The Arab Spring

Yes I have, it makes Al Jazeera English comment section look tame.

The funniest thing on the internet is anything that brings India and Pakistan together in the same comment section.

It's like seeing the face of God. A really shit god.

edited 8th Feb '16 11:51:33 AM by Achaemenid

Is that an actual quote? Jesus. I was going to say that there's no way those Indian commenters could be worse than WW 2 discussions on Russian Livejournal, but it looks like I stand corrected.

edited 8th Feb '16 12:04:04 PM by KnitTie

To be fair, I wouldn't even dream of foisting the average Malaysian Facebook geopolitics expert on you people either.

They're doing an extremely good job of imitating the Arab penchant for conspiracy theories.

The military forums are, if possible, worse. I go there some times to see the general idea of what the jingos think when something happens to the Pak military (or if the Indian military is making some purchase gone horribly wrong like usual), but I can only tolerate it for a few minutes at a time. That said, it ain't like comment boards elsewhere aren't as bad...

Anyway, I only asked about more Arabs in the hope of people on Marq's level could give insight into countries outside the Arabian peninsula. I accept that that will be very unlikely to happen.

Back to the topic. It seems the towns of Ibtaa and Da'el south of Sheikh Makshin have surrendered in hope of not being destroyed by air strikes. This has given the SAA full control of the road leading to Daraa city. Note that its only field reports right now, so it could be incorrect.

In other Syrian news, it seems the Kurds have issued an ultimatum to the rebels holding Menagh Air Base (remember the days when that was a thing?) to surrender in exchange for free passage. Seems the rebels are arguing amongst themselves whether to do so. Also a field report, so who knows if its true.

edited 8th Feb '16 12:04:53 PM by FFShinra

You mean defence.pk? That one's impressively insane, I remember how they pretty much danced a jig when the Indian Air Force decided to kick up a fuss about those PAK FA fighters.

They also still think that Russia will end up a Muslim-majority country in the next decade or so.

edited 8th Feb '16 12:11:32 PM by KnitTie

I am indeed referring to that site. And I recall all that you describe. <shudder>

Right, so to get back to Syria, I've looked at maps and analyses, both in Russian and in English, to get the general feeling of the flow of war in the recent months, and it appears that the rebels have rather suddenly shifted from holding their ground to losing quite badly on several fronts - Aleppo, Dara'a and even Latakia, to some extent. I wonder if that's due to attrition finally kicking in.

edited 8th Feb '16 12:48:14 PM by KnitTie

Did someone already post this?

Also, small side note on Yemen, a major AQAP leader (Jalal Baleedi) was killed, along with two bodyguards, by a drone strike on his vehicle. AQAP has me worried; it seems like they're more or less just rampaging all over the place as the Houthis and Saudi-backed government fight, while the Saudis remain worse than useless.

edited 8th Feb '16 12:52:26 PM by Nihlus1

Yeah, a couple pages back. That was where me and Silas were hoping they'd choose the Kurds, but likely they'll bow to the Turks. -_-

As for AQAP, you should worry. The government forces in the Hadhramaut are laughable at best and only on paper at worst, and its only a matter of time before they do more than probe westward as they have been. Aden is not going to be an easy nut for them to crack thankfully...but that doesn't mean the Hirak can just keep pretending they want Hadi around and wait til after the war to do anything.

edited 8th Feb '16 12:58:42 PM by FFShinra

Ah, alright. It makes sense that they would. Turkey is a major middle power, while the Syrian Kurds are still basically just a militia. Though IMO this is just bluster, and no one's actually going to have to choose. He's only chosen to call out his allies after they've already showered the Syrian Kurds in support and after it's basically been confirmed that they'll get a decent peace deal, short of the Turks invading.

edited 8th Feb '16 12:59:17 PM by Nihlus1

Normally I'd agree. Depends on what the Russians are doing/will do with the Kurds though, as that might change Erdogan's calculations.

edited 8th Feb '16 1:00:11 PM by FFShinra

Thinking about it I'm starting to wonder that the response will be nothing, the US will simply refuse to pick a side.

The Turks don't have many options then, they can't actually move away from being a US ally, that'd hurt to much for them, threatening to be a bigger pain to the EU over refuges won't hurt the US (and I'm not sure that Turkey can even be a bigger pain without hurting itself), the only real options I see for Turkey are invading Syria and revoking the US right to use Turkish airbases. Losing the Turkish airbases would hurt but not as much as loosing the Kurds (especially as the US has an airbase in Syria from the Kurds now doesn't it? Plus the British Cyprus bases). So that leaves a Turkish invasion, which would hurt the US how?

It's not like Turkey can threaten to buddy up to Russia or Iran if the US doesn't do as it says.

All very true.

Turkey's dun goofed in this war. Short of committing a lot of skin in this game, they've lost.

@Knit

Enjoy. The whole comments section is like that.

edited 8th Feb '16 1:17:05 PM by Achaemenid

Ach, thank you for leading me to that comments section. It's almost like Polandball leaking into the mainstream.

But what's preventing Turkey from invading Syria and making the rebels win in the most direct way possible, or at the very least establishing a safe zone for them? Lack of commitment? Russia? Even if Russia decides to escalate the conflict in response, which is absolutely not guaranteed considering the very high risk/benefit ratio of getting into a proper war for the Kremlin right now, it won't be able to match Turkey due to the sheer difference in the ability to project force into the region - Russia's expeditionary capabilities leave much to be desired, while Turkey is literally just across the border

To be fair, this being Youtube kinda takes the kick out of the inanity. You don't expect to find cleanliness in a pigsty, after all.

edited 8th Feb '16 2:25:12 PM by KnitTie

I doubt Ankara wants to pay the bill; be it in money, lives, or domestic opinion.

This.

And Ankara has its hands full with their own Kurds.

So it's all bark, no bite from Ankara? They sure bark loudly, though, Russian media has been having a field day reporting all the posturing and accusations Turkey has unleased on Russia ever since that plane went down, so I thought that maybe the Turks really are as committed to winning the Syrian war as they claim to be.

Nah, they could maybe get away with some limited raids or something, but a full scale invasion just seems like madness, they'd have to have US support to cover for them diplomatically. Actually strait up invading into the middle of someone else's civil war and toppling the regime is a big thing, sure the US can get away with it Russia could probably also manage, but Turkey? Without any support from the US?

Other nations grumble and moan when a superpower throws this weight around like that, but nothing can realy be done to hurt a superpower, but a mid sized regional power? They can be hurt, they can be stopped and they can be punished.

Not to mention that attempting such a thing would earn them a conflict of two fronts, and I doubt Turkey can risk losing peace in the Black Sea.

There's nothing we can do to 'win' anymore, not that there was much to win to begin with. We picked the wrong side, sided with our 'allies' US, who unlike us have no problems with working with PKK, enemy of the Turkish people.

The results of this shortsightedness by Erdoğan's government has been disastrous. The US policy has collapsed, and we're taking the fall. We should never have meddled with another country's internal affairs.

edited 8th Feb '16 4:47:35 PM by amateur55

Don't blame the US for Turkish policy. Erdogan was perfectly capable of staying neutral (as Jordan, another US ally, had and has continued to do, despite having a worse relationship with Syria than Turkey pre-war).

edited 8th Feb '16 5:09:28 PM by FFShinra

I'm blaming Erdoğan for blindly following the US policy.