War in The Middle East

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

Shnorhakalutiun naev qez qo Hairenasirutian hamar, eghbair. Iser mer Hayq-i thogh menq bolors linenq miatzial inchpes mi hzor bruntzq!

Internet ashkharum lik@ tarorinaq yev shurtvadz Hayer kan. Hetevabar, yes shat em uzum vor ko nman <<hamazgayin>> hayrenaser Hayeri tiv shatana ays tegh. Mer miatsial uzheri kenac@:

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

Russia Might Get Involved in the Middle East Conflict



Not so long ago, the Russian soldiers and officers had fought alongside the Syrians against the Israelis on the Lebanese soil. More than one year back, Damascus withdrew its army from the neighbouring country. But today again, because of Lebanon, a threat of involving Syria in the conflict with Israel has sprung up. Moscow is expressing its growing concern on this score, as in that case it again would appear to be among the participants of this military confrontation...

On July 15, speaking at a briefing on the occasion of opening the G-8 summit, Russian Vice-Premier and Minister of Defence Sergey Ivanov declared that Moscow «is worried by a real threat of involving the other countries in the Middle East conflict». Two days earlier Yevgeny Primakov, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister, told which particular country in the region Russia considers the most probable candidate for participation in the military confrontation.

In the interview to the NTV television, he emphasized that «Syria might be affected by the Israeli actions». In the beginning Damascus showed its hightened wariness in the connection with the escalation on the Lebanon-Israeli direction that started on July 12. In the first days no representative of the Syrian leadership expressed his support to the main participant of confrontation from the Lebanese side, the radical Shia organization, Hezbullah. Moreover, on July 14, Syrian ambassador in London, Dr Sami Khiyami, told the BBC TV that his country was even trying to talk to the Hezbullah with an aim to put an end to the rocket bombardments of Israel. He pointed out that «today it is the most important to discuss an exchange of the prisoners of war and to safeguard peace in the Middle East». Apprehension of Moscow amplified even more later on, when, on July 18, the leaders of the US, Britain and Israel accused Damascus of supporting the Hezbullah, putting it reponsible for the military actions in Lebanon.

In parallel, in every possible way Israel let the president of Syria Bashar al-Assad know that it is not going to expand the military actions to the territory of his country. Although, from the beginning of the aggravation of the situation in the zone of the Middle East conflict on June 25, Tel Aviv repeatedly accused Damascus of supporting HAMAS and Hezbullah, but the Israeli leadership has been constantly denying the rumours about the presence of any military plans concerning Syria.

The next day after the capture of two Israeli reservists by the Shia insurgents, Dan Halutz, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff, declared that he «does not see any reason» for involving the Syrians in military actions. On July 15, his subordinate, the IDF Operations Branch Head Major General Gadi Eisenkot informed that Hezbullah had been trying to involve Syria in the operations against Israel. He told that for this purpose the Katyusha missiles had been fired against the settlement of Merom Golan, along the Israeli-Syrian border.

At the same time, Eisenkot noted that «Syria does not take part in the warfare and has no interest of doing so». The next day «a high-ranking military source» told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz that an offensive plan against Syria has not at all been considered. He emphasized that «since 1974 calmness is kept on the Golan Heights, and it has an important strategic significance for Israel». According to the same source, «Syria has not been directly involved in the present escalation in the region ». On July 16, Udi Adam, the chief of Israel's northern command, has added that «there are no intentions to involve Syria in the armed opposition». On July 17 and 18 the similar statements were made by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff Moshe Kaplinski and the already mentioned Gadi Eisenkot.

At the same time, attempts of forcing tension on the Tel Aviv-Damascus line have really become frequent. The first to speak about a possibility of collision between Israel and Syria was the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. On July 13, he declared that if «the regime which has seized Jerusalem, would dare to attack Syria» it will receive «a worthy repulse». Further the Hezbullah subjected to rocket bombardment the Israeli territory adjoining to the Syrian border. Al-Mustakbal, the 15th Lebanese TV channel, distributed false information on the airstrike allegedly targeted by the Israeli Air Forces at the military objects in Syria.

This information was immideately denied by Damascus. Simultaneously, referring to an anonimous source in the Pentagon, the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Haiyat informed, that if al-Assad wold not render pressure on the Hezbullah, this “might push Israel to strike from air at the Syrian strategic objects". According to the article, the same source neither confirmed nor denied the rumours coming from Washington that Tel Aviv in the categorical form gave Damascus 72 hours to fulfil the specified requirements. However, later many world mass-media began to distribute reports, at times not at all mentioning the article by the Al-Haiyat, about the Israeli ultimatum to Syria. And frequently, there was no question about any «rumours that appeared in Washington», and the was presented as if the given ultimatum, almost officially, was voiced by the Israeli leadership. In addition, on July 16, the Hezbullah struck across Haifa - the “northern capital”of Israel, intentionally having used a missile of the Syrian production.

Against the background of the growing escalation in the Middle East, Moscow has from the very beginning expressed its political support to Damascus. Still on June 29, the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs condemned Israel in connection with the «unacceptable violation of the Syrian air space». On July 11, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with the First Deputy Foreign Minister of Syria Feysal Mikdad. At the meeting the situation in Gaza Strip was discussed, first of all, but at the same time Lavrov assured the interlocutor of the full Russian support of Damascus in light of escalation in the region.

Two days later, in connection to the beginning of the Lebanese-Israeli confrontation, the Head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spoke also about the military component of Russia’s relations with Syria. Answering the journalists’ question on a ossibility of Damascus' involvement in the conflict, he emphasized that Moscow is not going to reconsider its previous plans of arms deliveries to the Middle East. Thus, it has became clear that despite of the situation change in the region, the Kremlin will continue to closely cooperate with the Syrian regime in military and political spheres. For Bashar al-Assad it has a special value as Russia, the same as Iran, is one of its major strategic allies, and actually - the only one outside the Muslim world.

Moreover, Syria is the only country outside the post-Soviet space, where Moscow keeps its military presence, and this is considered as an important factor in maintenance of the Russian interests in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean. Lavrov’s statement served as a guarantee that the bilateral agreements reached last years, in particular during the negotiations of the Syrian President al-Assad in Moscow in January 2005, and during the visit of the Chief of the General Staff of Russia Yury Baluevsky to Damascus a year later, despite of all the circumstances, would be observed. Having only get convinced of this, the Syrian President decided to take a hard line on the situation in Lebanon. Strangely enough, Syria appeared to be almost the last Arab country to officially state its attitude towards the Lebanese-Israeli confrontation.

On July 15, the leadership of the ruling BAAS party published a statement according to which the «Syrian people is ready to render overwhelming support to the Lebanese in the heroic struggle they are conducting against the brutal, criminal, and aggressive policy of Israel». The next day, even a more bellicose statement of the government followed: «Any aggression against Syria will receive a firm and direct repsonse, the terms and methods of which will not be limited». On July 18, in the interview to the state radio station Kol Israel, the former chief of the Israeli Air Forces Avihu Bin Nun confirmed the grounds of Sergey Ivanov's worries. As he said, there really is a probability of involving Damascus in military actions.

According to Bin Nun, it may happen as the result of «the Syrian support of the Hezbullah, mistake of one of the sides, or because of a provocation». Simultaneously, the air forces of the country have been put on high alert. Not occasionally, less than one day prior to that, the Russian Minister of Defence declared a possibility of «involving the other states in the Middle East conflict». Against the general background, such script seems to be quite probable now. In such way, as well as in the 1980s, the Lebanese conflict could provoke a direct collision between Syria and Israel. By the way, Moscow had then taken a direct part in military actions on the side of Damascus.

[...]

Link: http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=995

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

Mideast Watch: A Russian-Syrian Alliance?

by Mark N. Katz Washington (UPI) Sep 05, 2005

Despite their many common interests (including opposition to American "hegemony" in general and the American-led intervention in next-door Iraq in particular), Russian-Syrian relations have not been particularly close during most of the Putin era.

Russian-Israeli relations, by contrast, have become very close under both Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Since Syrian President Bashar Assad met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in January 2005, however, Russian-Syrian relations have improved dramatically. Russia has even agreed to sell an advanced air defense missile system to Syria over both American and Israeli objections. Far from signaling a serious downturn in Russian-Israeli relations, though, Putin has been pursuing close ties with Israel and with Syria simultaneously. What is more, he appears to be succeeding at this delicate balancing act.

Unlike the leaders of most countries who have either criticized Putin's policy toward Chechnya or been unwilling to endorse it, Sharon has expressed wholehearted approval for Putin's tough approach - describing it as being as "necessary" as his own vis-a-vis the Palestinians. The two leaders have developed a genuine rapport, and Putin has expressed concern on numerous occasions for the safety and wellbeing of Israel's large Russian-speaking population. Trade between Russia and Israel is much greater than that between Russia and Syria. Important security cooperation has also developed between Russia and Israel - which increased even further after the 2004 Beslan tragedy.

In light of this, the sudden improvement in Russian-Syrian relations at the beginning of 2005 appeared to threaten the Russian-Israeli relationship. Israeli politicians and observers were especially upset that Putin was going ahead with the sale of air defense missiles to Damascus after Israeli and American leaders had repeatedly asked him not to do this. Yet despite the genuine unhappiness expressed by Israeli officials over Putin going ahead with this missile sale, both governments acted to contain and minimize their differences. A longtime Russian observer of Moscow's relations with the Middle East, Georgiy Mirskiy of Moscow's Institute for the World Economy and International Relations, predicted that "deliveries of Russian missiles to Damascus will not prompt a row" with Israel.

Yevgeniy Satanovskiy - president of Moscow's Institute for the Study of Israel and the Near East and one of Russia's strongest proponents of close Russian-Israeli ties - said that the sale of Russian missiles to Syria would have "precisely the same effect on relations with Israel as the Americans' arms exports to Saudi Arabia, that is, simply none at all." Putin's visit to Israel (as well as Egypt but not Syria) in April 2005 and repeated expression of his concern for Israeli security while he was there indicated that the Russian-Israeli relationship was still close despite the sale of Russian air defense missile systems to Syria. The recent improvement in Russian-Syrian relations, then, does not appear to presage a firm alliance between Moscow and Damascus, but something much less instead.

Indeed, the real question about recently improved Russian-Syrian relations is: What's in it both for Damascus and for Moscow? Up until recently, Syria did not have much incentive to pursue improved relations with Moscow. But the American-led intervention in Iraq, and - even more - the combined European, American pressure on Syria over Lebanon have heightened Damascus's sense of insecurity, thus increasing its incentive to turn to Moscow.

This is exactly the position that Putin wants Syria to be in. While Russia may not be willing or able to defend Syria, the combination of Syria's heightened sense of insecurity and its isolation from the West is what has induced Damascus to give the Russian arms and petroleum industries preferential access to Syria. (There have even been reports of negotiations between the Russian atomic energy industry and Syria, but nothing has come to fruition yet in this realm.)

Moscow does not want Syria to have improved relations with the West or make peace with Israel. For under these circumstances, Russian firms might have to compete with Western ones for Syria's business - something which they do not want to have to do. On the other hand, Moscow does not want a hostile Sunni fundamentalist regime to come to power in Damascus since Russia would undoubtedly lose whatever contracts, investments, and other benefits (including continued Russian naval access to Tartus) it gains from the current regime. The present situation in Syria, then, is best suited for Putin to advance Russia's relatively modest, commercially motivated interests there.

Nor does this threaten to seriously damage Russia's relations with either Israel or the U.S. For Moscow understands that while both the U.S. and Israel have little reason to love Bashar Assad, their fear that he will be overthrown and replaced by an Islamic fundamentalist one give them both an interest in Moscow helping to prop him up.

(Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University.)

Link: http://www.spacewar.com/news/russia-05zg.html

[D3ADSY]

Re: War in The Middle East

I never said Iranian forces are superior. Do not put words into my argument that I did not make. It's childish. I stated that Iran has the strategical and tactical advantage if there ever is a war.

This is getting tiring.

"The U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are small in number compared to the fresh and numerically and strategically superior forces of Iran."

It has everything to do with insurgents and their capabilities. You clearly are not familiar with military history if this is the kind of things you believe. In any war, guerrillas and insurgents have always had advantages over vertically structured systems and armies. You are not familiar with fourth generation war and I recommend you read it. The "war on terror" is a vague war, and "terrorists" are vague enemies. They are an amorphous non-state entity and if you know anything about what has been going on in Iraq is that the tactics of terrorists are fourth generation war tactics. Insurgents/guerrillas/terrorists do not face conventional armies head on, but wear them down through time through limited engagements. In the words of William Lind: "In Fourth Generation war, the state loses its monopoly on war. All over the world, state militaries find themselves fighting non-state opponents such as al Quaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the FARC. Almost everywhere, the state is losing."

You clearly did not read my post if you are actually going to argue that the insurgency pushed the USMC out of Fallujah in the siege and ensuing operation. Politics and policy. Who ordered the siege and first assault? Washington, not the Marines, and who called it off? Washington, not the Marines. Both times against the wishes of those on the ground.
You also clearly have not heard about counter-insurgency operations, counter intelligence and so on.

Please feel free to read the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Fallujah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vigilant_Resolve

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Phantom_Fury

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plymouth_Rock

Since neither you nor I were there, it is pointless to claim truth. The U.S. government can be lying for all I know and subterfuge and misinformation is a regular part of the state.

In that case let us not ever hold a discussion over any historical event that we were not present at.
The Russian government lied about casualty figures during the Chechen Wars and I believe it was the mothers of the fallen Russian soldiers who put an end to the lies.
I also believe the DoD releases the names of the fallen soldiers.

Whether you agree or not is irrelevant as the results are there for everyone to witness, but in history and the present. State armies have never if rarely defeated guerrillas and insurgents because state armies are vertically structured systems that are susceptible to disorganized and decentralized units of warfare. What are "terrorists"? Who are "insurgents"? What are their motives? The fact that the Americans have no clear goal or road map is indicative of the loss. When is victory achieved? When all terrorists are defeated? What is a terrorist? How do you know all terrorists can be defeated when terrorism is not a thing but a tactic? It will always exist and the more America disrupts the more it will fuel such hatred of America and increasing the ranks of the horizontally organized insurgencies. You and Americans forget that this is war waged by a wide variety of non-state Iraqi and other Islamic forces for goals and purposes and motives that reach far beyond politics, erathly utopias and 'military victory'. It is a cultural and ideological war now. They have all the morale and are not afraid to die for their cause. How do you defeat that? You cannot defeat them because the differences are rooted in the power of the mind and ideology and not on conventional means. And it is due to this frustration, America's military's inability to root out these terrorists that like Vietnam, they begin targeting innocent people, civilians and villages. In Vietnam, the thinking was they had to destroy the village in order to save it. Orwellian and inverted, isn't it? My guess is you never watched PBS Frontline on the insurgency.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/insurgency/

And thanks to Israeli's recent incursion, al Qaeda, Hezbollah and other non-state forces will thrive and grow.

I am, and have been since I first started posting in this thread on this particular matter, speaking in terms of military, not strategical, ideological or politic terms. Militarily American forces are, and always have been, superior to enemy forces in Iraq. I am not saying the Insurgency is no threat, or that is a paper tiger, far from it.
When Iraq fought Iran they were not employing guerilla tactics, and the same can be said about the first gulf war. Why do I mention this? Because there is a difference between fighters who train and fight "fourth generation warfare" and what we see in Iraq; Those that come from units that disbanded on the eve of war to go home and grab an AK before charging an M1A2 tank as they did all along the highway to Baghdad. The Insurgency is ofcourse evolving but so are Coalition forces.
The kind of enemy you are referring to when you mention "fourth generation warfare" does exist but they are a small, hardcore element with the vast majority being opportunists, grabbing a weapon and heading to the fight when he hears of one, firing a few shots at the enemy before retreating back home. Simply because insurgents are being slaughtered in Iraq does not necessarily mean they are being so because they are unflinching fighters who with their "ready to die" attitude never give up.
I understand you point about conventional and non-conventional warfare but I have tried to argue my point with my posts concerning Fallujah only for you to brush them aside. If every Iraqi insurgent was the equivalent of, say, a Hezbollah militant in terms of their training and equipment things would be different, but they are far from it. They never had decent training as proper military units.A

This is a typical response warmongers gave after the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam. They blamed the media for the loss, and not on the true culprit, that state armies cannot defeated ideologically and mentally superior non-state insurgents and guerrillas with home field advantage who are willing to die for their cause.

I suggest you read about fourth generation warfare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Generation_War

Yes they can, but not with the media making victories out to be defeats. I believe I covered this basic subject with my post on the Tet Offensive.

[D3ADSY]

Re: War in The Middle East

I find it sad that one is known as a hero and the others are simply "future terrorists".

[OMG]

Re: Israel, The Warmonger

Hahah, you know, up until this, I was on Israel's side. ...Killing civilians, bombing airports AND highways is not a good way to try to convince the world you are not terrorists, though...AND, isn't the Israeli army doing this? Not just a terrorist group, but, the actual government is striking at Lebanon...the country, not just the terrorists I don't think I can side with Israel on this one and I hope that we, the US, disciplines Israel, seeing as how we are the world's police & all...

i can understand issues from all sides. as the saying goes, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. i do not understand and do not condone the use of weapons and bombs to solve problems or to secure land. governments can act as terrorists too.

[Armenian]

Re: Israel, The Warmonger

Hahah, you know, up until this, I was on Israel's side. ...Killing civilians, bombing airports AND highways is not a good way to try to convince the world you are not terrorists, though...AND, isn't the Israeli army doing this? Not just a terrorist group, but, the actual government is striking at Lebanon...the country, not just the terrorists I don't think I can side with Israel on this one and I hope that we, the US, disciplines Israel, seeing as how we are the world's police & all...

Wake up America:


"don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the J-e-w-i-s-h people control America, and the Americans know it."

Ariel Sharon

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/10/Sharon3.html

[OMG]

Re: War in The Middle East

please don't turn this thread into anti-semitism. there are many j-e-w-s that are very unhappy with the violence done in their name. you should understand that governments do not always act in the interest of their people. mine does not act how i wish.

[Fedayeen]

Re: War in The Middle East

I find it sad that one is known as a hero and the others are simply "future terrorists".

Don't you just love the power of media? And the blind sheep?

[Fedayeen]

Re: Israel, The Warmonger

Wake up America:


"don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the J-e-w-i-s-h people control America, and the Americans know it."

Ariel Sharon


http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/10/Sharon3.html

damn