Posted on 03/24/2017 12:58:57 PM PDT by Navy Patriot
A U.S.- or Turkish-backed attack on Islamic State in the Syrian city of Raqqa would be illegitimate unless coordinated with President Bashar al-Assad's government, the Syrian chief negotiator at peace talks in Geneva said on Friday.
"Any military presence on our territory without the approval of the Syrian government is an illegitimate presence," Bashar al-Ja'afari told reporters after meeting U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday the battle to recapture Raqqa would restart in the coming days.
Ja'afari said nobody could claim to be fighting Islamic State without coordinating with Iraq and Syria.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
And not get burned in the process, Christopher Stevens, pick up the white courtesy phone, please.
So attacking ISIS’s capital would be illegitimate? Shows you what side the regime is REALLY on.
Maybe they’re afraid that we’ll discover their chemical weapons, and where they came from. How much mythology would that destroy?
Is this the bad guy from Aladdin?
I think he's hoping for both an attack and a handover of reclaimed Raqqa to Assad's government, rather than to another faction favored by Turkey, the US, or the Kurds.
So, he's jumping one step ahead more than hoping ISIS can hold Raqqa, as its fall is a foregone conclusion now.
Assad and the Russians, and the Turks all tried to make their move but we beat them to it.
The SDF and our troops are going to do the heavy lifting, real soon.
Look for a partition of Syria into Kurdish, Turkish and Assad/Syrian areas afterwards.
That will require a lot more boots on the ground, and the Russians will not allow air support that targets the Syrian Army loyalists, not even "accidentally".
Therefore, it will have to be a Kurdish autonomous state Federated with Syria, and Turkey locked out, and the US will have to agree to the Russian brokered peace deal.
Our troops will be at serious risk if the Turks try to put a knife in the Kurds backs, or SDF tries to re target Syrian loyalists or Kurds.
This could go very bad very quickly.
Ja’afari is a Syrian diplomat speaking at an International Forum, he is just citing International Law, not endorsing ISIS or a city they hold as “legitimate”.
The Euphrates valley is no longer Syria
That may be, the easiest support for the area is from the East, Mosul and Iraqi territory, Syria will get no assistance there even if wiped clean of ISIS.
Southwest from Damascus, difficult and expensive.
The Euphrates valley in former iraq is no longer Iraq
There will be Sunni/Kurdish rule
The question will be how far south toward Baghdad does it extend before hitting real Shia resistance
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