If they make a full court press to take it (at which point they will have won the war for all intents and purposes), then the agreement will obviously fall apart.
Well, they're obviously aiming for exactly that. And given how bad the situation is, we might as well root for them to do so. Daesh & al-Queda losing is good, even if the overall outcome is bad. (If Daesh & al-Queda won, it would be much much worse.)
It would be in Russia’s interest to dicker with the Free Syrian Army groups in Aleppo and to try to bring them into the elections now scheduled for April.
It seems to me the FSA has only one goal - opposition to Assad. This is essentially suicidal for them - if they succeeded Daesh or al-Queda would come to blows, and the FSA would get squashed in the middle and annihilated. Obviously, the FSA should throw its lot in with Assad and buy themselves survival with it, but I suspect they don't want to.
(As I said, I think that would be a mistake, not to mention horrible for its people, but that is where things are going).
It's a mistake in the sense it would be bad for Syria - all the other outcomes are worse. An underground war that rumbles along for a few years offers the non-fundamentalist opposition a chance to survive and someday come back. A war they're part of winning means they get wiped out wholesale.
but it is a slightly less horrible outcome than the worst of what could have happened, i.e. a Daesh or al-Qaeda takeover of Syria).
Again, if Assad goes down at this point Daesh or al-Qaeda wins. Then they fight each other for control and all the remaining seculars get killed or driven out. Or the Turks intervene and turn Syria into a neo-Ottoman police state which will have to be just as bad and nasty as Assad's state.
Daesh wins or al-Queda wins and then Syria either turns into a mash of brawling princedoms (the war of all against all) with all the blood and death that entails, or Daesh wins. Or al-Queda wins and in either case Jordan goes down and Lebanon turns into a bloodbath and it's crazy fundamentalists from the Med to Euphrates, all trying to purge their way to paradise. (Of course, we'd have to get involved so you can tote up a a million more dead just from trying to remain in charge of the situation.)
The choice is tens of thousands more against millions with a good chance that burns out of control and drags everyone in the world into a real actual WWIII. (Much like Serbia v. Austria dragged everyone else into WWI.)
If the thing gets snuffed out, the starvation and the artillery fire stops. Something can be salvaged from that. If we had to (and maybe we'd want to) a small partition of Syria and Iraq that involves giving the middle sands to the Saudis might be workable, although I doubt anyone would want to try.
My actual question is just how big of a hot-headed fool is Erdogan? Is he going to cut his losses and let Assad/whomever mind the YPG under control for Erdogan, or is Erdogan desperate to hang onto the neo-Ottoman dream? If he's sensible enough to cut his losses here, I think his position is decent enough - he can be part of the EU and maybe get the PKK problem under control. Or he can commit suicide by going to war with the Russians.
I don't see how a French brigade gets to Eastern Syria. I don't think Jordan is going to allow anyone to conduct a ground attack out of Jordan, and I know Erdogan won't allow a ground attack out of Turkey. (Perhaps if the French wanted to attack Assad/fight the Russians or attack the Kurds, in which case, Erdogan would be happy to help.)
So they'd have to go in through Iraq, which leaves them fighting in the north with the Kurds, or in the south (center) with the Shi'a. I don't think that's what Hollande's going to aim for, unless he is very very dumb.
Of course, I suppose the Russians might persuade Assad to allow the French to attack from his area of control, but the Americans are going to be freaking out about that. Not to mention Assad would be demanding additional help in his fight against al-Nusra and friends.
A french brigade on the ground forming the spearhead around Sinjar would be a very helpful thing to have today, but the supply situation would be terrible.
More combat aircraft they can do, I think.
max
['I don't think the American scheme of sending in support troops to Anbar has been particularly useful. All the risks and costs, and none of the rewards.']
The Iraqi army is sitting it out, a datum for which I have seen no explanation.
The Iraqi Army can't get there. Based on current maps they'd need to continue their drive up Highway 1 and then turn west into the sand to link up with the Kurds. The other alternative is to go way around east past the lump of Sunni territory held by Daesh east of Mosul (& Highway 1) and then keep traveling all the way around to back to Mt. Sinjar.
No point to it. The Iraqi army seem to have shifted their main effort towards Anbar (and they seem to have quite a fight on their hands). The alternative would to continue the drive up Highway 1 until they got near Tel Afar or continue going towards Mosul. But they seem to have stalled out once they took Baiji.
Which is a problem, but that's no reason to hold up the Kurds. FP seems to be suggesting driving east from Sinjar towards Mosul, but that's silly - they would be leaving their back door open and not gaining much since they could just try going head into Mosul from the direction of Irbil.
Better to keep going south and completely cut the Daesh lines to Tel Afar and Mosul, and either fortify or advance down down 47 to complete a linkup with YPG. In particular, I would take Wardiya, Ain Fathi, and Baa'j would render most Daesh transit to west unworkable. Add in the junction of 47 and the border road to the west and they should be able to seal up their rear with a minimum number of troops. (Let Daesh bang on the door and get bombed would be my theory.)
They could go ahead and take Ibrat Ash Shaghirah from the west and take Tel Afar from the north (supposedly they had it already) and in particular seize Tal Afar air field.
I think the Kurds are already holding the junction of Highway 1 and 47, so my preference would be a goal of bagging Masad, Sirwal, Ayn al-Jahesh in the way to seizing (if possible) the junction of Highway 1 and 3. That would allow a direct drive down Highway 3 to the bridge and the Kurdish (eastern front line).
(I'm not trying to minimize the difficulty doing this, but if the Kurds can push army across some crappy road and desert to Highway 1 & 3, they'll have cut Mosul off from supply & reinforcement completely. Take the west side of the 3 bridge back from Daesh and they've got open short supply lines to their spearheads. From that position, they can collapse the pocket around Mosul down to the outskirts of town, which leaves the Daesh fighters in Mosul in dire trouble and running out of ammo (food, gas, maybe water). They could drive straight down Highway 1 towards (eventually) Baiji.)
max
['We need to get some more armor to the Kurds, I think.']
If they make a full court press to take it (at which point they will have won the war for all intents and purposes), then the agreement will obviously fall apart.
Well, they're obviously aiming for exactly that. And given how bad the situation is, we might as well root for them to do so. Daesh & al-Queda losing is good, even if the overall outcome is bad. (If Daesh & al-Queda won, it would be much much worse.)
It would be in Russia’s interest to dicker with the Free Syrian Army groups in Aleppo and to try to bring them into the elections now scheduled for April.
It seems to me the FSA has only one goal - opposition to Assad. This is essentially suicidal for them - if they succeeded Daesh or al-Queda would come to blows, and the FSA would get squashed in the middle and annihilated. Obviously, the FSA should throw its lot in with Assad and buy themselves survival with it, but I suspect they don't want to.
(As I said, I think that would be a mistake, not to mention horrible for its people, but that is where things are going).
It's a mistake in the sense it would be bad for Syria - all the other outcomes are worse. An underground war that rumbles along for a few years offers the non-fundamentalist opposition a chance to survive and someday come back. A war they're part of winning means they get wiped out wholesale.
but it is a slightly less horrible outcome than the worst of what could have happened, i.e. a Daesh or al-Qaeda takeover of Syria).
Again, if Assad goes down at this point Daesh or al-Qaeda wins. Then they fight each other for control and all the remaining seculars get killed or driven out. Or the Turks intervene and turn Syria into a neo-Ottoman police state which will have to be just as bad and nasty as Assad's state.
Daesh wins or al-Queda wins and then Syria either turns into a mash of brawling princedoms (the war of all against all) with all the blood and death that entails, or Daesh wins. Or al-Queda wins and in either case Jordan goes down and Lebanon turns into a bloodbath and it's crazy fundamentalists from the Med to Euphrates, all trying to purge their way to paradise. (Of course, we'd have to get involved so you can tote up a a million more dead just from trying to remain in charge of the situation.)
The choice is tens of thousands more against millions with a good chance that burns out of control and drags everyone in the world into a real actual WWIII. (Much like Serbia v. Austria dragged everyone else into WWI.)
If the thing gets snuffed out, the starvation and the artillery fire stops. Something can be salvaged from that. If we had to (and maybe we'd want to) a small partition of Syria and Iraq that involves giving the middle sands to the Saudis might be workable, although I doubt anyone would want to try.
My actual question is just how big of a hot-headed fool is Erdogan? Is he going to cut his losses and let Assad/whomever mind the YPG under control for Erdogan, or is Erdogan desperate to hang onto the neo-Ottoman dream? If he's sensible enough to cut his losses here, I think his position is decent enough - he can be part of the EU and maybe get the PKK problem under control. Or he can commit suicide by going to war with the Russians.
max
['We'll see.']
I don't see how a French brigade gets to Eastern Syria. I don't think Jordan is going to allow anyone to conduct a ground attack out of Jordan, and I know Erdogan won't allow a ground attack out of Turkey. (Perhaps if the French wanted to attack Assad/fight the Russians or attack the Kurds, in which case, Erdogan would be happy to help.)
So they'd have to go in through Iraq, which leaves them fighting in the north with the Kurds, or in the south (center) with the Shi'a. I don't think that's what Hollande's going to aim for, unless he is very very dumb.
Of course, I suppose the Russians might persuade Assad to allow the French to attack from his area of control, but the Americans are going to be freaking out about that. Not to mention Assad would be demanding additional help in his fight against al-Nusra and friends.
A french brigade on the ground forming the spearhead around Sinjar would be a very helpful thing to have today, but the supply situation would be terrible.
More combat aircraft they can do, I think.
max
['I don't think the American scheme of sending in support troops to Anbar has been particularly useful. All the risks and costs, and none of the rewards.']
The Iraqi army is sitting it out, a datum for which I have seen no explanation.
The Iraqi Army can't get there. Based on current maps they'd need to continue their drive up Highway 1 and then turn west into the sand to link up with the Kurds. The other alternative is to go way around east past the lump of Sunni territory held by Daesh east of Mosul (& Highway 1) and then keep traveling all the way around to back to Mt. Sinjar.
No point to it. The Iraqi army seem to have shifted their main effort towards Anbar (and they seem to have quite a fight on their hands). The alternative would to continue the drive up Highway 1 until they got near Tel Afar or continue going towards Mosul. But they seem to have stalled out once they took Baiji.
Which is a problem, but that's no reason to hold up the Kurds. FP seems to be suggesting driving east from Sinjar towards Mosul, but that's silly - they would be leaving their back door open and not gaining much since they could just try going head into Mosul from the direction of Irbil.
Better to keep going south and completely cut the Daesh lines to Tel Afar and Mosul, and either fortify or advance down down 47 to complete a linkup with YPG. In particular, I would take Wardiya, Ain Fathi, and Baa'j would render most Daesh transit to west unworkable. Add in the junction of 47 and the border road to the west and they should be able to seal up their rear with a minimum number of troops. (Let Daesh bang on the door and get bombed would be my theory.)
They could go ahead and take Ibrat Ash Shaghirah from the west and take Tel Afar from the north (supposedly they had it already) and in particular seize Tal Afar air field.
I think the Kurds are already holding the junction of Highway 1 and 47, so my preference would be a goal of bagging Masad, Sirwal, Ayn al-Jahesh in the way to seizing (if possible) the junction of Highway 1 and 3. That would allow a direct drive down Highway 3 to the bridge and the Kurdish (eastern front line).
(I'm not trying to minimize the difficulty doing this, but if the Kurds can push army across some crappy road and desert to Highway 1 & 3, they'll have cut Mosul off from supply & reinforcement completely. Take the west side of the 3 bridge back from Daesh and they've got open short supply lines to their spearheads. From that position, they can collapse the pocket around Mosul down to the outskirts of town, which leaves the Daesh fighters in Mosul in dire trouble and running out of ammo (food, gas, maybe water). They could drive straight down Highway 1 towards (eventually) Baiji.)
max
['We need to get some more armor to the Kurds, I think.']