Syria 2015

Syria Year-End Predictions and Analysis
by Joshua Landis (28 December 2014)
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/year-end-predictions-analysis-joshua-landis-28-december-2014/

... In the bowels of the Pentagon, officers probably look at Assad’s state as a bulwark against ISIS and Nusra. They cannot allow it to be destroyed for fear that the the Jihadists will sweep into Damascus and Syria’s cities. Once ensconced in the capital, they would own Syria.

What is more, a new wave of refugees would flee from Syria into Lebanon and Jordan, possibly overwhelming both governments. Certainly Baathists, security personnel, and regime apparatchiks would flee. If Alawites, Christians, Druze and Shiites believed that they were no longer safe due to religious persecution, refugee numbers could reach into the millions. America’s policy has been to contain the violence in Syria. Regime collapse could defeat that policy, just as regime survival seems to defeat it.

Most of America’s allies and the Syrian opposition insist that US war planes should be bombing Assad as well as ISIS. The US cannot risk an extremist victory by destroying the Syrian Army. But US politicians also want to weaken the regime. Israel wants to destroy its advanced missile systems. Syria is a perfect case where US military planners may want a policy quite different from that set out by politicians...

In war, politicians' goals are the bloody maw of Moloch.

The hatred of politicians for Assad goes back to our ill-conceived war in Iraq, as if by throwing good money after bad and immeasurably increasing the pain and suffering in the region we may somehow redeem ourselves from our original sins.

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