Middle East Conflict Megathread (Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc)

[Salus Maior]

I mean, I'm an Iranian in the US watching a pro-Assad propaganda video lol.

I'm just saying, there's whole websites in the West dedicated to supporting Assad, and probably the most active political community on the internet (/pol/) is pro-Assad almost universally.

"Whole websites" being dedicated to something in the West isn't really that much of an accomplishment. You can find almost anything on the internet based in the west.

[Baltenstein]

Assad isn't really my personal favorite but....there is no better alternative other than him. Well TEV-DEM got some federalization programs which could help but then again I just hope Aleppo will become the Paris of the Middle East then.

I have serious doubts that anything outside of Israel and maybe the occasional wealthy Gulf state will be called the "(insert nice placee here) of the Middle East" anytime soon.

[Mujahidah]

I mean, I'm an Iranian in the US watching a pro-Assad propaganda video lol.

I'm just saying, there's whole websites in the West dedicated to supporting Assad, and probably the most active political community on the internet (/pol/) is pro-Assad almost universally.

Everyone on /pol/ is hopefully on a watchlist.

[United Muscovite Nations]

I'm just saying, there's whole websites in the West dedicated to supporting Assad, and probably the most active political community on the internet (/pol/) is pro-Assad almost universally.

Everyone on /pol/ is hopefully on a watchlist.

All like 30 million of them?

[The East Marches II]

Everyone on /pol/ is hopefully on a watchlist.

All like 30 million of them?

Yes and also everyone on /r9k/ :^]

[Mujahidah]

Everyone on /pol/ is hopefully on a watchlist.

All like 30 million of them?

Yes. Every single one of them. No Fly.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Us folks on /k/ are the only good citizens, no watchlist plz

[The East Marches II]

Us folks on /k/ are the only good citizens, no watchlist plz

Do you know why the North Hollywood shootout was /k/ as fuck? They fired thousands of rounds, didn't get a kill and fucked it all up. That's why /k/ won't make a watch list.

[Kubra]

All like 30 million of them?

Yes and also everyone on /r9k/ :^]

that's a suicide watchlist tho

[Shofercia]

Moving into things that sort of matter more than pol watch lists, here's a map of the Syrian Civil War by Al Jazeera:



If you have a map from another decent source - I welcome it, but it must be recent; don't post stuff from 2017, as things change rapidly in the Civil War. My comments: ISIS - ouch. They're just being everyone's jobber girl. Bit fun to watch. Also, Assad and Kurds seem to be dividing it up, and I think that sparse area will go to Assad. The white stuff. With the exception of two shrinking pockets, FSA seems to only do well in areas around Turkey and Israel. Rumor says that Russia is going to ensure that Syria plays nice with Israel in the Golan Heights, but that Israel is going to have to let Assad have some fun with FSA. We'll see. And what's Erdogan's deal with FSA? Is he supporting them, or taking their land, or both? Weird.

Thoughts?

[Fahran]

Moving into things that sort of matter more than pol watch lists, here's a map of the Syrian Civil War by Al Jazeera:

(Image)

If you have a map from another decent source - I welcome it, but it must be recent; don't post stuff from 2017, as things change rapidly in the Civil War. My comments: ISIS - ouch. They're just being everyone's jobber girl. Bit fun to watch. Also, Assad and Kurds seem to be dividing it up, and I think that sparse area will go to Assad. The white stuff. With the exception of two shrinking pockets, FSA seems to only do well in areas around Turkey and Israel. Rumor says that Russia is going to ensure that Syria plays nice with Israel in the Golan Heights, but that Israel is going to have to let Assad have some fun with FSA. We'll see. And what's Erdogan's deal with FSA? Is he supporting them, or taking their land, or both? Weird.

Thoughts?

Turkey's principal objective in all of this has been impede the development of an autonomous Kurdish society in the region, especially due to perceived links between the YPG/YPJ and the PKK. Even while operating under the pretext of counteracting Daesh, the Turkish military appears to have focused a significant amount of its attention to bombing, shelling, and fighting with the Kurds. That being said, I do not believe Erdogan would pass on the opportunity to effectively annex Turkish and Sunni dominated regions in Northern Syria if he could plausibly get away with it. He's justified his presence to some extent by claiming that he wants to protect Turkic people's and Turkey from terrorism, never mind that some Syrians of Turkic heritage view the Turkish military as an illegitimate occupying force.

Turkey and the FSA have begun encroaching on Afrin.

Source on at least some Turkmen groups opposing Turkish intervention.

The Seljuq Brigade (former Sultan Selim Brigade member, now Army of Revolutionaries member) and the Manbij Turkmen Battalion (Army of Revolutionaries's Northern Sun Battalion)[31] are Syrian Turkmen groups operating Rojava Syria respectively, unlike other Syrian Turkmen rebel groups, they are allied with the Syrian Democratic Forces and are not supported by Turkey.

[Northern Davincia]

Us folks on /k/ are the only good citizens, no watchlist plz

Do you know why the North Hollywood shootout was /k/ as fuck? They fired thousands of rounds, didn't get a kill and fucked it all up. That's why /k/ won't make a watch list.

You bring great dishonor to my comrades from /e/.

[Painisia]

How long will it be for The Syrian Civil War to end?

[Socialist Czechia]

How long will it be for The Syrian Civil War to end?

It will end rapidly (I suppose in 1 year at most), after comprehensive compromise and treaty between SDF and Syrian government.

Now it's already embarrasing for both the West and the Wahhabists, since Assad's government was buried alive by them since 2012.

Northern parts with Idlib can survive as Turkish protectorate similar to occupation of Cyprus. Which will actually help Syrian state in the long term. You can't have better thing than hated common enemy, as unity insurance policy.

[Pope Joan]

Trump himself wants to pull out, and he should.
Our position there is untenable and unlikely to produce good results from this point on.
Our allies should in fact be our enemies there, since they are all wahabis.
Assad was supportive of Christians and Jews, although one would never know it from the way they treat him now.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to be a terror state in the Golan Heights https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/un ... n-heights/

[Simad]

So, who are the good guys?
Joking, how is the PYD going?

[Shofercia]

Moving into things that sort of matter more than pol watch lists, here's a map of the Syrian Civil War by Al Jazeera:

(Image)

If you have a map from another decent source - I welcome it, but it must be recent; don't post stuff from 2017, as things change rapidly in the Civil War. My comments: ISIS - ouch. They're just being everyone's jobber girl. Bit fun to watch. Also, Assad and Kurds seem to be dividing it up, and I think that sparse area will go to Assad. The white stuff. With the exception of two shrinking pockets, FSA seems to only do well in areas around Turkey and Israel. Rumor says that Russia is going to ensure that Syria plays nice with Israel in the Golan Heights, but that Israel is going to have to let Assad have some fun with FSA. We'll see. And what's Erdogan's deal with FSA? Is he supporting them, or taking their land, or both? Weird.

Thoughts?

Turkey's principal objective in all of this has been impede the development of an autonomous Kurdish society in the region, especially due to perceived links between the YPG/YPJ and the PKK. Even while operating under the pretext of counteracting Daesh, the Turkish military appears to have focused a significant amount of its attention to bombing, shelling, and fighting with the Kurds. That being said, I do not believe Erdogan would pass on the opportunity to effectively annex Turkish and Sunni dominated regions in Northern Syria if he could plausibly get away with it. He's justified his presence to some extent by claiming that he wants to protect Turkic people's and Turkey from terrorism, never mind that some Syrians of Turkic heritage view the Turkish military as an illegitimate occupying force.

Turkey and the FSA have begun encroaching on Afrin.

Source on at least some Turkmen groups opposing Turkish intervention.

The Seljuq Brigade (former Sultan Selim Brigade member, now Army of Revolutionaries member) and the Manbij Turkmen Battalion (Army of Revolutionaries's Northern Sun Battalion)[31] are Syrian Turkmen groups operating Rojava Syria respectively, unlike other Syrian Turkmen rebel groups, they are allied with the Syrian Democratic Forces and are not supported by Turkey.

I think you're right, and it would be interesting to see what he does with Idlib. If he wants more clay, he should go south. If he wants to go after the Kurds, he should go East. Despite his surprising capture of Afrin, I doubt that he can take Idlib and Manbij at the same time. I take it that you're quite unhappy with Erdogan's intervention - and I'm just curious - why, and who are you supporting? Just trying to figure out where everyone's at. I'm not a fan of his Syrian Intervention either.

[Benuty]

I'm just saying, there's whole websites in the West dedicated to supporting Assad, and probably the most active political community on the internet (/pol/) is pro-Assad almost universally.

Everyone on /pol/ is hopefully on a watchlist.

As if that is ever going to happen.

[Shofercia]

How long will it be for The Syrian Civil War to end?

Depends on what you mean by Civil War. For instance, let's take the Second Chechen War. The active phase of the war lasted slightly less than a year, the insurgency phase lasted for six years, and the clean up phase lasted for an additional three years. The active part of Syria's Civil War is going to end within the next three years, and most likely sooner. The insurgency phase - probably within a decade or two.

Trump himself wants to pull out, and he should.
Our position there is untenable and unlikely to produce good results from this point on.
Our allies should in fact be our enemies there, since they are all wahabis.
Assad was supportive of Christians and Jews, although one would never know it from the way they treat him now.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to be a terror state in the Golan Heights https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/un ... n-heights/

I don't understand why the US isn't just content with Iraq, and must dominate Syria as well. It's like the US is trying to act like the Spanish Armada.

So, who are the good guys?
Joking, how is the PYD going?

The Kurds are very dominant in Eastern Syria, you can see that on the map shown above.

[Fahran]

Trump himself wants to pull out, and he should.

The time for an intervention would have been at the onset of this attempted revolution before the FSA devolved into yet another cabal of rabid Islamist fanatics. Given that Assad's forces, heavily supported by Russia, Hezbollah, and Iran, have made such decisive gains, it's too little, too late to do anything to topple Assad. Defending the SDF on the other hand is still a possibility and a very worthwhile one.

Our allies should in fact be our enemies there, since they are all wahabis.

Only the Sith deal in absolutes. We have a multitude of allies in Syria, most of them allies of convenience or for humanitarian reasons. Kurdish nationalists, Arab nationalists, moderate Sunnis, socialists, anarchists, democrats, etc. etc. etc.

Assad was supportive of Christians and Jews, although one would never know it from the way they treat him now.

Syria has multiple policies in place that explicitly discriminate against Jews. For instance, they're officially banned from politics and government employment. They have to be identified as Jewish on their passports, making them the only ethnic or religious minority that has to do so. Lastly, societal persecution is at least somewhat persistent, hence the community continually declining under Assad and his father.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to be a terror state in the Golan Heights

The occupation of the Golan Heights is integral to the maintenance of Israeli sovereignty given its strategic value and the unabated belligerence of the Syrian government and certain Syrian/Lebanese groups towards Israel. Given everything else the UN could be doing at the moment, such a resolution is a farce.

[Fahran]

I think you're right, and it would be interesting to see what he does with Idlib. If he wants more clay, he should go south. If he wants to go after the Kurds, he should go East. Despite his surprising capture of Afrin, I doubt that he can take Idlib and Manbij at the same time.

It'd be so ambitious as to be brash. Then again, I'm surprised the global community hasn't been more vocal in condemning what will almost certainly result in an illegal occupation of Syrian territory and what the SDF has explicitly called an illegal occupation.

I take it that you're quite unhappy with Erdogan's intervention - and I'm just curious - why, and who are you supporting? Just trying to figure out where everyone's at. I'm not a fan of his Syrian Intervention either.

I'm most supportive of the SDF at the moment, given their ability to preserve some semblance of law and order in the territories their governing, their lack of connection to religious extremists, and their promises of representation for ethnic minorities, democracy, and women's rights. I also believe that they're more likely to bring long-term stability to Syria.

[Aulus Maximus]

Assad isn't really my personal favorite but....there is no better alternative other than him. Well TEV-DEM got some federalization programs which could help but then again I just hope Aleppo will become the Paris of the Middle East then.

I have serious doubts that anything outside of Israel and maybe the occasional wealthy Gulf state will be called the "(insert nice placee here) of the Middle East" anytime soon.

A man may dream

[Thermodolia]

Trump himself wants to pull out, and he should.
Our position there is untenable and unlikely to produce good results from this point on.
Our allies should in fact be our enemies there, since they are all wahabis.
Assad was supportive of Christians and Jews, although one would never know it from the way they treat him now.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to be a terror state in the Golan Heights https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/un ... n-heights/

I’m not going to take the UNHRC seriously until SA kicked to the curb

[Shofercia]

I think you're right, and it would be interesting to see what he does with Idlib. If he wants more clay, he should go south. If he wants to go after the Kurds, he should go East. Despite his surprising capture of Afrin, I doubt that he can take Idlib and Manbij at the same time.

It'd be so ambitious as to be brash. Then again, I'm surprised the global community hasn't been more vocal in condemning what will almost certainly result in an illegal occupation of Syrian territory and what the SDF has explicitly called an illegal occupation.

I'm not. Because of the current NATO-SCO stand off, (with both sides pointing fingers and yelling "they started it!") neither side wants to piss off Turkey unless a member is directly attacked. Hence the lack of international condemnation. The other thing is that - what are they going to do? The Russians can sanction Turkey, as can the Americans - and then? Sanctions haven't deterred Erdogan's hawkish foreign policy in the past. Sanctions only work if they're truly global, and precisely targeted. Otherwise they're a joke for cat memes.

I take it that you're quite unhappy with Erdogan's intervention - and I'm just curious - why, and who are you supporting? Just trying to figure out where everyone's at. I'm not a fan of his Syrian Intervention either.

I'm most supportive of the SDF at the moment, given their ability to preserve some semblance of law and order in the territories their governing, their lack of connection to religious extremists, and their promises of representation for ethnic minorities, democracy, and women's rights. I also believe that they're more likely to bring long-term stability to Syria.

Makes sense. Here's a question to someone who primarily supports the SDF. Would you be ok with using the Euphrates River as the division between Ba'ath Syria and the SDF? If so - what should be done with the 3 SDF clusters West of the Euphrates, and the 3 Government clusters East of the Euphrates?

Trump himself wants to pull out, and he should.
Our position there is untenable and unlikely to produce good results from this point on.
Our allies should in fact be our enemies there, since they are all wahabis.
Assad was supportive of Christians and Jews, although one would never know it from the way they treat him now.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to be a terror state in the Golan Heights https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/un ... n-heights/

I’m not going to take the UNHRC seriously until SA kicked to the curb

Oh come on! You knew you enjoyed those be-heading jokes

(Saudi Arabia be-heading the UNHRC )

[Pope Joan]

How long will it be for The Syrian Civil War to end?

Depends on what you mean by Civil War. For instance, let's take the Second Chechen War. The active phase of the war lasted slightly less than a year, the insurgency phase lasted for six years, and the clean up phase lasted for an additional three years. The active part of Syria's Civil War is going to end within the next three years, and most likely sooner. The insurgency phase - probably within a decade or two.

Trump himself wants to pull out, and he should.
Our position there is untenable and unlikely to produce good results from this point on.
Our allies should in fact be our enemies there, since they are all wahabis.
Assad was supportive of Christians and Jews, although one would never know it from the way they treat him now.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to be a terror state in the Golan Heights https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/un ... n-heights/

I don't understand why the US isn't just content with Iraq, and must dominate Syria as well. It's like the US is trying to act like the Spanish Armada.

So, who are the good guys?
Joking, how is the PYD going?

The Kurds are very dominant in Eastern Syria, you can see that on the map shown above.

I suspect that our Friends, Israel and Saudi Arabia, want us to purge the region of Shiites. Ideally this means destroying Iran, but a helpful first step in that direction would be to replace Assad with a client state. This would also disrupt Hezbollah's supply routes.