The Arab Spring

Russia has already used some very strong terms to condemn the recently discovered massacre. The UNSC voted unanimously on the condemnation of it, so even China didn't have the chutzpah to refrain or vote "no." In the recent joint press conference between the ambassadors of the UK and Russia, both parties said that this kind of shit has to stop. (Not an accurate quotation.) Even the Russians said that it's very clear whodunnit.

A while ago, when the Annan Plan was introduced, Medvedev said that it was "Assad's final test" and he fucking flunked it. The Annan Plan initially set a certain date for a ceasefire, and the opposition did cease fire on that date. Assad's troops followed suit, two days late. During those two days, Medvedev denounced Assad.

In the press conference I mentioned, the Russian ambassador said that Russia doesn't really care who ends up in control of Syria, so long as the violence and repression stops and the country becomes democratic. Hypocricy, I know, but still.

This really looks like they're abandoning Assad, and without Russia he's not really got any legs to stand on that the opposition and the West together couldn't sweep from under him.

There's still China, but it's unlikely that China would be willing to be the only country in the UNSC still supporting Assad. That's some major PR failure if they do that shit. With Russia and China working as a bloc, neither side took unbearable amounts of flak. Alone, it's more trouble than it's worth. China might still choose to try to save Assad, but it's very doubtful that the Chinese would think it prudent to take that course, when they can instead just follow Russia and go to the "no vote" camp or just go all the way and vote for any resolution that the West puts to the vote.

So, China is still a doubt, but all signs from Russia point towards Putin having finally reached the end of his patience. Assad is simply not worth protecting any more, when he doesn't seem able to keep ruling his country even if the opposition doesn't start winning battles or anything. He's losing control, and Russia and China are looking at it all and calculating.

edited 29th May '12 8:43:26 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

I don't know... Yesterday, Russia was still on with the lame "militant terrorist third-party" excuse.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

That's not at all what the Russian ambassador was saying in that press conference. And that was yesterday.

Assad's people in the UN said that the victims in that massacre were killed from short range, which isn't something you'd do with tanks and artillery. But everyone else said that the government's forces are doing long and short range attacks, which kinda makes sense. It's not as if the armed forces are expelled from anywhere. It's entirely possible to have the army shelling the city from afar with artillery while in another part of the city the armed forces are butchering people. It doesn't take a whole lot of co-ordination to fire at one part of the city and have your forces operate in another part of it.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

IMHO, it's rather "Russia doesn't really care who ends up in control of Syria, so long as they keep loaning a naval base to the Kremlin"...

Thus the bet: will it be a Russian force bombing the hell out of Assad with NATO's benediction (and forward observers to check on the VVS' capabilities) or will NATO start Libya II "This time, it's personal"?

Honestly, if it goes down again the G-Man's way, I hope this topic will be as active as last year, because, people, the coverage you gave to this civil war was far better than any large media outlet I saw. A true Crowning Moment Of Awesome.

[Mode Heartless Capitalist ON]And if it comes soon enough, it could be another great ad for the European planes, which could help them being sold abroad, thus reducing slightly the damages of the whole crisis.

As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero.

On a related topic, the Al-Arabiya news channel has a nice commerical ad these days: First-person view through the eyes of what is persumed to be a random Syrian anti-Assad activist/protestor running through the halls of a rather devastated building in what's probably one of the besieged and battered-with-artillery-fire towns, who gets knocked off his feet by a strong explosion rocking the building he's in, then he takes out his ringing cellphone, and its screen (which displays the Arabic words "AL-ARABIYA") shows a message saying (in Arabic) something along the lines of "REGIME FORCES ARE SURROUNDING YOUR LOCATION. GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE FROM THERE NOW." The guy then pockets the phone and runs out through a side exit, and into a backalley. Cue fade to black.

It's an ad for their cellphone service, if you didn't deduce it by now.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Finally found an online source for who was expelling diplomats. The BBC puts the list of countries at: The United States, France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Switzerland. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18252818

There is still a part of me that thinks with Russia blocking everything in the UN (even with their current softening) someone in the region may just do something anyway. If similar massacres start happening in the north, then Turkey may well decide 'screw it' and do something. Not to mention that fact that Qatar and Saudi Arabia are almost certainly arming the rebels by this point.

Now in Egypt: The HQ of Ahmed Shafiq (the man who was Prime Minster under Mubarak) has been set on fire. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18246317

At the same time the Muslim Brotherhood candidate has made a pitch for the centre ground. I'm reckoning that he's trying to win the backing of some of the more liberal candidates, who got knocked out in the first round. If he can get their backing then he might well be able to form a kind of anti SCARF grouping. So far he's spoken about how

"Women have a right to freely choose the attire that suits them."

"Our Christian brothers, they are partners in the nation. They will have full rights that are equal to those enjoyed by Muslims."

and how he might appoint a Coptic Christian as a presidential advisor or maybe a vice-president. That combined with him wanting to create a "broad coalition" and making statements like "I stress to all people that the presidency... will never be individual," "Rather, the presidency will be an institution." says to me that he's trying to pick up the votes of the young revolutionaries and distance himself from the more 'radical' wings of the Muslim Brotherhood, by being (or appearing to be) inclusive. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18252938

I thought I had read a post about it before, but when I looked I couldn't find one. That’ll teach me to look more thoroughly, though I would point out that no one commented on it before, so it probably deserves reposting.

edited 29th May '12 5:55:01 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

You're a whole page too late in reporting the fire attack on Shafiq's HQ, Silasw

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

I'm pretty sure that the last time it was mentioned, there was no certainty that the HQ was indeed the building that was burning, just that a building was in fire at the same time as the protestors were accumulating around the HQ.

edited 29th May '12 8:20:23 PM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Well the idea of Russia going "FUCK YOU ASSAD, WE'RE OUTTA HERE was nice while it lasted.

To be honest it was bloody stupid of anyone to suggest intervention. Even saying the word around the Russians was going to result in them ruling it out. If Hollande has kept his mouth shut, then given time, the Russians might have been convinced. Now they have publicly ruled it out, doing that will be much harder.

In better news Turkey has expelled their Syrian diplomats. However what really interests me in that article is this.

Hopefully this is the first of several diplomatic resignations. It cost Gaddafi big time when he lost his UN team, a similar event for Syria could be just as damaging.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

The U.S. isn't the only country that can pull off discreet regime engineering. I wouldn't be surprised if Russian military planners were considering a quiet and direct option.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Another 13 executed bodies found in Syria - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18271184

So soon after the last one, that isn't doing Assad any favours.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

Has the Syrian military locked itself into panic-mode?

I imagine they're trying to change the demographics as fast as they can before it becomes Bosnia in a couple of weeks/months.

In the most despicable way humanly possible.

Technically on-topic.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

The Egyptian state of emergency is supposed to end at midnight:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18283635

Assuming they're not bullshitting, all I can say is that nothing of value was lost.

The US is sabre-rattling in response to Russian support for Assad.

"Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, bluntly criticised Russia's continued backing for President Bashar al-Assad's regime yesterday. This support was illustrated last night by the disclosure that a Russian cargo ship carrying weapons had docked in Syria last Saturday, one day after the massacre in Houla which claimed at least 108 civilian lives...

...Earlier, Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the UN, said that Russia's veto-wielding membership of the Security Council would not necessarily prevent international action. If the violence worsened and the peace plan proposed by Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, made no progress, some countries would consider whether to bypass Russian and Chinese opposition in the UN."

I see trial balloons going up...

China's stance is at least less hypocritical. The Russians, with their cheerful profiteering off of this situation, are pretty disgusting. They're not even trying to diffuse the situation. They proposed the Annan plan, then when it failed just shrugged and kept selling weapons.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

The Russians are sending Assad weapons?

Well now. Somebody needs to punch Russia in the face.

"Can ye fathom the ocean, dark and deep, where the mighty waves and the grandeur sweep?"

A good analysis of the complexities involved in the situation in Syria.

"...A few days earlier, at the G8 summit at Camp David, Obama had reiterated his call for Assad to relinquish power, but the Russians continue to regard the Syrian President as he represents himself, as a force of stability. Mikhail Margelov, speaking for Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, said, “One cannot avoid a question: if Assad goes, who will replace him?” The hawks have no answer, nor, for that matter, does anybody else, including the main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, a coalition of seven infighting factions—ranging from Christians to Kurds to the Muslim Brotherhood—composed almost entirely of exiles, whose only consistent demand is for international military intervention. The Free Syrian Army, an equally unlikely group, shares that goal, but has lately turned against the S.N.C., which now purports to be forming its own military wing..."

So the entire country is on the path to splintering.

Why the split between the Free Syrian Army and the SNC? I heard about it, but haven't gotten details on the cause.

They've been doing that for a while now, bud. The only thing that's surprising now is that they're apparently doing it overtly, instead of through covert channels. It's like they don't even care about the diplomatic/international backlash on them from that revelation.

edited 31st May '12 8:09:30 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

As far as I can tell, the Egyptian state of emergency is officially over.

No news yet, of course, but that seems good. If they were going to keep it going it seems like they would've done it already.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Yet another massacre in Syria - 13 factory workers have been forced off a bus and shot dead. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18293155

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.