Excellent cogent analysis!

As you say, the only ethnic in the woodpile is the very real possibility that Putin becomes endlessly embroiled in an increasingly expensive war. And to be sure, the US can be depended on to help make that very potential outcome a real one.

And all the reason the Saudis need to keep ramping up their oil production?
Rhrosty.

The Russians will win this war, because their objectives are clear, they have a easy story to tell because the compared to the Islamic state Assad's secular government looks like the good guys. Look at the chaos of the Arab spring elsewhere.

The West on the other hand are essentially arming terrorist. There is no way now for the west goal of a democratic secular government to emerge in Syria. We need to drop our loose alliance with Turkey and Saudi Arabia and understand they are part of the problem not the fix.

Comrade Putin

He too shrewd to get embroiled in Middle East failures. Failures is for mista Obama and little followers' specialty.

Comrade Putin kick butt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3tiYD9niFY

Isn't that right James?

Bashar Al Assad is obviously popular with Syrians and his is the internationally recognised legitimate government. Western powers, particularly the USA have been vilifying it and supporting terrorists to try and overthrow it because they want their own puppets and stooges in power who will allow their banksters, corporations and military industrial complex a free hand. They particularly want to build a pipeline across Syria to transport Qatari gas to Europe and take some of the market from the Russians. The "US led coalition" has been in Syria and Iraq pretending to fight terrorists they have been covertly supporting. They have no legal right to be in Syria without permission from the recognised government, which the Russians have. The Russian action against the terrorists has blatantly exposed what has been going on. They need to stop terrorists in Syria in self interest. Especially after what happened in Libya. Otherwise ultimate US aims of "regime change" in Iran, former Soviet states and Russia will eventually happen. All this is obvious to those who thanks to the Internet have been able to keep an eye on what has been going on according to news sources from Russia, Syria and Iran especially as well as or instead of lies peddled by Western mainstream media. Note some of the best informed critics of US policies come from US or other western countries.

Hi Mox,

Thank you for that official Syrian regime position.

So demonstrations across the Middle East in early 2011 - the 'Arab Spring' - mean nothing. A quarter of a million Syrians killed in those five years mean nothing. Half the country's population displaced and moving into Europe means nothing. Everybody loves Bashar.

Back to reality - the Russians have come to the aid of Assad to protect their own - and only - Mediterranean naval base at Tartus.

The usual fragmentation of political forces in Middle Eastern countries - secular dictatorship, Islamist dictatorship, and baby steps towards democracy - has degenerated into a multi-sided struggle to grind the Syrian people - and their hard-built cities, some many thousands of years old - into the dust.

Clearly, Assad and the Russians are wiping out those tiny 'baby steps', and will, soon enough, find themselves on the same side as the US and its allies in Iraq, fighting against the worse and even more reactionary enemy, ISIS. Once the US and its allies have contributed to the destruction of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, say in the next five years, it will withdraw, leaving Assad and the Russians to resume a dictatorship over what is left of the Syrian people.

Yep, Australia is one hell of a lucky country.

Joe

Loudmouth

The Syrian people you refer to.

Were they always historically Sunni Muslims.
Or did they overrun Syria at the time of the
Ottoman Empire. The ones overrunning Europe at the moment
Are Sunni Muslims.

Going back in history,who are the legitimate Syrian people?
This question bothers me
I'm not sure we can judge this war unless we know that.

Where did the Allawarte tribe around Assad originate?
(Not sure of the correct spelling of the Allawarte tribe)

Also, it was the Sunni Muslims who flooded Damascus streets
In an uprising. It was then Aasad responded with admittedly
Extreme force.

But as we'Ve seen in Europe it's pretty hard to hold
Big crowds back with soft measures.

I'm not convinced that Putin had made the wrong choice in his defence of the
Syrian people around Assad.

Watching a reporter in Damascus a few weeks ago the city
Was very peaceful and well run. And as one army supporter of Assad
Said to the Reporter. "What do you expect us to do with the rebels?
Send them flowers". He said, we will fight until our families in
Damascus are safe."

First report I'd ever seen from the Assad side of the war.

It's all been one sided before. America always gets it bloody wrong
So I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they are doing this time.

Remember that Syria is a secular country. Not an Islamic republic or aspiring to be one. Assad's family is apparently involved with the Alawite sect of Shia Islam, which some claim is not involved in any terrorist organisations. Seems he has a lot of support from Christians and many Sunni Muslims in Syria. The religious terrorists are largely Wahhabi sect of Sunnis.

The Yanks and others have long been trying to get rid of this government which acts in interests of Syrians rather than their own. The Russian intervention blatantly exposed what had been going on. A good analogy from an observer from a Middle Eastern country: Yanks are like someone who covertly sets fire to your house. They then come racing around pretending to help fight the fire. However, the real reason is to loot and try and set up opportunities for further theft in future. At least now with alternate news sources from the Western mainstream media and also the social media becoming readily available to millions of people thanks to the Internet, dirty deeds of governments and others can quickly gain wider exposure than ever before.

The situation in the Middle East is a great deal more complex than one would know from reading the mainstream press. The grossly oversimplified portrayals of Syria, the role of the Russians, the machinations of Saudi Arabia and Turkey and particularly the overarching ambitions of American hegemony are reflected in articles and comments such as the above. The role of Israel is a blank as far as most Australian commentators are concerned and the appalling tripe of Singer on this website is only one of many examples.

Can I respectfully suggest a little further reading for those who wish to challenge their biases and presumptions? Start with Hersh's two recent articles in the London Review of Books , 17 April 2014 and 7 January 2016. Then read Robert Kennedy Jnr's Syria: Another Pipeline War published on EcoWatch 25 February 2016.

Having absorbed their information by all means feel free to comment again on Syria and the wider Middle East. Please spare us your views in the meantime.

Hi Cherful,

How far back do you want to go ? Syria's history is pretty limitless, with a multitude of ethnic groups who have been there for yonks (as in most peasant societies), and countless invasions from every direction: the first r4ecorded battle between two powers was fought there between the Hittites and the Egyptians more than 3,300 years ago. Maybe one ay, some organisation will set to work compiling two encyclopedias: (a) the history of Syria's ethnic groups; and (b) the historical account of battles fought in what is now Syria.

So we probably have to take Syria as it is now, in 2016:

* in terms of religion, mostly Sunni, with a minority who are Shi'ite, of which a minority are Alawite, and a minority of Christians (of many denominations), Druse, Yazidi, et5c., etc.;

* in terms of ethnicity, Syrians/Syriacs, Kurds, Turkmens, Greeks, Turks, Cypriots, Egyptians, Bedouin, Arabs, Azeris, Armenians, Palestinians, etc. etc.

That's how it is in peasant societies: a multitude of semi-independent villages with histories going back thousands of years, and the overlay of the legacy of conquests, refugee flights, migrations and colonisations. That's the reality they have to come to terms with. But each group is usually too weak and jealous of its 'special rights' to come together to challenge the power of the dominant groups, which currently happen to be based on a secular group of Alawites, necessarily exerting a dictatorship over all other Syrians.

A bit like a dozen omelettes thrown together, all inextricably bound by history and geography and fated to sort out their problems together, sooner or later.

Joe

Loudmouth
Thanks for your interesting historical portrait of Syria,
A complicated picture indeed.

I really wish we didn't have to be involved in it.

With satellite TV in these modern times
It is easy to be swayed by one or two graphic
Pictures beamed into our lounge rooms
without the media doing any real research into
what is really behind it all.

So the West blunders into these conflicts and ends up
With egg on their face.

Scrambled eggs,

It doesn't eggsactly, set a good eggsample

Sorry, couldn't resist, the egg jokes