President Obama sought tooth and nail to distinguish himself from
his predecessor but ended up adopting foreign policies that produced similar
results: mayhem. Overindulgence and aloofness are two faces of the same coin.
He was too clever by half. Both his reboot and reengagement policies ended up
backfiring, and his desire not to step into a minefield in Syria ended up
creating a black hole that is slowly sucking all in. President Obama has always
sought to project an image of high intelligence, if not genius. But the key to
success in politics lies more in diligence and the readiness to wade in even
if, if not especially when, results are not guaranteed and the stakes high. It’s
hubris to think that you can choose your crises. The best you can do is often, in the words of
President Obama himself, “look before you leap.” Just don’t confuse staring
vacantly with looking. On a related note, and rather than invoking Dr. Seuss
when mocking
President Obama’s (in)famous red line on Syria, Jon Stewart would have been
more accurate if he used the term he had earlier reserved for Congress: procrasturbator.
Syria chemical weapons evidence 'too degraded' for proof British defence secretary Philip Hammond fears West can no longer prove chemical weapons attacks because blood and soil samples 'degrade over time'
Thursday May
2, 2013
Death Toll: 158 martyrs, including 15 children,11 women and 3 martyrs
under torture. 31 in Aleppo; 29 in Homs; 28 in Banyas; 23 in Damascus and
Suburbs; 10 in Daraa ; 14 in Hama; 10 in Raqqa; 6 in Idlib; 5 in Deir Ezzor; 2
in Lattakia. In addition, there are dozens reportedly dead in the village of
Bayda in Banyas, but the tally is not clear yet (LCC).
News
Obama: We must
"look before we leap" on Syria After evidence of chemical
weapons use inside of Syria, President Obama said today during a news
conference in Mexico, "We're going to look at all options" to hasten
the conflict's end, including providing arms to the Syrian rebels. But he
cautioned, "We want to make sure that we look before we leap and that what
we're doing is actually helpful to the situation as opposed to making it more
deadly or more complex."
Syrian
Forces Strike Rebels in Wide-Ranging Assaults The new fighting may have
left at least 200 people dead just in the area of the seaport, Baniyas, and a
nearby village, Bayda, according to activists affiliated with two
antigovernment groups, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local
Coordination Committees. They said entire families had been found dead in
Bayda, including the mayor and his children. Efforts to corroborate those
reports were difficult because of restricted access for journalists in Syria.
There were also reports of sectarian fighting near the border with Lebanon
around the Syrian town of Qusair, a flash point between Sunni fighters of the
insurgency and Shiite militants loyal to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant
organization that has sided with President Bashar al-Assad in the conflict and
partly depends on him for weapons. Activists and medical workers reached by
telephone said that civilians were trying to evacuate the area and that there
had been many people wounded.
Assad
forces on the offensive from Damascus to Mediterranean The recapture of
Wadi al-Sayeh, which links the besieged rebel stronghold in Khalidiyah to the
opposition-held old city, appears to be part of a series of carefully focused
counter-offensives that mark a shift from the indiscriminate campaigns earlier
in the two-year-old conflict. Homs is a link in the corridor connecting Assad's
Damascus powerbase with the traditional Mediterranean heartland of his minority
Alawite community. It was an early center of the mainly Sunni Muslim uprising
against four decades of Assad family rule.
Following recent gains in rural areas
around Homs, Assad's forces surrounded the towns of Baida and Maqreb on the
road to the coastal city of Banias on Thursday, activists said, the latest
stage in a campaign to secure the corridor. They also seized Qaysa town on the
eastern edge of Damascus, part of a steady move north from airport on the
city's south-eastern edge which would create a line of control locking down the
eastern approaches to the city and close off weapons supplies from the
Jordanian border. A call issued by several activists in the area warned the
disparate rebel forces to pull together or face defeat.
US
officials say more are becoming in favor of arming Syria rebels Officials
insisted Wednesday that no decisions have been made but said arming the rebels
is seen as more likely and preferable than any other military option. One U.S.
official described a new "reconsideration" within the administration
of the military options. The officials, who all spoke on condition of anonymity
because they weren't authorized to discuss publicly the options under
consideration, said most U.S. leaders prefer that the Syrians determine their
own fate, so arming the opposition is more palatable than direct U.S.
intervention.
Dozens
killed in Syria's Banias: watchdog The Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights said the fighting broke out in the morning in the northwestern region,
killing dozens of people. Among them were at least seven soldiers, as well as
women and children, some of whom were "summarily executed." Syria's
official SANA news agency said troops killed "terrorists" -- the
regime term for insurgents -- and seized arms in an operation targeting rebels.
The opposition Syrian National Coalition accused the regime of seeking revenge
from the people of Banias because they were among the first to rise against the
government of President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011. "Since this
morning, the army and pro-regime forces have been besieging the village of
Bayda at the southern entrance to the town of Banias," said the
Britain-based Observatory.
Syria chemical weapons evidence 'too degraded' for proof British defence secretary Philip Hammond fears West can no longer prove chemical weapons attacks because blood and soil samples 'degrade over time'
U.N.
head, Security Council envoys discuss Syria as mediator wants out Diplomats,
speaking on the condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that Brahimi wanted
to resign from the joint U.N.-Arab League role because he is frustrated with
international deadlock over how to end Syria's two-year war that has killed
70,000. The envoys from the permanent five veto-wielding members of the U.N.
Security Council declined to comment after meeting with the secretary-general.
A dispute between Russia and the United States over Syria has left the council
paralyzed.
Syria:
eastern Raqqa 'hit by air strikes' – video Amateur footage purports to
show heavy shelling on the eastern city of Raqqa, Syria. A clip shows what is
believed to be a government warplane firing at the city on Wednesday, as more
footage shows the aftermath of more strikes in Raqqa, reportedly on Thursday.
Raqqa is the biggest city to fall into rebel control since the uprising began
in 2011. The Guardian cannot independently verify the contents of these clips
Syria
conflict: 'My father wants me dead' Nearly one-and-a-half million
people have fled the fighting in Syria, according to the latest estimates. The
conflict, which has now lasted for more than two years, has not only divided
communities but also families. Twenty-one-year-old Loubna Mrie has been
denounced by her own family and says she believes her father wants her dead.
Investigative
Reports
Where
Are Syria’s Chemical Weapons? Multiple U.S. officials tell Eli Lake the
scary truth: in many cases, we simply don’t know. Plus: irregular militias
loyal to Assad have reportedly been training in how to use them… The assessment
that Syria is moving large amounts of its chemical weapons around the country
on trucks means that if Obama wanted to send in U.S. soldiers to secure Syria’s
stockpiles, his top generals and intelligence analysts doubt such a mission
would have much success, according to the three officials. “We’ve lost track of
lots of this stuff,” one U.S. official told The Daily Beast. “We just don’t
know where a lot of it is.” The large-scale movement of weapons, if it is in
fact occurring, would violate one of Obama’s earliest declared red lines
concerning Syria. Last August he said, “We have been very clear to the Assad
regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is, we
start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moving around or being utilized.”
Even With U.S.
Guns, Syria’s Rebels Still Might Lose Obama is considering a range of
weaponry to the rebels, as described in the Washington Post, including
surface-to-air missiles. The idea would be to ship them the weapons, bolster
their war effort, and watch them topple the blood-soaked dictator — without a
deeper U.S. military commitment. Except that few strategists consider that
realistic. Assad has a variety of advantages — an adaptive military estimated
at over 50,000; complete air superiority; chemical weapons — that he will
retain even if Obama opens a new arms pipeline. Overcoming those advantages
means getting, at the least, U.S. and allied airpower involved — a step the
Obama administration, and especially the military, want to avoid. Especially
since it might involve shooting down Iranian planes, a fateful step.
Analyses
& Op-Eds
A
strong U.S. response to Syria? Experts say not likely Many analysts now
see the Obama administration taking a more limited approach that would not draw
the country into a wider war. "It's unlikely we would do anything
open-ended like a no-fly zone," said Kenneth Pollack, an analyst at the
Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
Israel
prepares for the worst as militants eye Syria's chemical weapons Israel
has warned it will do whatever is necessary to prevent the Syrian government's
large stockpile of chemical and biological weapons from falling into the hands
of militants, believing that one day they may be used against Israel. It would
be better, Israeli leaders believe, to fight in Syria against Islamists armed
with non-conventional weapons than wait for them to attack Israel with them.
According to army sources quoted in the Maariv newspaper, Israel is sending
fresh troops to man forward bases that have not been used for years because it
was so quiet. The roads to the bases will also be paved and improved, the paper
said.
Ilan
Berman: Redrawing Syria's red line If Washington doesn't enforce its
own red lines on Syria, why would it hold Iran or North Korea to account for
their actions either?
Dithering
over Syria: Horrors in Syria expose wishful thinking at the heart of the
president’s foreign policy It is true that the president faces only bad
choices in Syria. But he is partly to blame. While America and its allies have
dithered over calls to arm more moderate wings of the opposition or to impose
no-fly zones, the most alarming militants have grown in clout, including
fighters who have sworn fealty to al-Qaeda. In a cruel echo of his Cairo
speech, Mr Obama must now choose between tolerating conscience-staining
massacres and intervening at the risk of empowering violent extremists.
Completing his misery, cavilling over chemical weapons in Syria places in peril
Mr Obama’s credibility when he warns Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons—a
blunder that in turn would raise the nuclear stakes for other countries, just
as he observed four years ago… Alas, it is not in the gift of politicians—even
American presidents—to choose their own trade-offs. True, Syria’s horrors are
not Mr Obama’s fault. The blame lies with Bashar Assad and the callous
intransigence of such outsiders as Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But the slaughter
still mocks Mr Obama’s pieties about interdependence, and his glib plans for
win-win diplomacy. Balancing American interests and values is hard. Right now,
in Syria, he is advancing neither.
What
We Know about Chemical Weapons in Syria Gary Schmitt, co-director of
the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the conservative American
Enterprise Institute, however, believes Washington needs to act as soon as
possible, even in the absence of definitive evidence of chemical weapons use.
“It’s rare that you ever get 100 percent certainty of the kind that the
administration is saying that it wants right now, and that sort of chain of
custody—i.e., who did what, who’s to be blamed—it’s rare that you get that kind
of intelligence,” Schmitt said. “And if
you use that kind of standard, what happens is that you delay making decisions,
which in this case are really causing an immense amount of instability in the
region, in addition to the loss of lives.” Specifically, he thinks the United
States should create a no-fly zone and a safe zone to harbor civilians. “And then—again this is not an easy thing to
do—we ought to be able to define who it is in the Syrian opposition that we
want to support and arm, with the idea that if we give them sufficient military
assistance, [they] will flock to our side.”
My
new paper, prepared for a briefing in Washington, D.C. that took place on
January 15, 2013, is now out and is titled “Syria
2013: Rise of the Warlords.” It should be read in conjunction with my
previous briefing “The
Shredded Tapestry,” and my recent essay “The
Creation of an Unbridgeable Divide.”
Al-Baydah Massacre & Ethnic cleansing
Observers, experts and officials who are concerned about the fate of
the Alawite and other minority community in Syria are justified of course. The
more violence this conflict gets the more reasons to worry we have in this
connection. But, for now, we should be very mindful of the fact that the genocide
currently taking place in Syria, no matter how paradoxical and mad this may sound,
is being perpetrated against the majority Arab Sunni population.
More than 95% of the dead, the missing, the detained, the internally
displaced and the refugees are Sunni Arabs. The Arab Sunni population makes up
less than 65% of the population. Every major documented massacre that has taken
place since the beginning of the revolution to date has targeted the Arab Sunni
population in one part of Syria or another. But the hardest hit of all are the
Arab Sunni population of central Syria, especially Homs, where ethnic cleansing
targeting Sunnis have been going on for the last two years.
But the ethnic cleansing campaign seems to be slowly moving to the
coastal regions, with today’s loyalist militia attack on the town of Al-Bayda
where close to 200 civilians have been executed according to latest reports. It
seems reasonable to assume that the massacre may not be aimed at driving the
Sunni population out of coastal areas, as this would be tall order at this
stage, the Arab Sunnis population makes up close to 40% of the coastal population.
For now, the purpose seems to be to spread fear and keep the Sunni population
under control and the coastal areas relatively quiet as Assad and his militias
focus their attention elsewhere. It’s a culling process rather than an all-out
extermination effort.
Why is it important to know that? Because, as the majority population
that maintains substantial presence in every corner of Syria, the Arab Sunni
population is the organic cement that is holding the country together. The more
beating they receive the more fractured the country gets and the more radical
they themselves become. The U.S. cannot stall this radicalization process by
ignoring opposition pleas for western support, and by failing to appreciate the
depth of the tragedy the Arab Sunni population of Syria is living through. The
Sunnis of Syria cannot be relied upon to care about anyone’s rights at this
stage unless people begin caring about theirs.
The Battle in Tal Tamr
The other conflict in Syria pits Arab against Kurds, and recently it
has been heating up again. In the Kurdish-majority town of Tal Tamr in the
Hassakeh Province, the Kurdish local popular defense committees (YPGs) have for
days being battling against tribal militias manned by former members of the
Baath Party, elements that may no longer necessarily loyal to the Assad regime
but which are afraid of living under Kurdish hegemony. The tribal militias were
also supported by small units affiliated with the Free Syrian Army. At this
stage, and after dozens of dead and wounded, the battles seem to have been
resolved in favor of the local YPG fighters. But the situation remains tense.
Tensions are also rising in the nearby provincial capital of Al-Hassakeh, with
its highly mixed population: Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, among other minorities.
The Battle for Damascus International
Airport
In the last few hours, two suicide bombings took place in and around
Damascus International Airport followed by intense clashes pitting loyalists
against rebel groups and Jabhat Al-Nusra. Major segments of the airport seem to
have fallen under rebel control, at least temporarily. It’s not clear whether
rebels intend on taking control of the airport. These videos are said to be
taken from the scene http://youtu.be/G6y-XnUn9yc
, http://youtu.be/M_X_Hp71_iQ
Bridge Down
The famous Suspended Bridge of Deir Ezzor City, built during the French
Mandate in the mid-1920s came tumbling down today due to targeted pounding of
its foundations. Deir Ezzor City and the entire northeastern parts of the
country have lost a major part of their modern identity today http://youtu.be/LzyWWfCVmNg , http://youtu.be/osBCr9nODxc
Video Highlights
Aerial bombardment of Raqqah City leaves 10 dead http://youtu.be/tEzZxrGyJJA
Clashes take place between rebels and Turkish authorities near the
border crossing of Akcakale http://youtu.be/konCmnh0d8Y
The pounding of rebel strongholds in Damascus City continues: Jobar
http://youtu.be/bUVHJwxwRv4 Barzeh
http://youtu.be/Zr3jW6B8NqE Zamalka
http://youtu.be/CmicaxLUiIg
Aerial raids continue against the towns of Eastern Ghoutah: Ain
Terma http://youtu.be/N6EZ6AN7nxs
Kafar Batna http://youtu.be/KWkwzV17imk
, http://youtu.be/Wnv0-hY71xI Saqba
http://youtu.be/-xYEzFQcSX0 Mleihah
http://youtu.be/W_maeeMOLp0
Leaked video: pro-Assad militias perpetrating a massacre
somewhere in Damascus Suburbs, the exact date and whereabouts are not known,
but the video was uploaded on April 18. We see throats being slit and a
military truck then being used to run over the corpses of the dead http://youtu.be/3RV9zlG6bL8.
A second leaked video from Hama City shows a convoy of pro-Assad
militias transporting corpses of dead civilians and rebels http://youtu.be/PCVFCu30GTc
Necessity is the Mother of Invention: rebels keep inventing their own
smart weapons delivery systems to become a more effective fighting force on the
field while protecting lives http://youtu.be/WIs-UoC7vC4
, http://youtu.be/PB8n899aoqQ
Rebels and loyalists clash in Sahel Al-Ghab, Hama http://youtu.be/FVrEzQWu9go , http://youtu.be/UoVITKRdEig
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