Thursday, December 03, 2015

1 comment:

Ashok said...

Still, the political strategy almost makes the military one look as if it lacks stupidity. It calls for making allies of regional unfriends like Assad, Putin and maybe Iran, to whom the reassertion of Sunni power in Mesopotamia is anathema. It also calls for the reconciliation of unfriends of unfriends such as Erdoğan with Putin, a quixotic project even before the Turks shot down a Russian jet; Erdoğan has winked at IS activity on and within his borders, both to pander to Islamists in Turkey and as a counterweight to Kurdish separatism. Local stakeholders include Islamic Front, which seeks a non-democratic Islamic theocracy with the backing of our Saudi friends. Jaysh al-Mujahideen, insofar as it still exists, opposes not only IS but the Turks’ counter-insurgency against the Kurds.
Out of this it’s expected that a political solution will crystallise, in which Assad will play a key role while also standing down for a post-incumbency career in The Hague.