Russia Ready To Send Paratroopers To Syria

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-04/russia-ready-send-paratroopers-syria

Russia Ready To Send Paratroopers To Syria


Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/04/2015 10:56 

 





     

 
As Syria’s civil war enters its fourth year, it’s become something of an open secret that ISIS, for all their bluster and Hollywood-level video editing capabilities, are at best an unhappy side effect of efforts to train and arm the Syrian resistance and at worst, are a "strategic asset" funded and supported by coalition governments. 
In other words, there is indeed a geopolitical chess match going on here that will have far-reaching consequences when the blood and dust settle, but it has nothing to do with ISIS’ far-fetched quest to establish a Medieval caliphate and everything to do with installing a government in Syria that will be more friendly to the interests of the West and its Middle Eastern allies. 
ISIS will remain in play as long as they are necessary, but once the time comes for the US to clean up the mess left by Syria’s three-front war once and for all, that will be all she wrote for this particular CIA asset. Until then, everyone apparently gets to use Islamic State as an excuse to pursue their own political agenda, as evidenced by Turkey’s new war on "terrorists." Not wanting to miss an opportunity to justify what would otherwise be a rather brash declaration, Russia is reportedly ready to send in the paratroopers should Syria request Moscow’s help in battling terrorist elements. Here’s more via Tass:

Quote :

The Russian Airborne Troops are ready to assist Syria in countering terrorists, if such a task is set by Russia’s leaders, commander of the Airborne Troops Colonel-General Vladimir Shamanov told reporters on Tuesday.
 

(USSR paratroopers ca. 1975)
 
"Of course we will execute the decisions set forth by the country’s leadership, if there is a task at hand," Shamanov said, in response to a Syrian reporter’s question about the readiness of the Russian Airborne Troops to render assistance to Syria’s government in its battle against terrorism.
 
Shamanov noted that Russia and Syria have "long-term good relations." "Many Syrian experts, including military, received education in the Soviet Union and in Russia," Shamanov added.
 

In other words, two (or three, or four) can play at the "use ISIS as an excuse to go to war with our real enemies" game and just like the US can send in trainers and "forward spotters" to protect its interests in Iraq, so too can Russia send in a few airborne troops to protect its interests in Damascus. 
It’s now only a question of political will and as we’ve outlined on a few occasions recently, it’s not entirely clear how much longer Vladimir Putin is willing to support Bashar al-Assad in the face of the debilitating, Saudi-engineered slump in crude prices and the biting economic sanctions imposed on the Kremlin by Europe.

Obama Authorizes War on Assad, Congress AWOL

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Daniel McAdams
Lew Rockwell Blog
August 4, 2015
When the first group of US-trained fighters were inserted into Syria on Friday, Washington experienced a great shock. Tasked with fighting alongside al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, the Nusra Front, Washington’s newest proxy army in Syria was expected be welcomed by the group.  Instead, Washington’s proxies, known as Division 30, were attacked by the Nusra Front with several fighters taken hostage. Quoting a senior Obama Administration official, the New York Times reported that Washington “expected the Nusra Front to welcome Division 30 as an ally in its fight against the Islamic State.”
Said another US official: “This wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
Let’s pause for a moment and think about US strategy in Syria. Fourteen years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, it is official Washington policy to create armed and trained al-Qaeda allies in Syria. Yes, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
The attack on Washington’s proxy army shocked Washington’s “experts,” but it did not shock them enough to re-think the four year long effort to oust Syrian President Assad. It was this effort, of course, which created the atmosphere in which ISIS has over-run much of the country and threatens to take the rest of it as well. There was no ISIS in Syria before the US decided on regime change. This is similar to Iraq, where it was only the US invasion that produced a working al-Qaeda presence in the country. There was no al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the US “liberation.”
But as according to past practices in Washington, when a particular foreign policy produces results counter to stated goals it not time to re-think the strategy but to double-down.
Therefore, as the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend, President Obama has for the first time authorized the US military to attack Syrian government forces if they threaten Washington’s regime change army. The battle has been joined.
While it has been expected that Turkey’s opening up Incirlik airbase to US jets attacking ISIS in Syria signaled a move toward a “no-fly zone” in a small part of northern Syria, President Obama has upped the ante considerably and declared that the Syrian military is a fair target wherever it roams inside the country.
This move is a declaration of war on Syria, while Congress continues to be completely uninterested in its Constitutional obligations. Indeed in this new war it is Congress that is AWOL.


This article was posted: Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 5:50 am