Posted on 02/26/2020 2:13:28 AM PST by Cronos
In Syria’s last opposition stronghold, the worst fears of millions of people are coming true. With the help of brutal Russian airstrikes, Syrian government forces have seized about a third of Idlib Province over the last two months, pushing over 900,000 of the region’s 3.5 million people out of their homes and north toward the nearby Turkish border, where another 800,000 displaced people already live in crude, overcrowded camps.
The current wave of refugees fleeing Idlib, about 80 percent of whom are women and children, is now the largest exodus of Syria’s nine-year conflict. Aid agencies are overwhelmed, and food is scarce. With tent camps and even public buildings near the Turkish border already housing as many refugees as they can hold, 170,000 displaced people have been forced to sleep in unfinished buildings, in fields, or along roads in temperatures that frequently drop below freezing; babies and young children have died of exposure.
...The large Turkish military presence might deliver a last-minute reprieve in Idlib. But prudence requires that an alternative plan be ready. The best option that eschews direct U.S. military intervention is a safe zone located on the Syrian side of the Turkish border that is defended by Turkish artillery, missile, and antiaircraft systems located on the Turkish side of the border. If Syrian aircraft approach the safe zone, Turkey-based air defenses could hit them in Syrian airspace. This might be enough to deter the Syrian military; Syrian fighters have stopped flying where the armed Syrian opposition used Turkish missiles to shoot down two Syrian helicopters earlier this month. .... Turkey could counter with artillery and rocket fire, coordinating with Syrian opposition fighters. The safe zone could be less than ten miles deep—only as far as the Turkish military could reliably cover from its side of the border.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignaffairs.com ...
Right from the fake news of the white helmets to the fake "chemical attacks by Assad" (why would Assad use chem weapons when he is winning easily by conventional means??) to this.
They want to prolong the agony of Syria and let the jihadis keep fighting secular Syria.
No - Washington should let the jihadis be slaughtered by the Syrians
They said Assad is ‘too weak’ to control the oil but now the last pockets of terrorists need urgent US intervention to save the day for them. Who still buys the laughable narrative?
Sine the refugees tend to head for Europe I would think the EU powers should get on this ASAP.
Inshallah. Unless they decide to put forth the effort to help themselves, any energy we expend will be for naught
Still reaping the benefits of Obama’s Arab Spring.
Washington must protect? George? He's been dead for >200 years. Harold? He died in 1987.
Oh, you mean the United States of America must do it?
SSDD, neocons. Been there, done that.
Never again.
notourproblem.com, whyshouldwecare.net, apoxonbothyourhouses.org. :P
The ones we are supposed to help are the jihadis. They are putting in a lot of effort to help themselves - they are supported by Turkey and Saudi Arabia to kill Christians, Alawites etc.
Nah, the EU needs to double down on it’s borders - let Golden Dawn police the borders with Turkey - already in Greece and Hungary you have instances of “refugees” beaten up or pushed back. And the borders with the non-EU are already reinforced
These poor people are the worst kind of neck cutters. They were bused to Idlib when they ran out of options elsewhere.
Perhaps the Obamas, Clinton’s, McCains and Heinz Kerry’s can stir up some cash for their bloodthirsty cohorts.
The author, Robert S. Ford, was the scumbag Obama-appointee US Ambassador to Syria that ran around the country starting that mess to overthrow Assad.
exactly. Assad would do the world a favor if he eliminated that nest.
This was a debate question last night. Asked via Twitter by a guy who, it turns out, has a very interesting resume.
The fix was in, eh?
“Must”?
My arse.
Nope. That’s not our circus and those are not our monkeys.
The middle east leaders and the UN can step up.....we’ve done more than enough.
If Turkey can’t stop Assad’s advances, it will be forced to open its border. And since it can’t take in so many refugees, it will allow many if not most of them to move through the country and on to Europe. This wave of Syrian refugees will be even bigger than the one in 2015 that upended politics in Europe and led to increased support for the extreme right in many countries.
The real issue, then, is the increase in nationalism that he casts as "extreme right wing" and its resistance to the uncontrolled EU-approved flow of immigrants. If we want to avoid the empowerment of such resistance (do we?), he argues that we need to set up and maintain a "temporary" exclusion zone. That part of the world doesn't have a great track record with the temporary status of such settlements - shall we call them "camps"? - given the ones that have surrounded Israel for the better part of a century now.
Further, in order to get Russian approval for these camps, we need to bribe them by removing sanctions from Syria that were laid on in order to protect such refugees in the first place, and ignore the probability that such zones would also be havens for further Iranian meddling in the area. I have a modest suggestion: let's not.
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