Assad definitely retains a good chunk of support from certain sections of Syrian society, no point denying that. Very few do it out of love for the man or his regime, they just prefer him over the alternative. He still controls the majority of the (remaining) population, if they were all opposed to him he'd be gone in a week.
ISIS in Iraq and Syria
- Thread starter Suli
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Not when you've got a superpower backing you with constant bombing raids.
Talking to Syrian scholes and Syrians in my town, it seems most do oppose him but they'd rather live than end up refugees in a foreign land, you shouldn't take that as acceptance of the regime or complete backing of it bro.
You talk to many Alawites, Christians, Druze or Shi'a?
The minorities are behind Assad (you'll get the odd exception whose significance the Western media love to inflate). By most accounts there remains a section of more well-to-do urban Sunnis who actually have something to lose behind him too. What proportion of the remaining population they make up is unknown. Prewar the minorities were estimated at something like 20-30% of the population - I can't remember if this figure includes the Kurds.
Most of the Syrians in Bournemouth are alawites and Kurds, everyone I've spoken to doesn't fully back the opposition you're correct about that but they all say the same thing that this isn't ever going to end until Assad leaves. Everyone wants Syria back as it was but every day that passes the chances of that are slimmer and slimmer.
Like I said earlier, if Assad stays and somehow wipes all the opposition out and then mends bridges with the western world, it still leaves the Sunni world that will forever more send fighters to that place. To truely end the madness we're in you would have to abolish the internet and other services like what's app because all those photos of little kids missing limbs and countless dead bodies will still do their work for many years yet.
You really want to talk about hypocrisy? it's not just the chemical weapons it's the barrel bombs, air strikes on hospitals, schools and even bread factories, shooting at unarmed civilians who protested against him, and you are trying to tell people he's less dangerous.
I have my doubts about the rebels and I'm no supporter of them Red Tiger knows my thoughts on them. But someone has to liberate the Syrian people from this maniac , they don't want him there. In an ideal scenario I would like a NATO or other international coalition to go in there and cleanse Syria of this vermin, but there's no desire for that to happen from the international community. So we are where we are.
Nobody here cares about Assad.
It's not about Assad. What needs to be avoided is the collapse of the state and the army (which would happen if Assad is suddenly militarily toppled by the "rebels"). If that happens we all know who will replace him.
"Acceptance in the eyes of the Muslim world"? What is that? He's the president of Syria, not the khalif of the Muslims. This dangerous mentality needs to change. Every single leader in the world is hated or considered illegitimate by some people around the world, so? Besides, "acceptance by the Muslims" is overrated. Ask Israel.
Are you suggesting that if I have some horrified sentiments about the government of the United States then the normal and expected course of events is that I go there and fight until I die or topple it? Do you think we should go to Saudi Arabia or Bahrain and fight there until we topple their horrible rulers? It's sad to hear somebody like you talking about this issue like this, as if this is "normal".
These nutjobs aren't going to Syria out of "sentiment". These nutjobs are going because of the Wahhabi ideology they're brainwashed with. Half of these who went to Syria ended up in Iraq murdering Shia, Christians, Yazidis, and even Sunnis. Many of them returned to their (even European) countries and committed atrocities there. What Assad? These are criminals that need to be called out as such. No excuse should be made to justify the craziness of these people, and we shouldn't even attempt to give them an excuse.
The Wahhabi (salafist) ideology is definitely the real problem here. You can never stop people from having bad sentiments about somebody somewhere in the world, it's the ideology that pushes them to act based on their hate/emotion that's the real problem here, and it will make the world one big mess if it continues and we accept it.
It's not the "only" thing, but it's definitely the most important thing, and thing that have to be tackled first, especially before trying to create (another) power vacuum.
Then it obviously is about Assad. How do you propose the state and the army stay intact with Assad as head? The man has lost all legitimacy due to killing and torturing 1000s of his own countrymen, neighbours killing neighbours and cousins killing cousins. The last time we saw anything comparable to this was Rwanda, how did that come to a conclusion? By allowing Jean Kambanda to stay in power?
The acceptance I talked about wasn't in reference to Khalifa, there's no need to stretch my quote there. The acceptance I alluded to was of a head of state, hes lost that, hes seen by millions of people as zalimin. To your point about him being the President, how is he the president? How did Hafiz become the president? Through popular mandate? The world is full of people who will accept a shit leader as long as there's food on the table, schools to send their kids to but most importantly the rule of law, but that all falls apart when the law is skewered towards a specific segment of the population. It's over for Assad because his actions over the past 6 years mean he will never be trusted as a neutral ruler ever again.
This isn't about what you or me would do but what those opposed to Assad internationally would do. I'm a pacifist and I'll always back talking 100%, sadly the vast majority of people opposed to Assad don't share my views because they see facebook and whatsapp updates with pictures of headless and limbless children, these people feel helpless politically so they end up wanting like for like revenge, there's no point beating about the bush with this, these people exist and they're being born everyday.
Do you honestly believe that if Wahhabi doctrine was banned and Saudi Arabia banned internationally from giving out funding (or even the Saudi state being destroyed), that people (muslims) won't get emotional and irrational when seeing atrocities carried out? Everything that's happened in the last 15 years is the result of controlling narrative, unfortunately for us all, modern means of communication mean that the narrative will never ever be controlled again.
It's been really busy tonight at my work and I'm shattered, I hope my reply to you was coherent 
And your point is? Did I say the rebels are the answer? In fact your stance is on shaky ground when you can't condemn a child killer like Assad.
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How is he a child killer ?
No offence but have you been living under a rock?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...s-idlib-maternity-clinic-babies-a7163691.html
This is just one example, just do a simple Google search and you will find plenty of similar articles reporting child deaths resulting from Assad and Russian bombs.
This is an exaggeration... I'm not about to try and paint Assad in any kind of positive light whatsoever because I don't know much about him at all, though all I've ever read is negative and so wouldn't even try but this type of exaggerating doesn't help anyone. It's like saying that Obama is a murderer because of drone strikes, he isn't. Just because someone equates them to be the same thing, doesn't make it the same thing. If he picked a child up and killed it then he would be a child killer. When you start to make exaggerations people call you out on the ridiculousness of your exaggeration rather than the issue at hand and it ends up detracting and no sensible discussion ends up occurring.
He personally may not have carried out the attack but it is his heavy handed tactics and direct orders to open fire against unarmed civilian protestors therefore has to take some sort of responsibility for it.
He could have just stood down after the protests but chose violence, he is liable.
Although I see your point it's a matter of semantics.
It's not really semantics, it's really important in these discussions I think. If somebody is willing to exaggerate and go to extremes then it's difficult to have any kind of meaningful conversation. Especially if you're pointing out a flaw in somebodies character for supporting something you claim which simply isn't true. It's like when people say how can you support a murderer like Obama. Well, he isn't a murderer. Then the discussion moves into semantics while one person says that he isn't a murderer and the other person justifies that he thinks it's the same thing and it detracts. Levelling those kind of remarks at people is what Trump is currently doing.
I've said it before on this forum, it's because of this lack of accountability that atrocities like this keep happening.
A couple of simple questions I have for you is if Assad stepped down after the protests would these bombs have been dropped? If he didn't order these bombers or call in for Russian air strikes would these bombs have been prevented.?
Point is he could have prevented these deaths and chose not to as he chose preservation of power over the lives of people.
I stand by my stance that he is partly responsible for child deaths.
On the topic of child killers... Wasn't it the 'moderate' rebels who recently beheaded a 12yr old boy?
Yes that's terrible and just as bad as Assad.On the topic of child killers... Wasn't it the 'moderate' rebels who recently beheaded a 12yr old boy?
I'm not disputing any of that
I don't know enough about him, I'm just saying you can't call him a child killer when he isn't. That doesn't mean he doesn't share any of the responsibility. When you make claims like that it's Trumpesque where he's now calling Obama and Clinton the co-founders of ISIS. It's ridiculous and it shuts down constructive debate immediately.I'm not disputing any of that
Lol trumps claims are very convoluted but there is a kernel of truth to it. In this case there's a much more direct link.
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There's a line of thought that Obama's actions may have influenced the creation of ISIS, whether right or wrong. That is not the same thing as calling them the co-founders of ISIS at all. It's a specific statement that isn't true in the slightest, it's an exaggeration designed to have more emotive impact than it would if he didn't exaggerate. It does nobody any favours. If somebody like Trump needs to exaggerate a point so that it resonates with someone more deeply, it says more about his lack of conviction and credibility that he can't get his argument/point of view across without it.
This is what people miss on the topic of toppling Assad. It's not a simple matter of replacing him; you're replacing an entire government, an entire bureaucracy at every level. And removing power from the military.
Ask the US how that went for them in Iraq...
I don't think anyone is proposing simply toppling Assad. I've laid out a pretty comprehensive proposal of what needs to happen to stablize the country if Assad leaves
No one is? That's a bit generous, to put it lightly. Few have 'comprehensive proposals' like yourself. It's a black and white matter for many.
I think a lot of people are justifiably critical of Assad and would prefer he goes, but that's not to say they don't concede that this would involve a lot of work among the international community after.
And where is the energy of the international community going to come from to rebuild an entire nation? NATO grows weaker as an alliance, the US has learned its lessons in nation building, and Russia is exerting military force as a show of power, not diplomatic efforts.
Turkey should be helping, but they're more interested in other things like the Kurds-who just happen to be the most effective fighters of IS. And the US will never back a peace in the greater region that doesn't involve favorable terms for the Kurds.
UN Resolution or NATO mission with full participation from GCC countries (or regional participants).
ISIS got a new leader today
As well as a new inventor.
What about Baghdadi?
Yeah, it was.On the topic of child killers... Wasn't it the 'moderate' rebels who recently beheaded a 12yr old boy?
It's Obama you know?
Interesting article. There needs to be research done into why Shi'i groups specifically have stopped using suicide attacks since the early 90s, after having pioneered the tactic in the Middle East through Hezbollah in the early 80s. Obviously some kind of direction came down from the Iranian regime at some point, it would be interesting to know if the reasons were ideological or strategic. Strange that Sunni groups should adopt the tactic just as the Shi'i groups abandoned it.
It has to do with the dynamics of the Iraq insurgency. I don't have any stats handy, but I'm willing to wager that the Sunni led AQI type VBEID attacks were used as a tool to stoke a sectarian war which Zarqawi was openly pushing to create chaos circa 2004.
That was off course never a strategy by the Sadrists, Badrists, or Iranian proxy groups like Asa'ib al-Haq and the others. All of this also coincided with a period where Iran began to mass produce EFPs and easily export them into Iraq through their Quds force operatives for delivery to their proxy groups (like Asa'ib al-Haq) and others. EFPs were a much more effective and efficient way to target US forces since Humvees and other vehicles routinely left their bases to patrol Iraqi cities, which made it relatively straightforward for operatives cloaked as regular citizens to set up EFPs for remote detection as US convoys bassed through the area.
In a nutshell - the answer here is because AQ, AQI, and ISIS beginning with the "Belgian camera crew" that killed Ahmed Shah Massoud a few days before 9/11 all the way until the present have used suicide attacks as a political assassination and sectarian violence stoking tool whereas the Iranians who have more or less operated in the shadows through Proxies, found it much more beneficial to simply provide their proxy groups with EFPs along with a few Quds force operatives to help facilitate the movement of the weapons and provide a bit of basic training.
Hezbollah seem to have abandoned suicide attacks a lot earlier than the Iraq war though. And Hamas began using them in the early-mid 90s, as did the Egyptian jihadi groups and of course al Qaeda in the east Africa bombings.
I do think you're on to something though, it most likely relates to a pragmatic cost-benefit analysis conducted by the Iranian regime and filtered down to their proxies, whereas most Sunni jihadi groups have had no consolidated state actively directing their operations.
Another interesting thing - the first female suicide bomber in the Middle East carried out her operation on behalf of the SSNP, a secular nationalist group founded by an Orthodox Christian.
That may be part of it - its entirely situational in most instances. The Quds force has over time evolved from its martrydom type attacks to simply enabling foreign proxies to do their dirty work by way of providing them with weapons and training.
Didn´t Hezbollah start to be invested in the political process from the 90s onwards? You don´t need to blow yourself up, if you can achieve your goals via politics. Same in Iraq: Shia´s took over the state and became the top dog. These sunni extremists have completely unrealistic goals (~global caliphate/muslim rule). Non of that will be ever up for debate or accepted by any other actor. No conventional strategy can achieve lasting victory for their cause. I think the gap between goals and reality, the asymmetrical nature of these conflicts and the ideology/Zeitgeist are the driving causes behind suicide attacks. A similar explanation would make sense (very broadly speaking) in Palestine: extremely desperate situation and the alternative forces are/were failing to achieve anything.
It is difficult to find a solution based on this (very short) analysis, because once you went down the rabbit hole of salafi jihadism peaceful interaction is difficult/impossible. In Palestine, Israel would need to enable the less extreme opposition and make substantial concessions in negotiations with them, so they can prove that peaceful means are more succesful than violence. As long as the palestinien goal of statehood itself seems out of reach, the suicide attacks will continue.
In Syria and Iraq the whole thing is even more difficult because there is little public sunni-arab competition to the religious extremists. Imo the only way forward is to defeat the extremists and to enable to local tribal federations, who are at least to some extend driven by credible goals (self-determinations/non discrimination) so they´d buy into a different order. Anyone who is really motivated by the ideology (e.g. most foreign fighters) is imo a lost cause. The idea that anyone could de-radicalize them seems to be rather unrealistic.
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I do wonder too if, with the Shi'a having being the primary targets of suicide attacks in recent years, Shi'i strategists and perhaps even religious thinkers have been turned off the use of this tactic in principle.