US warns Russia about Syria

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New York Times

U.S. Warns Russia Over Military Support for Assad
By MICHAEL R. GORDONSEPT. 5, 2015
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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia, left, with Secretary of State John Kerry, right, at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in August. Credit Joshua Paul/Associated Press
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WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry told his Russian counterpart on Saturday that the United States was deeply concerned by reports that the Kremlin may be planning to vastly expand its military support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, warning that such a move might even lead to a “confrontation” with the American-led coalition, the State Department said.

Mr. Kerry called Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, “to discuss Syria, including U.S. concerns about reports suggesting an imminent enhanced Russian military buildup there,” the State Department said in an unusually blunt statement.

“The secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL Coalition operating in Syria,” the State Department added, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

The statement did not say if Mr. Lavrov provided any sign of Russia’s intentions, but there was no indication that he had eased Mr. Kerry’s concerns. The statement noted that the two diplomats planned to continue their discussions in New York this month, when the United Nations General Assembly is to meet.

Russia has sent a military advance team to Syria and has transported prefabricated housing units for hundreds of people to an airfield near Latakia, according to American intelligence analysts. Russia has also delivered a portable air traffic station to the airfield and has filed military overflight requests through September.

While American officials have said they are not sure of Moscow’s intentions, they say the airfield could be used to transport military supplies for the Assad government or to carry out Russian airstrikes to help Syrian government troops. The housing could accommodate as many as 1,000 Russian military advisers and other personnel, according to American officials, and one official suggested that the eventual Russian deployment might be even larger.

The United States-led coalition has been bombing Islamic State positions in Syria. The United States and Turkey are also conducting airstrikes to try to clear Islamic State militants from the northern border area and support moderate Syria opposition fighters there.

The State Department warning that a major Russian deployment might “risk confrontation,” officials said, pointed to the danger that Russian airstrikes might interfere with the air operations that the United States and its partners are carrying out in Syria, or the possibility that Russian aircraft or Russian-backed Syrian government forces might attack opposition groups Washington is supporting.

The Russian moves come as Mr. Kerry has sought to persuade Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, to work with the United States on a political solution to the bloody conflict in Syria. The Obama administration has repeatedly said that any diplomatic solution must require that Mr. Assad, a Russian ally, relinquish power.

On Friday, Mr. Putin presented his own ideas, which he said had been endorsed by Mr. Assad. They called for holding “early elections” and bringing “healthy” elements of the opposition into a governing coalition.

Mr. Putin did not say which members of the Syrian opposition would be acceptable, but there have long been tensions between the Russian government and the moderate opposition backed by Washington.

Some analysts say there are different views in Moscow over whether Russia should strongly back Mr. Assad as a bulwark against the Islamic State or seek a political transition in which he might be eased out of power.

“The escalation is completely in keeping with hard-line Russian positions on Assad, which are juxtaposed with more conciliatory positions by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

There was no immediate comment in Moscow on the State Department statement.

[Balrog]

What military support? These are just troops out on vacation, seeing all the wonderful sights of Syria. Of course as they see these sights they may happen upon some ISIS fighters* attempting to blow them up, so just in case they will be allowed to bring all their arms and equipment with them.

*"ISIS fighters" in this case defined as "anyone opposed to the Assad regime"

[His Divine Shadow]

So the US supports ISIS eh.

[Tandrax218]

Its just Russian army on vacations

Its not unlike the US army never deed anything like that before and in the process changed the geopolitical situation for the worse.

[Sgt_Artyom]

At this point who do we even want in power? The severely weakened Assad regime, the fractured and largely un-effective rebels or ISIS shit hawks?

I think it's going to come down to a choice of the lesser of three evils and whilst Assad does run a repressive regime , he has the experience to run the country and isn't a Islamic fundamentalist nut job. Not to say all the rebels are but they're not doing a whole lot at the moment and don't have the experience to really run the country.

Syria will need strong central leadership to pull itself back together eventually.

[cosmicalstorm]

By prolonging the civil war they will further destabilize EU via the influx of settlers and real refugees in Europe. Lets hope Russia is bankrupted by low oil price.

[His Divine Shadow]

Or they help the Assad regime to win and ends the conflict that way.

[The Romulan Republic]

At this point who do we even want in power? The severely weakened Assad regime, the fractured and largely un-effective rebels or ISIS shit hawks?

I think it's going to come down to a choice of the lesser of three evils and whilst Assad does run a repressive regime , he has the experience to run the country and isn't a Islamic fundamentalist nut job. Not to say all the rebels are but they're not doing a whole lot at the moment and don't have the experience to really run the country.

Syria will need strong central leadership to pull itself back together eventually.

I really don't see Assad coming out of the civil war even as strong as he was before hand (which given the current state of his country, clearly wasn't strong enough to maintain order). And if he continues to follow the same despotic path (a safe bet) with a weaker regime, how long before there's another uprising against him (this one potentially firmly anti-American/anti-West because of our backing Assad and selling out the rebels we've been backing, hypothetically)?

It seems to me that what you propose might be, at best, simply establishing a brief respite before the whole heap comes crashing down again, unless Russia or someone else is prepared to basically commit to years or decades of massively propping up the Assad regime.

Edit: That's not to say that the other alternatives aren't horribly risky and costly as well. It really is a shitty situation.

[Purple]

Honestly I think the best solution right now would be to prop Assad up, make him win by any means necessary and than hold him by his throat and make him institute internal reforms peacefully lest he be replaced by another puppet.

[dragon]

well if they are really concerned about possible clasheds between russia and us lead forces why not work together to make sure it didn't happen. It's been done before. When I was deployed to Sarajevo as part of a NATO task force we had a Russian general working along side the command staff so that the NATO forces, the US forces and the small Russian units that were wouldn't butt heads.

[Honorius]

Honestly I think the best solution right now would be to prop Assad up, make him win by any means necessary and than hold him by his throat and make him institute internal reforms peacefully lest he be replaced by another puppet.

Or we follow Erdogan's plan, remove Assad by helping the FSA and then deal with IS and the PKK. That way Syrian Refugees can go home and start rebuilding with the billions Erdogan spends feeding and housing Syrian Refugees turned to rebuilding Syria which is going to take a Marshall like plan to rebuild.

Fuck had we listened to him in 2013, when we had a clear moral case to take out Assad, and before IS started going on a roll, we wouldn't be in this current mess.

As it is, no rebel group wants to go back to the Status Quo and rejects any notion of Assad staying in power along with his baby killers. Nor will Turkey or the Gulf States let Assad stay. That lets Iran win, nor does Israel want Assad to stay for the same reasons.

So its not a simple case of the US saying OK Assad can stay and continue murdering children on live television. Our Allies won't stand for it except the PYD front for PKK which is in bed with Assad to begin with.

But Assad is not a viable option, he and his clique of Baby Killers have to go before we can even talk of negotiating a peaceful transition.

[Ace Pace]

Honestly I think the best solution right now would be to prop Assad up, make him win by any means necessary and than hold him by his throat and make him institute internal reforms peacefully lest he be replaced by another puppet.

So lets prop up a mass murderer, who gleefully helped destablize the whole region, who supports a dozen different brands of terrorists in other countries. All this because you can't be bothered to sort out the different Syrian rebels and pick a far better option.

Nevermind the practical end, which is the current Syrian Government cannot be "propped up" without investing far more than Russia is currently doing.

[Elheru Aran]

From what I'm seeing in my fairly limited and region-centric news cycle, the Syria issue isn't going to be settled until the classic ending of one big dog defeats them all and gets on top of the hill. The alternative is that some other nations step in, stomp everybody else flat, and tell them who's in charge. We've seen how well either of those tend to end in recent history, unfortunately.

[Ace Pace]

From what I'm seeing in my fairly limited and region-centric news cycle, the Syria issue isn't going to be settled until the classic ending of one big dog defeats them all and gets on top of the hill. The alternative is that some other nations step in, stomp everybody else flat, and tell them who's in charge. We've seen how well either of those tend to end in recent history, unfortunately.

Iran tried to uparm Syria to be the big dog. It got out fought and out bled (to the tune of Iran semi pulling people back).
My money is on Syria breaking apart and with it, significent parts of Lebanon. Since the only reason Lebanon is stable for now is thanks to the Lebanese army + Hezbullah making sure the fighting is over the border.

[Elheru Aran]

Well, yeah, I was rolling with Syria staying together, but breaking apart is probably more likely yeah. Think some of it is gonna turn into Kurdistan or is my geography out?

[Col. Crackpot]

Honestly I think the best solution right now would be to prop Assad up, make him win by any means necessary and than hold him by his throat and make him institute internal reforms peacefully lest he be replaced by another puppet.

Clearly the solution is the creation of a Syrian Augusto Pinochet. That sort of thing worked out so well in the 70's and 80's.

[Purple]

Honestly I think the best solution right now would be to prop Assad up, make him win by any means necessary and than hold him by his throat and make him institute internal reforms peacefully lest he be replaced by another puppet.

Clearly the solution is the creation of a Syrian Augusto Pinochet. That sort of thing worked out so well in the 70's and 80's.

As a temporary measure, yes. It is better to have your own guy in charge than to have the thing fall apart and become another Afghanistan. The way I see it the ideal solution would be to make sure one side, any side at all (that ain't fundamentalist Islam) takes over with us as the puppet masters. Than give them a few years, maybe a decade to cleanse all radical Islam and its supporters from the land. Than we can make them step down and hold a free election. With free being defined as "Islamist parties not allowed".

At the end of the day there simply is no nice and pleasant solution to this. The situation is already a bloody mess. And frankly I'd rather we kill a million men than we allow ISIS and the other warring factions to kill several times as many and displace an order of magnitude more than they kill. * numbers are not literal but a figure of speech. *

[Col. Crackpot]

Honestly I think the best solution right now would be to prop Assad up, make him win by any means necessary and than hold him by his throat and make him institute internal reforms peacefully lest he be replaced by another puppet.

Clearly the solution is the creation of a Syrian Augusto Pinochet. That sort of thing worked out so well in the 70's and 80's.

As a temporary measure, yes. It is better to have your own guy in charge than to have the thing fall apart and become another Afghanistan. The way I see it the ideal solution would be to make sure one side, any side at all (that ain't fundamentalist Islam) takes over with us as the puppet masters. Than give them a few years, maybe a decade to cleanse all radical Islam and its supporters from the land. Than we can make them step down and hold a free election. With free being defined as "Islamist parties not allowed".

At the end of the day there simply is no nice and pleasant solution to this. The situation is already a bloody mess. And frankly I'd rather we kill a million men than we allow ISIS and the other warring factions to kill several times as many and displace an order of magnitude more than they kill. * numbers are not literal but a figure of speech. *

So a validation of the US strategy in Central and South America as a neccicary evil to halt the spread of Soviet Communism? Better to let them kill a few subversives than let the reds slaughter millions of class enemies.

[Purple]

So a validation of the US strategy in Central and South America as a neccicary evil to halt the spread of Soviet Communism? Better to let them kill a few subversives than let the reds slaughter millions of class enemies.

Maybe you should refresh your knowledge of history. Because last time I checked south american communists were NOT behaving or intending to behave like ISIS. But if we make a hypothetical alternate reality where they did behave like ISIS than yes.