In comments that came with criticism of the ongoing air war against ISIS, Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri offered his nation’s troops to participate in a ground war against ISIS in Syria, so long as it involved a “consensus” of the US coalition.
Gen. Asiri, who also serves as spokesman for the Saudi war in Yemen, insisted that the country views airstrikes as “not ideal” in the war against ISIS, and has been pushing for the rest of the coalition to go along with the ground operations plan.
The US State Department refused to comment on the specifics of the proposal, with spokesman John Kirby insisted he “hadn’t seen” the Saudi comments, The US has deployed a limited number of ground troops into northeast Syria already, but in non-combat roles.
A lot of the members of the coalition are already bristling at US calls for more involvement in the war in Iraq though, which means it’s probably going to be hard to sell them on the idea of commuting combat troops to a full-scale ground war in Syria.
I doubt if it should simply be described as “against Isis”. In any case that is what it will be named. “Consolidating terrain against Russia and Assad” could be better.
I still think/guess the russian involvement was stepped up in response to Nato, and not just to help Assad in trouble. And the other way round, the eagerness of the other players to increase their involvement is in response to russian/syrian gains, not Isis.
Assad continue to remain silent while rouge nations are
threatening to invade his country.