Everyone has his own ax to grind

Everyone has his own ax to grind:


From The New York Times article:

Instead of challenging this ideology of shame, the left has buttressed it by blaming white people as a whole for slavery, genocide of the Native Americans and a host of other sins, as though whiteness itself was something about which people ought to be ashamed. 

Well, somebody is to blame for "slavery, genocide of Native Americans, and a host of other sins. . . ."  Somebody profited from each sin.  And the sins continue.  Visit Standing Rock.  Listen to the Native Americans.

Somebody profits to this very day.  If you are of Anglo-Saxon heritage, it is likely that you or your ancestors  profited, and if you yourself did not profit, your relative ease and security may well have resulted from an ancestror's profit.

Classism is bad; ducking responsibility for living off the suffering of others is no way to escape classism.  Read the article with a grain of salt, but read it. Though that is not its intention, it shows one way some Trump folks escape responsibility for their rages.

OPINION | CAMPAIGN STOPS

What Happened on Election Day

How the election and Donald Trump’s victory looks to Opinion writers.

A group of Trump supporters calling themselves the Mesa County Deplorables sharing a potluck meal in Grand Junction, Colo., in October. Credit Nick Cote for The New York Times

Stop Shaming Trump Supporters

 By MICHAEL LERNER

COMMENT

2016-11-09T13:17:29-05:00 1:17 PM ET

It turns out that shaming the supporters of Donald J. Trump is not a good political strategy.

Though job loss and economic stagnation played a role in his victory, so did shame. As the principal investigator on a study of the middle class for the National Institute of Mental Health, I found that working people’s stress is often intensified by shame at their failure to “make it” in what they are taught is a meritocratic American economy.

The right has been very successful at persuading working people that they are vulnerable not because they themselves have failed, but because of the selfishness of some other villain (African-Americans, feminists, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, liberals, progressives; the list keeps growing).

Instead of challenging this ideology of shame, the left has buttressed it by blaming white people as a whole for slavery, genocide of the Native Americans and a host of other sins, as though whiteness itself was something about which people ought to be ashamed. The rage many white working-class people feel in response is rooted in the sense that once again, as has happened to them throughout their lives, they are being misunderstood.

So please understand what is happening here. Many Trump supporters very legitimately feel that it is they who have been facing an unfair reality. The upper 20 percent of income earners, many of them quite liberal and rightly committed to the defense of minorities and immigrants, also believe in the economic meritocracy and their own right to have so much more than those who are less fortunate. So while they may be progressive on issues of discrimination against the obvious victims of racism and sexism, they are blind to their own class privilege and to the hidden injuries of class that are internalized by much of the country as self-blame.

The right’s ability to portray liberals as elitists is further strengthened by the phobia toward religion that prevails in the left. Many religious people are drawn by the teachings of their tradition to humane values and caring about the oppressed. Yet they often find that liberal culture is hostile to religion of any sort, believing it is irrational and filled with hate. People on the left rarely open themselves to the possibility that there could be a spiritual crisis in society that plays a role in the lives of many who feel misunderstood and denigrated by the fancy intellectuals and radical activists.

The left needs to stop ignoring people’s inner pain and fear. The racism, sexism and xenophobia used by Mr. Trump to advance his candidacy does not reveal an inherent malice in the majority of Americans. If the left could abandon all this shaming, it could rebuild its political base by helping Americans see that much of people’s suffering is rooted in the hidden injuries of class and in the spiritual crisis that the global competitive marketplace generates.

Democrats need to become as conscious and articulate about the suffering caused by classism as we are about other forms of suffering. We need to reach out to Trump voters in a spirit of empathy and contrition. Only then can we help working people understand that they do not live in a meritocracy, that their intuition that the system is rigged is correct (but it is not by those whom they had been taught to blame) and that their pain and rage is legitimate.

Michael Lerner, the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley, Calif., is the editor of Tikkun magazine and chairman of the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

And no need to shamea anyone.  Change the World instead!  Quickly!  Before I'm pushing up daisies.

What Obama should do in Syria: a proposal

From the Washington Post article below:

"It is time for the United States to act more assertively on Syria, to further four justifiable objectives:

• to end mass civilian killing; 
• to protect what remains of the moderate opposition; 
• to undermine extremist narratives of Western indifference to injustice; and 
• to force Assad to the negotiating table"

The means proposed to achieve these goals risk more armed conflict with Turkey -- ok by me -- and Russia -- not ok.  Study the proposals, judge them for yourselves,  and let your policy makers know your preferences if you live in a country in which public
opinion matters.

One weakness in the article is that it refers to "the moderate opposition" without saying which groups are included in the group to be protected.

Saudi Arabia would surely want the Salafi Jihadists it has bountifully funded to be included.  The Salafi Jihadists are fighting to establish a Wahhabi government in Syria, and that is not an honorable or acceptable goal.  The Syrian Kurds are both honorable and worthy of the support of all democratic, multiethnic, non-sectarian, and feminist bodies and should be supported as recommended in the article.

If you read co-author Charles R. Lister's “The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency,” favorably reviewed by the New York Times, you will be reassured.

The Washington Post

Bring Syria’s Assad and his backers to account now

Wounded opposition fighters sit in the back of an ambulance in a government-held neighborhood of Aleppo in Syria on Thursday. (George Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

By John Allen and Charles R. Lister October 21 at 7:28 PM

John Allen, a retired U.S. Marine general, led the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013 and the international coalition to counter the Islamic State from 2014 to 2015.  Charles R. Lister<2 font="">  is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of “The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency.”

For 5½ years, the Syrian government has tortured, shot, bombed and gassed its own people with impunity, with the resulting human cost clear for all to see: nearly 500,000 dead and 11 million displaced. Since Russia’s military intervention began one year ago, conditions have worsened, with more than 1 million people living in 40 besieged communities. Thirty-seven of those are imposed by pro-government forces.

While subjecting his people to unspeakable medieval-style brutality, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has sabotaged diplomatic initiatives aimed at bringing a lasting calm to his country. The most recent such diplomatic scheme was trashed not just by Assad, but also Russia, whose aircraft were accused of subjecting a U.N.-mandated aid convoy to a ferocious two-hour attack in September.

Since then, at least 2,500 people have been killed and wounded in eastern districts of Aleppo, amid horrendous bombardment by Syrian and Russian aircraft, and Russia cynically vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have prohibited further airstrikes in the city.

It is time for the United States to act more assertively on Syria, to further four justifiable objectives: to end mass civilian killing; to protect what remains of the moderate opposition; to undermine extremist narratives of Western indifference to injustice; and to force Assad to the negotiating table. The United States should not be in the business of regime change, but the Assad clique and its backers must be brought to account before it is too late. The world will not forgive us for our inaction.

The consequences of continued inaction are dreadful. U.S. policy has never sought to decisively influence the tactical situation on the ground. Unrealistic limitations on vetting and a policy that prohibited arming groups to fight the regime left us unable to effectively fight the Islamic State or to move Assad toward a transition. U.S. policy and strategy on Syria had a major disconnect, in being focused militarily on a group that was a symptom of the civil war without any means to achieve the stated policy objective: Assad’s departure.

The hole in this strategy could only have been filled by a comprehensive train-and-equip program for moderate Syrians to fight the Islamic State and decisively resist regime forces. Sadly, we have allowed this connective tissue between our counter-Islamic State strategy and our policy to remove Assad — the moderate Syrian opposition — to come under sustained attack by the regime and Russia.

For years we’ve said there can be no military outcome in Syria, but the Russians and their allies have pushed the military dimension of the crisis to strengthen the regime’s political position and, in the name of fighting “terrorism,” to systematically eliminate the opposition, including moderate Syrians we judged should be part of the political process of transitioning Assad out. These objectives were derived from our unwillingness to tangle with the regime, and now also the Russians.

The administration’s condemnation of Russia, and its forecast of a Vietnam-like morass for Moscow, seem a misunderstanding of Moscow’s calculus. Russia will determinedly protect its interests by any means, including attacking civilians and U.N. aid convoys. The expectation that Russia will tire of its Syria “quagmire” and become diplomatically pliable ignores reality. Russia has shown a remarkable capacity to dig in behind bad policy and fight under adversity. Ultimately, Vladi­mir Putin’s Russia must be — or at least seem to be — on the ascendancy, as it is in Ukraine, along NATO’s frontier, in Syria and even in Libya. Russia’s repaired relationship with Turkey and improved ties elsewhere further complicate U.S. policy.

Ultimately, this leaves us only two options. First, the United States should encourage and join its European allies in imposing an escalatory set of economic sanctions against Russia and bodies and individuals supporting its military and paramilitary activities in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.

The second option is one the Russians believe the United States will never do: Escalate the conflict. The United States must challenge the status quo and end the regime’s war crimes, by force if necessary. This need not require some major pronouncement. Indeed, for now, a quiet warning may be more effective, since a major public announcement would almost certainly polarize the situation further.

For a start, the United States must save Aleppo. Damascus, Moscow and Tehran are razing the city to prepare for an eventual ground assault. As both the CIA and Pentagon have concluded, an opposition loss in Aleppo would severely undermine the United States’ counterterrorism objectives in Syria. The city’s symbolism and strategic value are unmatched, and allowing it to fall would dramatically empower extremist narratives. Groups linked to al-Qaeda would reap the rewards of our shortcomings.

To save Aleppo, the United States and its allies must both accelerate and broaden the provision of lethal and nonlethal assistance to vetted moderate opposition groups. This assistance would aim to empower other frontlines in northern and southern Syria to force pro-regime forces to divert attention from Aleppo. Opposition groups should also be provided with the means to bombard regime military airfields, many of which already lie within indirect fire and artillery rocket range.

Simultaneously, the United States must use existing multilateral mechanisms to push for a new cessation of hostilities in Syria in which flagrant violations will be met with targeted U.S. military consequences. Should such an agreement prove impossible due to the likely intransigence from Damascus and its supporters, the United States should gather a “coalition of the willing” to credibly threaten military action against Assad’s military infrastructure.

Initiating such a sequence would almost certainly result in the eventual use of targeted, punitive force in Syria. Any action should target Syrian military facilities and assets involved in supporting the bombardment of civilians, such as military airfields, aircraft, weapons stores and artillery positions. We should expect the possible intentional co-mingling of Syrian and Russian forces and assets as a deterrent. While this may complicate targeting strategies, we should not miss the opportunity to hit offending Syrian elements and units, while sustaining counter-Islamic State operations elsewhere.

In addition, the United States should consider establishing and supporting a task force of regional Special Operations forces, which could play an advisory role in assisting vetted opposition groups in attacking regime assets.

The credibility of the United States as the leader and defender of the free world must be salvaged from the horrific devastation of Syria. It is not too late to enforce international law and norms. However, we cannot wait for a new administration in Washington. Events are moving too quickly. Bashar al-Assad is not the solution to the Syrian crisis, and he is the least-qualified possible partner in a fight against terrorism, having spent much of the past 16 years aiding and abetting al-Qaeda and, it would appear, the Islamic State as well. Action certainly presents risks, but to allow events to continue to unfold as they are means raising the cost yet further for a future, inevitable U.S. intervention.

The Mushroom-shape cloud

There are a few things to be grateful for:

     -- destruction on the massive scale shown in the article below is mostly confined to parts of the Middle East and not to the whole of  Eurasia, as it was in the last Century;

     -- the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are not the only destroyers in the World today, and they are currently the major mass destroyers; the rest of the world is content to abjure mass destruction, killing "only" relatively small numbers of us at a time, not counting starvation and diseases.  May it be no worse until we become kindly!

    -- we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shape  cloud . . . .Kingston Trio  

 Yes, even here in the middle of the Ocean Most Pacific we can be tranquil while riding the the waves alongside the most destructive collection of instruments of mass destruction the World has yet beheld, for though we human animals be not rational, yet, we be fearful of setting off the first of the last of the mushroom clouds:  good for us!  Personkind's [sic] last best hope be our cowardliness..

Yea, though we be craven, we live to beget more generations -- not, however, a boon to elephants, panthers, jellyfish, and beetles.

I hope if we be sufficiently craven, in a few more thousands of years we may become kindly toward all beings.

My shade will like that, if it comes to pass.

Berlin, 1945; Grozny, 2000; Aleppo, 2016 - The New York Times

Durell

The basic Syrian fight has been between Ira and the Gulf Cooperation Council over who would be able to deliver natural gas from the Pars Field to Europe over the Mediterranean Sea.

The field lies mostly under the Persian Gulf.  Qatar and Iran both have access to that field:

Natural Gas Pipeline from Iran to Iraq could be Ready in 20 Days - Oil & Gas 360

The field holds the World's largest supply of natural gas.  All the world is still addicted to petrochemicals and all the World is interested in getting gas from the field..  Immense wealth goes to the country that can deliver the gas to wealthy Europe.

The slaughter of Syrians is directly related to a struggle over whether Iran or Qatar will win that prize.

Russia prefers that Iran win, and so is supporting the Syrian Government, which has already agreed to Iran's pipeline to the Mediterranean.  Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Cooperation Council are supporting Qatar.  The United States-- too long backing Saudi Arabia' Monopoly on gas prices, is ambivalently supporting Qatar and is distracted by irrational domestic fears of the Islamic State, whose main goal is control of Mecca and Medina -- Saudi Arabia's greatest fear..

The news article in The Guardian, below, indicated that Iran is on its way to winning the Prize.

The United States would be well advised to distance itself from urdrous Erdoğan and the equally brutal Saudi Arabia and form economic and political alliances with Iran and the rest of Asia.

Saudi Arabia's years of ruling the world through its monopoly on oil is coming to an end.  The World, if it does not recover from oil addiction in time, will see a rise in Iranian power, and Iran will see its brutal theocracy modernize long before Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi government gives up its ancient brutal polity.

The Guardian's article suggests that Iran is progressing steadily tower winning the prize. We'll see.

Iran

The Observer

Amid Syrian chaos, Iran’s game plan emerges: a path to the Mediterranean

Militias controlled by Tehran are poised to complete a land corridor that would give Iran huge power in the region

 Sunni fighters training ahead of the battle to retake the city of Mosul. Photograph: Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters

Martin Chulov

Saturday 8 October 2016 15.30 EDT

Not far from Mosul, a large military force is finalising plans for an advance that has been more than three decades in the making. The troops are Shia militiamen who have fought against the Islamic State, but they have not been given a direct role in the coming attack to free Iraq’s second city from its clutches.  Instead, while the Iraqi army attacks Mosul from the south, the militias will take up a blocking position to the west, stopping Isis forces from fleeing towards their last redoubt of Raqqa in Syria. Their absence is aimed at reassuring the Sunni Muslims of Mosul that the imminent recapture of the city is not a sectarian push against them. However, among Iraq’s Shia-dominated army the militia’s decision to remain aloof from the battle of Mosul is being seen as a rebuff.Yet among the militias’ backers in Iran there is little concern. Since their inception, the Shia irregulars have made their name on the battlefields of Iraq, but they have always been central to Tehran’s ambitions elsewhere. By not helping to retake Mosul, the militias are free to drive one of its most coveted projects – securing an arc of influence across Iraq and Syria that would end at the Mediterranean Sea.

The strip of land to the west of Mosul in which the militias will operate is essential to that goal. After 12 years of conflict in Iraq and an even more savage conflict in Syria, Iran is now closer than ever to securing a land corridor that will anchor it in the region – and potentially transform the Islamic Republic’s presence on Arab lands. “They have been working extremely hard on this,” said a European official who has monitored Iran’s role in both wars for the past five years. “This is a matter of pride for them on one hand and pragmatism on the other. They will be able to move people and supplies between the Mediterranean and Tehran whenever they want, and they will do so along safe routes that are secured by their people, or their proxies.”

Interviews during the past four months with regional officials, influential Iraqis and residents of northern Syria have established that the land corridor has slowly taken shape since 2014. It is a complex route that weaves across Arab Iraq, through the Kurdish north, into Kurdish north-eastern Syria and through the battlefields north of Aleppo, where Iran and its allies are prevailing on the ground. It has been assembled under the noses of friend and foe, the latter of which has begun to sound the alarm in recent weeks. Turkey has been especially opposed, fearful of what such a development means for Iran’s relationship with the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ party), the restive Kurds in its midst, on whom much of the plan hinges.  The plan has been coordinated by senior government and security officials in Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus, all of whom defer to the head of the spearhead of Iran’s foreign policy, the Quds force of the Revolutionary Guards, headed by Major General Qassem Suleimani, who has run Iran’s wars in Syria and Iraq. It involves demographic shifts, which have already taken place in central Iraq and are under way in northern Syria. And it relies heavily on the support of a range of allies, who are not necessarily aware of the entirety of the project but have a developed vested interest in securing separate legs.

 Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, head of Iran’s all-powerful Quds force. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images

The corridor starts at the entry points that Iran has used to send supplies and manpower into Iraq over the past 12 years. They are the same routes that were used by the Quds force to run a guerrilla war against US forces when they occupied the country – a campaign fought by the same Iraqi militias that have since been immersed in the fight against Isis.The groups, Asa’ib ahl al-Haq, Keta’ib Hezbollah and their offshoots, accounted for close to 25% of all US battlefield casualties, senior US officials have said. They have become even more influential since US forces left the country. And in one of modern warfare’s starkest ironies, in the two years since US troops have returned to Iraq to fight Isis they have at times fought under US air cover.

The route crosses through Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, around 60 miles north of Baghdad. A mixed Sunni/Shia area for hundreds of years, Diyala became one of the main sectarian flashpoint areas during Iraq’s civil war. Along roads that have been secured by militias, which are known locally as “popular mobilisation units”, it then moves northwest into areas that were occupied by Isis as recently as several months ago.

The town of Shirqat in Salaheddin province is one important area. It was taken by militias along with Iraqi forces on 22 September, delivering another blow to the terrorist group and an important boost to Iran’s ambitions.

The Observer view on Russia’s actions in Syria and the failure of international law

Serial disregard for the United Nations in the Middle East and elsewhere risks a global conflagration

  

Read more

The militias are now present in large numbers in Shirqat and readying to move towards the western edge of Mosul, to a point around 50 miles southeast of Sinjar, which – at this point – is the next leg in the corridor. Between the militia forces and Sinjar is the town of Tal Afar, an Isis stronghold, which has been a historical home of both Sunni and Shia Turkmen – ancestral kin of Turkey.A senior intelligence official said the leg between Tel Afar and Sinjar is essential to the plan. Sinjar is an ancestral home to the Yazidi population, which was forced to flee in August 2014 after Isis invaded the city, killing all the men it could find and enslaving women. It wasrecaptured by Iraqi Kurdish forces last November. And ever since PKK forces from across the Syrian border have taken up residence in the city and across the giant monolith, Mt Sinjar, behind it. The PKK fighters are being paid by the Iraqi government and have been incorporated into the popular mobilisation units. Iraqi and western intelligence officials say the move was approved by Iraq’s national security adviser, Falah Fayadh.

An influential Iraqi tribal sheikh, Abdulrahim al-Shammari, emerges as a central figure further to the north. He has a power base near the Rabia crossing into Syria, receives support from the popular mobilisation units and is close to the Assad regime in Damascus. “I believe that in our area Iran does not have very much influence,” he told the Observer in Baghdad. “There is nobody here, no major power that is helping us with weapons. Ideologically speaking, the PKK is affiliated with the Kurds of this area, so there is no problem having them here.”

From the Rabia crossing, the mooted route goes past the towns of Qamishli and Kobani towards Irfin, which are all controlled by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Throughout the war the YPG (People’s Protection Units) has hedged its bets, at times allying with the US against Isis, and at other times siding with the Syrian regime. “Iran thinks it has them where it wants them now,” said the European source. “I’m not sure it has gauged the Turks correctly, though.”

 A fighter sits on a balcony in Sinjar, Iraq after the town was retaken from Isis by Kurdish-led forces. Photograph: Cengiz Yar for the Guardian

Of all the points between Tehran and the Syrian coast, Aleppo has concentrated Iran’s energies more than anywhere else. Up to 6,000 militia members, mostly from Iraq, have congregated there ahead of a move to take the rebel-held east of the city, which could begin around the same time as the assault on Mosul.Those who have observed Suleimani up close as he inspects the frontlines in Syria and Iraq, or in meetings in Damascus and Baghdad, where he projects his immense power through studied calm, say he has invested everything in Syria – and in ensuring that Iran emerges from a brutal, expensive war with its ambitions enhanced. “If we lose Syria, we lose Tehran,” Suleimani told the late Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi in 2014. Chalabi told the Observer at the time that Suleimani had added: “We will turn all this chaos into an opportunity.”

Securing Aleppo would be an important leg in the corridor, which would run past two villages to the north that have historically been in Shia hands. From there, a senior Syrian official, and Iraqi officials in Baghdad, said it would run towards the outskirts of Syria’s fourth city, Homs, then move north through the Alawite heartland of Syria, which a year of Russian airpower has again made safe for Assad. Iran’s hard-won road ends at the port of Latakia, which has remained firmly in regime hands throughout the war.

Ali Khedery, who advised all US ambassadors to Iraq and four commanders of Centcom in 2003-11 said securing a Mediterranean link would be seen as a strategic triumph in Iran. “It signifies the consolidation of Iran’s control over Iraq and the Levant, which in turn confirms their hegemonic regional ambitions,” he said. “That should trouble every western leader and our regional allies because this will further embolden Iran to continue expanding, likely into the Gulf countries next, a goal they have explicitly and repeatedly articulated. Why should we expect them to stop if they’ve been at the casino, doubling their money over and over again, for a decade?”

The Times article lists some of Russia's national interests at stake in Syria:

Moscow considers Mr. Assad’s survival crucial to protecting its interests in Syria, which include combating jihadism, preserving intelligence and military assets, and asserting that Russia is a geopolitical player in the Middle East.

Russia, with Salafi Jihadists fighting in Dagestan and up the Volga River into the heart of Russia naturally wants to defeat Saudi Arabia's Salafi Jihadists in Syria. It also wants to protect its naval base in Syria, it's only direct outlet to the Mediterranean Sea.   These are rational national interests.

The article does not mention Iran's and Qatar's mutual and conflicting interests in a pipeline through Syria without which neither can deliver natural gas from the Pfs Natural Gas field, from which each nation could deliver huge amounts of gas to Europe.   

Russia's interest is to prevent Qatar from delivering Pars gas to Europe, undercutting the price of the oil it delivers to Europe, with disastrous effect on the Russian economy.  Russia is less concerned with Iran's delivering gas to Europe, believing it can cut a deal with Iran to protect its price monopoly.  Both Iran and Qatar have proposed gas lines through Syria.  See here.

Russia has vital national interests in Syria.

The United State's only national interest is protecting the Gulf Cooperation Council's oil monopoly from competition from Iran, an interest that has long outlasted its usefulness.

 Aleppo is full of heart-rending tragedy.  Yemen is worse.  The United States can do something about Yemen; doing something about Aleppo will require great diplomatic skill.  Bombast won't cut it. 

 The Times article, below, is rational.  One hopes that our next president, whatever the campaign rhetoric, will recognize it.  I believe Mrs. Clinton does.  Friends fear she is more war-like.

The Opinion Pages | OP-ED 

Don’t Intervene in Syria

By STEVEN SIMON and JONATHAN STEVENSON OCT. 6, 2016

 Credit Anthony Russo

The cease-fire in Syria that the United States and Russia tortuously negotiated has, like the one before it, fallen apart.

The trouble began when an errant American airstrike killed some 60 Syrian government soldiers. Then, Russia resumed its disingenuous grandstanding and the Syrian government, with Russia’s support, went back to indiscriminately bombing rebel-held areas of Aleppo. On Monday, less than a month after the agreement went into effect, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States would break off talks with Russia on trying to revive it.

This failure, accompanied by images of suffering in Aleppo, has inspired renewed calls for a tougher American policy in Syria from liberal hawks and traditional conservatives alike. At the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday, both the Democrat, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, and the Republican, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, advocated more aggressive American action.

But the truth is that it is too late for the United States to wade deeper into the Syrian conflict without risking a major war, or, at best, looking feckless by failing to fully commit to confronting Russia and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and then backing down. The goal now should be reducing harm, saving lives and keeping prospects for a political deal alive. Cease-fire talks between the United States and Russia, tormented though they may be, remain the best way to achieve this.

Although Russia has denied it, it is clear that Moscow considers Mr. Assad’s survival crucial to protecting its interests in Syria, which include combating jihadism, preserving intelligence and military assets, and asserting that Russia is a geopolitical player in the Middle East. Russia has unflinchingly protected the Assad government both militarily and at the United Nations Security Council.

Indeed, Mr. Assad seems to enjoy practically unlimited leverage over Russia. Despite narrowly escaping American punishment for using chemical weapons by surrendering his stockpile of deadly nerve gas and other poisons in 2013, Mr. Assad has felt free to continue using toxic commercial chlorine gas. Even though Russia moved toward political compromise when it provisionally withdrew from Syria in March, Mr. Assad was not inclined to give peace talks a serious chance. In both cases, Russia fell back in line with Mr. Assad’s defiant brutality.

There are probably limits to Moscow’s deference to Mr. Assad’s blood lust, but it is unclear what they are. This is what makes an American escalation in Syria so dangerous.

American supporters of intervention, including the vice-presidential candidates, often say that the United States should create a no-fly zone in Syria to protect civilians from Mr. Assad and Russia’s bombs. But imagine how this might work: An American warplane enforcing a no-fly zone would risk fire from a Russian-made antiaircraft battery or fighter. (Just this week Russia shipped new antiaircraft systems to Syria.)

This risk clearly worries advocates for the use of force within the Obama administration. They are said to favor increased air support for the Syrian rebels that would avoid direct confrontation with the Russians. But small-scale, targeted bombing is unlikely to change Syrian behavior, so to be effective the strikes would have to escalate. (Alternatively, ineffective strikes could be ended, but this would make the United States look incompetent.) This would ultimately lead to a violent response, which would compel the United States to retaliate against Russian and Syrian government ground targets.

As conflict spiraled and casualties increased, so would international pressure for another costly, protracted and thankless American-led ground intervention to enforce peace, which domestic opinion in the United States would not support. While Russia’s real appetite for a political solution in the Syria conflict is unclear, it is wiser to test unknown political limits than unknown military ones.

Some of those advocating more intervention in Syria believe that as the so-called indispensable power, the United States has an ethical responsibility to reduce the suffering caused by Syrian and Russian bombing of civilians. Another camp of interventionists criticizes what it sees as President Obama’s weakness, heartlessness and strategic myopia, and wants the United States to stand up to Russia and assert its intention to remain a major geopolitical player in the region.

The liberal interventionists seem to have forgotten that it is no longer the 1990s. Disastrous forays in Iraq and Libya have undermined any American willingness to put values before interests. Meanwhile, the second group of interventionists seem to have forgotten that Syria has been Moscow’s client since early in the Cold War — a situation Washington was willing to live with when the geostrategic stakes were much higher.

The United States does, in fact, have a clear Syria policy: Roll back the Islamic State by way of the air campaign and American-supported Syrian rebel forces, coordinating with Russia to the extent possible; provide extensive humanitarian support; and continue to press for a sustainable cease-fire and a negotiated political transition involving Mr. Assad’s eventual departure. It may be frustrating, but against the alternatives, it is the only sensible course of action.

Certainly, the Syrian government and Russia have manipulated the cease-fires, using them as cover for continuing offensives. Nonetheless, fragile though they have been, these deals ratchet down the overall level of violence and save lives.

The deal struck by Mr. Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, for the United States and Russia to coordinate counter-jihadist operations and restrain opposition and government military activity was intended to produce a durable cease-fire, promote more effective humanitarian operations and re-energize political talks. Although it has fallen apart, the next step, unsatisfying as it may be, is to try again.

Steven Simon, a professor at Amherst College, was the National Security Council’s senior director for the Middle East and North Africa from 2011 through 2012. Jonathan Stevenson, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a fellow at Cullman Center, was the council’s director for political-military affairs for the Middle East and North Africa from 2011 to 2013

United States should provide military aid to Syrian Kurds an Erdoğan be deamed

Erdogan Says US Arming Syrian Kurdish Militia

By Daren Butler and David Dolan

Posted 2016-09-23 17:28 GMT 

(Reuters) -- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States of supplying more weapons to Kurdish fighters in northern Syria this week, saying Washington had delivered two plane loads of arms to what Ankara considers a terrorist group.

Erdogan's comments are likely to add to the tension between Turkey and the United States over Syria, where Washington backs the Kurdish YPG forces against Islamic State. 

Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State but views the Syrian Kurdish YPG and its PYD political wing as an extension of Kurdish militants who have waged a three-decade insurgency on its own soil. 

"If you think you can finish off Daesh with the YPG and PYD, you cannot, because they are terrorist groups too," Erdogan said in comments in New York on Thursday that were broadcast on Turkish television. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. 

"Three days ago America dropped two plane loads of weapons in enthusiasm for these terror groups," he said, adding he had raised the issue on Wednesday with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden who he said had no knowledge of this. 

The United States, which sees the YPG as a major strategic partner in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, air-dropped weapons to the group in the largely Kurdish town of Kobani in 2014. Erdogan said that half of those arms were seized by Islamic State fighters. 

Kobani was besieged by Islamic State for four months in late 2014 and is about 35 km (20 miles) east of the Syrian border town of Jarablus, which Turkish-backed rebels seized a month ago in an operation dubbed "Euphrates Shield". 

That operation is designed to clear Islamic State fighters from Turkey's southern border area but it has also brought Turkish and Syrian rebel forces into conflict with the YPG. 

FOCUS ON ASSAD 

Much of Turkey's focus during the six-year Syria civil war has been on the need to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rather than fighting Islamic State. Its recent push into northern Syria came after steady advances by the YPG.

Erdogan, who was on a visit to the United States this week, told broadcaster MSNBC that the blame for a deadly attack on a United Nations convoy rested squarely with Damascus. 

"The killer responsible for that attack is Assad's regime itself," he said, through a translator in an interview aired on Friday. 

He called again for the creation of a "safe zone" in northern Syria, an idea that has failed to gain traction with Western allies, who say it would require a significant ground force and planes to patrol. 

The top U.S. general on Thursday said the military was considering arming the Syrian Kurdish fighters, and acknowledged the difficulty of balancing such a move with the relationship with Ankara. 

"We are in deliberation about (what) exactly to do with the Syrian Democratic Forces right now," General Joseph Dunford told a Senate hearing, referring to a U.S.-backed coalition that includes the YPG. 

When asked whether he agreed that arming the Syrian Kurds fighters presented a military opportunity for the United States to be more effective in Syria, Dunford said: "I would agree with that. If we would reinforce the Syrian Democratic Forces' current capabilities that will increase the prospects of our success in Raqqa."

Raqqa is Islamic State's stronghold in Syria. 

Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Tuvan Gumrucku in Ankara; Editing by Ralph Boulton.

Accord:  Times of Oman

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Here is  Raqqa, Syria

Koerden veroveren basis Islamitische Staat in noordelijk Syrië - NRC

The Battle for Raqqa in Syria and the coming battle for Mosel in Iraq are critical:  together they would amount to a defeat of the Islamic State.

From Turkey and Iraq's standpoint those victories would be major defeats in their campaigns against Kurds.

Turkey and Iraq have foolishly decided that the Kurds are their enemies.

The Kurds, who were promised an independent Kurdistan by the French, were assigned to Syria, Turkey, and Iraq, where they were treated abominably.  They are now poised to obtain partial freedom.  The jubilation is evident in the  enthusiasm with which they establish a free, multi-ethnic, non-sectarian, feminist state where no such state has ever existed in all of recorded history.

All freedom-loving peoples of the world should support them.

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Oman is ruled by a Greek philosopher-king, prescribed in Plato's Republic, as the ideal form of government.  Though a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Oman opposed the Saudi-United Arab Emirates' Yemen genocide on its helpless people, the only member of the council to refrai; and has done its best to end the genocide and bring peace to Syria.

Oman reminds me of Honolulu, if we were ruled by a philosopher-king, and if we had oil instead of tourists.

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Asyrans have lived in central Near East since the 25 Century BCE.  They have no empire now, and their great buildings and statues have been largely destroyed.  Per Wikipedia:

Islamic Terrorism (2003–present)

 

An Assyrian wedding in Mechelen, Belgium.

In recent years, particularly since 2014, the Assyrians in northern Iraq and north east Syria have become the target of unprovoked Islamic terrorism. As a result, Assyrians have taken up arms, alongside other groups (such as the Kurds, Turcomans and Armenians) in response to unprovoked attacks by Al Qaeda, ISIL, Nusra Front, and other Wahhabi terrorist Islamic fundamentalist groups. In 2014 Islamic terrorists of ISIS attacked Assyrian towns and villages in the Assyrian homelands of northern Iraq and north east Syria. Assyrians forced from their homes in cities such as Mosul have had their houses and possessions stolen, and given over to ISIS terrorists or Sunni Arabs.[67]

In addition, the Assyrians have suffered seeing their ancient indigenous heritage desecrated, in the form of Bronze Age and Iron Age monuments and archaeological sites, as well as numerous Assyrian churches and monasteries,[67] being systematically vandalised and destroyed by ISIS. These include the ruins of Nineveh, Kalhu (Nimrud, Assur, Dur-Sharrukin and Hatra).[68][69]

Assyrians in both northern Iraq, north east Syria and also central and southern Iraq[70][71][72] have responded by forming armed Assyrian militias to defend their territories,[73] and despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned have had success in driving ISIS from Assyrian towns and villages, and defending others from attack.[74][75] Armed Assyrian militias have also joined forces with other peoples persecuted by ISIS and Sunni Muslim extremists, including; the Kurds, Turcoman, Yezidis, Syriac-Aramean Christians, Shabaks, Armenian Christians, Kawilya, Mandeans, Circassians and Shia Muslim Arabs and Iranians.

Wahhabi have much to answer for.