In one of the weirdest stories of recent days, John Kerry and his Russian counterpart announced that there would be a ceasefire in Syria starting on Friday of this week. It's a weird story because this will be a ceasefire but the firing will not cease and is not intended to cease. There is to be no cessation of hostilities with ISIS or the al-Nusra Front or any organization designated as terrorist by the UN. That means that nearly all the fighting in Syria will continue as before even if the truce actually goes into effect.
So what really happened here? The answer is simple: president Obama accepted defeat and formalized that decision. Obama has long said that his Syrian policy was that president Assad "must go". Assad, after all, is a butcher who has killed nearly a quarter of million of his own people, many times more than the number killed by ISIS. Under the deal negotiated by Kerry, however, Assad stays in office and the 'moderate" rebels that were backed by the USA stop their opposition to him. Obama's principal goal has been abandoned.
And what of ISIS or the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra front? Who will fight them now? Most likely, it won't be the remnants of the US backed rebels. Those people know that there is now no one to support their efforts. The US never gave them much support, and it has now abandoned them at the negotiating table. There is no reason for them to go on fighting. Assad and his allies, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia may confront ISIS, but that too is far from certain. Assad and his allies may be content with holding the Shiite areas of Syria while leaving much of the Sunni heartland to the ISIS crazies. The Kurds will, no doubt, continue to resist ISIS, but the Kurds have already ousted ISIS from nearly all Kurdish areas and they will not fight beyond those regions. So ISIS too wins in this ceasefire because it loses enemies without actually having to defeat them.
In the world of Obama and Kerry, an agreement is always better than no agreement. With an idiotic deal like the latest one in Syria, one would think that even someone as obtuse as Obama could understand just how bad a deal this is. Sadly, however, Obama seems not to understand.
So what really happened here? The answer is simple: president Obama accepted defeat and formalized that decision. Obama has long said that his Syrian policy was that president Assad "must go". Assad, after all, is a butcher who has killed nearly a quarter of million of his own people, many times more than the number killed by ISIS. Under the deal negotiated by Kerry, however, Assad stays in office and the 'moderate" rebels that were backed by the USA stop their opposition to him. Obama's principal goal has been abandoned.
And what of ISIS or the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra front? Who will fight them now? Most likely, it won't be the remnants of the US backed rebels. Those people know that there is now no one to support their efforts. The US never gave them much support, and it has now abandoned them at the negotiating table. There is no reason for them to go on fighting. Assad and his allies, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia may confront ISIS, but that too is far from certain. Assad and his allies may be content with holding the Shiite areas of Syria while leaving much of the Sunni heartland to the ISIS crazies. The Kurds will, no doubt, continue to resist ISIS, but the Kurds have already ousted ISIS from nearly all Kurdish areas and they will not fight beyond those regions. So ISIS too wins in this ceasefire because it loses enemies without actually having to defeat them.
In the world of Obama and Kerry, an agreement is always better than no agreement. With an idiotic deal like the latest one in Syria, one would think that even someone as obtuse as Obama could understand just how bad a deal this is. Sadly, however, Obama seems not to understand.
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