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Syria – After Detours U.S. Finally Agrees To Russian Ceasefire Plan
The recent talk between the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Secretary of State Kerry brought some progress. The U.S. was so far not willing to agree to a real ceasefire in Syria and persisted on a lower level "cessation of hostility" agreement. This now changed. The U.S., for the first time, agreed to proceed towards a full ceasefire between its proxy forces in Syria and the Syrian government and its allies. In the press availability after the Tuesday talks Kerry said:
[T]oday, we believe we moved the ball forward in some ways, and I’ll say specifically.
First, we pledged our support for transforming the cessation of hostilities into a comprehensive ceasefire. And we committed to use our influence to use the parties to the cessation in order to ensure compliance.
Second, we agreed that if a party to the cessation of hostilities engages in a pattern of persistent noncompliance, the task force can refer that behavior to the ISSG ministers or those designated by the ministers to determine appropriate action, including the exclusion of such parties from the arrangements of the cessation. Interpreted directly, that means that if they continue to do it and they’re pretending to be part of the cessation and they’re not, they could be subject to no longer being part of the cessation immediately.
Those last sentences are mainly directed at Ahrar al Sham which never signed the cessation agreement but claimed to be part of it while continuing its attack on Syrian government forces and civilians. Kerry is conceding to the Russian standpoint that Ahrar, by its action, is a terrorist group that needs to be fought down.
Fourth, we call on all parties to the cessation of hostilities to disassociate themselves physically and politically from Daesh and al-Nusrah and to endorse the intensified efforts by the United States and Russia to develop shared understandings of the threat posed and the delineation of the territory that is controlled by Daesh and al-Nusrah and to consider ways to deal decisively with terrorist groups.
Kerry had agreed to this position on al-Qaeda ad the Islamic State in earlier talks but later retracted with weak excuses that "intermingling" between al-Qaeda and "moderate rebels" made fighting al-Qaeda nearly impossible. That "intermingling" is no longer an excuse. The U.S. now agreed that Russia and the Syrian government will fight al-Qaeda and that any other groups standing nearby and getting hit have only themselves to blame.
By the way, the New York Times account of the talks and the press conference by chief manipulator David Sanger are waaay off from what was really said.
The "cessation of violence" has held up quite well since the end of February. The south is mostly quite and there are only few hotspots elsewhere where fighting still flares up. Over 100 settlements and their local forces have, with Russian mediation, signed ceasefire agreements with the government.
There is also a new, deeper level of Russian and U.S. cooperation of Syria and on fighting al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. A common rough plan was agreed upon to attack and eliminate both group. As part of this plan Iraqi forces under U.S. control attacked and occupied Rutba in west Iraq. Rutba, part of Anbar province, controls much of the open land and desert in the triangle of the Iraqi, Jordan and Syrian border. This move cuts off the southern route that connected the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The Syrian/Russian part of this move will be the liberation of Deir Ezzor in south-east Syria in the upcoming months. An attack on the Islamic State held Raqqa will only follow later on after a large concentration of force is made possible.
There are a few other active flashpoints in Syria. In East Ghouta, east of Damascus city, the Saudi sponsored Salafists of Jaish al-Islam are fighting groups once supplied by the CIA and now associated with al-Qaeda/Jabhat al Nusra for control of the area. This fight is already part of the disassociation from Nusra that the U.S. agreed upon. But the fighting is bloody with at least 500 losses on both sides during the last weeks. The Syrian army is the laughing third party in this and today took a significant part of the south of the East-Ghouta pocket.
The rebel part of Aleppo city, controlled by al-Qaeda, is now cut off from its only supply line. Improvised rockets from the rebel side are daily hitting civilians in the densely populated government held side. To eliminate the now besieged al-Qaeda in east Aleppo city will be a very bloody and destructive fight that might take months.
In the north Turkish supported "moderate rebels" still try to move towards east along the Turkish-Syrian border to eliminate the Islamic State access there. But each time they announce to have taken this or that town away from IS, a counterattack follows and IS regains its positions. This infighting between hostile forces is again to the advantage of the Syrian government.
Around Palmyra the Islamic State has made some surprise attacks on the Shear oil field and the T-4 military airport on the western road to Palmyra. There was, according to unofficial sources, some significant damage to Syrian and Russia material on the air base but no news about the incident was published. The advances the Islamic State made in area have by now, with significant Russian help, all been reversed. Following a consolidation phase a renewed push from Palmyra eastward to Deir Ezzor is expected.
Hizbullah has pulled back all troops for the Aleppo area where they were replaced by Iranian forces. It is unwilling to commit additional forces just to move some ceasefire lines a few miles back or forth. It continues its engagement around Damascus and in the border region to Lebanon with IS and al-Qaeda being the main targets.
Russia, Iran, Hizbullah and the Syrian government are all aware that the U.S. is "flexible" with its interpretation of agreements and tends to cheat whenever it believes that it can do so to its own advantage. They are fully prepared to respond and escalate again should the U.S. proxy forces divert from the new agreements or should some significant other changes on the battlefield occur.
@SmoothieX12 | 78
1. If Iran is so good operationally as you describe, explain to me what warranted, then, Russian involvement in Syria in the first place?
Its obvious, just not for the reasons you think. Iran doesnt have an air force to speak off (because surprise surprise, Russian doesnt sell it so they wouldnt upset “their Western partners”), thats why Iran asked Russia to join mopping up the terrorists. To do that just with “boots on the ground” would be much more costly.
Next point (read carefully, since you dont seem to know this), is that an airforce, as good as it is, is ultimately useless without manpower on the ground. Thats why soldiers actually fighting on the ground are as important as an airforce.
Thats why its so crucial that Russia and Iran act together, instead of Russia withdrawing and even putting brakes on Resistance offensive. You completely misread why Iran got angry, so did Syria, and Hezbollah even left Aleppo altogether in disgust over Russian-US so called ceasefire, which effectively partitions Syria.
2. I pay my deepest respect to Iranian military professionals who fight in Syria but you, evidently, have no even remote grasp of the scale of things which Russia brought to Syria–capabilities which Iran simply does not possess. Even before VKS units and SSO people it is a fully employed C4SIR complex which has only other rival in the world and that is of the US, period. This, not Iranian military, became a game changer and the game did change. In fact, this is from different universe;
No, you dont pay any respect to Iranian sacrifices, neither does Bagdasarov, if yours and his quotes from before are any indication. Few politically correct sounds bites doesnt change that.
I know quite a bit what Russia brought to Syria, its advertised 24/7. Again read my point above – airforce is crucial part but its ultimately useless without soldiers on the ground, which Russia wasnt willing to provide, therefore Iran did. It was a combined effort, and a combined success, NOT Russia doing all the winning as you are imagining.
3. You claim that you read Russian but your diatribe towards Bagdasarov shows that you do not understand that Bagdasarov is representative of a much larger and much more knowledgeable community of military professionals
Your ad hominems doesnt change the facts one bit – that quote by Bagdasarov was delusion of grandeur, literally by definition.
One may be an expert in any field, but it doesnt preclude one from being subjective, nationalistic, exceptionalistic, etc.
Example – we can take many, many US military experts, who pour exceptionalistic BS from every pore of their bodies. They may know about military and geopolitics more than everyone on MoA, combined, and yet any knowledgable poster can call them out on their BS. Like I did on Bagdasarov.
You should really put away exceptionalistic rose-colored glasses of Russia and try to be more objective, otherwise how are you any better than an army of exceptionalistic US posters?
Posted by: Harry | May 21 2016 20:48 utc | 84
@For What It Is Worth
1) Iran, Syria and Hizballah did not like it since it held their offensive that was making the difference.
OK, last time.
First. General things which are taught in any military academy of any militarily competent nation in the introductory course of military history (usually first year): Victory in a war is defined by attaining political objectives of that war. For those who suddenly lost their memory I may remind that main reason for Russia’s involvement in Syria was a series of major military setbacks of Assad’s troops and its allies, such as….and anyone may fill in who those allies were and are. In layman’s parlance–Russia intervened when it became clear that Assad was nearing the edge. Main political objective of Russia was to prevent Assad government’s collapse and everything this collapse would entail.
Second. Based on widely known knowledge (knowledge is NOT an information, two are, actually, not the same) of motives for Russia’s involvement, which, as it is clear was a desperate state of Syria and her government, it seems quite funny to discuss dissatisfaction of Hizbullah’s or of Iranian forces in Syria by the fact that Russia’s negotiations with the US “held” their offensives which were “making a difference” when the reason those offensives were “making a difference” is precisely Russia’s involvement which made a huge difference for those “offensives” in the first place. Those “offensives”, evidently, WERE NOT making a difference prior to Russia’s involvement, because Syria and her forces were, in fact, in a desperate state.
Third. Whatever local commentators write here about Hizbullah, Iran etc. One constant which lacks in their analysis is the factor of scale and force multipliers. It was, and still is, Russia’s Air-Space Forces and an operational tempo of its assets, which, accidentally, stunned Pentagon (Google, Google, dive, dive) which made all this difference by completely changing the dynamics of the conflict and ensuring the survival of Assad’s government as a foundation for future developments. See “First”, for Russia’s main political objective of the war. Military scale–is one thing, but then comes the Big Power Politics which is, as any power politics, cynical and sees a diplomacy, to paraphrase Clausewitz, as continuation of the war by other means. Russia is paying for the music, so Russia is dancing, so to speak, a girl. Whether local “specialists” (all of them, I assume with really close ties to Main Operational Directorate (GOU) and GRU of Russian General Staff, or Vladimir Putin himself) in operations like it or not, Russia has a much larger game to play, in which Syria, while very important, is just a small piece of the colossal global puzzle, where even Iran is not even the first tier player politically, let alone militarily.
Fourth. Russian Armed Forces, Intelligence Services, all other assets which are currently making a decisive strategic difference have loyalty first and foremost to peoples, majority of them ethnic Russians, of Russia. They, those people, their welfare and security are their foremost responsibility. Syria, being Soviet and Russia’s ally for many decades is one of those cases where Russian people and their state, that is Russian Federation, are ready to bear the costs of defending it. How it was and will be done was already shown to a devastating effect but, as I already stated, Russian military professionals need Syrian Armed Forces battle of order to be configured to Russia’s extremely high standards, not to somebody else’.
Fifth. Per problems with Arab militaries with combined arms warfare–it is a separate and a very large issue. With Russia’s military involvement comes the enormous political clout in Syria. This IS bound and is already creating frictions within, as Colonel Lang puts it R+6. Guess what R stands for and why it is a separate letter. What Russia’s vision for the future of Syria? Who knows. I can only speculate, but what do I know.
Posted by: SmoothieX12 | May 23 2016 18:57 utc | 90
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