the ground, the population and infrastructure of Israel would be at great risk and The Generals well know their vulnerabilities.

But, alas, American neocons and their fellow travelers pay little heed to what the professionals from the Israeli defense sector conclude/assess about what is in Israel's best interests unless they concur with their own purely academic theories of war.

Which mother's sons & daughters would Jeff White have execute his war games and occupation?