Less than one third of the opposition forces are "palatable" to Britain...less for US.

[dkf]

Opposition forces battling Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria now number around 100,000 fighters, but after more than two years of fighting they are fragmented into as many as 1,000 bands.

The new study by IHS Jane's, a defence consultancy, estimates there are around 10,000 jihadists - who would include foreign fighters - fighting for powerful factions linked to al-Qaeda.

Another 30,000 to 35,000 are hardline Islamists who share much of the outlook of the jihadists, but are focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle.

There are also at least a further 30,000 moderates belonging to groups that have an Islamic character, meaning only a small minority of the rebels are linked to secular or purely nationalist groups.

The stark assessment, to be published later this week, accords with the view of Western diplomats estimate that less than one third of the opposition forces are "palatable" to Britain, while American envoys put the figure even lower.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10311007/Syria-nearly-half-rebel-fighters-are-jihadists-or-hardline-Islamists-says-IHS-Janes-report.html

[leveymg]

1. So, what do we do about that? Let them all eat each other, or invite them for a tour of NYC? Again

Either way, there will be unwelcome foreseeable unintended consequences. There must be a word for that.

[dkf]

3. To me, looks like we are going to need to moderate Assad or his deputy and keep them in power.

Anything else leads to a free for all.

Well that is if we want to contain the deaths of course. If we want them to kill each other we keep on keeping on.

[leveymg]

4. If we want to stabilize the situation, we'll need to come down on the Saudis/GCC with a ton of brick

like materials to stop funding the opposition militias, or at least those who are the most effective fighters. Want to take odds on whether we can actually put them back into the bottle without F-16 strikes?

[dkf]

7. I wonder who has who at their mercy, them or us.

[leveymg]

13. About as smart as hand-feeding a school of sharks while scuba diving.

[Waiting For Everyman]

16. The Syrians themselves say that what attracts them to one group

over another, is who has weapons or better weapons. It makes sense that secular people can't even become opposition fighters unless they are armed. Otherwise, they have only civil disobedience or protesting as a tactic, which by now is pointlessly suicidal.

So that is why we are sending weapons. It's the "currency" that determines faction strength now, and votes (perhaps parties?) later.

[leveymg]

21. News for you - we opened up the weapons lockers and manpower when we overthrew Ghadaffi

The problem with the FSA is not that they're underfunded or unarmed, it's that they aren't as eager to kill or get themselves killed as the Jihadis. The surviving veterans who lead the groups that fight under the Black Flag are damned skilled and hardened professional fighters who have been in nearly continuous action since Bosnia.

The fact is, the CIA has been the committed Jihadis actual employer almost this entire time, while the Saudis show up in armoured Mercedes SUVs, write some checks, before flying back to Jeddah aboard their own personal 757s. Osama bin Laden was one of those. He was the exception because he enjoyed the life of a mercenary Holy Warrior.

We created al-Qaeda, and we're creating its replacement in Syria.

[daleo]

23. So they will join the best armed group, regardless of their underlying beliefs

That hardly sounds reassuring.

[ProSense]

2. Actually,

Opposition forces battling Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria now number around 100,000 fighters, but after more than two years of fighting they are fragmented into as many as 1,000 bands.

...the piece also states that "jihadists" are only 10 percent.

From the piece:

10,000 jihadists - who would include foreign fighters.

30,000 to 35,000 are hardline Islamists...focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle.

30,000 moderates belonging to groups that have an Islamic character

"Hardline Islamists" by whose definition, and why would that be surprising in Syria?

Also, what about the other 30,000?

The piece states that only 10 percent are "jihadists."

Here is what Kerry stated:

Kerry replied: "I just don't agree that a majority are al Qaeda and the bad guys. That's not true. There are about 70,000 to 100,000 oppositionists ... Maybe 15 percent to 25 percent might be in one group or another who are what we would deem to be bad guys.

"There is a real moderate opposition that exists. General Idriss is running the military arm of that," Kerry continued, referring to General Salim Idriss, head of the rebel Free Syrian Army. Increasingly, he said, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are funneling assistance through Idriss.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023601884#post7

[leveymg]

5. You want to explain the practical difference between hard-line Islamists and al-Qaeda?

Who are the Tsarnaev brothers for instance on that scale?

[ProSense]

6. Sure,

"You want to explain the practical difference between hard-line Islamists and al-Qaeda?"

...the difference related to the groups mentioned is stated in the piece:

"are focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle."

[leveymg]

10. I'll tell you the difference.

A radicalizing experience, like having your CIA funding pulled or being blacklisted. Just ask Tamarlan about that.

Sorry. Not enough degrees of difference to be comfortable with that distinction. We created this whirlwind, just like we did the MAK Services Organization that morphed into al-Qaeda. And, you know about that little unintended consequence of Operation Cyclone in Brooklyn, don't you?

[ProSense]

11. No, that's your opinion, ignoring the point made in the article.

To the extent that you believe the article's characterization of the groups is accurate, you can't simply that characterization to fit your narrative.

The piece states that they are "hardline Islamists" who are "focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle."

You can't simply morph them into something they're not to justify a situation you're envisioning. In fact, you're pushing a fearmongering narrative.

[Comrade Grumpy]

17. So, what's your point? Hardline Islamists are okay? As long as they stay in Syria?

Secular Syrians might have a problem with that. What flies in rural Sunni villages ain't gonna fly in cosmopolitan Damascus.

[ProSense]

20. Is Assad a "hardline" anything?

I'm sure life in Syria could get much worse, meaning more death and devastation than wrought by Assad.

[Comrade Grumpy]

15. I don't know if that would make much different to Syrians who don't want to live in a caliphate.

"Lucky you, we're just going to impose sharia law here in Syria instead of worldwide."

[JI7]

8. the Tsarnaev brothers are more like the Mass Shooters in the US

[jazzimov]

9. I think that's part of the point,

what exactly does the author of the article mean by "hard-line Islamists"? More importantly, why are they "unpalatable" to Americans? Why would they be considered "bad guys"?

[Fumesucker]

12. Non Christian theocrats or would-be theocrats are not particularly popular in the USA

[dkf]

14. They would kill the Alawites and Christians and all the other minorities that have survived there.

[Xithras]

30. Hard line Islamists = Taliban. Jihadists = al-Qaeda

The only real difference is in scope. Jihadists are religious fundamentalists operating on an international scale, while hardline Islamists focus on their own nations.

The Taliban never attacked anyone outside of their own borders.

[leveymg]

31. Ok. Haven't we been fighting both for years? So, why are we now helping either in Syria?

Kinda reminds me of 9/11 where we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq after we were attached by Saudis. There are obviously some issues that we aren't dealing with here - like our frienemies in Riyadh - that we really should have addressed a long time ago. But because we didn't, we're back into another war, again against the enemies of the Saudis.

[pampango]

18. What percentage of Assad's forces are "palatable" to anyone?

At least eight massacres have been perpetrated in Syria by President Bashar Assad's regime and supporters and one by rebels over the past year and a half, a U.N. commission said Wednesday.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/probe-massacres-syria-regime-rebels-20221533

[dkf]

19. Well Assad has been able to keep Syria secular at least.

[pampango]

24. Liberals support brutal dictators as long as they pursue the "right" policies?

Also crediting Assad for the secular nature of Syria's government implies that Syria's Sunni majority and its other citizens cannot hope to have an open, secular government without they "benefit" of a dictator who forces them to live the way they should.

Some 60% of Syrians are Sunni Arabs, i.e., adherents of the Sunni branch of Islam who speak Arabic as their mother tongue. Sunni Arabs also predominate in Jordan and Egypt. Large numbers of Syrian Sunnis are secularists, either nationalists or leftists, and not very observant. Many Syrian Sunnis still follow the tolerant, mystical Sufi form of Islam. Others have come under Saudi influence and are known as Salafis, but this is just a euphemism for Wahhabis, members of the intolerant and rigid form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. A very small number of Sunnis have affiliated with al-Qaeda, but they have had the important battlefield victories in the north.

http://www.juancole.com/2013/09/americans-theyre-threaten.html

Is this a case in which 4 decades of a brutal family dictatorship repressing a majority population resulting in such animosity in that group that the dictatorship (and the repression) has to continue in order to maintain "order"?

[dkf]

25. That isn't the assessment of the Brits, nor our people.

Which is the point of the piece I posted.

[leveymg]

22. The same can be said about the Iraqis and Afghans. But, somehow, we manage to keep our stick in

the game.

There are few "white hats" by any normal American's standards who are capable of holding power in large parts of the world. They are all bastards. So are we, to them. That's why we and the Russians, alike, and the British and French before us, backed dictators and strong men surrounded by fanatics and cutthroat mercenaries.

It's a nice fantasy intended to sell this regime change to say that there are any "moderates" who might take power in Syria.

[pampango]

26. You seem to be making a "lesser of two evils" case. Why is the side guilty of the huge majority of

human rights abuses and war crimes, necessarily the lesser of the evils?

I am not selling regime change any more than you are selling regime support. I assume we both want the Syrian people to live under neither a brutal dictator nor a religious theocracy and believe that they are not doomed to have to choose between the two. The question is how you get there.

[leveymg]

27. The core problem is the most likely outcome is genocide. That's the greatest evil in my book

Avoiding that outcome is more important than whether the Shi'ia or the Sunni dominate whatever is left of the Syrian state which is likely to be fragmented and run by warlords. Large parts of the country, including Damascus, are in ruins. Command and control within the Syrian military is breaking down. The militias, including the regime's ally Hezbollah are themselves splintered, and some may have gained control over chemical weapons and have the means to deliver them. I think Assad was so quick to accept giving up its chemical weapons arms because it realizes that any further unauthorized launches would serve as a pretext for U.S. military intervention which will likely be fatal to him and the rest of the Ba'ath leadership.

The Alawites are vastly outnumbered and will soon be outgunned. What's most crucial is finding a way to avoid that bloody last stand and battle for what's left of Damascus. To avoid that, we have to convince the Saudis and Turks to pull back their militias and the Israelis not to intervene. Finally, the Allawite have to be given some sort of highly credible assurance that they won't be descimated by the Sunnis, which is going to be a hard sell to both sides and even harder to enforce even if there is a very large and long-standing UN protection force. UN protection forces don't have the sort of cachet and credibility as protective or non-political as they once did.

[pampango]

28. I agree with much of your post. I will say that the danger of genocide is not just from one side.

The side committing the majority of the war crimes in the conflict is at least as likely to engage in genocide if it prevails as is the other. (In 1982 Bashar's father had 10,000 to 20,000 Sunnis killed in Hama to 'teach them a lesson').

It seems to me there are a limited number of options for the Syrian people.

1) Either Syria remains intact and the government that emerges is based on majority and minority rights;
2) Either the Sunni majority is convinced that the Alawite/Shia/Christian minorities will continue to repress them or the substantial Alawite/Shia/Christian minorities are convinced that the Sunni majority cannot live peacefully with them, there will have to be some kind of partition. If you cannot live together peacefully, perhaps it is better to live apart in peace;
3) The last option is that the slaughter keeps going until most Syrians are dead or refugees in other countries and someone emerges on top of an utterly destroyed country; Syria remains intact with a repressive dictatorship either of a Sunni majority (influenced or controlled by Islamists) repressing Alawites, Shia, Christians and other minorities or of minority groups (possibly with Assad still in command) repressing the majority Sunnis.

The first option is the best because, as a liberal, it is hard to favor any option that involves anyone (majority or minority) being repressed, but it looks very difficult to achieve given that the longer this conflict goes on the nastier it becomes.

[leveymg]

29. Agree with all of your points.

I don't really care who's in charge, so long as everyone else in the country isn't dead or in the process of killing off the survivors.

I do have another lingering concern - I don't want to see the violent dismemberment of countries rewarded - this sort of regime change operation that predictably bursts into genocidal conflict must never happen again with the help of the United States of America.