Putin orders withdrawal from Syria
According to The Guardian, The Vlad called Syrain President Bashar al-Assad yesterday and told him that he’ll be withdrawing Russian forces from the fight in Syria for whatever reason;
His move was clearly designed to coincide with the start of Syrian peace talks in Geneva and will be seen as a sign that Russia believes it has done enough to protect Assad’s regime from collapse.
Putin said he had ordered his diplomatic staff to step up their efforts to achieve a settlement to end the civil war which has cost at least 250,000 lives and is due to enter its sixth year on Tuesday.
I guess maybe the politics of the fight were a little too much for Putin to control from Moscow. According to AFP the White House hopes that it’s a signal that Putin is accepting to the idea that Assad can step down from Syria’s throne.
Opposition groups, the United States and key European countries have called on Assad to go as part of a negotiated transition.
“We have talked about how Russia’s continued military intervention to prop up the Assad regime made the efforts to reach a political transition even more difficult,” said [White House spokesman Josh Earnest].
Yeah, I wouldn’t count on Russia to be too helpful in that regard. They started their military participation in September in an attempt to reinforce Assad’s position and I don’t think Putin is willing to throw that investment away. We can be reasonably sure that he wasn’t influenced by anything that the Obama/Kerry team did.
Category: Politics
Pooty Poot pulls out of Syria, wipes off on curtains and heads for home, satisfied. *Tosses 1,500 rubles on the nightstand before slamming the door behind him*.
They’ll “leave” but I’m certain they’ll remain close to help Assad as needed through the process.
His Russian masters aren’t interested in losing control over their facilities in the region and I doubt they will walk away from them. The peace negotiations are designed to keep Assad working from the strong position. Period.
Anything less isn’t worth their investment.
My 1st thought was that Russia will pull out a single mess kit repair platoon in order to claim they are withdrawing troops for the peace talks but would otherwise continue operations. Xbradtc is speculating that Russia may be overstretched with this deployment and is pulling back because they can’t sustain it, which is a valid point. The Russian military is still not what it used to be.
Agreed. The economics suck for Russia right now, and simultaneous operations in the Ukraine & Syria are a significant strain.
They will continue to experience serious issues while the price of oil remains relatively low.
Interesting piece of trivia: right now the US Army is larger than the Russian Army, and has been for some time.
I think I just suffered a moment of clarity. This fucked up administration is more concerned with the ousting of Assad, than they are killing the goat fuckers with the funny acronyms.
I picked a bad day to quit sniffing glue.
The administration authorizing operations to kill terrorists in more places using greater latitude in the authorization of the use of force than any president in history.
So you are flat full of it.
This administration created more terrorists in more places because of the greater latitude in using the “if we ignore it, it will go away” policy of foreign relations.
It’s a shame your father wasn’t issued a withdrawal order.
Lars, Sadaam Hussein and your Daddy have one thing in common, both of them should have pulled out early!
So, this means you’re OK with Israel’s policy of taking out terrorist leadership – e.g., what the media terms “targeted killings”?
I think the Poodle is also okay with the stated object of wiping out the nation of Israel.
Besides, Chechens are more fun to play with on otherwise boring afternoons of not much happening.
It’s flashback time. oBaMa spends a few months hinting around that Assad must go. oBaMa goes to Martha’s Vineyard (Who the hell was Martha, anyway?) for a 10-day vacation. When it ends, he declares, “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” The year? 2011. At the time, it was estimated that some 2,000 Assad opponents had been killed. But oBaMa’s call emboldened many Syrians. The present estimate is 250,000 dead and then there’s that lil refugee issue that isn’t disappearing as Russian military forces do. Ah, the internationalist, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, the designer of the Arab Spring and the drawer of Red Lines. He’ll be gone (and none too soon) and Assad will still be in Syria.
I am pretty confident that a deal was reached where the US and the West would not seek to remove Assad in the next year.
Which makes sense, Obama would not seek to remove him in the final months of his term because it would generate more unpredictable near term consequences in an election year and within the first few months of a new presidency.
If the next President decides removing Assad is on their agenda then we can expect the Russians to go back in. Though I suspect Russia’s willingness to commit troops was sufficient to end any efforts to remove Assad for some time.
2011. Nope.
2012. Nope.
2013. Nope.
2014. Nope.
2015. Nope.
The Obama Administration labors under their misapprehension that the civil war will end when Assad is gone, but I know there will be a bloodbath when the rebels go to war against Assad’s supporters, and then they go to war among themselves to seize control of the power vacuum. Syria is now awash in weaponry as well as the taste of power savored by the various factions. Because Iraq taught us nothing.
Bingo. Getting the toothpaste back in the tube is significantly more difficult than letting it out.
Oh, that isn’t so hard. You only need to pry open the clamped end and drop the toothpaste in through that opening, don’tcha know.
Just think of the compression that occurs when you try squeezing it out again. 😉
Its funny because Russia put the hurt on ISIS in such a short time while the Obama admin is the definition of incompetent.
So far as I know, Bernie Sanders hasn’t killed anyone yet. And that’s probably the nicest thing I will ever be able to say about the Old Commie. Wide Load’s hands are bloodied.