West Asia News and Discussions

member_20317 · Post by **member_20317** » 31 Aug 2013 20:59

ok, I guess you win. Putin looses. What goes of my father?

But about the 'Next'. Why do you suppose, its going to be Russia after Syria?

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 31 Aug 2013 21:10

IF US has proof that Syrian Army is involved in CW attack then they should present to UN security council let the council make a judgement on it , US says it has high confidence that Syrian have done it so if the level of confidence is very high in UN intel community then they should present it to the UN security council.

I think what the US is doing now is it is stating it has proof if Syrian doing it but cannot share the intel as its classified. Pretty much defeats the purpose considering US credibility is low after Iraq gaffe

member_27444 · Post by **member_27444** » 31 Aug 2013 21:19

Plenty
Dagestan
Ossetia
Abkhazia

Of course Chechnya

Manish_Sharma · Post by **Manish_Sharma** » 31 Aug 2013 21:21

Surya wrote:Sanku

nah - Brit politics has its own local issues and thats the outcome. The Brits are sheltered by the US so its not like they will be trouser shivering - plus like it or not the$@$@$ have a lot of say in financial matters

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/m ... -37bn-book

The war in Afghanistan has cost Britain at least £37bn and the figure will rise to a sum equivalent to more than £2,000 for every taxpaying household, according to a devastating critique of the UK's role in the conflict.

Since 2006, on a conservative estimate, it has cost £15m a day to maintain Britain's military presence in Helmand province. The equivalent of £25,000 will have been spent for every one of Helmand's 1.5 million inhabitants, more than most of them will earn in a lifetime, it says.

By 2020, the author of a new book says, Britain will have spent at least £40bn on its Afghan campaign, enough to recruit over 5,000 police officers or nurses and pay for them throughout their careers. It could fund free tuition for all students in British higher education for 10 years.

member_20317 · Post by **member_20317** » 31 Aug 2013 21:30

You forgot the colour revolutions.

Yes you are right I would not count on Putin to deal with these.

Thank god I have GoI saving my gadha from the world's most powerful man.

....................

You cannot underestimate the power of a powerful man.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 31 Aug 2013 22:08

if assad regime is taken out, what happens there? is there a syrian MB?

or a Lebanon like civil war between sunnis backed by ksa? and shias backed by Iran and Hezb?

either way, it looks like syria is headed into destruction...

eklavya · Post by **eklavya** » 01 Sep 2013 00:01

FT: An American shot across the bows will not help Syria

August 30, 2013 6:56 pm

An American shot across the bows will not help Syria

By David Gardner

Western plans to punish Bashar al-Assad for gassing his own people were already in disarray before the House of Commons voted Britain out of the US-led task force assembling to strike at the Syrian regime. What President Barack Obama is calling “a shot across the bows” of the Assad killing machine has so far failed to give the strategic impression of more than a shot in the dark.

If, or when, Mr Obama pulls the trigger, America’s fearsome firepower will hit something all right. But any action that leaves the Assads’ military capacity essentially intact will leave Syria – and its vulnerable neighbours – with a wounded animal on the prowl.

Intervening at this late stage means the options range from bad to appalling. There are also intrinsic problems with any attack intended as a message – beginning with how to measure its effect.

The stated rationale of any strike arises from last week’s devastating chemical weapons attack on the eastern suburbs of Damascus, which killed an estimated 1,000 people, many of them children. There is daily horror on both sides in this pitiless civil and sectarian war. But the possibility that anyone but the Assads had the capability to carry out this obscene transgression of nearly century-old laws of war is vanishingly slim.

Yet, in beating back a 30-month rebellion that began as a civic revolt against the tyranny and greed of the Assads, the regime has killed probably more than 100,000 people using conventional weapons – without provoking a coherent western response. Promises to supply the rebels with weapons to counter the regime’s warplanes and armour remain just that.

While Iran and Russia have had a consistent strategy of arming, financing and diplomatically shielding the regime, the west’s stand-back policy, for all its protestations of prudence, actually feeds extremism. Sunni jihadism is thriving in insurgent ranks, fired by Gulf allies to whom the US and Europe have subcontracted support for the rebels. Shia Iran and its Islamist allies, from Lebanon’s Hizbollah paramilitaries to Shia militia appended to the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, erstwhile protégé of the US, are pushing back hard.

Indeed, the extent to which the Syrian war has already gone regional makes the US debate about “pinprick” attacks solipsistically irrelevant. Limited punitive strikes – described by the White House vapidly as discrete, surgical, or tailored – are not going to change the balance of forces on the ground, inside Syria or across the region.

It is also hard to see what, if anything, limited strikes will do to prevent Mr Assad from using chemical arms again – or from continuing to slaughter Syrians by the indiscriminate use of everything from ballistic missiles to barrel bombs. Too late for the Commons vote, the BBC on Thursday night reported a horrendous air strike that incendiary-bombed a children’s playground in north Syria. Only one side has air power.

Whatever Mr Obama eventually decides, Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, is surely right in saying: “Military action carried out in the name of upholding a basic humanitarian norm – you don’t gas children in their sleep – will be judged by its effect in protecting all Syrian civilians from further unlawful attacks, whether chemical or conventional.”

But even when force is used for ostensibly moral reasons, there is something basically immoral when its geostrategic purpose looks like the equivalent of a drive-by shooting, a sort of drop-in cruise missile strike.

The arguments about intervention, moreover, remain the same, even as the position on the ground whirls further into chaos. Would arming the rebels produce a benign outcome? Maybe not, by now, when the jihadi presence in Syria presages a second civil war. Is doing nothing better? Not unless you are willing to risk a new Afghanistan – this time in the east Mediterranean.

Yet the idea that only a political agreement can end the misery of the Syrians is a truism. All wars end in some newly codified order. But those who paint a mirage of a negotiated outcome to the Syrian war have not shown this has ever been on offer. There is no chance of an end to this conflict so long as the Assads are in power. The UN-backed peace plan agreed in June 2012 in Geneva is a wishlist that relies on the Assads to volunteer for early retirement. The recent plea by Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, to “give peace a chance” hardly changes that.

A much baser argument says: “Hizbollah and al-Qaeda are killing each other in Syria like scorpions in a bottle; what’s not to like?” Aside from its sub-Machiavellian amorality, this is the sort of amnesiac fecklessness that led to Afghanistan and Iraq, the two great nurturers of jihadism – at least before Syria.

But what if the US (and presumably France) were to look at who does what in Syria – and target those who will kill on whatever scale they need to survive? The regime has most of the heavy (and all the chemical) weapons but is short of troops. Distrusting the majority Sunni army, it relies on a national network of militia, predominantly from its minority Alawite sect.

One strategy would be to target: the weapons (from missile sites to air power) and their command and control; and the bodies most involved in crushing civil and rebel resistance, such as the 4th Armoured Division and air force intelligence, all under the control of Assad family and allies, who also direct militia. That would leave quite a lot of the army intact, to prevent an Iraq-style vacuum in Syria’s future transition. It would also emphasise that the Assads cannot recover control of Syria, and help collapse their support.

These are people who write daily, in blood, that the only alternative to their rule is terror and chaos. Any intervention that adds to that chaos will just reinforce their message.

member_27444 · Post by **member_27444** » 01 Sep 2013 01:02

Syria is not a signatory of Chemical weapons ban treaty

If Nobel Obama strikes at conventional weapon depots, storage and personnel

Would not Assad be left with chemical weapons only and therefore finally use them?

Upon which SD would declare we knew!

Why would US leave chemical sites untouched?

Contamination?

Collateral damage to civilian population?

Just some questions

Would Nobel committee honor with one more prize?

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 01 Sep 2013 01:17

Obama Calls for Military Strike Against Syria—But Only if Congress Votes for It Mother Jones
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off ... dent-syria

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 01 Sep 2013 02:11

http://vimeo.com/73537464
NSFW Warning. Its Roper vs Roper of wrong side and sect.
How eagerely they wait to take pictures of Jannat Ke Musafirs.

And
Saudi , Aemirati, Qatari thinks Syrian females are Kufr and Halal

http://vimeo.com/68474445

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 01 Sep 2013 03:26

and the ropers are filming everything for the viewing pleasure of all true believers... sickening, absolute barbarians

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 01 Sep 2013 04:14

Lalmohan ji,

It is blessing in disguise. We need more of such films to convince our own Indian brotheren of their spiritual center.

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 01 Sep 2013 04:29

Has France become the new UK?

Rightist Nikolai Sarkozy's itch to get involved in Libya was understandable, but
how come the leftist elephant Francois Hollande is jumping and thumping
so much? is he trying to remake Freedom Fries back to French Fries?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 Sep 2013 05:51

Their net contribution would be 10 air launched scalp missiles. No need to refuel the rafales either over the med.

Not much to lose.

Second...hoping for a rafale deal from the gulf arabs in exchange.

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 01 Sep 2013 06:38

sanku

libya has oil so that trumps especially if the cost was low - except after getting in they realised they could not do it and ran crying to Uncle

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 01 Sep 2013 06:52

Spot on Singha! Rafales were used to decapitate the Libyan regime and deliver le "coup-de-gras" to Ghadaffi.Rafales would be most useful in bombing the Persian ayatollahs too.The British past master at bombing nations illegally,Tony B.Liar,has just said that bombing Syria is merely western leaders "displaying their manhood"! And we all know that **** man in a white house thinks he carries the biggest *****..sorry stick!

P'raps M.Hollande suffers from a "petit" maladie n'est-ce pas?!

habal · Post by **habal** » 01 Sep 2013 08:06

Amyrao wrote:No Putin has to draw his own Red line after all he is ex Red no?

If Putin does not dig in all his macho Fabio pictures mean nothing except riding a mare

It would be nightmare for Russia's allies if it comes to that.

From Kosovo to Libya Russia fall is well documented

It doesn't bode well for two BRFites to swing from Putin is powerless to Putin is powerful (sanku's view).

There is two kinds of power: 'absolute power' and 'persuasive power'.

Absolute power: 8300 nuclear weapons. Not much more needs to be said. Only country in world that can say 'game over' to Obamination.

Persuasive power: No way. If Russia had SU's persuasive power, USA or their euro minions wouldn't even be caught seen in Syria's backyard. It includes economic depth as well as multiplicity of 'set pieces' to adapt to a situation. It is here that Russia is nowhere near the old SU. Lekin kahte hain ke mara hua haathi bhi sava lakh ka hota hain. Aur yeh to abhi bhi zinda hain. Even if it inherited a crumbled mess, it is still has more worth than anything around it.

The result thus is, that you can't ignore them. But them just by being themselves, don't persuade the warmongers to change course.

i.e. unless the Russian find ways and means to disrupt this status-quo.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 01 Sep 2013 10:23

9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 01 Sep 2013 10:32

They are very angry with the outcome of the vote.

Sen. John McCain to Leno: Britain ‘No Longer a World Power’
by Evan McMurry | 1:17 pm, August 31st, 2013

Appearing on the Tonight Show Friday night, Arizona Senator John McCain lamented the decline in Great Britain’s geopolitical muscle, especially given what he called the neutrality of the United Nations in response to chemical weapon attacks in Syria.

“I feel badly about the British,” he told host Jay Leno. “They’re our dear friends, but they’re no longer a world power. It’s just a fact of life.”

On Thursday, England’s House of Commons narrowly defeated a resolution approving the country’s intervention into Syria provided proof of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons, a sharp rebuke to Prime Minister David Cameron and President Barack Obama.

McCain’s comment came in the context of a critique of the United Nations for what McCain considers a lackluster response to Syria’s aggression.

“The U.N. has turned into an organization that, in my estimation, in many ways is a waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” McCain said. “Right now, the U.N. is in there ascertaining whether this was a chemical attack. And I think it’s fairly obvious, since you see these bodies stacked up with not a mark on them, and the head of the United Nations has said, ‘But, we won’t apportion blame.’ What? You’re not going to say who is responsible for it? That’s your tax dollars at work.”

“They want to be neutral,” he added. “They want to be neutral about everything.”

kenop · Post by **kenop** » 01 Sep 2013 10:51

The usual tactics but getting caught early

Anderson Cooper and CNN have been caught staging fake news about Syria to justify military intervention.

The primary “witness” that the mainstream media is using as a source in Syria has been caught staging fake news segments. Recent video evidence proves that “Syria Danny”, the supposed activist who has been begging for military intervention on CNN, is really just a paid actor and a liar.

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 01 Sep 2013 11:42

abhishek_sharma wrote:9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask

A nice map and some funny quotes.

2. Why are people in Syria killing each other?
The killing started in April 2011, when peaceful protests inspired by earlier revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia rose up to challenge the dictatorship running the country. The government responded — there is no getting around this — like monsters.{oh really ? How should a govt respond when foreign collaborators are actively undermining a relatively stable and peaceful country ... Which has the potential to result in hundreds and thousands of deaths and counting as is currently occurring in Syria?} First, security forces quietly killed activists. Then they started kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing activists and their family members, including a lot of children, dumping their mutilated bodies by the sides of roads. Then troops began simply opening fire on protests. Eventually, civilians started shooting back.
Fighting escalated from there until it was a civil war. Armed civilians organized into rebel groups. The army deployed across the country, shelling and bombing whole neighborhoods and towns, trying to terrorize people into submission. They’ve also allegedly used chemical weapons, which is a big deal for reasons I’ll address below. Volunteers from other countries joined the rebels, either because they wanted freedom and democracy for Syria or, more likely, because they are jihadists who hate Syria’s secular government. The rebels were gaining ground for a while and now it looks like Assad is coming back. There is no end in sight.

3. That’s horrible. But there are protests lots of places. How did it all go so wrong in Syria? And, please, just give me the short version.{Short version is West simply messed up when they calculated that with their engineered uprising ,Assad will simply rollover and die.}
That’s a complicated question, and there’s no single, definitive answer. This is the shortest possible version — stay with me, it’s worth it. You might say, broadly speaking, that there are two general theories. Both start with the idea that Syria has been a powder keg waiting to explode for decades and that it was set off, maybe inevitably, by the 2011 protests and especially by the government’s overly harsh crackdown...

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 01 Sep 2013 14:01

anmol wrote:
Sen. John McCain to Leno: Britain ‘No Longer a World Power’

Sen. McCain must know that the US too is not exactly a hegemon and a power that it was. A fact of life too.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 01 Sep 2013 14:56

Why are people batting for Assad here? Is it because America is against Assad?

What engineered protests? It is a country where minority shia rules majority sunni by force.

habal · Post by **habal** » 01 Sep 2013 15:00

Another aspect to ponder about is how the US army is reorganizing by trimming down it's field grade officers (Lt. Col,Col, Maj, Capt) and thus weakening the flag grade officers(Brig Gen & above) who just turn into managers in uniform managing logistics and 'strategy' if necessary, it is the field grade officers who are the true soldiers and infantrymen of any army, and replacing them with all manner of private operators & sub-contractors who are not answerable to Congress or any civilian oversight. It is the Colonels, Majors, etc who bring about the coups, because they are in direct contact with the units themselves on a daily basis and develop camaraderie and the average troop never meets a flag grade general once they reach that level. Which can only mean that the future envisioned consists of air strikes or kinetic strikes over Asian locations, and Al-Qaeda ground troops supported by air-strikes as a means to wage war and enforcing external policy. And not hardcore military men who may ask uncomfortable and inconvenient questions.

The lean & mean army that Obama and Rumsfeld used to talk about is actually an army that is thin on professional armymen and infantry, who may have some inconvenient ethics, and full of part-timers and private sub-contractors supported indirectly by Saudi-sponsored Al-Qaeda field operatives who will form the first wave. Followed by Kinetic strikes, and concluding end game by again black ops and Bandar sponsored Al-Qaeda operatives.

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/2 ... -brigades/

this is enough in their opinion for achieving all manner of foreign policy objectives. Large navy and large airforce though is indispensible.

Russians seem to think that Assad will be targeted sooner or later, his security cordon will be weakened and targeted in air strike and like in Libya, after air defences are subdued or neutralised, unidentified helicopters and air transport shall be used to transport Al-Nusra or Al-Qaeda dregs from Aleppo or Hama right uptil Assad's doorstep, wherein special ops SAS types shall try and corner him and neutralize his supporters and bodyguards after which the airlifted animals shall be let loose after Assad is trapped helpless in some alley.

Russia Offered Asylum to Syria's Assad – Report

World | September 1, 2013, Sunday // 11:51| Views: 240 | Comments: 0
Developing Story: Syria Crisis
EPA/BGNES

Russia has granted asylum to Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, according to a Saudi media outlet, cited by the Bulgarian news agency Focus.

A US intelligence source has revealed that Russia had proposed to Assad to withdraw from power and flee on one of its navy ships in the Mediterranean.

According to the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth, Russia has made the proposal after realizing the US are firm on a military intervention in Syria which will lead to toppling Assad anyway.

The Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack – the deadliest single incident of the Syrian civil war and the world's worst use of chemical arms since Iraq's Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in 1988 – has prompted the US to say it is considering a military action and to start seeking allies.

Russia, Assad's strongest ally, and China are blocking a UN Security Council resolution to intervene in Syria.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?i ... jEZgE.dpuf

eklavya · Post by **eklavya** » 01 Sep 2013 15:49

FT: A leader humbled, a nation cut down to size

A leader humbled, a nation cut down to size
August 30, 2013 8:03 pm
By Gideon Rachman

David Cameron began the week confident that the UK would take part in military action against Syria – probably by this weekend. The prime minister ended it reeling from a humiliating defeat in the House of Commons that forced him to rule out British participation in any assault.

This was the most spectacular defeat of Mr Cameron’s political career. Political analysts – searching for precedents – declared that this was the first time that a UK prime minister had been defeated in parliament, on a matter of war and peace, since 1782.

The implications go well beyond the future of Mr Cameron. The UK parliament’s vote raises obvious questions about whether the Obama administration’s plans for a limited assault on Syrian military installations will face a similar backlash in the US. And beyond the immediate Syrian crisis, this week’s events pose big questions about Britain’s role in global politics and about its much-vaunted “special relationship” with America.

So how did it come to this? Thursday night’s Commons vote was partly the product of short-term political miscalculations by Britain’s coalition government. But it also reflected a deeper long-term trend. The turmoil in the Middle East that began with the Egyptian revolution of January 2011 has revealed Mr Cameron as an instinctive interventionist. But, as the Syrian crisis has unfolded, a dangerous gap has opened up between the prime minister’s worldview and the more cautious instincts of several other important players – including the UK security establishment, the US president, British public opinion and even, as it turned out, many of Mr Cameron’s own backbench MPs.

This gap was exposed by a clash between a military timetable devised in Washington and the political timetable in Britain. Reports emerged of the chemical weapons attack in Syria on August 21. Barack Obama and Mr Cameron spoke at 4.30pm on Saturday, August 24, according to people familiar with the situation. The US president made it clear that he wanted a swift military response – before global outrage dissipated and Bashar al-Assad’s regime had the chance to prepare its defences. The possibility of staging cruise missile strikes the following weekend was discussed. That meant that Mr Cameron had to get parliamentary approval fast. At first, the prime minister was confident this could be done. He recalled parliament from its holidays and scheduled a debate for Thursday, potentially 48 hours before an assault would begin.

But, in the run-up to the vote, the prime minister and his team ran into difficulty. A vital moment came on Wednesday afternoon when Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, announced that UN weapons inspectors in Damascus would need four more days to complete their work. Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition Labour party – aware of growing disquiet among his own MPs – seized on the secretary-general’s remarks. He told Downing Street that his party could not support a substantive motion backing military action while UN inspectors were still at work – and before the UN in New York had a chance to consider their report.

Members of Mr Cameron’s camp accused the Labour leader of behaving dishonourably after intimating that he would support a heavily qualified government motion, only to withdraw his support at 5.15pm on Wednesday night – a decision that in effect forced Mr Cameron to scrap his call for immediate military intervention.

A hastily redrafted motion, sent out at just before 7pm that night, included nearly all of Labour’s demands – including a second vote on military action and a commitment to the UN process – but still it was not enough to get the opposition on side. “Miliband double-crossed us twice,” complains one member of the Cameron team. The Labour leader’s hand in Mr Cameron’s humiliation has incensed Downing Street, where aides attacked Mr Miliband in a strikingly personal fashion, before the vote, for giving “succour” to the Assad regime and “flip-flopping” over his position on Syria.

Yet some Conservatives argue that the prime minister would have been wiser either to accept the Labour amendment – similar as it was to the government’s own motion – or pull the vote. Instead, he ploughed on. Many journalists watching the debate were convinced that the prime minister had outperformed his Labour rival. Just minutes before the vote, television commentators were confidently predicting that the prime minister would carry the day. Instead, he fell well short – with the government losing its motion by 285 votes to 272.

The prime minister wants to use the military, he just doesn’t want to pay for it
- A senior UK military official

The failure to win bipartisan support for military action was clearly fatal to Mr Cameron’s chances. But the government was also laid low by a disastrous failure of party management. “It is just a catalogue of incompetence,” says one Tory backbencher – supportive of the government on Thursday – as he reflects on the whipping operation in the run-up to the vote. “I got my first phone call from the whip’s office at 5pm, despite writing quite publicly about my misgivings on intervention. There was no whip operation to identify who needed to be brought on board.”

Thirty Tory MPs voted against their own government, as well as nine MPs from the Liberal Democrats, the coalition’s junior partner. But Mr Cameron, with a working majority of 84, could easily have won the vote had he ensured those on the government payroll had all voted. Instead, 10 government members missed the division – and a total of 31 Tories chose not to vote at all. “It was cocked-up handling by the little cabal,” says one usually supportive minister, who argues that the prime minister made a fatal miscalculation of relying too heavily on the tight-knit group of hawks around him – William Hague, the foreign secretary, George Osborne, the chancellor, and education secretary Michael Gove – instead of taking in broader soundings from other ministers.

In the aftermath of the vote, a shell-shocked prime minister announced to the House that “I get it” – and immediately ruled out British participation in military action against Syria. This was a course correction so dramatic that it appears to tie his hands from revisiting the subject – even if the kind of conclusive evidence demanded by the sceptics emerges over the next few days.

Accident and misadventure clearly played a big part in this week’s events. But the events were also the culmination of tensions that had been building since the onset of the Syrian civil war.

Mr Cameron has always been on the activist side of the argument. He was clearly keen to see military aid flowing to the Syrian rebels – and would have supported a western declaration of a “no-fly zone” for the Assad forces, if the US was on board.

But the prime minister’s instinctive activism ran into opposition from the British security establishment. The military are much more cautious about foreign engagements since the chastening experiences of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Service chiefs have also been embittered by cuts in military expenditure forced through under the coalition’s austerity programme. One senior military man complained recently that “the prime minister wants to use the military, he just doesn’t want to pay for it”.

Mr Cameron emerged from the Libyan war frustrated by what he regarded as the military’s excessive caution. But it is not just the armed forces who were alarmed by the prime minister’s muscular attitude to the Syrian conflict. Some senior diplomats and intelligence officials were also openly sceptical about the idea of aiding the Syrian rebels because of the strength of jihadist forces, linked to al-Qaeda, within their ranks.

Those members of the British establishment who were unconvinced by the case for action in Syria had come to see Mr Obama as their champion. Over the past year it has been apparent that the US president was much more sceptical of the case for western intervention than the UK prime minister.

But the news of the use of chemical weapons in Syria had appeared to swing the debate in Mr Cameron’s direction. In response, the White House had shifted in the direction of military intervention. For the historically minded, Mr Cameron appeared to be playing a familiar role. Just as Margaret Thatcher had once urged President George HW Bush not to “go wobbly” after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, so once again a UK prime minister would stiffen the spine of a US president.

I am delighted that we relieved ourselves of this imperial pretension
- Crispin Blunt, a Conservative MP

But while Mr Cameron looked across the Atlantic to Washington, he had failed to notice that his political troops were not lined up behind him. The scepticism from some elements in the UK security establishment was reflected in the Tory press. The Daily Mail, a key Conservative newspaper, was openly scornful of the prime minister’s rush to intervene in Syria. All of this discontent in traditionally Conservative circles gave party dissidents the cover to vote against the government or abstain.

The question for Britain now is whether this week’s vote is a historic turning point in foreign policy or an aberration. The fact that the politics were so badly mishandled bolsters the argument that the House of Commons vote was simply an accident. Even Mr Miliband was not intending to send a signal that Britain’s global role has fundamentally changed. Yet accidents can also be turning points, particularly if they reveal and harden underlying shifts in the political mood.

There is a deep, post-Iraq scepticism in Britain about further military adventures in the Middle East. Sarah Wollaston, one of the Tory MPs who voted against the government, reported that more than 500 of her constituents had contacted her to oppose intervention in Syria – in contrast to just over 30 who were in favour. Opinion polls showed roughly two-thirds of the British public were against military action.

This week’s shocking defeat for the government raises obvious questions about Britain’s role in the world. One of the clichés of UK foreign policy is that, although the country is now a middle-ranking power, its goal is to “punch above its weight” in world affairs. Two of the important tools for achieving this ambition were the British armed forces and the UK’s “special relationship” with the US.

Now the British have sent a clear signal that they are less willing to use the military – and less willing to follow America’s lead in foreign affairs. Even some Conservative MPs are calling for the country to embrace a more modest role in global affairs. After the vote, Crispin Blunt, a Tory MP and former army officer, told the BBC that he was “delighted that we relieved ourselves of this imperial pretension”.

The call for the UK to play a smaller role in world affairs finds an echo among a war-weary public. Yet it is too soon to be certain that this will be a lasting mood. The “special relationship” has gone through cycles in the past. Britain stayed out of the Vietnam war but then cleaved much more closely to US foreign policy during the Thatcher and Blair years.

A glance across the Channel also demonstrates how transient diplomatic and political moods can be. France rallied the opposition to the US-led Iraq war in 2003. But the French government was among the first to call for a military reaction to the use of chemical weapons in Syria – and may yet participate in US-led strikes. The spectacle of a joint US-French operation in Syria might then cause a degree of anguish in Britain.

In the aftermath of the British vote, White House officials were adamant that the US would press ahead with its own plans for Syria. It is certainly true that the contribution of the British military to any Syrian operation would have been fairly marginal. But the UK would have been useful for political cover.

However, the spectacle of Mr Cameron’s defeat will play into Mr Obama’s political calculations. He too is faced with a war-weary public and a legislature that is wary of being railroaded into military action. As Mr Cameron’s experiences have demonstrated, the prospect of military action can take politics in new and unexpected directions.

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Rigby, Richard McGregor and James Blitz

eklavya · Post by **eklavya** » 01 Sep 2013 16:00

Let's see if Syria makes bedfellows of the US Republican Party and the UK Labour Party (again)!

FT: Barack Obama’s dramatic gamble on Syria

Barack Obama’s dramatic gamble on Syria
August 31, 2013 11:39 pm
By Edward Luce

In baseball, they call it coming “from left field”. President Barack Obama’s decision on Saturday to seek Congress’s approval for strikes on Syria ranks as the least expected moment of his presidency – and probably his riskiest.

His immediate fortunes are now in the hands of two very unfriendly entities: the Assad regime in Syria and the Republican Party on Capitol Hill. Both have been handed their leverage. Neither can be relied upon to use it predictably. There can be little doubt that Mr Obama is entering the most dangerous phase of his presidency, to some degree voluntarily.

First, the positive side. Mr Obama’s request, which Congress will only debate in the week beginning September 9, has bought him time to push for a diplomatic solution. On Tuesday Mr Obama travels to St Petersburg for the G20 conference. Last month he turned down an invitation by Vladimir Putin to hold a bilateral meeting in Moscow after the summit. By postponing the Syria strikes for at least 10 days, Mr Obama has a window to talk to Mr Putin, the Chinese, the Arab League and other key actors.

Hopefully he can prove that diplomacy works with the threat of action. That would be a triumph. But it would be optimistic to suppose Mr Putin and the like will take Mr Obama’s threat of missile strikes seriously before Congress has authorised them. Until then, Mr Obama cannot afford to spend too much time out of Washington. Nor can his principals, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, secretaries of state and defence, both of whom will need to testify to Congress.

To be sure, Mr Obama is betting he will get the green light from both houses, as George W Bush did for the 2002 bill authorising the Iraq war, and as George H.W. Bush did – though by a far narrower Senate majority – for the first Iraq war in 1990. No president has been turned down since the War Powers Act passed in 1973 – though few have bothered to ask.

Should Mr Obama get his authorisation next week, or the week after, he will emerge stronger both at home and abroad. At home, he will have acquired co-ownership with Congress of whatever subsequently happens in Syria. At a moment when large majorities of Americans are sceptical of any military action against Syria, Mr Obama’s instinct is to make it bipartisan. And abroad, it will strengthen his credibility too. A yes vote would demonstrate US exceptionalism at its best – burying its political differences to respond to the barbaric gassing of hundreds of innocent foreign children.

That is the plan. But after the UK parliament’s no vote last week, it is hard to feel confident that it will go to script. The mathematics in both the Democratic and Republican parties are too fluid to forecast a clear majority, even though that must still be the probability. There will be plenty of Republican hawks, such as John McCain, and reliable Democratic centrists, such as Max Baucus, in favour of the bill. They will be joined by some liberal hawks, such as Nancy Pelosi, Democratic House leader.

But isolationist Tea Party Republicans have teamed up with Democratic liberals in the past to defeat legislation. It is not inconceivable they will do so again. A defeat would be disastrous for Mr Obama, who would then have to choose between flouting the will of Congress or becoming a lame duck on the global stage.

We must assume the White House is able to count votes better than David Cameron. The alternative is too dire. Either way, Washington is about to be consumed by a debate about America’s role in the world and the future of Mr Obama’s presidency.

Assuming Mr Obama is less incompetent than Mr Cameron, by far his biggest hurdle will come on the ground afterwards in the Middle East. Colin Powell once said of Iraq, “you broke it, you own it”. If Mr Obama gets the approval he wants, then from that moment on the US will own what happens in Syria. This is Mr Obama’s real gamble. Could he be subconsciously hoping that Congress votes no, as some have somewhat wildly suggested? Or has the UK vote, among other twists, made him far less reluctant on Syria than he was?

Whatever is bolstering Mr Obama’s resolve for war, that is the course he is asking America to approve. Last Friday, Mr McCain spoke for many when he dismissed the UK parliament’s vote as a “symbol of Britain’s withdrawal as a power”. That may well be right, although the last time the UK stood aside from a US war was in Vietnam – a quagmire that helped sink two presidencies and haunted most of their successors. It was arguably the costliest military blunder in US history.

Mr Obama can count upon the backing of many McCains in the coming days. There is still a strong establishment consensus – probably a clear majority – for the US to play the world’s policeman. But much as Lyndon Johnson hoped escalation in Vietnam would help him get out quicker, Mr Obama risks getting into a game of poker that he cannot control. He would of course be doing so in tandem with Congress. And it would be with the best of intentions. But that is no insurance against the unexpected. For better or worse, Mr Obama is gambling his presidency on Syria.

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 01 Sep 2013 16:07

Gus wrote:Why are people batting for Assad here? Is it because America is against Assad?

What engineered protests? It is a country where minority shia rules majority sunni by force.

Assad heads a socialist Baath party whose ideology is secular Arab nationalism - which last time I checked treats both Sunnis and Shia equally - as arabs.

West can't stand such nationalistic ideologies - as opposed to religious ones like Wahabbism which is its preferred poison to control people (wahabism is simple onlee - make one Family your bi**h (al-saud) and the rest will automatically fall in place).

Saddam(a sunni) massacred Shia,Kurd and Sunni... Under the watch ful eye of West and with funding from Gulf Sunni Sheikhs. Yet one of the main reasons Saddam was dispatched was because inspite of all his misdeeds on behalf of West as a mercenary against Iran he too is a baathist and espoused Arab nationalism.

In comparision Younger Assad is a better dictator in many ways and Syria till recently used to be a middle income nation with strong social security and welfare state in place .... Until Operation Assadfall began and hitherto relatively contented syrian sunni population now suddenly wanted power to exterminate the rest and more - mainly under influence of al-mobs with wahabbism infused lunacy against Shia... the rest in Syria knew they had a fight at hand.

BTW,
SaudiBarbaria is a minority Wahhabi state ruling majority camel and goat herders by force - why doesn't Massa liberate it and rationalize its colonial borders along Shia Sunni lines for once ..? (may be Fareed zakaria will give a relevant theory here also)?
Do you think its because Shia of Saudi Barbaria are prospering under Wahabbism and their dominance in Saudi oil bearing regions near Persian gulf is not effecting how they get treated ?
Ditto wrt to Bahrain .

eklavya · Post by **eklavya** » 01 Sep 2013 16:32

Lilo wrote:
Gus wrote:Why are people batting for Assad here? Is it because America is against Assad?

What engineered protests? It is a country where minority shia rules majority sunni by force.
Assad heads a socialist Baath party whose ideology is secular Arab nationalism - which last time I checked treats both Sunnis and Shia equally - as arabs.

West can't stand such nationalistic ideologies - as opposed to religious ones like Wahabbism which is its preferred poison to control people (wahabism is simple onlee - make one Family your bi**h (al-saud) and the rest will automatically fall in place).

Lilo, your theory does not fit with the events in Egypt.

The US/West issue with Syria is not a matter of secular nationalist orientation. The Syrian regime has historically been out of favour with the US/West for four key reasons:
- Implacable hostility to Israel
- Alliance with Iran
- Alliance with Hizbollah
- Sponsorship (until they packed up and buggered off to Doha) of the Hamas leadership

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 01 Sep 2013 16:39

Just quoting a little bit about tax dollars of domestic US citizens in UN

anmol wrote:They are very angry with the outcome of the vote.
Sen. John McCain to Leno: Britain ‘No Longer a World Power’
by Evan McMurry | 1:17 pm, August 31st, 2013
...
“The U.N. has turned into an organization that, in my estimation, in many ways is a waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” McCain said. “Right now, the U.N. is in there ascertaining whether this was a chemical attack. And I think it’s fairly obvious, since you see these bodies stacked up with not a mark on them, and the head of the United Nations has said, ‘But, we won’t apportion blame.’ What? You’re not going to say who is responsible for it? That’s your tax dollars at work.”

“They want to be neutral,” he added. “They want to be neutral about everything.”
[youtube=>]dA47RufGwnQ[/youtube]

American domestic opinion is no too much of selling family silver and gold for neutral U.N. There goes secularism out of window.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 01 Sep 2013 16:51

Every quarter century the western favor towards "oil drilling west asia" shifts from shia to sunni to shia. The switch from sunni to shia has started when US killed Saddam and when the orange revolutions for Egypt, Tunasia etc changed the regimes. It is time to remove that last one before a great pipeline goes through an extremely friendly Syria from Iraq straight into Mediterranean sea. Once that happens, the regimes on the coast of Arabian sea can be tackled.

eklavya · Post by **eklavya** » 01 Sep 2013 16:58

^^^^
Pipe from where to where carrying what? If Assad goes, the successor regime will be sunni affiliated. Why would shia Iraq send its oil through a sunni controlled Syria? Does not add up. Syria is not about oil.

A sunni ruled Syria would not be allied with Iran or Hizbollah, which is why both are supporting the Assad regime to the hilt, and a sunni ruled Syria would leave both Hizbollah and Iran increasingly isolated with limited room for manoeuvre.

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 01 Sep 2013 17:00

Lilo wrote:Johann ji,
You speak as if you never heard of Arab "Spring" -

Suddenly a cart pusher on an Arab street of Tunisia is dispatched off and the whole Arab world rises up in protest against "Dictatorship" . Will any person believe this load of tripe West is peddling ?

Facts are ..the old esthyle paid mobs (refer how CIA and MI6 used this tactic to depose off an independent elected Iranian govt back in 1953) are now combined with new esthyle Social media blitz (Teetar , Facekitab, jootube) -the whole online communication is cleverly rigged to generate bouts of online outrage matching with the ebb and flow of the tide in the ground level "protests" by paid mobs.

West thought its WizKids can export revolution where ever and whenever it wants ...
It worked in Tunisia then Egypt then Libya then Yemen - till it collapsed spectacularly in Damascus against a resolute opponent finally this time with a spine (backed by major powers like Iran and Russia).

Since then it has been a morass for the West and a massacre after massacre didn't yield progress .Its going to be the same in Egypt's case too in the near future. Tunisia Libya and Yemen too are slowly cooking and will explode.

Ultimately artificial stuff like Arab Springs and Color Revolutions are in the end - just that - Artificial and the apparent order of things will collapse and lead to a more natural order of chaos and strife without a strongman to keep it within limits.

Frankly Johann ji, i suspect you too know the reality behind this kumbaya singing with coolaid about Individual rights democratic freedoms etc as not applicable (NA) to Arab world with its feudal and tribal outlook to life. At max they can be governed under some democratic mullahcracy as in Iran's case . Of course the West knows this (it has penned tomes of history of its rule in this region and dealt with these groups since crusades).

So please don't say that Assad was responsible for destroying his own country which he governed till recently with relative efficiency and earnestness as any Dictator could.

PS:If you don't believe that West is using social media to target turd world governments and Institutions ... Please refer the below opinion of Naresh Chandra given on RN Kao memorial lecture.

Lilo,

The Arab socialist regimes represented a social contract between a military led state, the rural population and the urban working and middle class. They tolerated 1-party states in exchange for access to services, jobs and political attention.

The last 10-20 years have seen the steady collapse of the social contract between authoritarian Arab governments and the working and rural classes that supported them. This has everything to do with the neo-liberal economic changes following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Bashar al-Assad forgot the politics that secured his father's power, and his economic changes favoured a business elite in Damascus and Aleppo, while food and fuel prices, and the cost of education and healthcare soared. That is why these cities have stayed loyal, except for the suburbs built by rural immigrants fleeing economic failure, drought and political neglect in the countryside.

This was typical of all the regimes across the Middle East that experienced the Arab Spring. If you don't know people from those classes within these countries you can not easily appreciate the steadily worsening economic pressures they were under, and their anger at the state's total disinterest, and increasingly predatory behaviour.

This growth of neo-liberal economic approaches alienated support for the state happened at the same time that corruption of ruling families became both worse and more obvious. The Trabelsi family, the Mubaraks, the Gaddafis, the Makhlouf family (the Assads in laws) had years to become legendary for their corruption in a way that dwarfs what many Indians feel about say the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

On top of that people across the Arab world have lost fear of the police state and begun to complain more, and express their unhappiness with their situation.

This is incidentally exactly the same combination that brought down the Shah in 1978-79

This is hardly weird - it happens all across the world. We all know how much corruption there is in India, and how much being caught between corruption and inflation squeezes the lower middle and working class.

One of the most important sources of psychological relief, and about the only way to attract the attention of state elites is street protest, and Indians use that all the time. Other approaches include mockery and criticism, both public and private.

Now imagine what would happen if either some local protest by farmers in Bihar, or the Ana Hazare protest movement was met with the torture of the protesters children and machine gun fire? There would almost certainly be a militarisation of protest, and the prospect of insurgency. That is why in general the Indian state tries to avoid going too far, however annoyed and forceful it may be in its response.

Given the economic, political and technological changes of recent years protest in the Arab world was *inevitable.* It is the state response to the expression of unhappiness with the status quo. That is why I said the decision to *militarise* the response to protest on the part of Gaddafi and Assad was their own. This is of course what they would have done at any time in their regime history, but they had understimated a) how much more of their own population was disgusted with them and b) the extent to which they had lost the support of their fellow Arab rulers who had backed them in the past.

This is why any Arab state that wants to survive has to align with the Gulf states - its not just to avoid the onslaught of Al-Jazeera, and funding to the opposition - it goes much deeper than that. The political problems are fundamentally about the economy and the social contract. The Gulf states are the *only* ones with the cash on hand to allow other Arab governments to buy off their population's growing demands and make space for the state.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 01 Sep 2013 17:04

eklavya wrote:^^^^
Pipe from where to where carrying what? If Assad goes, the successor regime will be sunni affiliated. Why would shia Iraq send its oil through a sunni controlled Syria? Does not add up. Syria is not about oil.

A sunni ruled Syria would not be allied with Iran or Hizbollah, which is why both are supporting the Assad regime to the hilt, and a sunni ruled Syria would leave both Hizbollah and Iran increasingly isolated with limited room for manoeuvre.

Let us take out Shia+Sunni stuff. Not exactly 100% shift. Its about a friendly regime in Syria so that you can shift the dependence from SA and others to Iran+Iraq. The last attack will be change Iran after all these changes. All these regime changes are being orchestrated to bring a real change for future.

I think over a period of time there could be a union of Iran+Iraq and a realistic Kurdhish country. Reorganization or Middle East is the project going on.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 Sep 2013 17:06

the gulf states will give nobody a free meal. they will extract their pound of flesh either way.
if they support the regime, then sunni interests will need to be given #1 priority , I dont think gulf support to assad is possible in sect terms..atleast saddam was a sunni albeit not very devout but he had the passport stamp.

if they oppose the regime, its a great place to offload their domestic wahabi warriors and have them fight the shia than plot at home.

iran is the only powerful state among shias and the only patron of shias in med sea rim.

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 01 Sep 2013 17:13

Singha wrote:the gulf states will give nobody a free meal. they will extract their pound of flesh either way.
if they support the regime, then sunni interests will need to be given #1 priority

, I dont think gulf support to assad is possible in sect terms..atleast saddam was a sunni albeit not very devout but he had the passport stamp.

Hafez al-Assad depended on Saudi financial support in the 1970s. In 1990 Syria sent an armoured division to defend Saudi Arabia when Saddam invaded Kuwait. The Saudis meanwhile help cement the Syrian role in managing Lebanon at the Taif accords. The consistent pattern in Syrian-Saudi arrangements was that the Saudis provided the cash and diplomatic cover, while the Syrians provided the muscle, expertise and middle management.

Unfortunately Bashar al-Assad simply wasn't as clever as his father Hafez al-Assad in simultaneously balancing his relationship with Saudi and post-revolutionary Iran. This was fatal given the much higher levels of Saudi-Iranian competition, paranoia and tension after the fall of Saddam and the vacuum in Iraq made it seem like the whole ME was up for grabs for which ever side capitalised on the changing environment.

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 01 Sep 2013 17:13

eklavya wrote: Lilo, your theory does not fit with the events in Egypt.

The US/West issue with Syria is not a matter of secular nationalist orientation. The Syrian regime has historically been out of favour with the US/West for four key reasons:
- Implacable hostility to Israel
- Alliance with Iran
- Alliance with Hizbollah
- Sponsorship (until they packed up and buggered off to Doha) of the Hamas leadership

Eklavya ji,
If we can agree that the Shia "oppression" of Sunni in Syria canard is behind us,

All of those points mentioned are regarding Syria's external policy..
Israel occupied Golan heights - so unless it returns them or some does some public equivalent quid pro quo Syria can't be friends with Israel can it ?
Re: alliance with Iran - Syria has its sovereign right to ally with any country it wants.
(Although one has to admire its guts, See India's case... It can't ally with Iran because of Massa's dhamki yet its Petroleum minister today shamelessly goes to town tom tomming $8.5 Billion forex savings because of Iran's benefaction on Oil front )

Yes Hamas as a terror op got support from Syria - but at least its far better than supporting Al-Qaeda Al-Nusra mobs etc as Saudis do right ? Refer to videos Jujhar ji posted.

Moreover Iran Syria Lebanon etc can atleast be held responsible for actions of its proxies (hence their proxies are on a tight leash - can't even remember when last Hezbollah targeted civilians ). But say if Al-Nusra has access to CW warheads in post Assad Syria and it decides to use it on some third party (say India - Al Qaeda afterall has a goal for global domination through Islam ) will Massa and Saudi Barbaria own up and take responsibility for equipping and training them ?
In this case both are like Paki's and will use indiscriminate terror without fear of consequences.... In the end rest of the turd world has to bear the brunt.

eklavya · Post by **eklavya** » 01 Sep 2013 17:16

^^^^
Johann, how can you possibly conflate crony-capitalism / kleptocracy / nepotism / family-army-controlled-monopolies, zero political rights, and unstable property rights with "neo liberalism". Just shocking!

eklavya · Post by **eklavya** » 01 Sep 2013 17:30

Lilo wrote:
eklavya wrote: Lilo, your theory does not fit with the events in Egypt.

The US/West issue with Syria is not a matter of secular nationalist orientation. The Syrian regime has historically been out of favour with the US/West for four key reasons:
- Implacable hostility to Israel
- Alliance with Iran
- Alliance with Hizbollah
- Sponsorship (until they packed up and buggered off to Doha) of the Hamas leadership
Eklavya ji,
If we can agree that the Shia "oppression" of Sunni in Syria canard is behind us,

All of those points mentioned are regarding Syria's external policy..
Israel occupied Golan heights - so unless it returns them or some does some public equivalent quid pro quo Syria can't be friends with Israel can it ?
Re: alliance with Iran - Syria has its sovereign right to ally with any country it wants.
(Although one has to admire its guts, See India's case... It can't ally with Iran because of Massa's dhamki yet its Petroleum minister today shamelessly goes to town tom tomming $8.5 Billion forex savings because of Iran's benefaction on Oil front )

Yes Hamas as a terror op got support from Syria - but at least its far better than supporting Al-Qaeda Al-Nusra mobs etc as Saudis do right ? Refer to videos Jujhar ji posted.

Moreover Iran Syria Lebanon etc can atleast be held responsible for actions of its proxies (hence their proxies are on a tight leash - can't even remember when last Hezbollah targeted civilians ). But say if Al-Nusra has access to CW warheads in post Assad Syria and it decides to use it on some third party (say India - Al Qaeda afterall has a goal for global domination through Islam ) will Massa and Saudi Barbaria own up and take responsibility for equipping and training them ?
In this case both are like Paki's and will use indiscriminate terror without fear of consequences.... In the end rest of the turd world has to bear the brunt.

Lilo sir, there is no doubt that the wahabbi jihadi pigs are the most junglee and ganda and kameena of the lot.

You see, Syria's problem is that has no oil, no gas, and frankly nothing anyone really cares about. So, the "opposition space" has been ceded by the West (which has no money and no stomach for a fight after Iraq, Afghanistan, and the global financial crisis) to the wahhabi jihadis.

Now everyone realises that the wahhabi jihadis are a truly despicable and disgusting lot, so no one was too keen to give them any real support, and everyone was happy mouthing "political and diplomatic process" yada yada yada.

But then Assad gasses 1400 people in their sleep. Now, what do you do?

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 01 Sep 2013 17:32

eklavya wrote: But then Assad gasses 1400 people in their sleep. Now, what do you do?

But I thought even British MPs had stopped hawking that particular untruth (that Assad's regime used CWs) now that proof points the way to the rebels carrying that with US-UK help?

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 01 Sep 2013 17:39

Johann ji,

As the Arab world was ripe for change .. It would have changed by itself - through violence or otherwise a new social compact between all its population could have been organically achieved.
What was the justification for West and Wahabis to intervene with barbaric Ideology supported by money material and weapons on behalf of one group (Sunnis) with an aim to establish their hegemony while threatening all the other groups ex Shia , Kurds , Coptics etc to fall in line or face the terror ?

Change is the natural order but why impose it from outside (with fancy names) while exporting throat cutting ideologies to radicalize and divide people based on some geopolitical objectives ?