US strategy vis-a-vis the Syria Mess -- our UN diplomacy is royally fucked by the Russkies...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russias-syria-intervention-may-force-choice-on-obama-act-or-yield/2015/10/07/a88f9996-6d16-11e5-9bfe-e59f5e244f92_story.html
Jon Stewart, before he left The Daily Show in August, used to refer to our Iraq imbroglio as the "Mess-o-Potamia"... I wonder what he'd say now!
We "inside-the-Beltway" folks -- even if we're NOT in the Gummint -- are used to getting more such "input" than the rest of you utterly nice people. This article is a perfect example: already on the front page ("above the fold," as newsies like to say), an anonymous "senior official" avers that Russia has made "a strategic error" in taking on Sunni radicals.
Further, "[u]ntil the middle of last month, the [Syrian] opposition - a wide assortment of groups ranging from CIA-trained rebels to non-Islamic State extremists - appeared to be turning the tide against the Syrian military... efforts by the United Nations and others to organize new negotiations, beginning with localized cease-fires, have already begun to fall apart under Russian bombardment...
“'If [the possibility of negotiations] existed until one or two weeks ago, we definitely find ourselves today . . . in a completely different place,' said one international official who has long been involved in the effort." (That's what is cool about the Post: you get not only Washington's TARGETED leaks [the "senior official"] but major UN off-the-record stuff, etc.)
"A cease-fire reached with Iran and Hezbollah to allow aid and evacuation of civilians from Zabadani, west of Damascus near the Lebanese border, has now unraveled 'because of Russian action,' the international official said."
I take it that Ms. DeYoung (a first-rate Post reporter) got much the the foregoing BEFORE Russian cruise missiles in the Caspian Sea hit three major targets in northern Syria yesterday. I think those strikes only accelerate the US/UN political deliberations she describes.
Jon Stewart, before he left The Daily Show in August, used to refer to our Iraq imbroglio as the "Mess-o-Potamia"... I wonder what he'd say now!
We "inside-the-Beltway" folks -- even if we're NOT in the Gummint -- are used to getting more such "input" than the rest of you utterly nice people. This article is a perfect example: already on the front page ("above the fold," as newsies like to say), an anonymous "senior official" avers that Russia has made "a strategic error" in taking on Sunni radicals.
Further, "[u]ntil the middle of last month, the [Syrian] opposition - a wide assortment of groups ranging from CIA-trained rebels to non-Islamic State extremists - appeared to be turning the tide against the Syrian military... efforts by the United Nations and others to organize new negotiations, beginning with localized cease-fires, have already begun to fall apart under Russian bombardment...
“'If [the possibility of negotiations] existed until one or two weeks ago, we definitely find ourselves today . . . in a completely different place,' said one international official who has long been involved in the effort." (That's what is cool about the Post: you get not only Washington's TARGETED leaks [the "senior official"] but major UN off-the-record stuff, etc.)
"A cease-fire reached with Iran and Hezbollah to allow aid and evacuation of civilians from Zabadani, west of Damascus near the Lebanese border, has now unraveled 'because of Russian action,' the international official said."
I take it that Ms. DeYoung (a first-rate Post reporter) got much the the foregoing BEFORE Russian cruise missiles in the Caspian Sea hit three major targets in northern Syria yesterday. I think those strikes only accelerate the US/UN political deliberations she describes.