‘Russian soldiers in Syria’

Let {us| me} turn the outpouring of public support for refugees into a strong and coordinated effort to tackle the problem at source, with Muslim nations central to any anti-IS coalition. Given that so many of Syria’s 20 million people have been driven from their homes, who can be surprised that thousands are heading for Europe?

The Obama administration is under increasing pressure from allied leaders to expand military action in Syria, as Russian Federation funnels in more arms and troops, Islamic State militants seize new ground and waves of Syrian refugees fleeing the bloody conflict head toward European cities.

While the Western media attempts to portray the sudden influx of refugees appearing out of nowhere at Europe’s gates, the reality is that for years they have been gathering in expansive, well-funded refugee camps in Turkey.

One can imagine the Obama administration will respond to Russian intervention by blandly saying that war is not the answer to the Syrian crisis and that Assad has lost all legitimacy and really ought to do the decent thing and step aside. The Islamic State has moved forward within 22 miles of the M5 highway, the main route that connects government-held territories in Damascus to north and west parts of the country.

“Failing to act now leaves us with even fewer options to rectify this bad chapter in our history”. But the evidence is clear: most are Syrian. Estimates put the death toll between 140,200 and 330,380. And “democratic” rebels entered the ranks mostly of jihadist groups, notably ISIS and Al Nusra-Al Qaida. Between 2005 and 2011, Syria witnessed a windfall of foreign capital primarily from the Gulf, which began investing billions of dollars in property, tourism and the financial sector. These are questions the United States hasn’t answered. They created a pact called “The Group of Friends of the Syrian People”, a name that couldn’t be further from the truth. As Syria’s once excellent health services have declined, so has average life expectancy, down from 75 pre-war to about 55 now. This crisis didn’t just come out of nowhere, like a natural disaster or a tornado. It has until very recently overlooked the flow of weapons and fighters, including from Australia, south across its borders throughout the war. It’s all geared toward turning Syria into another Afghanistan.

In addition to benefiting the Assad regime (which still dares to paint itself as the protector of minorities in the face of radical islamists) by distracting from the crimes it has committed against the entire population, such an approach would also be risky for the religious communities themselves. Counting Alawites as Shiites was another way to push a sectarian framework for the conflict: It allowed for the premise that the Syria-Iran alliance was based on religion, when, in fact, it was an economic relationship.

And the refugee crisis is leading Paris and London to plan anti-ISIS raids on Syria which they had ruled out so far so as not to help the regime.

We can reveal here that 22 Iranian generals have died fighting for the Assad cause. You have the US trying to revamp the rebel force that it was hoping would fight the Islamic State. Russian Federation could soon deploy 1,000 or more military personnel into Syria to conduct air operations in support of Assad’s forces. No one has ever counted the number of people maimed and crippled by the war, but they are conservatively estimated at one million.

But he said Assad was the greater danger of the two – describing barrel bombs swarming from the sky “like bees”. But this Orientalist, overly simplistic view of conflict in the Middle East dehumanizes the victims of our wars for resources.

The idea would be to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able. But Russian Federation has declined to comment on the exact scale and scope of its military presence in Syria. Now note which country along the purple line is not highlighted in red.

It is “madness” for the US-led coalition to fight the Islamic State terror group in Syria without a strategy to also unseat the Assad regime, says former George W. Bush adviser Elliott Abrams. Their different forms of intervention has both shaped and transformed the Syrian revolution, which started with local protests in March 2011 as a rejection to the untenable status quo. These are not qualities for which the Middle East is noted.