Syrian Government: Go Ahead, Bomb Our Country!

Slate ^ | 9/12/14 | Josh Keating

[TangledUpInBlue]

Since the United States started getting serious about military action against ISIS, politicians and policymakers have worried that such an initiative would play into the hands of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In his speech last night, President Obama was careful to stress that strikes against the group would not in any way imply that the United States was allied with the Syrian government. “In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people—a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost,” the president said. Instead, he said, Washington would step up its efforts to strengthen the Syrian opposition.

[Wuli]

The “moderate” nature of the CORE of the “Syrian opposition” is a myth.

Yes their are “moderates” in the coalition, just as there were moderates in the coalition that Khomeini formed against the Shah of Iran and in the coalition in the “Arab Spring” that demanded a new government in Egypt.

At the core and in the majority are not “moderates” but the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, whose HQ has always been the city of Homs and that is why the battles over that city were so heavy and so strategic.

The “moderates” are useful fronts for western consumption.

Once “victory” is achieved they will be gradually swept aside, as they were in Iran and as Morsi did in Egypt.

Assad is no saint by any means.

But OUR regime change agenda against Assad has been attached to a local Sunni Islamist putsch against Assad, funded and supported by the most fundamentalist Islamist countries among our so-called “friends” in the Middle East.

We should ONLY be going after ISIS in Syria, and that’s it.

If we do, we might be able to see a military stalemate between Assad and the “Syrian opposition” and by ONLY attacking ISIS, we might gain some leverage at convincing Assad and the “Syrian opposition” to sign a truce, keep a truce and plan on political talks about Syria’s future. If we don’t keep our actions in Syria held to ONLY attacking ISIS, Russia, Iran and Hezbolla will all up their aid to Assad and the war in Syria will totally engage and engulf all of Lebanon as well. The conflict will widen, and that will make for even more dysfunction in Syria and Lebanon and more opportunities for ISIS and Al Queda.