Here’s how the editors of the Wall Street Journal report the story:
A bipartisan conceit has been that the U.S. can defeat Islamic State by ducking the larger conflict in Syria, and now we’re finding out that may not be possible. A U.S. F-18 jet shot down a Syrian bomber on Sunday to protect U.S. allies fighting Islamic State, and on Monday Russia and Iran threatened to target U.S. planes in response.
A U.S. fighter shot down the Syrian SU-22 plane after Syrian aircraft made their second bombing run against Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) allied with the U.S. near Taqba. The regime was clearly testing whether the U.S. would assist its allies on the ground. The U.S. needed to send a deterrent message or Syrian President Bashar Assad will continue to press his offensive across SDF-held territory.
The risk of escalation is real, but this isn’t a skirmish the U.S. can easily avoid. Mr. Assad and his allies in Moscow and Tehran know that ISIS’s days controlling Raqqa in Syria are numbered. They want to assert control over as much territory as possible in the interim, and that means crushing the SDF.
Here’s how I would report the facts:
- The U. S. has been illegally providing support to anti-Syrian government rebels.
- Russia has been legally providing support to the Syrian government.
- On Sunday a U. S. jet shot down a Syrian government bomber.
- On Monday in a colossal irony the Russians proclaimed a “no fly” zone over Syria.
Assad is not a good guy. We would be right in wanting him removed by legal means, i.e. diplomacy. We should not be trying to remove him by force of arms and in particular we should not be supporting Al Qaeda to get rid of him which is what we’ve been doing. We should doubly not want to foment direct military conflict with Russia.
Have to agree with most of this. I have said all along that we should have as little to do with Syria as is politically possible. If the Russians want to muck around there, have at it.
OT, but thought you might be interested. CIA has released details of their involvement with Mossadegh coup.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/20/64-years-later-cia-finally-releases-details-of-iranian-coup-iran-tehran-oil/
If we had held ourselves to the same humanitarian standards during WWII as we hold Assad, (whose enemies are fierce and dedicated), we would still be at it. If we stand back and let Assad and the Russians end this war, most refugees could return, and the level of violence would drop.
Look, it’s either him or ISIL, or continue the endless war. What pipe dream are we chasing here? Treading water until a white knight emerges from the Syrian population?
steve:
Notice how closely it comports with what I’ve been saying and with the accounts of the Iranian military officers involved. Mossadegh was overthrown by a putsch of Iranian military officers. We supplied some walking around money to stir up crowds—a pretty limited involvement. The real movers were the Brits while Kermit Roosevelt saw it as a grand adventure.
Also, the choices were not between a liberal democratic government in Iran or the Shah. They were between the Tudeh and the Shah.
GS:
We’ve deluded ourselves into believing that there are good violent radical Islamists and bad violent radical Islamists.
Dave, given your memories of the Cold War, is the current situation dangerous as Mike Norman is insisting?
https://youtu.be/cNBbgVdTe10
I think it’s serious. The mitigating factors are that Russia is not the Soviet Union and Putin is not Stalin (or Khrushchev). However, we’re not the U. S. of 1950-1990, either. I think we’re courting confrontation for no particularly good reason. Pat Lang says the present military is full of Russophobes. I think they’re just longing for great power near-peer war.