Mick Hall argues that in order to defeat the theocratic fascist movement, ISIS, and end the conflict in Syria an agreement will have to be struck with President Assad. Mick Hall is a Marxist blogger @ Organized Rage.

  • The only viable option to defeat Isis and end the Syrian civil war is to reach an agreement with the Assad regime.

      
Aftermath of ISIS Beirut suicide bomb attack which killed at least 43 people

The argument to disengage from Syria, contain Isis with airstrikes and deal with the refugees is a non starter as in the last month alone Isis has carried out three bestial attacks in three of the world's capital cities and exploded a Russian passenger plane full of tourists in mid air.

In Paris they murdered 127, with 200 wounded. The week before this atrocity the terror group killed 43 people and wounded 239 more in the Lebanese capital Beirut and the week before that it murdered 224 tourists travelling home, when it downed the Russian plane. On October 10th in the Turkish capital Ankara, two Isis suicide bombers detonated themselves outside the railway station, killing 102 people with more than 400 injured. All of these crimes were targeted at ordinary people, especially the young.

This means in the last month alone Isis has killed 503 people and wounded 839 most seriously. This is without the countless numbers they murder every day within the areas they control in Iraq and Syria.

What Paris, Beirut, Ankara and the Russian plane demonstrates is ISIS have no intention of ceasing to attack those it regards as its enemies, whenever and wherever they can. These attacks are not highly sophisticated as the media claimed after Paris. It takes little sophistication or forward planning to put on a suicide vest walk into a crowd and explode it, or spray a restaurant or entertainment venue with automatic rifle fire. It just takes the will of a few fanatics to carry out such barbaric acts. It's made all the easier when the perpetrators expect to be dead when it's all over. Forward planning about escape routes, safe houses, returning weapons used to an arms dump, getaway cars, etc becomes irrelevant and unnecessary. This lack of sophistication is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to stop these attacks.

However distasteful it may be for some folk the only viable option to defeat Isis and end the Syrian civil war is to reach an agreement with the Assad regime. This can only occur if Putin is brought in from the cold. Russia [and Iran] are the only two nations with the necessary clout to make the Syrian President agree to fair and open election being held in an agreeable time frame after the defeat of Isis.

There is little doubt if an agreement was reached with the support of the international community, the Syrian government, its allies, and the Kurdish Peshmerga have the means to defeat Isis in Syria.

Despite what the western mainstream media claims, one should not underestimate the support the Assad regime still has in Syria. Even some of those who demonstrated against Assad before the civil war began have changed their minds somewhat. A Syrian friend told me: Whilst he still doesn't like the regime and given a free vote would vote against it, "At least under it you have the space to live a life unlike in the parts of the country Isis controls."

As an old rogue used to say, "Jaw Jaw is better than war war."

We should not be blinded by the media's coverage of Putin over the last few years, and never overlook how pliable the British media can be when the political wind changes.

For the 20 years prior to the Soviet Union entering WW2, the British newspapers were full of articles spewing hatred and bile upon Stalin, some of it deserved. Once Soviet Russia joined the war against Nazi Germany, he was transformed from public enemy number one, into the gallant ally Uncle Joe, and school children were encouraged to follow the Red Army on their school maps as it advanced towards Germany.

True this support did not outlast the war once the cold war took hold, but it's worth remembering as far as the British ruling class are concerned their enemy's enemy can easily become their friend.

This process is already underway as Simon Tisdall pointed out today in the Guardian:
What a difference a war makes. Twelve months ago, Vladimir Putin was on the menu at the G20 summit in Brisbane. Western leaders queued up hungrily for a piece of Russia’s president following his armed intervention in Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea.
Barack Obama warned Putin he was isolated internationally; David Cameron said he did not trust the Russian leader; Stephen Harper, Canada’s then prime minister, told Putin bluntly: “Get out of Ukraine.”
 
Fast forward a year to last week's G20 summit in Turkey:
And everything, it seems, has changed. Putin was pictured in a friendly huddle, chatting animatedly to Obama and the US national security adviser Susan Rice. He also held reportedly productive talks with Cameron and other leaders. No longer ostracised and browbeaten, Putin was the man everybody wanted to meet.
The reason is not a mystery. Under merciless attack from Islamic State, flailing on the refugee crisis, and consequently desperate to end the war in Syria, European leaders, backed by Obama, have come to an uncomfortable but, in historical terms, not wholly novel conclusion: they need Russia.
 
For the US President Obama and his British braying donkey David Cameron, my enemy's enemy had become my friend:
The White House said Obama and Putin had agreed on the need for a “Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition, which would be preceded by UN-mediated negotiations between the Syrian opposition and regime as well a ceasefire.”  
Obama and Cameron also offered explicit assurances that Russia’s strategic interests in Syria, which include its Mediterranean air and naval bases, would be fully recognised and protected in any settlement.
 
All that seems to be left is the fine detail, which Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader best summed up as the following if Cameron wishes to get it through parliament:
 

"Any extension of the airstrikes should be part of an overall political settlement in Syria and be approved by the UN security council." He added: “It is essential that any military response that might be considered has not only consent, but support of the international community and, crucially, legality from the United Nations."



Indeed.


Although the US assessment made last year which the braying donkey nodded eagerly too, that Putin is an able tactician and a poor strategist now looks hopelessly wide of the mark and we may all live to be thankful for that.

 

Defeat ISIS Via Assad

Mick Hall argues that in order to defeat the theocratic fascist movement, ISIS, and end the conflict in Syria an agreement will have to be struck with President Assad. Mick Hall is a Marxist blogger @ Organized Rage.

  • The only viable option to defeat Isis and end the Syrian civil war is to reach an agreement with the Assad regime.

      
Aftermath of ISIS Beirut suicide bomb attack which killed at least 43 people

The argument to disengage from Syria, contain Isis with airstrikes and deal with the refugees is a non starter as in the last month alone Isis has carried out three bestial attacks in three of the world's capital cities and exploded a Russian passenger plane full of tourists in mid air.

In Paris they murdered 127, with 200 wounded. The week before this atrocity the terror group killed 43 people and wounded 239 more in the Lebanese capital Beirut and the week before that it murdered 224 tourists travelling home, when it downed the Russian plane. On October 10th in the Turkish capital Ankara, two Isis suicide bombers detonated themselves outside the railway station, killing 102 people with more than 400 injured. All of these crimes were targeted at ordinary people, especially the young.

This means in the last month alone Isis has killed 503 people and wounded 839 most seriously. This is without the countless numbers they murder every day within the areas they control in Iraq and Syria.

What Paris, Beirut, Ankara and the Russian plane demonstrates is ISIS have no intention of ceasing to attack those it regards as its enemies, whenever and wherever they can. These attacks are not highly sophisticated as the media claimed after Paris. It takes little sophistication or forward planning to put on a suicide vest walk into a crowd and explode it, or spray a restaurant or entertainment venue with automatic rifle fire. It just takes the will of a few fanatics to carry out such barbaric acts. It's made all the easier when the perpetrators expect to be dead when it's all over. Forward planning about escape routes, safe houses, returning weapons used to an arms dump, getaway cars, etc becomes irrelevant and unnecessary. This lack of sophistication is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to stop these attacks.

However distasteful it may be for some folk the only viable option to defeat Isis and end the Syrian civil war is to reach an agreement with the Assad regime. This can only occur if Putin is brought in from the cold. Russia [and Iran] are the only two nations with the necessary clout to make the Syrian President agree to fair and open election being held in an agreeable time frame after the defeat of Isis.

There is little doubt if an agreement was reached with the support of the international community, the Syrian government, its allies, and the Kurdish Peshmerga have the means to defeat Isis in Syria.

Despite what the western mainstream media claims, one should not underestimate the support the Assad regime still has in Syria. Even some of those who demonstrated against Assad before the civil war began have changed their minds somewhat. A Syrian friend told me: Whilst he still doesn't like the regime and given a free vote would vote against it, "At least under it you have the space to live a life unlike in the parts of the country Isis controls."

As an old rogue used to say, "Jaw Jaw is better than war war."

We should not be blinded by the media's coverage of Putin over the last few years, and never overlook how pliable the British media can be when the political wind changes.

For the 20 years prior to the Soviet Union entering WW2, the British newspapers were full of articles spewing hatred and bile upon Stalin, some of it deserved. Once Soviet Russia joined the war against Nazi Germany, he was transformed from public enemy number one, into the gallant ally Uncle Joe, and school children were encouraged to follow the Red Army on their school maps as it advanced towards Germany.

True this support did not outlast the war once the cold war took hold, but it's worth remembering as far as the British ruling class are concerned their enemy's enemy can easily become their friend.

This process is already underway as Simon Tisdall pointed out today in the Guardian:
What a difference a war makes. Twelve months ago, Vladimir Putin was on the menu at the G20 summit in Brisbane. Western leaders queued up hungrily for a piece of Russia’s president following his armed intervention in Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea.
Barack Obama warned Putin he was isolated internationally; David Cameron said he did not trust the Russian leader; Stephen Harper, Canada’s then prime minister, told Putin bluntly: “Get out of Ukraine.”
 
Fast forward a year to last week's G20 summit in Turkey:
And everything, it seems, has changed. Putin was pictured in a friendly huddle, chatting animatedly to Obama and the US national security adviser Susan Rice. He also held reportedly productive talks with Cameron and other leaders. No longer ostracised and browbeaten, Putin was the man everybody wanted to meet.
The reason is not a mystery. Under merciless attack from Islamic State, flailing on the refugee crisis, and consequently desperate to end the war in Syria, European leaders, backed by Obama, have come to an uncomfortable but, in historical terms, not wholly novel conclusion: they need Russia.
 
For the US President Obama and his British braying donkey David Cameron, my enemy's enemy had become my friend:
The White House said Obama and Putin had agreed on the need for a “Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition, which would be preceded by UN-mediated negotiations between the Syrian opposition and regime as well a ceasefire.”  
Obama and Cameron also offered explicit assurances that Russia’s strategic interests in Syria, which include its Mediterranean air and naval bases, would be fully recognised and protected in any settlement.
 
All that seems to be left is the fine detail, which Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader best summed up as the following if Cameron wishes to get it through parliament:
 

"Any extension of the airstrikes should be part of an overall political settlement in Syria and be approved by the UN security council." He added: “It is essential that any military response that might be considered has not only consent, but support of the international community and, crucially, legality from the United Nations."



Indeed.


Although the US assessment made last year which the braying donkey nodded eagerly too, that Putin is an able tactician and a poor strategist now looks hopelessly wide of the mark and we may all live to be thankful for that.

 

1 comment:

  1. Good article but I would add that the US ignores all UN legislation if it does not like it. Russia obeyed the UN's own mandate and only arrived in Syria to render military assistance after receiving a formal request from Assad.

    ReplyDelete