President Obama insists that the US remains as committed as ever to fighting ISIS in Syria. Despite that, the announcement of two new planned escalations in Syria are being couched almost entirely as being aimed at Russia, suggesting the US is seeing the war as a chance to one-up Russia first and foremost.
The new escalations involve throwing dramatically more weaponry at “pro-US” rebel factions, only this time having the Pentagon do it instead of the CIA, and also launching more airstrikes out of the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.
The details on how the new strikes out of Incirlik will actually work, as Turkey has often objected to the US using the base to strike ISIS if it would benefit the Kurdish forces, and the new arming of factions is aimed at linking those factions with the Kurdish forces.
Officials say the hope is that, with more American warplanes in the air over a wider chunk of ISIS territory, that would make less territory for Russian warplanes to operate in, effectively hemming them in and limiting their ability to strike ISIS themselves.
Though US officials say that the initial consideration of this plan predates Russia’s airstrikes, the emphasis on limiting Russia’s operations suggests that this, and not some sudden belief that a few more strikes would change the face of the ISIS war, is the real reason the administration suddenly decided to go ahead with the plan.
Jason, this needs a rewrite.
Sounds like we want to make sure "our bastards2 are not bombed too much. As expected.
Putin is vanity-driven. He wants to be top dog and will react to an American challenge by bogging hiself down even deeper in the Syrian quagmire. He has already fallen into this particular trap several times before so Obama probably supposes that he'll fall into it yet again. He probably will.
Incirlik is central to the US-Russia confrontation in Syria. Incirlik was probably a major reason for Russia's intervention now.
Incirlik is a vast increase in power for the US air strikes. It reduces the flying time to target from hours to minutes. That means each plane could fly several strikes each day, carry more ordnance on each strike, and do it all without tanker support. It reduces the costs of each strike, but more it increases the strike potential dramatically.
Likely the Russians saw Incirlik as a step toward doing in Syria what was done in Libya, crushing the conventional forces of government to allow the unconventional to over run the country. It was certainly possible, whether or not the US would actually have done that.
So the current confrontations are just a step in a continuing series of confrontations, at least as Russia sees events.
USG, Saudis, Turkish, NATO militarism regime, Wahhabism, Israelis were and still supportive wanting to prolonging the Syrian war. For that reason every one of these "oppositions" would like to become the ruling elements of Syria, now if they have any social political views, idealogy that are based on functioning democracy where they would protect people's social rights, the minority's rights, religious rights and etc needs to be questioned and answered by these oppositions, where are these people, who are they, what is their idea in rebuilding Syria, would Syria remain as independent nation or such "government" simply become yet another puppet or lapdog to NATO and USG ideas in ruling Middle East by being in bed with dictatorial regimes as Saudis, Qatari, Turkish fake Islamic democracy, as they are supported by each and every of these regimes surly tgey need to fulfill their promises made to these regimes, therefore, they are and we'll become the puppet, lap dogs of those who support them.
Russia is deliberately avoiding hospitals, so the US is going to pick up the slack.
Let me see if I’ve got this right. Instead of playing make-believe war on ISIS in the east, American warplanes are going to start mucking about in western Syria where the Russian Air Force is taking on the anti-Assad rebels on the regime’s doorstep? They're going to try to “hem them in”, ie interfere with the Russian air operations, by flying around in the same vicinity?
Puleeeeese! How many different ways is this over-the-top world-class stupid? They can't possibly be stupid enough to shoot at the Russian planes. Will they perhaps be flying into the line of fire so as to prevent the Russians from attacking the rebel forces on the ground? I think not! Will they be shooting at Assad et al’s forces on the ground, while those forces are engaged with CIA-sponsored anti-Assad rebels? This too seems highly implausible. Maybe they'll just fly around over central Syria to prevent Assad’s further advance after the CIA sponsored rebels in the West have been wiped out. That makes no sense to me strategically or tactically, though it might seem consistent with the overall cluelessness of American policy in this affair.
Anyway, it's an interesting business and we will see what we will see.
Russia now has a no fly zone over Syria. And in unreported news the Russians have revealed some more never before seen tech.. Radar that cannot be pinpointed!!
Under the current situation, the only way the US will be able to create a no fly zone will be to first defeat the Russian fighter and air defences.
Which would be a full scale war. So if they will need to start war first to carry out this plan.