Talking up the ongoing Russian efforts to defeat ISIS in Syria and prepare the country for free elections, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced over the weekend that his country is willing to provide military aid to the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), a group which has been getting aid from the US for years. Lavrov also offered air support for their anti-ISIS operations.
The FSA, however, spurned the offer, saying they don’t trust Russia and also believe that they don’t need Russia’s backing to eventually win the ongoing civil war. They also added that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could have no role in future Syria.
Russia’s offer is somewhat surprising, with some FSA factions talking up terrorist attacks against Russians in the country, and the FSA fighters in northern Hama openly allied with al-Qaeda, facts which have made America’s own aid for the group problematic.
The offer, however, may reflect Russia efforts to get the US on board with a unified anti-ISIS coalition. That seems unlikely to work, however, as US policy in Syria seems to be built primarily around the idea of being anti-Russian.
The SFA is from the same street intellectual as those who started the manipulation and lies about Iraq having weapon of mass destruction, which paved the way for George W. Bush and Tony Blair to invade Iraq 14 years ago. These people are on the payroll of Saudis and GCC, they simply are mercenaries and terrorists by nature as their masters are state sponsored terrorists, otherwise the Syrian government, four years ago, asked for them to participate in a general election under the international monitoring watch, but they refused. The idea behind these people that are in Ankara, Istanbul, Paris, Stockholm or London making all excuses not to participate in a dialogue which would bring peace to Syria is for those that are feeding these people is for the war to continue as long as USG and GCC can provide these people with their monthly paychecks.
Russia is being way too diplomatic.
what it got the FSA to scream from the roof tops that they are tools of the CIA and that their campaign is victory or death rather than the negoitated settlement the Russians proposem, think of how that will sound in NATO countries over run with refugees and american spies.
Problem is the "leaders" of those countries couldn't care less about their own countries, they are far more interested in the bribes they get from the US to do stupid stuff.
English translation: Putin now knows that he's lost the war.
Russia is making the point that the FSA doesn't actually exist outside of Ankara and Washington, therefore they cannot be seen, assisted or allied with on the battlefield.
Without Russia — Our Empire would expand like a cancer
Three cheers for Russia, for it is anti-Empire USA making it the salvation of the world.
For trading war materials for Middle-East oil is our best money maker ever, but now that Russia has ended our Make believe war with the Islamic State, now that our number of explosions have been cut to near zero, our profit may soon be so low that our military will have to pull out of the area and head toward the South pacific where our kill-for-profit may yield a better return. For in the end our military must generate a high rate of profit or go out of business.
Most likely, this means that Putin beleives that his military campaign is a failure. His problem is that he is now trying to ally with the very people he was killing last week! Not surprising that they are unimpressed. They realise that he would have preferred to kill them all. They also realise that all Putin wants is to keep his naval base and that means keeping Assad in power permanently. For the rebels, therefore, doing a deal of any kind with Putin amounts to unconditional surrender. Since a state party always loses in a fight with insurgents, all they have to do is sit tight and wait.