James Fite: Operation Hawkeye Strike - Trump Responds to ISIS Attack in Syria

The president promised there would be retaliation.

One week ago today, two American soldiers and a civilian translator were killed in an ambush attack in Syria, presumably perpetrated by an ISIS terrorist, according to intelligence reports. President Donald Trump promised “serious retaliation.” Yesterday afternoon, we found out exactly what that meant. At 4 p.m. Eastern on Friday, December 19, US Central Command launched Operation Hawkeye Strike. A combination of fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery bombarded more than 70 targets at multiple locations across central Syria, targeting known ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites.

Simon O'Connor: The Druze

I met some of the Druze community in Israel a few months back, and the response by New Zealand, the UN, and others to their suffering in Syria is both tragic and telling.

The Druze of Syria are currently being attacked and killed and yet much of the world remains silent or panglossian (there’s a word for people to look up!) that the new Syrian regime will be able to fix the solution. The head of the United Nations is doing what he always does, and that is obsess about Israel. Here in New Zealand there is political silence as this small, yet significant, religious group are being killed purely because they are Druze.

Bert Olivier: Is Peace Possible Today?

As we approach Christmas, with its connotations of peace and goodwill to all people, and the New Year, when one traditionally comes up with ‘resolutions’ for the year ahead, with the intention of compensating for mistakes made during the past year, and of initiating creative projects for the future, one has to ask: is all of this just Heideggerian ‘idle talk,’ or is peace a realistic possibility?

Dave Patterson: Syria Falls to Former Al-Qaeda Linked Jihadist Rebels

Syria’s strongman, Bashar al-Assad, fled as his Syrian army crumbled.

After more than 13 years of civil war, the Assad government in Syria has been overthrown. What had been a hapless opposition suddenly won. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces have, in the last few weeks, been rolling through towns previously held firmly by the Syrian Army. The regular military forces showed no appetite to defend territory, threw off their uniforms, and melted into the citizenry. Consequently, HTS rebel militiamen captured city after city with little or no resistance. What does this mean for the region? And who exactly are these rebels?

David Farrar: Ending Assad’s rule is good, but the replacement may be worse

It looks like the Assad regime which has ruled Syria since 1971 may be about to crumble. The Civil War started 13 years ago but was thought to be at a stalemate, but suddenly two major cities have fallen, and opposition forces are approach Damascus.

The fact Iran and Russia have started to evacuate their people is very significant. With Iran extended due to the conflict with Israel through their proxies and Russia extended with their invasion of Ukraine, neither country is able to prop up Assas as strongly as they did a decade ago.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek from Lebanon: “My enemy’s enemy is my friend” – but not ISIS

“My enemy’s enemy is my friend” goes the old adage. It’s been put into practice a number of times in history, such as when Churchill and Roosevelt teamed up with Stalin against Hitler. But this jaded pearl of wisdom has little to offer the new and dire Middle East crisis that is unfolding.

When Fallujah fell to ISIS earlier this year, it didn’t raise that much of a stir. Then a couple more towns including Tikrit went the same way. Now Mosul has fallen and many are sitting bolt-upright. Thirty thousand men of the Iraqi army downed weapons and ran as though pursued by demons, their commanders leading the frenzied dash for safety. Half a million citizens followed.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek: The rule of international law – have we turned a corner?

September 2013 may well go down in the history books of tomorrow as one of the most historic months in world history. This was the month when international law stared down a challenge from the Wild West style of gunboat diplomacy, and set the Middle East, and thereby the world, on an overdue new path with regard to geopolitical conflict resolution.

All right, perhaps I am putting it a bit too optimistically. But it has certainly been an exciting month for people interested in that hitherto largely toothless tiger international law, not to mention observers of the great geopolitical chess game. And it has been a delightful month for the latter, as they have been watching a Grand Master running circles around an ostentatious rank novice.

Ron Smith: Tacking and Jibing with Chemical Weapons

For sports fans, events in San Francisco Bay over the last few weeks have been absolutely riveting, with every tack and jibe analysed.  For political junkies, the public sparring between Presidents Putin and Obama has been equally compelling.  The jaunt has been especially interesting of late for a sequence of completely unpredicted moves.  After a longish period of studied insults and put-downs from Putin, which were only feebly defended by Obama, we suddenly had the totally unexpected: the impossible tack!

Mike Butler: Syria needs liberal capitalism, not missiles

Syria needs liberal capitalism rather than missiles, according to analysis printed during the week in The Telegraph in London. Allister Heath, who is editor of City A.M., a digital daily business newspaper distributed around London, writes in his weekly Telegraph column:

The economic backdrop to the Arab Spring debacle and now Syria’s barbaric civil war is equally self-evident. With only a small number of exceptions, states in the region have long specialised in economic failure of the most abject kind, seemingly competing to become the most shocking case study in how to squander oil money, ruin a nation’s economy and keep ordinary people impoverished.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek: Syria chemical weapons attacks – we still don’t know who is responsible

Thank goodness for the House of Commons, and especially those Conservative members who broke ranks with the government over a military strike on Syria. The US could still go it alone. It would be a punitive strike, which is in breach of international law, but the US has never cared much for international law. They have said that a strike would be ‘specific’ and that its function would be to deter Damascus from using chemical weapons again – clearly an attempt to don the ‘R2P’ (responsibility to protect) mantle. 

What utter bunkum – all it will achieve if it goes ahead is to weaken the regime’s ability to deal with the insurrection. Perhaps al-Qaida will send a thank-you postcard to the White House afterwards.

Ron Smith: Dresden and Damascus - Making hard decisions

A few days ago, the Dresden (Germany) authorities opened a new four-lane bridge across the Elbe into the historic city.  In building this bridge, which will significantly improve traffic flows, they have now lost their world heritage status.  This was made plain in June, when the chairman of the United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), World Heritage Committee Chairperson, Spaniard Maria Jésus San Segundo, denounced this as an unacceptable assault on a ‘cultural landscape’.  So that’s it.  Dresden is no longer a World Heritage site.  It is now an ancient city, full of wonderful buildings (many, for reasons that we well appreciate, lovingly restored) and a nasty modern bridge.  How easy it all is.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek: Shooting oneself in both feet – Western ineptness vis-à-vis the Syrian conflict

In the course of an announcement that a Free Syrian Army commander had been killed by a rival rebel group linked to al-Qaida, the BBC spoke of the emergence of a ‘civil war within a civil war’. David Cameron has intimated that he is starting to understand the stark options staring him in the face in Syria and has made some noises about supporting ‘the moderates’ while keeping any military aid (which has not been forthcoming) out of the hands of the ‘extremists’. The Western powers seem to be waking up to the reality of Syria, but it is probably too late for them to make any meaningful contribution to sorting out the mess.

Ron Smith: Syria and President Obama - why intervene now?

Sometimes international developments, and the political decisions that lie behind them, are hard to explain.  On the other hand, there are occasions when there seem to be too many plausible explanations, and that can be a worry as well!  This latter seems to be the case with the recent announcement from the Obama Whitehouse that America will now supply ‘military assistance’ to the Syrian opposition.  So, given the widely acknowledged ‘war weariness’ of the US population, why has this decision been taken, and why now?  The civil war in Syria has been going on for more than two years, and with much of the character that it now displays, so what explain the decision?

Ron Smith: What now for Syria?

As widely predicted (including by me, in a 17 April blog), the United Nations cease-fire has become a tragic mockery.  There is a growing band of international monitors but no cease-fire to monitor.  The only function for this gallant band is to testify to continuing atrocity.  This is not unimportant.  It provided for an independent account of what happened at Houla a few days ago but it wasn’t why they were sent.  To leave the monitors in position is to persist in a wilful denial of what is happening in Syria and it leaves persons, who are in a weak position to defend themselves, at considerable risk.  

Similarly, there is no prospect of success for the associated UN ‘peace plan’.  Manifestly, heavy weapons continue to be used, humanitarian assistance is not being provided and the ‘legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people’ are not being addressed.

Ron Smith: The Future of Syria

There is an overwhelming suspension of disbelief in the bulk of public comment on what is presently happening in Syria. We have now had more than twelve months of political action from the overwhelming non-Alawite population, which has been countered with increasing ferocity by government forces, using heavy weaponry. The insurgents have responded with progressively increasing violence themselves and despite heavy civilian losses (perhaps up to 15,000 over the 12 month period), there is no sign that they will give up.

In this context it must be asked, what is the point of the of the much-trumpeted United Nations cease-fire initiative, apart from a need to be seen to be ‘doing something’? Already, for reasons that are obvious, the cease-fire is failing.