A Syria No Fly Zone?

[bendog]

I think the time's come. I realize Obama wanted to stay hands off, but this needs to end. Most likely Hezbollah will end up increasing it's presence, if not outright running the place, but Hezbollah has never targeted the domestic US, either. We actually may have shared interests with Iran in not wanting a Alawite massacre too.

Plus of course, Obama drew a chemical weapon line in the sand. Perhaps unwisely, but he did it.

 

[georgephillip]

What would you suggest if Russia ignores the no-fly zone?

 

[waltky]

Civil war gonna get bloodier - Syria gonna give weapons to Hezbollah militia...

Hezbollah: Syria to supply weapons to militia
May 9,`13 -- Syria will supply "game-changing" weapons to Hezbollah, the chief of the Lebanese militant group said Thursday, less than a week after Israeli airstrikes on Damascus targeted alleged shipments of advanced Iranian missiles bound for Hezbollah.

Israel has signaled it will respond with airstrikes to any future weapons shipments, meaning it could quickly get drawn into Syria's civil war if the Hezbollah chief's declaration is more than an empty threat. Tension has been rising in the region since Israel struck targets inside Syria on Friday and Sunday. Hezbollah and Israel fought several battles in the past three decades, including a 34-day war in 2006 that left some 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead. Israel has largely tried to stay out of Syria's 26-month-old conflict. It never acknowledged the airstrikes, but Israeli officials have signaled Israel's air force would strike against any shipments of strategic missiles that might be bound for Hezbollah.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging threats over the past months. Israeli officials say the Lebanese militant group has tens of thousands of rockets, though most of them are unguided. The shipments targeted last week included precision-guided missiles, the officials said. Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has said in the past that his group has missiles that can strike anywhere in Israel, including as far south as the Red Sea resort of Eilat. Meanwhile, Hezbollah and Iran have become increasingly involved in Syria's civil war, supplying troops and military advisers to help Syrian President Bashar Assad fight armed rebels trying to oust him.

Nasrallah spoke Thursday to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hezbollah's radio station, Al-Nour, in a speech televised in Beirut. Nasrallah has rarely appeared in public since the 2006 war, for fear of being targeted by Israel. Nasrallah said Hezbollah could expect strategic weapons from Syria in the future. "Syria will give the resistance special weapons it never had before," Nasrallah said. "We mean game-changing."

Nasrallah said the weapons shipments were Syria's response to the Israeli airstrikes. "This is the Syrian strategic reaction," Nasrallah said. "This is more important than firing a rocket or carrying out an airstrike" against Israel. The military alliance between Syria and Hezbollah will continue, the Hezbollah chief said. "We in the Lebanese resistance declare that we stand by the Syrian popular resistance and give our material and moral support, and cooperate and coordinate in order to liberate the Syrian Golan," he said.

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[georgephillip]

What about the strategic interests of that big bad bear up north?

"First, strategic interests are at stake. In Tartus, Syria hosts the sole remaining Russian naval base on the Mediterranean, currently being refurbished by 600 Russian technicians after long disuse. To have to give up this Middle Eastern beachhead would be a shame, as far as the Russians are concerned.

"Second, although limited, Russia has real commercial interests in Syria. Contracts to sell arms to Damascus — both those signed and under negotiation — total $5 billion. Having lost $13 billion due to international sanctions on Iran and $4.5 billion in canceled contracts to Libya, Russia's defense industry is already reeling.

"Besides arms exports, Russian companies have major investments in Syria's infrastructure, energy and tourism sectors, worth $19.4 billion in 2009.

"Counting pennies while protesters are gunned down may seem cynical. 'How many people need to die before the consciences of world capitals are stirred?' Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague demanded on Jan. 31, clearly thinking of Moscow.

"But Russian policymakers have developed an allergy to Western leaders' moralizing. Just as it was pressing al-Assad to resign, the U.S. State Department quietly lifted a ban on military aid to the Karimov dictatorship in Uzbekistan, which had butchered its own protesters a few years earlier.

"(Uzbekistan is important for supply lines to NATO troops in Afghanistan.) Neither did Washington press the king of Bahrain — where the U.S. Navy has a port — to step down after he crushed popular demonstrations in his capital."

Why Russia supports Syria's Assad / UCLA Today

Rhymes with rich everywhere, or so it sometimes seems.

 

[Circe]

No-fly zones simply escalate: look what happened with the one we ran on behalf of the Kurds in Iraq: pretty soon we were in that ten-year quagmire.

Syria being completely torn up is excellent for Israel and bad for Iran and Hezbollah, and so let it go on: it's guiltfree, we aren't doing it. Syrians are killing each other! It's the best of all possible worlds, don't let's interfere, don't get involved.

The more the Arab Spring degenerates into war and revolution, the better for us. The fewer Arabs there are, the better for the whole world. You know that's true.

 

[georgephillip]

Do you know how to connect the dots between Syria, NATO, and the US?

"In late 2012, the Turkish government began secret talks with Ocalan for a ceasefire.[63] To facilitate talks, government officials transmitted letters between Ocalan in jail in PKK leaders in northern Iraq.[64] On 21 March 2013, a ceasefire was announced."

Being the greatest purveyor of violence on the face of the planet is never "guilt free"
It just means you never have to apologize for war crimes committed on your behalf.

Kurdistan Workers' Party - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[bendog]

i think a no fly zone would push russia more towards being isolated on Syria. There would still be physical ways Russia could notify air control they had an incoming plane, but bringing weapons to assad is not really a winning move.

Assad will eventually lose. Al Queda oriented groups will eventually win. My question was simply whether we're better off hastening it.

 

[Kondor3]

If the Turks are so all-fired anxious to flush-out Assad...

Why not let Turkey take the lead, and simply back them to the hilt, under the NATO umbrella

And why not let European NATO take the primary role in support of Turkey, with us in the background and as a final pitcher in the bullpen?

After all, it's their neighborhood, and they can use the exercise... ;-)

 

[georgephillip]

i think a no fly zone would push russia more towards being isolated on Syria. There would still be physical ways Russia could notify air control they had an incoming plane, but bringing weapons to assad is not really a winning move.

Assad will eventually lose. Al Queda oriented groups will eventually win. My question was simply whether we're better off hastening it.

FWIW, I think you're right about Assad being a goner, just as Saddam and Gadhaffi bit the dust. If Wesley Clark is right about that meeting he had in the Pentagon in November of 2001, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan, and Somalia will soon share their fate.

One of the best explanations of who benefits from completely redrawing the borders of the Middle East that I've come across argues that the US operating as puppet master for NATO plans to militarize the eastern Mediterranean with Israel and Turkey on point protecting new oil pipelines from the Caspien.

Page 7 of the link at the bottom of this post has one possible map reflecting the new borders, it's the one with present day Iraq divided into Sunni and Shia mini-states.

"The bombing of Lebanon (October 2006) is part of a carefully planned and coordinated military road map. The extension of the war into Syria and Iran has already been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners.

"This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil and oil pipelines. It is supported by the Western oil giants which control the pipeline corridors. In the context of the (2006) war on Lebanon, it seeks Israeli territorial control over the East Mediterranean coastline.

"In this context, the BTC pipeline dominated by British Petroleum, has dramatically changed the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean, which is now linked , through an energy corridor, to the Caspian sea basin:

”'[The BTC pipeline] considerably changes the status of the region’s countries and cements a new pro-West alliance. Having taken the pipeline to the Mediterranean, Washington has practically set up a new bloc with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Israel, '” (Komerzant, Moscow, 14 July 2006)

"Israel is now part of the Anglo-American military axis, which serves the interests of the Western oil giants in the Middle East and Central Asia."

The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil | Global Research