Putin Defies Obama in Syria as Arms Fuel Assad Resurgence

[okaawhatever]

Source: Bloomberg

President Vladimir Putin, condemned by NATO for annexing Crimea, is now defying the U.S. in Syria by sending more and deadlier arms to help Bashar al-Assad score a string of advances against insurgents, military experts say.

Assad’s army, seeking to end a three-year civil war that’s killed 150,000 people and displaced 9 million, started using longer-range Russian Smerch and Uragan rockets for the first time in February, according to Jane’s Defense Weekly and Stratfor, a U.S. geopolitical research company. Syria has also intensified the use of MiG-29 fighter jets with ground-attack capabilities, Stratfor said, citing analyses of video footage.

“Russia is now doing everything to ensure that Assad wins convincingly,” Alexei Malashenko, a Middle East analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, said by phone. “If Russia can show it’s capable of carrying out its own foreign policy, regardless of America’s wishes, it will be a major achievement for Putin.”

Putin, who last year averted U.S. airstrikes on Syria by brokering a chemical weapons accord, is seeking to prolong the rule of his closest Arab ally, ignoring U.S. and European Union calls for Assad to step down. The U.S. and EU hit dozens of Putin associates with travel and asset freezes last month to protest Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine and the U.S. Congress approved additional punitive measures this week.

“The Russian strategy has actually not changed, it’s just that they’re no longer hiding behind a diplomatic facade since Crimea,” Oubai Shahbandar, an adviser to the Syrian opposition, said by phone from Washington.

Continued at Link:

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-02/putin-defies-obama-in-syria-as-arms-fuel-assad-resurgence.html

[marble falls]

1. Maybe Syria is part of a Greater Mother Russia?

[Cha]

2. little fucker..

[Scootaloo]

10. Looks like the al-Nusra front might lose this one

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of maniacs.

[jakeXT]

21. 'I am not fighting against al-Qa’ida… it’s not our problem', says West’s last hope in Syria

The rebel leader touted as the West’s last hope to stem the tide of extreme jihadist groups in Syria has said he will not fight against al-Qa’ida, and openly admits to battling alongside them.

Speaking from a safe house on the outskirts of the Turkish town of Antakya, Jamal Maarouf, the leader of the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF) told The Independent that the fight against al-Qa’ida was “not our problem” and admitted his fighters conduct joint operations with Jabhat al-Nusra – the official al-Qa’ida branch in Syria.

The admission could have significant implications for Western involvement in the Syrian conflict. While the US and UK have been vocal in their support for rebels fighting to remove President Bashar al-Assad, they have been reluctant to follow through with material support – such as heavy weaponry – over fears it would fall into the hands of extremist groups who might target the West.

Maarouf and his brigades are viewed as relative moderates in a loosely affiliated rebel army that is increasingly dominated by radical groups, and the SRF and similar groups are presented as the West’s best bet to fight both the Assad regime and extremists. His willingness to work with rebel groups the West deems unpalatable is a symptom of a war in which allegiances frequently change and all actors within it have been forced to compromise in order to survive.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/i-am-not-fighting-againstalqaida-itsnot-our-problem-says-wests-last-hope-in-syria-9233424.html

[Iliyah]

3. Russia never stopped sending weapons to Syria.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

4. Russia has now become a rogue nation.

[davidpdx]

15. I read somewhere that if we started tapping our strategic oil reserves

we could put a serious dent in their economy and drive them into having a spending deficit. I don't think it will happen, but it is an interesting theory.

[okaawhatever]

19. Obama has already ordered it and they're working on reversing the pipelines. It isn't the entire

reserves, and the admin announced they had been planning on doing this for a while. Technically, they're "testing" the process of selling the reserves, which includes reversing the pipelines and some other things.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/12/us-usa-energy-reserves-idUSBREA2B12V20140312

[Comrade Grumpy]

25. "Rogue nation" is a term of propaganda. Reserved for those we're mad at.

What country invaded two sovereign states and engaged in bloody, protracted wars of occupation, killing hundreds of thousands in just the past dozen years?

What country claims the right to drop drones on people basically anywhere on the planet?

I'd say that country is a rogue nation, whatever its name is.

[RKP5637]

28. The US does rogue nation acts IMO and then wonders why so many hate

the US. Often, IMO, it would be best if the US paid more attention to those in plight within our own borders. The US has brutalized people/nations too.

[7962]

5. How many of us here said he was gonna continue to push? I know I did.

And an earlier story talks about a new deal allowing Iran to avoid sanctions. And this will continue until he is put in his place somehow.

[amandabeech]

7. It's hard to know what to do with punks like this.

I for one would really just like to forget about Russia. We don't have a border with them. We don't have much of a trade relationship with them. Our previous dealings with them have been unpleasant. I just wish they would just go away.

If we had a less ambitious foreign policy, we would have less to do with them. At this point, I don't see why we have to be everywhere in the Middle East. I thought that the "Arab Spring" initiative was not something that we had to do. Syria is in civil war, and our record when getting involved in others' civil wars is not good.

I don't want to be fully isolationist, but I think that we could do a better job of picking which world hotspots with which we should involve ourselves.

And we should consult psychologists as to how to deal with Putin and what seems to be a whole country of people like him. Maybe there's a better way of handling him.

[davidpdx]

14. +1

Especially on the second to the last sentence.

[7962]

22. A mental approach might work. But we cant ignore him and let him have MORE influence on the EU

If we just leave him alone, he'll have more influence on European countries that we DO trade with, not to mention increased meddling in the Middle East. He is already helping Iran continue doing whatever they want. He would love to see us suffer economically. Add to this China, and they're continued effort to pressure most Asian countries. We stay out, and we'll be exporting less to a lot of countries in the long run and have bigger problems than we do now.
Maybe trying to get inside his head would be a different approach we could try. Obviously the guy has something going on in there.

[amandabeech]

34. I understand what you're saying here.

The course of action you lay out is pretty much what we've been doing. Right now, paying for our current status while recovering from Iraq and Afghanistan is problematic.

You are right about China, though. We may be called on to help our treaty allies with Chinese aggression in the East and South China Seas. The Chinese may want to restrict the sea lanes to only traffic they approve. Really, they look like Japan prior to WWII, except they want to control more economically rather than militarily.

[7962]

36. Not to mention China is wanting to militarize space, while we've shut down NASA.

And we now depend on Russia to get a person into space. It woudnt be a problem if everyone in the world were the same. But we're not. And I'm sure not saying the US never does anything wrong (Iraq), but people have to realize that there is no other country who can stand against countries like China and Russia. And to ignore them just because they're far away is to put us in a very risky situation down the road. You were right to mention China's economic attempts. And thats how we could be hurt too. If most of the world became aligned with Russia or China, they could easily pressure them to not trade with us or supply us.

[amandabeech]

37. The fact that our politicians and oligarchs have been allowed to move so much of

our manufacturing overseas, we have less room to maneuver in foreign relations. If we annoy the Chinese, we might end up with "no pot to piss in," in a literal sense.

We really need to be able to make much more of what we need right here.

It would give us more jobs, more social stability and fewer problems internationally.

[Cha]

8. +1 :(

[RKP5637]

29. The somehow is a tough question. IMO he is following his agenda to

restore some form of the former USSR. He's a bully and a tyrant, reminiscent of former USSR leaders, and his body language speaks well of what he is thinking. I had once thought US/Russian relations were improving quite a bit, I found Russia interesting. Now, Putin and his herd have destroyed all of that.

[7962]

32. I agree.

[DallasNE]

6. Shahbandar Summarizes It Well

Since this actually pre-dates Putin grabbing Crimea it means that "is now" is misleading. The biggest problem in Syria is that many of the "good guys" are actually pretty bad characters making it a high risk to provide them with arms, such as shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles to address the MiG-29 fighter issue. But doing nothing is not an appetizing option either. Perhaps advanced weapons on a limited scale. Freezing additional Russian assets against the companies that build the weapons that end up in Syria should be on the table as well.

[AngryDem001]

11. Why would doing nothing be so bad?

We have more than enough problems here at home.

[mountain grammy]

9. Well this is some nasty shit. Damn, crazy Putin.

But I'm learning to trust the Obama, Kerry team to figure something out. They've been doing pretty fair with that.

[RKP5637]

30. Same here. They don't go off the deep end, they think first! n/t

[DeSwiss]

12. You may only ''defy'' someone who already has ''authority'' over you.

defy ( dɪˈfaɪ )
vb (tr) , -fies, -fying or -fied
1. to resist (a powerful person, authority, etc) openly and boldly
2. to elude, esp in a baffling way: his actions defy explanation.
3. to challenge or provoke (someone to do something judged to be impossible); dare: I defy you to climb that cliff.
4. (Military) to invite to do battle or combat
[C14: from Old French desfier, from des-de- + fier to trust, from Latin fīdere]
deˈfier n

- They want a war so badly. But they won't get it.

[Bodhi BloodWave]

16. The choice of words reveal a lot about a writers views(in this case regarding Russia) nt

[Daniel537]

24. The US govt. is God, doncha know?

At least that's what the neocons(including some here at DU) believe.

[warrant46]

35. Not the Rich Man's War

Protests like this have been here for years

[jakeXT]

13. It's not like the other side ever slowed down. /nt

[bemildred]

17. Bloomberg and WSJ both seem to enjoy wallowing in Cold War rhetoric. nt

[seveneyes]

18. Defies Obama?

What an arrogant headline. As if there is some rule that one particular leader is the top dog. Besides, the heart eating rebels do need to be stopped before they turn Syria into another Islamist nation.

[jakeXT]

20. If we are back in the cold war, why not do another Afghanistan? /nt

[Daniel537]

23. Whatever, let the Russians waste their money on that catastrophe.

Sadly, the people of Syria are caught between a murderous tyrant and savage al-Qaeda throwbacks. Putin is obviously going to look after his own interest, but we have none at this point.

[Comrade Grumpy]

26. The US has bloody hands in Syria, too, and we're continuing to waste our money:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-obama-appears-ready-to-expand-covert-assistance-to-syrian-opposition/2014/03/27/06717e6a-b5ff-11e3-8020-b2d790b3c9e1_story.html

Obama appears ready to expand covert assistance to Syrian opposition

The Obama administration, stung by reversals in Ukraine and Syria, appears to have decided to expand its covert program of training and assistance for the Syrian opposition, deepening U.S. involvement in that brutal and stalemated civil war.

This stepped-up assistance program is likely to be discussed during talks Friday between President Obama and Saudi King Abdullah. U.S. endorsement of the program would tighten America’s links with Saudi Arabia after a period of noisy disagreement about Syria policy. But it also would complicate already tense relations with Russia and Iran, the two key backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

<snip>

Details of the plan were still being debated Thursday, but its likely outlines were described by knowledgeable officials:

●Syrian opposition forces would be trained in camps in Jordan, northern Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The number of Syrian opposition fighters who would receive training would roughly double, to about 600 per month.

●The CIA would oversee training, expanding the program that it currently manages. The administration is still discussing whether U.S. Special Operations forces and other military personnel should play a role. Syrian rebels have argued that Special Operations trainers would provide better help, without the CIA’s political baggage.

●The rebels have been pleading for two years for anti-aircraft missiles to stop Assad’s air force, but Saudi Arabia wants U.S. permission before delivering them. To reassure the United States, the opposition has proposed tight controls on these weapons, known as “MANPADS.” Only five missile launchers would initially be furnished. Each use of them is to be videoed, and each would be fitted with a tracking device and a remote shutdown mechanism. As of late Thursday, the administration still appeared to be weighing the issue.

●Vetting of opposition forces would continue during and after the training. Recruits with extremist links supposedly would be weeded out as trainers learned their backgrounds. Saudi Arabia has agreed to exclude any fighters who have worked with three jihadist groups: Ahrar al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

●The sometimes fractious “friends” of the Syrian opposition would, in theory, be united behind this program. Qatar, which in the past funneled aid to organizations known as the Islamic Front, support that later made its way to al-Qaeda extremists, has agreed to halt this assistance.Qatar has also offered to finance the combined program in its first year, which could run to hundreds of millions of dollars. Saudi Arabia, a sharp critic of Qatar, may resist this donation. It is unclear what role would be played by Turkey, which has been accused of allowing Muslim extremists to operate across its border with Syria.

●To stabilize what is today a badly fragmented Syria, the program would provide assistance for local councils and police in areas that have been cleared of Assad’s forces. The opposition has also requested specialized training to maintain border security. Finally, the program may seek to establish corridors for delivery of humanitarian assistance, though it is unclear how aggressively the United States and its allies would be prepared to protect these humanitarian zones.

[Comrade Grumpy]

27. And here is the bloodcurdling rationale for US assistance to the opposition:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-obama-appears-ready-to-expand-covert-assistance-to-syrian-opposition/2014/03/27/06717e6a-b5ff-11e3-8020-b2d790b3c9e1_story.html

In the final paragraph of a lengthy article detailing plans for increased US intervention:

The rationale, bluntly stated, is that to reach an eventual diplomatic settlement in Syria, it is necessary now to escalate the conflict militarily. This has been a hard pill for Obama to swallow, but prodded by the Saudis, he seems to have reached that point.

We have to kill more Syrians to get what we want. Kissinger would be proud.

[BeyondGeography]

31. Maybe you could take time out from your busy schedule and talk some sense into the participants

[Comrade Grumpy]

33. Nah, too busy to try to tell the Syrians what to do. And Obama should be, too.