Posted on 02/11/2018 8:34:58 AM PST by NorseViking
ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's U.S.-backed Kurds are getting indirect help from an unlikely source in their war against Turkey in the northwestern region of Afrin: President Bashar al-Assad.
Pro-government forces and Kurdish-led forces have fought each other elsewhere in Syria and Damascus opposes the Kurds' demands for autonomy. But in Afrin they have a common enemy and a mutual interest in blocking Turkish advances.
Turkey, which regards the Kurdish YPG militia in Afrin as a threat on its southern border, launched an assault on the region last month. Seeking to shield Afrin, the Kurds asked Damascus to send forces into action to defend the border.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
The Kurds have been screwed by everyone. Including the US. They want their independence from everyone.
A country that is 80% Sunni Arab will not elect an Alawite apostate/infidel to power, let alone re-elect him after decades of suppression and large scale atrocity against them. And I'm someone who has no problem with what's been done and thinks he's not killing enough of them.
The Kurds have been screwed by everyone. Including the US. They want their independence from everyone.
The answer is that the Syrian government is definitely a long-term foe, but currently a temporary ally, in much the same way that Russia was a temporary ally of the US during WWII, but a long-term foe the way it is today.
Ultimately, just as ISIS allied with al Qaeda against Assad, Assad allied with ISIS against al Qaeda and with al Qaeda against ISIS in different localities, relationships among the players will remain just as fluid as those between various powers jostling for land and population. France was Britain’s bitter enemy for the better part of a thousand years, before war against an expanding Russia had them fighting shoulder to shoulder as allies.
Thanks for Ping
The Kurds are good fighters but their leadership aren't too smart politically.
They consistently over play their hand.
The Kurds turned down President Assad's offer to have the Syrian government forces take control of Afrin, which would have likely forestalled the incursion by Turkey.
They likewise turned down Russia's offer to attend multi-lateral peace talks in Sochi.
This could have been a win-win-win for the Kurds, but they miscalculated in thinking they could refuse Assad's offer and Russia would still prevent an attack from Turkey.
Saw a vid of Turkish fighters in Afrin playing stomp the soccer ball with a Kurd’s head earlier this am. The Kurds should come to their senses, IMHO. Maybe they are. Konico oil fields belong to Syria.
**The Kurds have been screwed by everyone. Including the US. They want their independence from everyone.**
Kinda like Aztlan/MeCha in the USA?
If Assad goes, jihadis come. He is necessary in Syria unless it converts fromislams
If an election were held and a pro-Sharia Sunni came to power like in Egypt? Would you be ok with that?
Johny Turk WAS Sunni - he slaughtered Christians, Alawites, Yazidis. He enslaved Greeks, Bulgarians, Romanians, Slavs, forcing their women intosexslavery,tking their boys and forcibly converting them.
Well, it’s a shame that the Crusades failed - but they did.
Can’t fix that now. We have to defend our homelands and can scarcely do that.
The advantage of a new Turkish empire is having a Sultan and a Caliph with GPS coordinates we can program into our missile subs.
“If Assad goes, jihadis come. He is necessary in Syria”
“If an election were held and a pro-Sharia Sunni came to power like in Egypt? Would you be ok with that?”
Syrian society, like Palestinian society, is not ready for elections - no independent civil society institutions or independent political parties have yet been allowed to develop under the Ba’athist dictatorship.
It does not mean that Assad is good, just because jihadis are worse - and they are not the only options. The only justification that Assad has for his horrific Ba’ath Party ideology (the last government on Earth guided by the Nazi principle of socialism based on race), or his hereditary dictatorship, is the proposal that the alternative is worse.
If the Ba’ath Party would reform, like Communist Parties did in other countries, then the same re-branded guys could sit at the same desks. But Assad himself, and his hereditary dictatorship should go, for any kind of acceptable end state. The Kurds also offer a possible non-jihadi alternative to Assad’s government, although not one that Turkey would accept. There is always the (relatively low cost) time-tested CIA approach of just installing our own strongman, to rule with an iron fist (likely unacceptable to Russia, who sits on the UN Security Council). Also, the expensive and difficult option of an interim government, installed and operated by the US coalition, or UN, for a decade or so, is another non-jihadi alternative to Assad.
In any event, whatever replaces an Assad dictatorship would have to be carefully managed, to avoid the significant threat of a jihadi/Muslim Brotherhood takeover that you rightly highlight. The Muslim Brotherhood have a motto: One man, one vote, one time. They view elections only as a means to take power, not as something they plan to continue. The Palestinian situation is a clear evidence of what should be expected from just tossing open a premature election and walking away.
For Syria and Iraq I would rather propose a solution where there are a number of statelets joined in a confederation (like the old Swiss confederation) - with statelets for Marsh arabs/Shias, Sunnis in eastern Syria and western Iraq, Assyrians, Allawites, Kurds and a Syria of the cities from Aleppo to Damascus
the ideal scenario would be eliminatingIslam, but that's not going to happen so a dictatorship by the Alawites is the only way to keepjihadis out of power
“For Syria and Iraq I would rather propose a solution where there are a number of statelets joined in a confederation (like the old Swiss confederation)”
The Kurds have consciously adopted some Swiss models, such as calling their sub-divisions in Syria Cantons. The dominant Kurdish political party in Syria (PYD) calls their political ideology Democratic Confederalism (same as the PKK). It is marked by a weaker central government, and great local autonomy.
In the last couple of years they have moved away from focusing this proposed organizational approach on only the Kurdish regions/people, and have been promoting it as a non-ethnic, non-sectarian approach for all, or any parts of, Syria.
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