Syria in 2016: an exchange on what to do

[mwe12]

Eventually, there is only one solution: remove Assad, then organize free and fair elections, and let the people decide on their own. Without that, we'll never know what kind of government majority of Syrians actually want to have, and whether that majority of them are 'really blood-thirsty terrorists' - like all the nearly everybody in the West and most of the East 'knows' - or else.

That would require a war with Russia at this point, to "simply" remove Assad and his allies, and those free elections would go south with Qatari/Kuwaiti money, Turkish pressure, and MB/AQ muscle.

Shades of thinking skinny jean wearing pro-western hipsters were going to run Egypt.

irst to do so was Turkey, which imposed an ultimatum upon the FSyA leadership to subject itself to the Moslem Brotherhood already in November 2011. Just a week or so later, it was followed by Qatar and Kuwait, which began providing extensive aid on condition of insurgents pledging alegiance to groups Salafist and Wahhabist movements... and when everybody else attempted to create 1-2 umbrella organizations, in autumn 2012, Qatar and Kuwait did whatever was possible to disunite, and provide aid directly to 'hand-picked' groups - all of which subsequently joined Jabhat an-Nusra.

Our lovely and endangered regional allies, who we simply "must support."

mwe12.....care to comment on this weird Russian FM statement...can you provide me the confrontation they are talking about.....the llast time I checked Kerry and Obama did not confront Putin on anything lately...

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Let's see using that logic the 132 killed in Paris is not being counter balanced by 169 killed in a single day in Syria....racist is that not????

Not racist at all.

NOW explain to us poorly informed here just how it is that in this Russian air strike Islamic State is nowhere to be found ----actually the closest IS position to this strike is 60kms...

They are totally within their rights to pummel the FSA/IF/JAN/MB along with ISIS. That people flip out over it is rather comical.

If we continue to allow the Iranians, Russians and Shia irregulars to primarily attack secular/moderate opposition forces (or the most secular/moderate of the opposition) then AQ and IS will come to dominate the opposition.

JAN, the IF and other crazies get lumped by Anti-Assad groups into that vaunted "non-ISIS forces" that Putin is bombing on top of civilians. "Vetted" groups fight hand in hand with terrorists. It's a weird neverland when guys who are in a military alliance with groups who are part of AQ still get considered to be moderates.

http://america.aljazeera.com/article...h-to-lose.html

“It is a complete failure,” one Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters as the HNC boycott loomed. “With whom [is the Syrian government] going to talk? If you want to engage in negotiations, you have to have a partner. It’s a wonderful occasion for the regime to show they are willing.”

That is precisely the dilemma for the HNC, and the reason Syria's opposition is lukewarm on the peace effort even after five years of bloodshed: No matter what happens in Geneva, and regardless of whether they show up or not, the government can benefit merely by sitting down. The risks are far greater for the rebels, who know that sitting down with Assad will be perceived on the ground as legitimizing the government and could therefore further erode their already splintered support if talks do not bear any fruit. Hence, the importance in securing some concessions to present their supporters before Geneva kicked off.

...
But rebel contempt for the diplomatic process is not merely about their mistrust of the government. There is a widely held perception among the HNC and its supporters that the geopolitical balance in Syria’s war now tilts decidedly in favor of Assad's forces, largely due to Russia's military intervention in Syria that is beginning to pay dividends for Assad on the ground. Backed by Russian airstrikes on key rebel targets (as well as occasional strikes on the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), government forces scored their latest and perhaps biggest victory last week when they captured the southern town of Sheikh Miskeen, cutting off a critical transit route for the rebels between Daraa and Damascus.

...
Publicly, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had urged the HNC to abandon its demands for preconditions and warned against missing a “historic opportunity." Behind closed doors, however, some rebel sources told reporters this week that Washington was threatening to cut off aid if the HNC did not attend Geneva — an allegation Washington denied.

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-w...ited-to-talks/

Saleh Muslim, co-president of the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, left when it became clear he would not be invited to participate, according to Kurdish official Nawaf Khalil.

The participation of the PYD has been a divisive issue in advance of the Geneva talks. Turkey, which has struggled with its own large Kurdish population, considers the PYD a terrorist organization and the HNC claims they are too close to the Syrian government.

Unlike other groups from outside the HNC that were invited as advisers, the PYD received no invitation from U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura.

The move to exclude the PYD angered Qadri Jamil, a former Syrian deputy prime minister who has become a leading opposition figure but is not part of the HNC. Jamil said the PYD’s military wing has been the most effective force on the ground in Syria fighting the Islamic State group.

“The PYD is a historic part of the Syrian democratic opposition and PYD today is fighting terrorism on the ground and it is a main force,” Jamil told a group of journalists in Geneva on Saturday.

Jamil said they are working with the U.N. to resolve the crisis regarding the representation of the PYD.

Bassam Bitar of the opposition’s Movement for a Pluralistic Society said the PYD will most likely be invited to take part in future rounds of negotiations.