Civil War in Syria

[The Free North]

Its so cute watching Russia trying to be a hegemonic power again.


I maintain the US needs to stay out of this completely. Picking winners does nothing for us, and we will ultimately just fuel more anti-americanism regardless of what position we take. If Putin wants to experiment with absurd adventurism in the Middle East....thats his prerogative. At the end of the day, Russia doesn't have the economy nor the popular support to sustain a prolonged military campaign in the region regardless of how many times O'Reilly suggests they are going to 'take over the Middle East'.

 

[The Free North]

it's crazy that this thing has managed to get even more convoluted.

Indeed.

The entire thing is unfortunate on a number of levels. Obviously Turkish policy in general has veered too far from secular, liberal governance and their Kurdish policy has been atrocious for years. That being said, the state essentially views the PKK as terrorists and there was no way Erdogan was going to leave an armed and autonomous Syrian Kurdish population alone for too long.

The ideal solution is a Kurdish nation-state, but thats not going to happen of course so we're left with either Turkish sponsored Kurdish suppression or Assad sponsored Kurdish suppression. I wonder if there would be any hope of a post war Assad government achieving some sort of detente with the Kurds. But i'm not sure what the basis of that might be? Perhaps anti-Turkish pressure from Russia?

[The Free North]

Russia is already putting their foot down and Syrian forces have crossed the Euphrates in some spots per twitter. I would imagine the Turkish offensive goes as far as the Russians are willing to allow at this point given that Assad's forces are already pushing north.   

Russia has said it will not allow clashes between Turkish and Syrian forces, as Turkey's military offensive in northern Syria continues.

"This would simply be unacceptable... and therefore we will not allow it, of course," said Moscow's special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev.

The withdrawal of US troops from the region, announced last week, gave Turkey a "green light", critics say.

Russia is a key military ally of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Mr Lavrentyev, during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, described Turkey's offensive as "unacceptable".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50058859?ocid=socialflow_twitter