Why Russia is in Syria

[Bleipriester]

Get your rhetoric right. Israel fired on a plane in their territory and has stayed out of the fight. The U.S. Is targeting ISIS, but if it hits other targets then it was by mistake. But nice propaganda sites!


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The Golan Heights is not Israeli territory. Also, I find it interesting that Israel always conducts their air raids during a Nursa offensive.

Israel has not targeted any terrorist so far but only those who fight the terrorists.

 

[Billo_Really]

The Golan Heights is Israeli controlled territory. It will be for the rest of time


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Letting Israel annex the Golan Heights, is the same as saying it was okay for Hitler to annex Poland.

And that's never going to happen.

 

[Bleipriester]

Get your rhetoric right. Israel fired on a plane in their territory and has stayed out of the fight. The U.S. Is targeting ISIS, but if it hits other targets then it was by mistake. But nice propaganda sites!


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The Golan Heights is not Israeli territory. Also, I find it interesting that Israel always conducts their air raids during a Nursa offensive.

The Golan Heights is Israeli controlled territory. It will be for the rest of time


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I would not be that sure about it. After all, the terrorists Israel deployed in and around Golan could strike their feeder. They aren´t as diplomatic as the Syrian government. But I doubt that the terrorists will last forever. After the Syrian forces will have destroyed the last terrorists, the people of Golan could likely stand up against the occupation.

 

[American_Jihad]

Russia's Game in Syria

What Putin really wants.

January 22, 2016
Joseph Puder

The now defunct Soviet Union maintained a long and close relationship with the Baathist regime of Hafez Assad. The relationship between the Baathists in Damascus and Moscow preceded the advent of Hafez Assad as Syria’s dictator in 1970. During the Six-Day war (June 1967), Moscow was allied with Egypt and Syria, and provided them with huge military supplies and diplomatic cover. When Egypt and Iraq turned away from Moscow, Syria remained the only Soviet anchor in the region. The Syrians rewarded Moscow with the only naval port in the Mediterranean - Tartous.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s involvement in Syria has less to do with keeping the dictator of Syria, Bashar Assad in power, and everything to do with preserving Russian interests in the Middle East. Russia seeks to entrench its bases in the Alawi majority land area of northwestern Syria (along the Mediterranean Sea) where its military and naval bases are located in the Tartous and Latakia areas.

This last year of fighting has seen Assad’s domain shrinking significantly. Sunni rebel groups such as the al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda affiliate) are holding areas around Idlib and Aleppo, while other rebel groups supported by members of the U.S. coalition are on the ground near Homs and Hama. Russia’s bombing has focused primarily on the northern areas that threaten their bases in Latakia and Tartous. Nevertheless, the Russian involvement is also facilitating the Syrian army’s ability to regain lost territory from the rebels, and then hold these areas with Iranian, Hezbollah, and Russian support.

Russia taking sides in the Syrian civil war is not new. Almost from the very beginning of the war, Russian experts have aided the Assad regime, providing his military with advanced Russian weaponry, including SA-17 and SA-22 surface-to-air missiles, as well as light arms and ammunition, without which the Assad regime would have collapsed. Putin’s strategy in Syria changed however, in the early fall of 2015. Russia committed ground forces and has deployed its air power in Syria, and launched cruise missiles from a Caspian Sea based submarine.

Putin’s escalation of Russian involvement in Syria is a result of rebel forces threatening the port city of Latakia from their bases in Idlib. The capture of Latakia by rebel forces would have spelled the end of the Assad regime, and possibly the massacre of thousands of Alawis (a breakaway sect of Shiite Islam). More importantly, it would have threatened the Russian bases in the region. The possibility of the rebel forces moving southwest towards the Alawite heartland Qardaha, (the birthplace of Hafez Assad), would have posed a major strategic dilemma for the Assad regime. It would have meant choosing between defending the Alawite heartland and the safety of its population, or maintaining the government presence in the capital of Damascus. The Russian involvement solved this critical problem for the Assad regime.

Putin’s decision to get heavily involved in Syria had a great deal to do with the weakness of the Obama administration, and its reluctance to get involved beyond superficial bombing. The occasional U.S. aerial support given to Kurdish fighters was insufficient to tip the scales or prevent the mass exodus of Syrian civilians. Earlier, in August, 2012, the Obama administration’s announced a ‘red line.’ President Obama, in an interview with NBC-TV stated: “We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”

The Hill quoted (10/7/2014) the former Obama administration’s Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as saying that “President Obama damaged U.S. credibility when he decided not to take military action against Syrian leader Bashar Assad, despite drawing a "red line" against the use of chemical weapons.” Panetta added, “It was important for us to stand by our word and go in and do what a commander-in-chief should do.” U.S. intelligence determined that Assad had used chemical weapons that killed an estimated 1,400 Syrians. Obama requested that Congress provide authorization for airstrikes against the Assad regime. Russia then brokered a deal by which Assad agreed to turn over his full chemical weapons stockpile to avoid U.S. strikes.

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Russia's Game in Syria

 

[Indofred]

Russia supports the government - America supports the 'moderate' rebels, who mostly turn out to be ISIS.

Why is one wrong, but the other right?
I believe both are wrong, and the war would have been over a long time ago if other nations had stayed the fuck out.
That would also have stopped the migrant crisis, and probably ISIS. Definitely of the Iraq invasion had never happened.
Much as the dictators were bastards, the new version is absolutely shite.

 

[GHook93]

Russia supports the government - America supports the 'moderate' rebels, who mostly turn out to be ISIS.

Why is one wrong, but the other right?
I believe both are wrong, and the war would have been over a long time ago if other nations had stayed the fuck out.
That would also have stopped the migrant crisis, and probably ISIS. Definitely of the Iraq invasion had never happened.
Much as the dictators were bastards, the new version is absolutely shite.

You think both are wrong because your an Islamist who supports ISIS and Al Qaeda!

As long as Muslims are killing Muslims it is AOK with me!