Thanks Steele,

Sorry, I misunderstood you - it pays to read other people's posts fully before rushing in :)

But no, I don't think that the US is going soft on ISIS and hard on Assad, I think it's trying to play a muddled game of going after both at once. And having tried to catch fleas in that way just to get a good night's sleep, I agree that it doesn't work.

Yes, if I understand you correctly, it would have been the best of a huge mess if the Yanks could have worked out some sort of truce between the groups that they support and Assad, in order to combat the far more dangerous enemy, ISIS. Perhaps it's a bit late now.

Clearly, the Russians are going to cream the 'moderates' long before they get stuck into ISIS. They may even not bother about ISIS, just contain them in Syria and come to some dirty deal with them to focus on the Kurds and on Iraq. After all, they may not want to antagonise the Turks by Attacking ISIS, and could 'co-operate' with them in blitzing the Kurds, an unofficial Russia-Assad-Turkey-ISIS coalition against the Kurds. The Turks could probably live with that and I wouldn't put anything past Putin. But on the other hand, he's only got a few years before Russia as a whole goes down the tubes.

It's going to be a turbulent couple of decades :(

Joe

Dear Loudmouth,

No problems, it's happened to me as well.

Thought you might like this little cartoon sent to me by my uncle.

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/pkw4.jpg

Probably not that far from the truth at the moment.

Of course there is little love lost between Putin and the Saudis:

“Monday's terrorist bombings only 400 miles (640 kilometers) away from the site of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, have a geopolitical back story involving implied threats from Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan to Russian President Vladimir Putin last summer when Bandar was pressing Putin to withdraw his backing for the Syrian government.
According to a diplomatic leak detailing the Bandar-Putin meeting in Moscow on July 31, Bandar suggested that Putin's agreement to abandon the government of Bashar al-Assad would lead Saudi Arabia to restrain its Chechen terrorist clients who have been attacking Russia targets for years. Putin reportedly grew furious, interpreting Bandar's offer as a warning that the Sochi games would be threatened by terrorism if Putin didn't comply, according to opednews.com website.”
http://en.alalam.ir/news/1551009

Not that it is all smooth sailing between the Syrians and the Russians;

“Russia's Orthodox Church voiced support for Putin's decision to carry out air strikes in Syria against ISIS, calling it a "holy battle" for protecting the Christians in the region.”

A Syrian opposition leader relied with;

“The Orthodox Church’s call for a holy war in Syria warrants a declaration of jihad. The Orthodox Church described Putin’s battle in Syria as ‘holy’, meaning a crusade war… A ‘holy’ war requires a call for jihad.”

http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/russian-orthodox-church-backs-holy-war-against-isis/article/445605

I would be interested on your opinion regarding the difference between a Holy War and a Jihad. Pretty much the same in my book.

Call it muddled if you like but I think it is widely accepted the US they has been playing silly buggers with ISIS and that the Russians have been far more effective with far fewer weapons in a far shorter span of time. Time will indeed tell.

Hi Steele,

Yeah, when there aren't many 'progressives' around, all the worst reactionary forces come out, don't they ? The Russian Orthodox church has always sided with the most autocratic forces in Russia, from the Tsars right down to, well, the new Tsar: Tsar, Church and State, the unholy trinity of reaction.

But no, I don't think that Russia's strategy is to destroy ISIS, just contain it in Syria: the Iranians will have to do the heavy lifting against ISIS in Iraq and eastern Syria. In fact, we may well see some grumbling by Iran that Russia isn't doing enough against their mortal enemy. i.e. Iran's, not Russia's. Hmmmm, maybe there's an opening there for the Yanks ?

I'm much more worried about what Russia, Assad, Iran, Turkey and ISIS (with covert Saudi support) - yet another unholy alliance - will try to do to the Kurds who, for all their internal squabbles (which I recall from fifty years ago, between the Talabanis and the Barzanis) are the only remotely progressive forces in the entire Middle East.

So yes, clearly holy war = jihad, of the worst sort.

It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Joe