Got something to say or just want fewer pesky ads? Join us... 😊
[News] Bashar Al-Assad gone
- Thread starter shingle
- Start date
- Oct 20, 2022
- 7,219
It will be even more miserable when extremists terror groups start slaughtering each other in a power grab for the vacuum al-Assad has left.
Assad was a murderous dictator but kept a lid on a pressure cooker - warring factions are suppressed under dictatorships when the regime collapse it leaves a violent chaos that every power grabber wants to exploit.
Similar to Hussein in Iraq.
But is it best to go from one person/family/regime killing and torturing lots of people to dozens of sects/families/factions/foreign governments killing and torturing each other?
Sadly, this seems like a frying-pan-into-the-fire scenario whilst Assad lords it up in Moscow instead of taking the bullet he deserves.
A mex eyecan
Well-known member
- Nov 3, 2011
- 3,970
this event looks just like another cog fitting into the gearbox of impending WW3
portlock seagull
Well-known member
- Jul 28, 2003
- 17,931
Nothing will change. Forever wars etc. Same chaos. Just a different day. The entire ME could be blown up and yet still people would fight over the rubble.
The normal long winded confused bollocks. Israel is ecstatic and with the US probably funded the quick operation including safe passage for Assad. They've already fired a few rockets in for fun.
I drove round Syria in 1995. Camping in my 4x4. Lovely people but scared to talk to outsiders due to the terrorist Dictatorship. The Assad family has killed thousands.
Lonely Planet had a piece on the 10,000 killed in Hama in the early 90's by father Assad. When I got back to Riyadh and tried to talk to Syrian colleagues about this they were shit scared and whispered short responses but couldn't believe the outside world knew.
No idea how my 4 colleagues and their families are doing today and how many are alive
Curious Orange
Punxsatawney Phil
I can't see a stable future for Syria in the short term, and certainly no emergence of democracy.
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
Putin now hasn’t got a Mediterranean port for his ships.
- Oct 20, 2022
- 7,219
Thanks. But not so confused and certainly not bollocks.
Of course Israel and the West is pleased Al-Assad has gone because the Russian backed Syrian regime was a key link in Iran’s Axis of Resistance.
BUT - you are not understanding the nuances - ie the implications of what could replace the Assad regime:
Israel has moved the IDF into the demilitarised buffer zone of the Occupied Golan heights following the departure of Syrian army from the Syrian side - it is under the auspices of protecting Israel and will be very concerned that the jihadists that are amongst the rebels who toppled Assad will present a new threat - but it will also be seen as an aggressive move by Islamic jihadists.
“Israel is especially concerned about who might get their hands on Bashar al-Assad's alleged arsenal of chemical weapons.”
“During the 2011 Syrian uprising, Israel made the calculation that Assad, despite being an ally of both Iran and Hezbollah, was a better bet than what might follow his regime.”
The war with Hamas and Hezbollah has greatly weakened Iran’s capability to fight proxy wars with Israel but it has also radicalised a whole new generation of ‘resistance’ in the ME.
No one knows what is going to happen in Syria but it certainly won’t be a peaceful transition whatever it is.
Israel seizes Golan buffer zone after Syrian troops leave positions
PM Netanyahu said the 1974 disengagement agreement had "collapsed" with the rebel takeover of Syria.
Last edited:
Pavilionaire
Well-known member
- Jul 7, 2003
- 31,312
God knows what happens next for Syria, but what interests me is how Russia allowed this capitulation of their Mediterranean puppet to happen. Russia again looks weak, and this will encourage the likes of Georgia they can throw off the Russian yolk.
Also, now Assad has been toppled does that mean the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees that fled their homeland can now return?
Also, now Assad has been toppled does that mean the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees that fled their homeland can now return?
GingerBeerMan
3-0
- Dec 29, 2011
- 8,216
You want him to explain the ins and outs of middle Eastern politics without being long winded?
- Oct 20, 2022
- 7,219
Quite!You want him to explain the ins and outs of middle Eastern politics without being long winded?
ME politics is “long winded confused bollocks“ to all of us if we were being honest
Tom Hark Preston Park
Will Post For Cash
- Jul 6, 2003
- 72,664
Maybe the Turkish influence will be a moderating force? Or at least a more benign one than Iran and Russia
The negative is that he can now send the troops he had stationed in Syria to the front in Ukraine.
Jackthelad
Well-known member
- Mar 31, 2010
- 1,101
Whatever happens you can almost guarantee the Druize, the Christians, the lgbt, the women, the girls and basically everyone who is not Salafi Islam will be brutalised.
Maybe not straight away but Islamists don’t co exist they slaughter.
Maybe not straight away but Islamists don’t co exist they slaughter.
- Oct 20, 2022
- 7,219
More benign to the West and Israel - but I don’t think there’s much love lost though between the US backed, Kurdish led Syrian Democratic Forces in Iraq/Syria and Turkey - bombed by Turkey in October ( for their affiliation with PKK terrorists) Turkey has been long opposed to the Kurd‘s self-autonomy and the self-proclaimed Kurdish territory in Syria - yet the US sees the Kurds as a key Western ally in the fight against the Islamic State.
Eez complicated
dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,683
Many years ago, someone was quoted as saying that there is no situation in the Middle East that can't be made worse by a regime change. Blair and Bush might have thought of that before toppling Saddam.
GingerBeerMan
3-0
- Dec 29, 2011
- 8,216
Itb
It worked out pretty well for Bush. Huge swathes of Iraqi oil fields taken under corporate US control and trillions invested in the US military and their associated stocks.
- Oct 20, 2022
- 7,219
And it’s started - as I feared - the power grabbers (which includes in a ‘benign’ sense, Israel and the US) moving into the vacuum left by Al-Assad to stop a resurgence of ISIS.
US carrying out mass attacks on Islamic State in Syria.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk
I think a picture is building that the US were behind the collapse of Assad’s regime by backing the rebels as they did in the civil war - there is no way this has all happened out of the blue in the past 48 hours
US carrying out mass attacks on Islamic State in Syria.
U.S. launches mass airstrikes against targets in Syria
Multiple U.S. Air Force assets, including B-52 bombers, F-15 fighter jets, and A-10 attack aircraft, hit 75 Islamic State targets in Syria in a massive round of strikes.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk
I think a picture is building that the US were behind the collapse of Assad’s regime by backing the rebels as they did in the civil war - there is no way this has all happened out of the blue in the past 48 hours