You are mixing up things. I am speaking of munitions. You are bringing in INS which is on the platform not on the unguided munition and contributes to the munition accuracy but cannot compensate in entirety. Even missiles need updated position fixes from either beacons or sats or have onboard INS!Austin wrote:For short distance the INS can do much better than 15-20 m as error margin would be low.Karan M wrote:More like 15-20 mtrs
LGBs get you 5-10 mtr CEP; w/GPS assist they can get you 1-2 mtrs but at lower slant ranges
As fas as LGB goes , if target is lased then it accuracy should be much higher like ~ 1 m CEP unless you loose the laser lock or something.
GLONASS accuracy today is at ~ 3 m http://tass.ru/en/russia/795582
Today the accuracy of the GLONASS domestic satellite navigation system is 2.7 meters, Rogozin said. ‘We plan to reach the figure of 60 cm by 2020," he said.
Here's our very own IDSA on the issue,two years old.The reports about the arrogant Saudis threatening Putin with Chechen terror now seem accurate and it appears to be payback time. Putin doesn't talk,he acts.It is noted that in year 2005, the Norwegian company “Anises” had made a polysyllabic survey in Syrian waters in the Mediterranean Sea. Through the analysis of the survey, the presence of significant oil reserves exceeding thirty billion barrels of oil in 13 fields were noticed, where the initial data looks promising, especially with the discovery of important oil and gas reserves in the Palestinian and Lebanese territorial waters, extending up to Cyprus.
According to the report, there is a consensus by experts that the exploration of the presence of oil, gas, and mineral wealth had not been verified in Syria for more than 50% of its territory and internal layers, i.e. there is still a large and very broad area for serious work in the completion of exploring the rest of the country and its deep layers.
IDSA COMMENT
The Great Gas Game over Syria
Gulshan Dietl
September 9, 2013
Even as much has been written about the regional and global actors pursuing their pitiless agendas in Syria, one sub-plot in the vicious drama has remained relatively unexplored. And that is the gas resource and its routes from production to the market.
The past five years have seen discoveries of immense energy reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean; both the Levant Basin located along the shores of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza and Cyprus and the Nile Basin north of Egypt. According to preliminary geological surveys, the Levant Basin contains 3.5 trillion cubic meters (tcm) of gas and 1.7 billion barrels (bb) of oil. The Nile Basin contains 6 tcm of gas and 1.8 bb of oil.
The energy bonanza has predictably led to competitive resource scramble and its transport to the favoured customers. After all, the control of and access to the natural resources have been fundamental drivers of much of geopolitics. The roads, railways, ports, as also the oil and gas pipelines are the coveted objects of the powerful. The oil and gas have a three-fold merit: as the commodity inside, as the containers of that commodity and as the carriers of that commodity.
Syria alone is estimated to have discovered proven gas reserves of 284 bcm, oil reserves of 2.5 bb and shale reserves of 50 billion tonnes with the possibility of more findings. The production levels are, however, drastically falling. The pre-uprising level of oil was 380,000 barrels a day (bd), which fell to just 20,000 bd, a decline of about 95%. According to some estimates, the natural gas output has halved at 15 million cubic meters (mcm). A lot of gas is used for reinjection into the oil fields to improve the oil recovery. The unrest has not only disrupted the production, but has resulted in the withdrawal of foreign producers and financiers.
Almost the entire Syrian oil was exported to the European Union (EU). The sales have come to a virtual standstill after the European Union (EU) put an embargo on the Syrian oil in December 2011. In fact, in April this year, the EU has permitted imports from the rebel-held areas so long as the deals are approved by the Syrian National Coalition.
Within the country, there has been no investment in the refineries, energy pipelines or other infrastructure. Additionally, there is a constant fear of sabotage by the rebels. Since the diesel in the country has been subsidized and priced lower than in the neighbourhood, there has always been a smuggling of the oil, the levels of which are rising alarmingly.
On June 25, 2011, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in the Iranian port city of Bushehr to construct a gas pipeline from the Iranian gas field of Assaluyeh through Iraq and Syria. To be built at a cost of $10 billion, its projected capacity of 110 mcm per day was tentatively allocated among Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. It was proposed to extend it to Greece through a submarine line and from there on to the markets in Europe. Named the “Islamic Pipeline”, it was to be supplemented by the export of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from the Syrian ports on the Mediterranean. Latakia and Tartous are two major Syrian ports. Russia has leased Tartous and constructed a naval base there.
In more realistic terms, the project is still-born. Even though the Syrian route makes sense in normal situation, the political circumstances are totally unfavourable at present. Both Syria and Iran are under sanctions eliminating the possibility of external funding. The civil war in Syria rules out pipeline construction over a long stretch of area for many years.
Qatar has the third largest reserves of gas after Russia and Iran. Estimated at 25 tcm, most of its gas exports are in the form of LNG. The shale gas production in the US will impact the sale of Qatari LNG, therefore, Qatar seeks to secure long-term contracts via pipelines to the European countries. The EU has secured its energy imports till 2030, and is looking for secure infrastructural investments for the future thereafter. The Nabucco pipeline project from eastern Turkey to Austria is stalled due to insufficient gas available.
It is in this context that a new pipeline for Qatari gas has been proposed. In 2009, during the Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Thani’s visit to Turkey, it was agreed to build a pipeline and link it up with the Nabucco in Turkey. It is to originate in Qatar and move through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria reaching Turkey. The European markets would share the resource with an insatiable Turkey.
Syria is a key link in both the rival pipeline projects; the one originating in Iran and the one originating in Qatar. Whether the Assad regime survives or a change of regime happens there would determine the global gas system in a large way. Qatar will not be the sole beneficiary of the pipeline. There are three distinct calculations besides carrying Qatari gas. It would pry Turkey loose from dependence on Iranian supplies, it would severely curtail the Russian near monopoly as the gas supplier to Europe and it would facilitate Israel’s gas export to Europe.
There are many interesting conspiracy theories making rounds around this pipeline. One sees a clear connection in the timing between the signing of the memorandum on the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline and the beginning of violent uprising in Syria. The other notes a coincidence between the fiercest fighting in places inside Syria and the proposed route of the Qatari pipeline through its territory. Yet another explains the Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood among the Syrian rebels and beyond in the region in this context. After all, Qatar has sunk three billion dollars in the Syrian civil war. A small sum in Qatar’s wealth, but big in comparison to the Western handouts to the rebels. An additional consideration could be that Qatar shares its gas field, which it calls the North Dome with Iran, which calls it South Pars. Together it is the largest gas field in the world. The disputes of the past may flare up in future over the borders and extraction rights in the gas field.
Russia has high stakes in the Syrian developments. Its presence on the Tartous port is one of the important ones. Its warning to the Western powers against any military intervention in Syria and the imminent arrival of the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in Tartous testifies to the Russian commitment to secure its present military presence there and future point of gas transit from there.
The West has high stakes too and not just to contain Russia. Europe has been struggling to break loose of the Russian near monopoly over its gas supplies. Azerbaijan has emerged as a partner of choice in an ambitious “southern energy corridor” which would transport ten billion cubic meters of gas from the newly developed Azeri gas fields to Europe via Turkey. The Azeri gas reserves are limited. The commercial viability of the corridor would depend on feeding additional gas into the supply chain. The Qatari gas is an indispensible component in the success of the venture – the gas that would traverse though Qatar-Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Syria and Turkey.
Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia was the country’s ambassador to the US from 1983 to 2005. Since July 2012, he has been the Director-General of the Saudi Intelligence Agency. On 31 July this year, Prince Bandar made a hurried visit to Kremlin. He is reported to have pleaded his case for regime change in Syria and offered some incentives to Putin by way of fifteen billion dollars worth of arms contracts, security against terror attacks from Saudi-funded Chechens during next year’s Winter Olympic Games to be played in Sochi and more. He is also believed to have offered an assurance that whatever regime came after Assad, the Saudis would not sign any contracts damaging Russian interests by allowing Gulf countries to transport their gas across Syria to Europe. Yet another conspiracy theory? Who knows.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.
PS:Britain rushing to "bomb" ISIS! This reminds me of an old tale about Il Duce.he and a large accompanying convoy of diplomats and foreign mil advisers had gone to watch some mil exercises of the Italian air force.On the way back Mussolini's car ,in the lead,stopped and Il Duce got out strode across to a farmyard stone wall,unzipped his fly and let go! The other cars also stopped.Then out got the British mil attache who walked across next to Il Duce.He too unzipped his fly and let go.That resulted in a stampede,car doors opening and diplomats all rushing to the wall to emulate Il Ducce! Just as it happened decades ago,the Brits are now trying to emulate Putin after first getting cold feet to p*ss on ISIS!Syria’s ‘moderates’ have disappeared... and there are no good guys
Western confusion reigns while the Russians go for the jugular
Robert Fisk
@indyvoices
Sunday 4 October 2015
Syrian civil defence members mourn the death of their comrade, who was killed during what rebel activists said were air strikes carried out by the Russian air force Reuters
The Russian air force in Syria has flown straight into the West’s fantasy air space. The Russians, we are now informed, are bombing the “moderates” in Syria – “moderates” whom even the Americans admitted two months ago, no longer existed.
It’s rather like the Isis fighters who left Europe to fight for the “Caliphate”.Remember them? Scarcely two months ago, our political leaders – and leader writers – were warning us all of the enormous danger posed by “home-grown” Islamists who were leaving Britain and other European countries and America to fight for the monsters of Isis. Then the hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees began trekking up the Balkans towards Europe after risking death in the Mediterranean – and we were all told by the same political leaders to be fearful that Isis killers were among them.
It’s amazing how European Muslim fighters fly to Turkey to join Isis, and a few weeks later, they’re drowning in leaky boats or tramping back again and taking trains from Hungary to Germany. But if this nonsense was true, where did they get the time for all the terrorist training they need in order to attack us when they get back to Europe?
Airstike-AP.jpg
An image from the Russian Defense Ministry website show an airstrike in in Syria
It is possible, of course, that this was mere storytelling. By contrast, the chorus of horror that has accompanied Russia’s cruel air strikes this past week has gone beyond sanity.
Let’s start with a reality check. The Russian military are killers who go for the jugular. They slaughtered the innocent of Chechnya to crush the Islamist uprising there, and they will cut down the innocent of Syria as they try to crush a new army of Islamists and save the ruthless regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian army, some of whose members are war criminals, have struggled ferociously to preserve the state – and used barrel bombs to do it. They have also fought to the death.
“American officials” – those creatures beloved of The New York Times – claim that the Syrian army does not fight Isis. If true, who on earth killed the 56,000 Syrian soldiers – the statistic an official secret, but nonetheless true – who have so far died in the Syrian war? The preposterous Free Syrian Army (FSA)?
This rubbish has reached its crescendo in the on-again off-again saga of the Syrian “moderates”. These men were originally military defectors to the FSA, which America and European countries regarded as a possible pro-Western force to be used against the Syrian government army. But the FSA fell to pieces, corrupted, and the “moderates” defected all over again, this time to the Islamist Nusrah Front or to Isis, selling their American-supplied weapons to the highest bidder or merely retiring quietly – and wisely – to the countryside where they maintained a few scattered checkpoints.
Washington admitted their disappearance, bemoaned their fate, concluded that new “moderates” were required, persuaded the CIA to arm and train 70 fighters, and this summer packed them off across the Turkish border to fight – whereupon all but 10 were captured by Nusrah and at least two of them were executed by their captors. Just two weeks ago, I heard in person one of the most senior ex-US officers in Iraq – David Petraeus’s former No 2 in Baghdad – announce that the “moderates” had collapsed long ago. Now you see them – now you don’t.
But within hours of Russia’s air assaults last weekend, Washington, The New York Times, CNN, the poor old BBC and just about every newspaper in the Western world resurrected these ghosts and told us that the Russkies were bombing the brave “moderates” fighting Bashar’s army in Syria – the very “moderates” who, according to the same storyline from the very same sources a few weeks earlier, no longer existed. Our finest commentators and experts – always a dodgy phrase – joined in the same chorus line.
So now a few harsh factoids. The Syrian army are drawing up the operational target lists for the Russian air force. But Vladimir Putin has his own enemies in Syria.
The first strikes – far from being aimed at the “moderates” whom the US had long ago dismissed – were directed at the large number of Turkmen villages in the far north-west of Syria which have for many months been occupied by hundreds of Chechen fighters – the very same Chechens whom Putin had been trying to liquidate in Chechnya itself. These Chechen forces assaulted and destroyed Syria’s strategic hilltop military Position 451 north of Latakia last year. No wonder Bashar’s army put them on the target list.
Other strikes were directed not at Isis but at Islamist Jaish al-Shams force targets in the same area. But in the first 24 hours, Russian bombs were also dropped on the Isis supply line through the mountains above Palmyra.
The Russians specifically attacked desert roads around the town of Salamia – the same tracks used by Isis suicide convoys to defeat Syrian troops in the ancient Roman city of Palmyra last May.
They also bombed areas around Hassakeh and the Isis-held Raqqa air base where Syrian troops have fought Islamists over the past year (and were beheaded when they surrendered).
Russian ground troops, however, are in Syria only to guard their bases. These are symbolic boots on the ground – but the idea that those boots are there to fight Isis is a lie. The Russians intend to let the Syrian ground troops do the dying for them.
No, there are no good guys and bad guys in the Syrian war. The Russians don’t care about the innocents they kill any more than do the Syrian army or Nato. Any movie of the Syrian war should be entitled War Criminals Galore!
But for heaven’s sake, let’s stop fantasising. A few days ago, a White House spokesman even told us that Russian bombing “drives moderate elements… into the hands of extremists”.
Who’s writing this fiction? “Moderate elements” indeed…
Quite disturbing indeed , Looks like the civilian are facing most of the brunt from the bombing in fight between Government and Sepratistdeejay wrote:Not sure if this has been posted here before. In English by Channel 4 news. A western perspective but from within Assad held territories. A good peek at life within Syria. Assad and his people are frayed and 'tired'. Russians are a welcome relief.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7hQa9RGPsA
Around 1:44 in the video a map explaining Russian bombing targets.
Still doubts about the PLAN vessel being the Liaoning.It must be another amphib ship.China will be helping out the Syrian government in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) by sending “military advisers,” media reports have claimed.
“The Chinese will be arriving in the coming weeks,” a Syrian army official told the Lebanon-based news website Al-Masdar Al-‘Arabi.
The report claims that a Chinese naval vessel is on its way to Syria with dozens of “military advisers” on board. They will reportedly be followed by troops.
The ship is said to have passed the Suez Canal in Egypt and be making its way through the Mediterranean Sea.
According to the website, the advisers will be joining Russian personnel in the Latakia region.
Meanwhile, an Israeli military news website, DEBKAfile, has cited military sources as saying that a Chinese aircraft carrier, the Liaoning-CV-16, has already been spotted at the Syrian port of Tartus on the Mediterranean coast. It was said to be accompanied by a guided missile cruiser.
The news comes after Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria agreed to establish a joint information center in Baghdad to coordinate their operations against Islamic State militants, according to sources.
“The main goal of the center will be gathering, processing and analyzing current information about the situation in the Middle East – primarily for fighting IS,” a military-diplomatic source told Russian news agencies on Saturday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was recently asked about Russia’s presence in Syria, to which he replied that Russia’s activities are limited to supplying weapons to the Syrian government, training personnel and providing humanitarian aid for the Syrian people.
“We act based on the United Nations Charter, i.e. the fundamental principles of modern international law, according to which this or that type of aid, including military assistance, can and must be provided exclusively to the legitimate government of one country or another, upon its consent or request, or upon the decision of the United Nations Security Council,” Putin told CBS’s ‘60 Minutes’ show.
Putin reiterated his support for Syria’s regular army – the army of President Bashar Assad. “He [Assad] is confronted with what some of our international partners interpret as an opposition. In reality, Assad’s army is fighting against terrorist organizations,” Putin said.
Russia’s president added that US attempts to train a Syrian opposition to take on Islamic State have failed. The US had aimed to prepare up to 12,000 fighters, but only 60 managed to complete the training and only four or five actually fought with the opposition, while others fled to IS with American weapons, Putin said, citing US Senate hearings.
“In my opinion, provision of military support to illegal structures runs counter to the principles of modern international law and the United Nations Charter,” he said.
Back in December, 2014, China offered to help Iraq in fighting Islamic State militants, volunteering to assist with airstrikes, but said it would not join the US-led coalition against ISIS.
In one of the latest atrocities committed by IS, the terror group used an online magazine to post pictures of two hostages, one Norwegian and one Chinese, putting the men up “for sale.”
Its really sad. The country has been torn apart in the civil war and the west's no holds barred glee in encouraging it, allowed predators like the ISIL to arrive and commit industrial level atrocities. In turn, Assad has a fair share of blame for having encouraged, aided and abetted Hamaz and Hezbollah for decades to attack Israel. Did he really think there was going to be no payback? In the end, all the locals suffer and yet another country goes into a full blown meltdown.deejay wrote:Not sure if this has been posted here before. In English by Channel 4 news. A western perspective but from within Assad held territories. A good peek at life within Syria. Assad and his people are frayed and 'tired'. Russians are a welcome relief.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7hQa9RGPsA
Around 1:44 in the video a map explaining Russian bombing targets.
Philip Saar, this is one mess which we should be staying out of. No point in taking positions. For us, it is an event to watch, learn and prepare.Philip wrote:Ahead of the curve again! Where is India? Not even a squeak out of the MEA/FM. So much for a would be UNSC aspiring global power.
http://www.rt.com/news/316705-china-syria-isis-fight/[b] China’s military advisers ‘heading to Syria to help fight ISIS’ – report
Published time: 28 Sep, 2015[/b]
...
The Palestinian cause is supported by larger ME including Saudi and other GCC and not limited to IRan or others.Karan M wrote:Iraq, Libya, and now Syria - all supporters of the Palestinian cause in one way or the other, and all have fallen or have been significantly weakened. The only ones left in the mess are Iran, and which is why Netanyahu has been so vocal against it, it lets the biggest threat to Israel and remains strong.
Manpads are dangerous if you do not know its there or dont have counter measures for it.Bhurishrava wrote:Manpads could be seriously dangerous and everyone has got an oposite number to be armed. Kurds for Syrians, Houthis for Saudi and ISIS for US. IMHO, the leaders wont act this dumb but going by the last decade you never know.
The Russian Air Force in Syria has conducted 25 sorties on 9 Islamic State installations in the last 24 hours, eliminating a disguised terrorist base equipped with tanks, a command center and a communication hub, the Defense Ministry reported.
Russian bombers taking off from Khmeimim airbase knocked out a terrorist base hidden in the woods near the city of Idlib, eliminating 30 vehicles, among which were several Soviet-made T-55 tanks.
Sukhoi Su-24M bombers destroyed an Islamic State command post near the city of Al-Rastan in Homs province.
Altogether nine installations used by terrorists have been destroyed by Russian airstrikes in the last 24 hours.
Palestinian cause may be supported by a bunch of people, including loony leftists sitting in India and worldwide and jumping with joy each time a terror attack occurred in Israel but they didn't contribute the actual military and logistical support including advisors and arms shipments the Syrians and Iranian did.Austin wrote:The Palestinian cause is supported by larger ME including Saudi and other GCC and not limited to IRan or others.Karan M wrote:Iraq, Libya, and now Syria - all supporters of the Palestinian cause in one way or the other, and all have fallen or have been significantly weakened. The only ones left in the mess are Iran, and which is why Netanyahu has been so vocal against it, it lets the biggest threat to Israel and remains strong.
Israel too is responsible for its hard kill no bar approach , in the end they both get what they deserve
sounds convenient to declare a NFZ over raqqa to deconflict and hence prevent the RuF from pounding the major ISIS factories in the rear.Multatuli wrote:U.S. Aims to Put More Pressure on ISIS in Syria
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/world ... .html?_r=5
OFficially even we support the Palestinian causeKaran M wrote:Palestinian cause may be supported by a bunch of people, including loony leftists sitting in India and worldwide and jumping with joy each time a terror attack occurred in Israel but they didn't contribute the actual military and logistical support including advisors and arms shipments the Syrians and Iranian did.
Israel would even freak out of Hamaz or Hezb hold a banana and would say its a bomb.Israel regards Hamas and Hezbollah as its greatest strategic threat along with Iran. The two combined have more or less fought it to a draw in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories which is an existential challenge for Israel over the long term since Israel's existence in the Middle East, without resorting to nuclear warfare, is built upon an image of invincibility and ability to swiftly and decisively defeat its opponents. It has failed to do so with Hezb and Hamas.
Hence by taking out key financial and military backers of the two, and embroiling them in the fighting in Syria, Israel is regaining a lot of leverage and weakening these two organizations indirectly.
Not anymore really. We just say we want an end to the violence and all sides should jaw-jaw.Austin wrote:OFficially even we support the Palestinian cause
Hamas is Sunni, so no surprises there. But Israel can't do diddly to GCC and Saudi. Oil> than Amrikas luvv for its allyThe GCC does provide them with Financial and Military support , Hamas is supported by GCC and 50 % of funding for HAMAS comes from Saudi. The Shia Hizb are supported by Iran
Israel regards Hamas and Hezbollah as its greatest strategic threat along with Iran. The two combined have more or less fought it to a draw in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories which is an existential challenge for Israel over the long term since Israel's existence in the Middle East, without resorting to nuclear warfare, is built upon an image of invincibility and ability to swiftly and decisively defeat its opponents. It has failed to do so with Hezb and Hamas.
Hence by taking out key financial and military backers of the two, and embroiling them in the fighting in Syria, Israel is regaining a lot of leverage and weakening these two organizations indirectly.
So suicide bombings are bananas?Israel would even freak out of Hamaz or Hezb hold a banana and would say its a bomb.
Most countries have the same policy. Some are open about it. Others disguise it as "bringing freedom and democracy".Israel policy of dealing with Violence with much greater violence is turned out to be national policy and deterrent tool against terror.
Thats is the reason I feel they both deserve each other , Israel as a nation will never remain in peace because of such approach.
Quite likeSingha wrote:Putting in the Chechen militias against the Chechen elite trrops of the Isis might be useful
The Syrian vortex
Irfan Husain — Updated about 12 hours ago
FOUR years ago, soon after the uprising in Syria had begun, I met a young American diplomat in New York while on my book promotion tour. He had just spent some months in the Middle East, polishing his Arabic and studying the region at first hand before his first posting.
In those heady days of the Arab Spring, I was naive enough to expect Arab dictators, decadent emirs and kings to be toppled soon, following the Tunisian example. But the young diplomat disagreed, saying he expected Bashar al-Assad to hang on for quite a bit longer.
Four years later, the Arab Spring has been killed off by the Saudi-led counter-revolution, while Assad is still in power, albeit precariously. As time goes on, more and more states are getting involved in the Syrian tragedy unfolding before our eyes. Some want to see the end of Assad, while others, like the United States, are more interested in destroying the self-styled Islamic State. And still others like Saudi Arabia want to topple the minority, secular Alawite regime and replace it with a Sunni leadership more amenable to instructions from Riyadh.
Into this maelstrom of conflicting interests and ambitions, enter Russia with its own agenda of propping up the Assad government. While it seeks to protect its Mediterranean base at Tartus, its basic aim is to keep the Syrian president in power. As Putin has argued repeatedly, when dictators are toppled, as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qadhafi and Hosni Mubarak were, what follows is almost invariably worse. In the latter case, the army is still in charge, but Egypt is teetering on the edge of civil war as Islamists see themselves robbed of power after having won the election.
In a perfect world, the United States, Iran and Russia — as well as the lesser regional powers — would have coordinated their policies in Syria to supervise the elimination of IS, as well as a managed transition to more representative rule. But the Western powers, prodded by Turkey and Saudi Arabia, refuse to accept that Assad has any role in the transition. This puts them at loggerheads with Russia and Iran, both of whom are convinced that the Syrian dictator’s fall would lead to greater chaos as nobody else could hold the fissiparous state together. Both recall what happened in the wake of Qadhafi’s downfall and death: today Libya is in chaos, with various gangs ruling different parts of the country.
The irony in Syria is that the recent Russian military intervention has come in response to an official request by the legitimate government. The US-led coalition, on the other hand, are hitting targets in a sovereign country without legal authorisation from the United Nations. And yet, President Obama is complaining that Russian air strikes are ‘unhelpful’, and could lead to further violence.
Putin counters by asking what the year-long aerial campaign has accomplished. The reality is that IS is stronger than ever as a weakened Syrian military has ceded more cities and space to the jihadis. The American campaign to train so-called moderate forces to fight IS has been a dismal failure: at a recent congressional hearing, the commanding officer of the Central Command admitted that only ‘four or five’ of this force were fighting in Syria. Many others had handed over their US-supplied weapons and other equipment to IS.
In fact, the Americans have been the prime weapons suppliers to IS: when the Iraqi city of Mosul fell to the jihadis, entire warehouses full of American weapons, including heavy artillery, fell into IS hands. The Humvees these terrorists drive around in were originally supplied to Iraq by Washington. The Iraqi army was supposed to have been trained and armed at the cost of billions of dollars by the Americans, and yet have consistently chosen to retreat rather than fight IS, despite outnumbering the jihadis in several battles.
Given this litany of failures, do the Russians have a better chance of success? According to reports, the Iranians are also poised to send in troops to help Assad. The Russian intervention has done much for Syrian morale. The aim of both seems to be to hold on to the strip of the Mediterranean coastline where the bulk of the population is concentrated.
The problem is that this area is also being contested by a motley crew of rebels ranging from the Jabhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate allegedly supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to the Free Syrian Army supplied by the United States. So when the Russians hit these groups, they are seen as hurting the clients of the US-led coalition, and helping Assad.
And as fighting in this densely populated area escalates, the number of refugees is bound to increase. This will exacerbate the crisis that has caused deep divisions in Europe. And yet, the Russian intervention has not been condemned out of hand. This is due largely to the failure of Western policies in the region. In fact, it is hard to discern any clear, coherent path: surely, bombing the odd IS target in a vast desert for months does not constitute a policy.
The Syrian opposition, called the National Coalition, refuses to accept that Assad has any role, and will not talk to his team. Talks in Geneva have floundered on the issue of the transition. The Americans and their regional allies have not succeeded — or tried — to convince them that they should at least sit down and talk, and see what options are on offer. The UN has been stymied as both Russia and China have blocked American moves to obtain a resolution permitting the use of force to effect regime change. They both remember what happened in Libya when they agreed to the use of air power to protect civilians.
Until Russia and the United States can align their respective positions on Syria, civilians will continue to suffer, and refugees will continue to seek asylum in Europe.
Its pretty common to write off the Russians. Georgia and then Ukraine. In both cases they have proven they can hack it. Then there was Chechnya. No dearth of brutal stuff there too.Hostages? No Problem Soviets Offer 'How-to' Lesson In Kidnapping