The Arab Spring

That was my response. It seems that someone down there started shooting or something, it may be spillover from the fight between the IDF and SAA, that or it's connected to the anti-ceasefire protests a bit back, I'm not sure. Either way the IDF seem to be going ham and bombing Assad heavily.

I guess we're only allowed one working ceasefire at a time or something?

Britain's Libya intervention flawed, Cameron to blame - MPs

I'm more interested in how exactly are we surrounding Aleppo with so few troops. We didn't exactly send a proper expeditionary corps to Syria, you know.

You certain on that? Because the reports of Russian troops seem pretty solid, though it could be Russian troops leading other troops.

That's most likely it: Russian "advisors" overseeing the ceasefire to make sure that Assad doesn't do anything stupid again.

So the Libya intervention is basically Britain's equivalent to GWB's Operation Iraqi Freedom?

edited 14th Sep '16 2:01:24 PM by MarqFJA

No, Britain also took part (and was deeply involved) in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Mind you, Britain fought several Wars in Iraq. One was during World War II, when the Iraqi Government sided with the Nazis.

edited 14th Sep '16 2:04:30 PM by Greenmantle

I call bunk on the report. Looks more like an anti-intervention rant than an actual understanding of the situation on the ground. Gaddafi was a madman. He may not have been an Islamist, but he was functionally no different in terms of threat to people. The only thing that report gets right is that the post-conflict stability response was poor.

Seems like omission bias has struck again - people don't seem to realize that not removing Gaddafi will result in harm as well.

Yeah remember that that's a politicians report not an expert's one, it exists to give politicians political cover and nobody wants to be pro-intervention right now.

They're right on the post-war had dealing being poor, but that doesn't mean the intervention didn't do more good than harm.

I've seen the general argument that as bad as Libya is right now, it's nowhere near as bad as Syria (since there's no Gaddafi and his air force to carpet-bomb cities); also, the point that the Libyan Civil War kicked off about three years after Gaddafi died.

If the amount of effort going to stabilize Syria was going into Libya, the war there would already be over I feel.

As it happens, it seems due to Haftar being the only thing keeping the Eastern government in power, and Hafar, in turn, being protected by Egypt and the UAE for counter terrorism purposes, its a bit slower going.

Still, once Sirte is fully free of Daesh and Libya as a whole has removed AQ/Daesh out of the picture, I feel things might get easier.

A federal government is needed though. Tripoli and Misrata have no chance of ruling Benghazi.

It helps that there are significantly fewer outside powers that have any interest in Libya unlike Syria. It is still very difficult to get the different parties to the table, but without Russia, Iran and Co. a compromise seems possible down the line.

Agreed,

It also helps that Libya has about a third of Syria's overall population, and is also relatively homogenous. The conflict really is just a matter of overcentralization and tribal differences, which federalism would make better.

Peshmerga delegation visiting Finland to discuss ISIS war

This happened very quietly and under the radar, only a few reports of it in Finland.

Why so hush hush?

Perhaps because Finland doesn't want to get overly involved in this war for political reasons.

Also, I agree that Libya is sorta kinda a success story for Western interventionism, in the sense that things there are merely bad nowadays instead of abysmally horrible like they would've been had Gadaffi not been removed from power.

edited 16th Sep '16 1:27:20 PM by KnitTie

The government sees this as a fight against ISIS rather than anything else, so they specifically went with the Peshmerga. Actual foreign experience for the volunteer reservists and professional special forces in future operations. Also avoiding getting into the pissing contest between US and Russia. Reasons are many, certainties are few.

Politics and security interests in Finland mix here as with any other country.

edited 17th Sep '16 5:41:24 AM by TerminusEst

Makes sense.

In other news, it seems the ceasefire is already in trouble. Both the US and Russia are blaming each other of course, but the simple fact of the matter is that if the aid still doesn't get through in a few days, the ceasefire will collapse completely.

So back to square one. Figures.

Not even square one. If this falters, Obama is likely washing his hands of this. Whoever is next as president can decide what to do, which means from now til at least November, everyone outside of the regime is truely on their own.

Obama might wash his hands of the conflict with Assad but he's not going to walk away from the fight against ISIS, which means that the Kurds will continue to get support.

edited 17th Sep '16 8:58:52 PM by Silasw

Well thats a given. I was only talking about the Assad v rebels thing.

It was an impossible task without having a final settlement agreement (or a framework for one) in place beforehand. They can't be neutral arbiters of a ceasefire and no-fly zone if they're on the opposite sides of the conflict, not unless they're in general agreement on how the conflict should end, like a US commitment to Russian naval concessions in Latakia and immunity for Assad on war-crimes charges in exchange for the Russians agreeing to regime change and Iraqi-style federalism, or something.

I'm fairly sure we'll have no problem handing Assad over to the Hague on a silver platter once the US gives us some other concessions.

In other news, this happened.