ISIL War in Iraq and Syria

[conon394]

He may be a despicable traitor who got off with a slap on the wrist, but Ollie North does get it right this time.

No he really did not, anyone pick holes in a policy, but its a tad harder to offer a concrete and realistic alternative.

And still waiting for a reason to see Turkey getting it right with its policy.

[Request a new user name]

No he really did not, anyone pick holes in a policy, but its a tad harder to offer a concrete and realistic alternative.

And still waiting for a reason to see Turkey getting it right with its policy.

The realistic option was to go all in or stay the frak out.

As for Turkey, White Wolf more than anyone has been hammering the reasons into your head all throughout this thread.

IS is not a threat to Turkey, PKK is, and for very good reason. PKK has killed 30,000+ people, uses child soldiers, runs the drug cartels, uses sex slaves (so does IS to be fair, but Sharia law mandates they can't be prostituted, and any children they have is considered the master's own legitimate heirs and thus he can't sell her or otherwise mistreat her) then they discard them when worn out.

Turkey has consistently stated Assad must go and it must be a UN action and Assad must be tried for his crimes. Also Turkey is not going to help Assad who is a far bigger killer than IS will ever be and thus share in his blood guilt, they have standards you know unlike the US.

Finally if the US is not all in, why should Turkey risk its soldiers, citizens, and treasure to do America's dirty work for it when America caused this mess to begin with and then poured gasoline on the fire?

You have yet to answer these questions in a satisfactorily way.

Turkey is not responsible for this mess, it owes no obligation to clean it up, especially now that the US has completely discredited FSA's narrative and convinced Syrian and Iraqi Sunnis that IS is the only group that fights for them and them alone and is not a foreign puppet.

As far as Turkey is concerned, this just has to burn itself out, then they'll twist arms at the negotiating table when all sides are exhausted.

[Lazzeer]

IS is not a threat to Turkey

Yet. However they will eventually turn against Turkey.
Assad used to think that IS was no threat to him either; only to the more mainstream Syrian opposition. Now they're fighting.
The Iraqi Kurds used to think IS were no threat to them; only to the Iraqi government. Now they're fighting.
Lebanon used to think that IS wasn't a Lebanese problem... you get the picture.
They'll come for Turkey eventually.

[white-wolf]

Yet.

Yes, yet. Eventually we need to clean this mess. However, Turkey has been trying to tell Obama the goal must be to drain the swamp, not to kill a certain mosquito.

However they will eventually turn against Turkey.
Assad used to think that IS was no threat to him either; only to the more mainstream Syrian opposition. Now they're fighting.
The Iraqi Kurds used to think IS were no threat to them; only to the Iraqi government. Now they're fighting.
Lebanon used to think that IS wasn't a Lebanese problem... you get the picture.
They'll come for Turkey eventually.

When, not if, when the ISIS turns to Turkey it will cause many casualities both inside and outside of the country. But please be aware Turkey is not a Syria, not a Iraq, not Peshmerga, not a Lebanon. When they come, they will learn why some of Europeans still hate us, they will learn why still some of our neighbours fear from us.

[Vanoi]

Yes, yet. Eventually we need to clean this mess. However, Turkey has been trying to tell Obama the goal must be to drain the swamp, not to kill a certain mosquito.

If Turkey wants Assad toppled, then they can be the ones imposing the no fly zone and the men to invade. The IS are a bigger threat than Assad is right now.

[Lazzeer]

Yes, yet. Eventually we need to clean this mess. However, Turkey has been trying to tell Obama the goal must be to drain the swamp, not to kill a certain mosquito.
When, not if, when the ISIS turns to Turkey it will cause many casualities both inside and outside of the country. But please be aware Turkey is not a Syria, not a Iraq, not Peshmerga, not a Lebanon. When they come, they will learn why some of Europeans still hate us, they will learn why still some of our neighbours fear from us.

Oh I don't believe for a minute that IS would be able to achieve in Turkey anything close to what they've achieved anywhere else. Unlike it's southern neighbors Turkey isn't a failed state. My point wasn't that IS would succeed - only that ultimately they will try.

[Treize]

Assad is not a threat.

[white-wolf]

If Turkey wants Assad toppled, then they can be the ones imposing the no fly zone and the men to invade. The IS are a bigger threat than Assad is right now.

To whom ISIS is a bigger threat? That is the important question.

@Lazzeer, @Treize: the situation of Syria and Iraq is the reason why ISIS happened. If you eliminate ISIS, there is no guarantee that MISIS will not happen. And please remember this is a proxy war with certain outside actors and certain outside actors with boots on the ground. This is huge. Big boys are playing a hard game, very hard game. Please do not eat everything the media cooks for you. I would almost believe the USA does not want a solution for the enermous clusterf.. , I mean clusterdance. I almost believe USA wants energies of the region's states go waste, instead of a certain way. ISIS is a unwanted happening, so USA is hellbend to attack it.

[Vanoi]

To whom ISIS is a bigger threat? That is the important question.

Everyone around them? They have made thier intentions of establishing an Islamic Caliphate pretty clear. turkey is incldued in that goal. I don't think Assad has similar plans.

[Mangalore]

To whom ISIS is a bigger threat? That is the important question.

@Lazzeer, @Treize: the situation of Syria and Iraq is the reason why ISIS happened. If you eliminate ISIS, there is no guarantee that MISIS will not happen. And please remember this is a proxy war with certain outside actors and certain outside actors with boots on the ground. This is huge. Big boys are playing a hard game, very hard game. Please do not eat everything the media cooks for you. I would almost believe the USA does not want a solution for the enermous clusterf.. , I mean clusterdance. I almost believe USA wants energies of the region's states go waste, instead of a certain way. ISIS is a unwanted happening, so USA is hellbend to attack it.

This is a weird proxy war where all the big guys want to bomb the same other guys...

I do see the problem of getting the region stabilized, the problem is IS has propped itself up in a manner that makes appeasement towards them unacceptable. They are essentially just a religious mafia that managed to establish a fiefdom within a weak war torn region. At best that puts them on equal footing to an Afghan warlord, since they however threaten randomly everyone around the globe that looks funny or rejects their ridiculous wannabe religion
there is wee bit little space for rapproachment or even simply ignoring them.

Giving weapons to the somewhat saner people so they at least can fight those wackjobs is at least a less invasive procedure than outright invading countries. The main problem is the three ways between Assad, IS and FSA/Kurds and how to resolve the Assad vs FSA issue since I would argue virtually everyone is okay with wasting IS at this point.

[Principe Alessandro]

The only best outcome for the Syrian civil war is for FSA and YPG form an alliance to fight both ISIS and Assad, yet Turkey has always sponsored Islamist proxies in northern Syria with the aim of getting rid of YPG, this was already done in 2013 when YPG clashed with al-Nusra and other islamists groups, among those Islamist groups there was ISIS when it was still just a rebel group like many others. So Turkey is the first responsible for the current situation in Northern Syria where already it was a playground for the most extremist rebel groups for a long time.

[Papay]

ISIS, ISIS, ISIS...I am bored with this. Can someone explain to me how such a radical organisation fights on so many fronts succecfully? Because i dont get it

[Costin_Razvan]

Competence?

That's really the easy answer. They know what they are doing.

[Roma_Victrix]

Oh I don't believe for a minute that IS would be able to achieve in Turkey anything close to what they've achieved anywhere else. Unlike it's southern neighbors Turkey isn't a failed state. My point wasn't that IS would succeed - only that ultimately they will try.

Try and then be rebuffed immediately, failing miserably at that. They do, however, have enough clout in Turkey to attempt to kidnap in broad daylight Syrian rebels living in Turkey, to be returned to Syria and into the hands of ISIS. That little operation failed, though, thanks to the presence of Turkish soldiers. So much for ISIS being the dreaded legion of doom.

ISIS, ISIS, ISIS...I am bored with this. Can someone explain to me how such a radical organisation fights on so many fronts succecfully? Because i dont get it

The funniest part is their grandiose threat leveled against Vladimir Putin, as if ISIS didn't have enough enemies already. If this was a Total War game, they would be wiped out in a matter of turns. They are isolated on all sides, surrounded by Bashar al-Assad's forces, Iraqi forces backed by Iran, Kurdish forces, Arab neighbors who have recently aligned with the US against them, and Turkey which is only partially complicit in letting foreign fighters stream into their territory. ISIS doesn't have any clear allies and worse, they're trying to pick fights with both Russia and China at the same time! These are geopolitical masterminds at work, people.

[DarthLazy]

If this was a Total War game,

ISIS would be the human player

[conon394]

The realistic option was to go all in or stay the frak out.

Reduce a very complex problem to a binary decision... shall I clap?

Neither of your option was or is politically tenable.

First 'going all in' would have reduced it to simply our (America's) problem. Aside from the fact that in general nobody in the US has an appetite for that and the necessary intervention into Syria which at all without Assad would simply make us Turkey's pawn.

IS is not a threat to Turkey, PKK is, and for very good reason. PKK has killed 30,000+ people, uses child soldiers, runs the drug cartels, uses sex slaves

As for Turkey, White Wolf more than anyone has been hammering the reasons into your head all throughout this thread.

And Turkey has never say been oppressive to the Kurds as or assassinated their leaders or decided only a heavy handed military response is the only answer?

http://www.unesco.org/most/vl4n1kocher.pdf

"Villages were often destroyed to deny their use by guerrillas and prevent the return
of residents. In some documented instances, these evacuations were carried out brutally.
Soldiers met resistance with coercion: beatings, rapes, and selective instances of extra-
judicial killing (Ron 1995). However conducted, being forcibly removed from ancestral
villages is a horrifying and life-altering event."

Also I must say the 30,000+ does look to be putting all deaths at the door of the PKK and ignoring other groups:

https://essex.ac.uk/armedcon/story_id/000749.pdf

And of course ignoring apparent assassination of Kurds

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.230...21105007554823

And as I have said before dealing with IRA, Allowing Ireland to form and than the recent peace efforts in Northern Ireland seem to have worked better than all military strategies the UK once used and cost less...

Turkey has consistently stated Assad must go and it must be a UN action and Assad must be tried for his crimes. Also Turkey is not going to help Assad who is a far bigger killer than IS will ever be and thus share in his blood guilt, they have standards you know unlike the US.

Fine then really if that is Turkey' s policy let them do the heavy lifting, because while the US might want Assad to go it certainly does not like the friends it wants to replace him. Mali and Libya have proved that military intervention is not enough is Turkey going to go all nation building and provide an occupation force for Syria?

"UN Action" well that is just BS is it not since Russia will veto anything. So really Turkey wants its policy but does not to pay the real cost (blood and treasure) or the political cost and is trying to get the US to do both... sometimes you have to find out you not a great power or man up and do it.

In this case US policy is rather adroit. Aiding the Kurds everywhere and using humanitarian arguments provided by ISIS brutality sucks in Europe. And by crossing into serious training and equipment puts pressure on the list of supposed US allies Turkey has to consider what the ramifications of the US more less up arming all Kurds means while still refusing to go topple Assad. The gulf states even by publicly providing mostly symbolic aid are stuck in the anti ISIS group for good, and thus might want to ramp up domestic Intel. Same for Europe really.

The US finds a needy proxy - Kurds. Their sob story provides the basis for funding training and arms from all over NATO, which provides leverage vs both Turkey and Baghdad. Air power used helps erode ISIS gains. Humanitarian arguments allow for intervention in Syria w/o some grand goal of removing Assad [oh and what does Turkey plan to replace him with?]. You know containment worked for the cold war - your solution seems to be either we left Western Europe to Stalin or started WW3

Finally if the US is not all in, why should Turkey risk its soldiers, citizens, and treasure to do America's dirty work for it when America caused this mess to begin with and then poured gasoline on the fire?

You have yet to answer these questions in a satisfactorily way.

Turkey is not responsible for this mess, it owes no obligation to clean it up, especially now that the US has completely discredited FSA's narrative and convinced Syrian and Iraqi Sunnis that IS is the only group that fights for them and them alone and is not a foreign puppet.

Why should the US be wasting it time and money sending air defense to Turkey? How is the US responsible for the mess in Syria - last time I checked Assad was not our buddy but Putin's little friend and Russia not the US vetoed meaning action on Syria. Maybe Turkey could have been a little more careful on who was going into Syria to fight and with what organization? But hey its always the fault of the US. Maybe the US should still be occupying Iraq and dictating policy...

[PointOfViewGun]

Turkey should have got in early, when they said 100 thousand refugees were their red line. That would allow refugees to be housed in a large buffer zone. Better training grounds for FSA fighters and more control over it. They messed it up too much to do it now.

[Request a new user name]

http://syriahr.com/en/2014/10/isis-t...al-arabkobane/

Al-Kurdi's orders must have changed. ISA is moving to finish the job, they got other strategic priorities now and Kobane has served its purpose.

http://alrayy.com/124435.htm (Use a translator) Basically ISA finishing Sinjar Mountain off before moving to cement control on Highway 2, the Border, then likely move on the Mosul Dam.

[snuggans]

for all the criticisms levied at Turkey, they do deserve some gratitude for accepting somewhere around 1.5 million refugees so far. still, i think it would be silly to also start fighting Assad at the same time when daesh isn't exactly being rolled over that easily in the first place, and Assad is also fighting against them. targeting Assad right now would only diminish the amount of resistance daesh is facing in Syria.

[Mary The Quene]

Breaking : The Syrian army backed by NDF has rumoured to have liberated the vital and strategic town of Mork after 9 months of fighting while Al-Latahminah sees a renewed army assault

Soheil Hassan with its tiger forces liberated Morek#

http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/...-fire-control/
https://twitter.com/archicivilians/s...80236011655168