Syria conflict: We have to talk to Assad, admits Kerry

[Bosonic]

Source: BBC

The United States will "have to negotiate in the end" with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Secretary of State John Kerry has said.

Speaking on the fourth anniversary of the civil war, Mr Kerry said the conflict was "one of the worst tragedies any of us have seen".

He said the US was pushing President Assad to begin negotiations again after two previous rounds of talks collapsed.

More than 215,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the conflict.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31897389

[bemildred]

1. You had to negotiate in the beginning too, John. nt

[leveymg]

4. He was engaged in "dinner table diplomacy" with Assad '09-'11, when the regime changers took over

Last edited Sun Mar 15, 2015, 11:59 AM - Edit history (1)

The regime change experiment -- pushed by Petraeus and Clinton -- cost only a quarter million lives, so it's back to the original recipe.

[Igel]

14. There was a crisis.

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. -- Rahm Emanuel

Never let a good crisis go to waste ― Winston S. Churchill


Churchill's line may contain a grain of truth, but it was also intended to be snarky. How you use them varies, and sometimes they're just plain bad.

Emanuel's was not meant to be snarky. Pure sang froid.

[jamzrockz]

2. I think at this point

The Syrian citizens who made new flags and negotiated with foreign powers to kill syrians and destroy the country cannot be allowed be part of Syria.

I am not saying they should be killed but they should be exiled and whatever property they own seized and used to rebuild the country they helped destroy. Also Assad's precondition for negotiation would be for the US to stop all training and funding for future ISIS fighters cos we all know the FSA are a useless bunch of jihadist traitors will eventually defect to ISIS.

Viva Syria!!!

[quadrature]

6. HumptyDumpty can't be put back together

the old Syria is gone

[jamzrockz]

7. Once the Syrian people

take Aleppo, there foreigners and ISIS types only have country sides and baren land to their name. At that point, its a matter of mopping the trash up. Of course this process will move much faster once their foreign enablers give up on their desire to destroy and weaken Syria

[quadrature]

9. all that remains to be seen...

in general, it appears to me that...

90% of the people in '''Syria''',
don't want to be with Assad

[jamzrockz]

13. Lol, you can't be serious

Maybe its a type or something but I don't think there is any leader in this world that has a 90% disapproval especially when the alternative is a jihadist sunni element hellbent on taking the country into the stone age. Women dont want that, minorities don't want that and secular citizens don't want any part of the rebel's plan for Syria

[eissa]

21. Where the hell did you come up with that 90% figure?

Say what you will about Assad -- an incompetent, short-sighted leader who neglected much of his country and has an abysmal human rights record. But he never had 90% disapproval. Maybe among the barefoot extremists pockets, but among the majority (particularly minorities and women) his approval remains high.

Arming FSA and any other rebel groups was a HUGE failure. We contributed to the destruction of this country and truly need to play a role in finding a solution to end this bloodshed.

[candelista]

10. No.

ISIS has the oil. That's where the oil is in Syria: in IS controlled regions in the north. What do you think this war is about?

[Igel]

15. Who are the "Syrian people"?

Just the Sunnis?

The Alawites?

The Druze?

How about the Circassians that have lived there for over a century?

Because this started not as a fight between outsiders and Syrians, but between Syrians of different "tribes"--tribes based on politics, religion and even ancestry abound. And in many if not most locations it's still primarily a fight between Syrians.

That "barren land" and "countryside" is where the food is grown and natural resources are to be found. All you get in the cities are manufacturing and population and administrative services. Cities can't feed themselves or produce their own raw materials. Agrarian populations at least can do the subsistence-level thing. Symbiosis is best, but often overlooked by ideologues.

[jamzrockz]

17. Every Syrian of all ethnicity

and religion who haven't pledged allegiance under an alien flag (aka the FSA flag). The Syrians who refuse to let their country fall under the attack of foreign sponsored western and Arabs govts fighters. The majority of Syrians who want peace instead of war. Those are the Syrians who I am talking about. They will prevail and the foreign backed sunni Jihadists in a short time would be history.

[Sunlei]

3. seize his mansions in Geniva and make Assad take all his family & close buddies home.

Assad will take better care in the 'homeland' if all his family and buddies families are with him.

[leveymg]

5. We tried that, and it only ended up killing a quarter million Syrians and spreading ISIS all over

No thank you.

[Sunlei]

12. The Swiss will never kick him out anyway as long as he brings the millions$$$, that country will

harbor any wealthy lunatic

[daleo]

8. Oops, we did it again.

[candelista]

11. This really is backpedaling from the original goal of "regime change."

That's because our puppet army of "moderates" was never up to the task of setting up a puppet government. Another US fail. And yet the US persists in attempting regime change: in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. The result is always chaos, which defeats the purpose of US investment. You can't build pipelines in the middle of anarchy and multilateral civil war.

[Igel]

16. Not at all clear about that.

The original "negotiations" were to provide for a caretaker or transitional government to allow for "free" elections that would necessarily push Assad out of power.

Russia's take was that a unity government was preferable; "unity governments" have a horrible tendency in this kind of context of reverting to the original government. The Russians plausibly had Zimbabwe in mind, where a unity government had the advantage of sucking in the opposition and neutering them while continuing the status quo ante. Such unity governments have the same name as, for example, what you get in European countries when there's no obvious parliamentary winner and a government needs to be formed, so everybody piles in to get by until the next election. Many people are easily confused when two different kinds of things have the same name; for them, words and form matter more than substance, so of course diplomats and politicians are first in line for confusion, and often go back for multiple helpings.

Still, negotiations broke down when the West didn't like Russia's self-serving take, Russia and Assad didn't like the West's self-serving stance, and things on the ground spun out of control even without Western military backing. Then the Qataris and others got involved with military aid, IS formed on the basis of Eastern Syrian Salafi-oriented tribes, etc., etc. And the rest is revisionist history.

[McKim]

18. So Why Not Start Out with A Talk instead of Destroying a Beautiful Country!

This is truly sickening. We helped destroy a beautiful country full of many cultural treasures. We destroyed people's lives and their cities and their culture all for some phoney idea of regime change. NOW he wants to talk with Assad!

We visited Syria in 2000 I was impressed with this beautiful country and its friendly people. We saw that people had health care, few beggars, intact and strong families, beautiful monuments, treasures, ways of life, cities and towns. I know it was no human rights paradise, but people were okay. I weep when I hear about how many died and how their world is in ruins. By what right do we start trouble there? What we have unleashed there is truly criminal, now he wants to talk! Screw you, Kerry!

[HoosierCowboy]

19. No Shit Sherlock....

ISIS was created by the Saudis to take Assad out of the game. Now that ISIS is in the meat grinder, when the smoke clears and ISIS is gone, Assad will be the major player in the region.
Like Castro and many others we want to get out of power, Assad will be there long after his opposition is gone.

[Comrade Grumpy]

20. Too bad the US didn't take this line four years ago.

We have bloody hands in Syria, too.