Tag Archives: Syrian civil war

G7, Government, Politics, Russia, Syria, United States

Boris Johnson is right in cancelling his Moscow trip

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Boris Johnson was due for crunch talks with Russia over the Syria crisis but cancelled the trip.

The British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has come under fire both from Russia and political opponents at home for pulling out of a planned visit to Moscow in the wake of the Syrian chemical weapon atrocity.

Rather than travelling to Moscow to meet Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, he travelled to Italy for a G7 meeting, where he will seek political consensus for Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull his troops from Syria.

His Russian visit would have been the first by a United Kingdom Foreign Secretary in five years and was cancelled after discussions with the US, which is sending Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow to deliver a “clear and co-ordinated” message to the Kremlin. It has inevitably opened Mr Johnson to the charge that he has ceded our diplomatic position to the US and left the UK with little by way of a credible independent voice of its own.

Moscow has predictably seized on this point, saying his decision casts doubt on the value of speaking to the UK “which does not have its own position on the majority of present-day issues, nor does it have real influence on the course of international affairs, as it remains ‘in the shadow’ of its strategic partners.”

But that should not be allowed to be a smokescreen by missing the greater issue at stake here: the Assad regime did indeed cross a line on a bombing mission which resulted in the use of chemical weapons against civilians and children in particular.

It is surely now up to President Putin who has defended the Assad regime to distance himself from an action that has outraged the world and to bring pressure to bear to ensure that there is no repetition of this appalling crime.

Indeed, until there is some clear indication from Moscow that it is open to movement on this point, the most appropriate response from the UK would be to leave in no doubt Russia’s isolation from normal diplomatic exchanges. These proceed on the basis of a shared commitment to respect for international law and UN-approved protocols that govern behaviour in armed conflict.

The ball is now firmly in Moscow’s court. And now is the time to press home the point that those who have backed the Syrian regime and extended Assad’s grip on power cannot be expected to enjoy normal diplomatic courtesies. The Foreign Secretary’s decision to lend UK support to a joint G7 call for a response is likely to carry more clout than the UK pleading on its own. Indeed, it is just the sort of co-ordinated international response that opposition parties would be urging in this situation.

Standard
Middle East, Syria, United States

The powderkeg of Syria

SYRIA

Syria’s civil war has developed into a proxy conflict pitching Bashar al-Assad, who is supported by Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, against mainly Islamist rebels backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

Throw into this mix the interests of the United States, Britain, Iraq and Israel, and to a greater or lesser degree other countries in the region, and it is easy to understand why it is being described both as a quagmire and a flashpoint. Donald Trump’s decision to fire Tomahawk missiles at Syria can be seen as a proportionate response to the crime of using chemical weapons, but it needs to be weighed against exacerbating other tensions.

Take Turkey. Once a friend of Assad, its Sunni Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erodogan has become his most implacable foe because of Assad’s suppression of Sunni rebels. But Mr Erdogan’s biggest worry is that Syrian Kurds will carve out a state along his southern border, perhaps combining with Kurds in Iraq and Turkey.

The Syrian Kurds are the most effective fighters operating under US air cover against Islamic State, but Mr Erdogan regards them as terrorists. Another example is Iraq where US forces are fighting Islamic State alongside Iranian-backed militias, who are Russia’s allies.

For Iran, Assad is vital in sustaining Hezbollah, Tehran’s main tool to strike directly at Israel. Iran will fear further American airstrikes might embolden Israel to hit Hezbollah bases being set up in Syria. Given all these competing factors and factions, one must hope the US action against a Syrian airbase was a one-off.

Appendage:

Syrian factions.png

The powderkeg of Syria and the competing factions.

Standard
Government, Middle East, Politics, Syria, United States

The options of strategic air strikes and a ground invasion in Syria

SYRIA

The shocking images that have disturbed many people around the world of Syrian children gassed to death have rightly provoked outrage and disgust throughout the civilised world.

As the war drums begin to thump again in Washington, President Trump insists that the U.S. may have to act again. Here an analysis and narrative is made for two options that will be under due consideration:

Strategic Air Strikes

The top military brass at the Pentagon and NATO will have advised the President on scenarios involving air strikes.

The goal would be to punish and weaken the Syrian government and military, with the threat of more to follow if Damascus commits what Washington considers to be further crimes against humanity. However, Russia and Syria have a long-standing mutual defence treaty, dating back to the Seventies.

This means Moscow would also immediately consider such aggression against Syria as a declaration of war, leading to direct confrontation between the U.S. and Russia.

The problem for President Trump is that in Syria, Russia is well-prepared to face down such a threat. Last year there were thought to be around 4,000 Russian troops in the country, though some have been withdrawn.

Since it joined the civil war in support of Assad two years ago, Russia has also built an advanced military base in Latakia, and expanded its heavily fortified naval base on the Mediterranean at Tartus – both located in the regime’s coastal heartland.

And both are equipped with Russia’s most advanced S-400 air defence missile system, capable of destroying airborne targets as far as 250 miles away with deadly accuracy.

If the Russians chose to retaliate, U.S. aircraft flying over Syrian skies would soon be falling like flies, while few American long-range missiles – fired from aircraft carriers offshore, or military bases in the region – would reach their targets on the ground.

American generals are also likely to have warned that not all such precision-guided missiles actually reach their intended targets. The inevitable accidental bombing by America of schools and hospitals would outrage Syrians. They would rally round their president in much the same way as the Yemenis did towards Al-Qaeda – in seeking safe sanctuary – following continued drone strikes in that country. It would also, of course, undermine the moral authority – based on the murder of Syrian children – for launching airstrikes in the first place.

Ground Invasion

A U.S.-led military ground invasion – though still an extremely remote possibility – is being touted by some hawkish politicians and military experts in the U.S. as a last resort. A ground invasion might be used should the Assad regime descend into even further uncontrolled tyrannical bloodshed.

But Mr Trump surely understands that such an undertaking would be an extremely high risk consideration politically, given that it would result in massive casualties, and be fraught with logistical difficulties on the ground.

The Syrian army is more than 100,000 strong, which means the U.S. and its allies would have to deploy perhaps half a million troops to fight them, as well as their allies, and then occupy the country. That aside, there isn’t an obvious friendly country from which to launch such an invasion.

The occupying American army would quickly become a target for ISIS fighters, of whom there are thousands in Syria. Those U.S. troops would also offer the terror group a powerful new recruitment tool. The prospect of U.S. soldiers being taken prisoner, paraded on TV and beheaded should be enough to chill the blood of any exuberant hotheads in Washington.

In order to secure Syria, as well as fighting ISIS, U.S.-led troops would simultaneously find themselves battling Syrian and Russian troops, in addition to thousands of battle-hardened, Assad-supporting militia men from his ally, Iran.

In short, the drawn-out consequences of a full-scale U.S.-led invasion would be so catastrophic as to make the chaotic and bloody aftermath of the Iraq invasion seem like a high school prom.

Even if U.S. troops leading a new ‘Coalition of the Willing’ did miraculously manage to occupy Syria after ousting Assad, they would then find themselves occupying the coastal region along the Med.

There, the majority is from the Alawite sect – a branch of Shia Islam – which means they are overwhelmingly supportive of their fellow-Alawite, President Assad. American troops would not be welcome by the locals.

Standard