Posted on 08/21/2014 6:58:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria is wagering that Islamic State's push to reshape the Middle East will eventually force a hostile West to deal with President Bashar al-Assad as the only way to tackle the threat.
While Assad's forces escalate their fight with Islamic State militants in the Syrian civil war, the United States is staging air strikes on the same group across the frontier in Iraq.
This, along with United Nations sanctions targeting the Sunni Muslim militants in both Syria and Iraq, has strengthened Assad's belief that the United States and Europe are coming around to his way of viewing the conflict, according to sources familiar with Syrian government thinking.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
The DC genii were already talking about siding with Iran over ISIS, so Assad’s just rehashing.
I don’t know about coming to his side but to effectively eliminate ISIS very likely will require an alliance of necessity.
I considered the possibility that ISIS is an Iranian creation, to create the impression that Iran is the “Good Cop” to ISIS’ “Bad Cop”.
These days, you just can never tell.
And he’s right, at least on my part. The lesser of two evils.
RE: I don’t know about coming to his side but to effectively eliminate ISIS very likely will require an alliance of necessity.
In China, two enemies, the Kuomintang ( led by Chiang Kai Shek) and the Communists ( led by Mao Tse Tung ) had to cast aside their differences to confront an EXETERNAL enemy - Imperial Japan.
After the Japanese were defeated, guess what? They started fighting each other once again...
RE: And he’s right, at least on my part. The lesser of two evils.
Under Assad, Christians and other religious minorities at least were allowed to worship without being brutalized or forced to convert.
People lived well under Assad. He protected minorities, and still does when he can. All these years, he's been forced to on his own fight against US weapons.
Goverment policy to overthrow leaders who have stable countries, provide for their citizens, and protect minorities is just wrong. It's been a global disaster. The US has an obligation to destroy our own weapons and disintegrate those who are using them for genocide.
Assad was willing to separate church and state... if you didn’t mess with his authority, he didn’t mess with your religion.
Pro tip: we don’t have to choose sides. Let the jerks kill each other off, as long as they’re contained.
For the Middle East, that's about as good as you're going to get. It was the same with Saddam.
Wouldn’t surprise me either. Iran funds all Sunni groups and sends their Shi’ite homegrown groups to aid in all things jihad.
I agree that’s about the best you’ll get in the Middle East. Saddam was totally secular. He only donned the religious mantle after the US beat him up and he was seeking some pan-Arab support.
That’s not to say that neither of them had religious group favorites. Assad was linked to the Alawites; Saddam was very tribal and favored hometown Sunnis. But, neither of them ran religious extermination programs. The closest Saddam came was when he came down hard on the Arab Marsh People and flooded the marshes... but even that was at base political.
McCain reminds me of Boon in Animal House, when they go to the Club to see Otis Day and the Knights.
“Wait till Achmed sees us....HE LOVES US!”
Not if Obama has any thing to say about it
It is clear he is on their side
McCain looks like an idiot in the middle of those terrorists- he is lucky they didn’t decide to take him hostage.
We entered an alliance with Stalin knowing full well what he was and after the Nazis were defeated, the alliance was broken.
Kadaffi was proving to be relatively useful despite being a local thug. Unfortunately Obama and his simple minded republicans like McCain decided that the Libyans needed “freedom” and now worse guys than Kadaffi are in a civil war with even worse guys.
Until recently Assad was effectively allied with ISIS by selectively bombing the positions of the “more moderate” rebels and leaving ISIS largely alone. Assad was allied with ISIS during the second Iraq war by supplying them and helping them move between Syria and Iraq. ISIS was not called ISIS then but Al Qaeda in Iraq.
A lot of ISIS consists of guys we were allied with in Iraq as well. They were Iraqi military that the moron Al Maliki tossed out for being Suni.
And lets not forget John McCain posing with liver eating Al Johnson of the “free syrian army”.
It doesn’t really matter who they were allied with 5 years ago, what matters is the threat they are now and that they need to be totally exterminated.
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