The likely president in a few months wants a no-fly zone, which the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said would “require” a war with Russia. Russia and Syria know about Clinton’s plan, and they have an interest in making as much progress in the war until Clinton assumes power. If they make significant progress, it will be more difficult politically for Clinton to make her drunkenly belligerent moves. Because of this, there will be no ceasefire as long as the likely victor is Clinton. If less governments were involved, for example the US govt, the likelihood of a cease fire would increase.
The civil war was not started because of the protests, that’s an intensely naive version of reality. In any case, the Syrian government is indeed attempting to defend its territorial monopoly. A civil war is characterized by a faction or factions attempting to gain control of the state apparatus. Assad defends the state apparatus from the various factions. It’s not a tough concept.
It seems “intensely naive” means "based on the actual facts. The civil war stemmed directly from the initial peaceful mass protests starting in the March 2011 and the decision of the Assad regime to immediately use live ammunition against protestors and active its death squads to disappear and to assasinate. The actual war aspect began when certain of the army and police units mutinied against orders to fire on protestors and defected individually and then en masse as units by approximately the June 2011.
That is indeed one form of civil war. What this strange definitional recitation has to do with anything I do not know.
I described the Syrian conflict as a defensive war. You put “defensive war” in quotes and claimed it was a “funny idea”. I then further explained the nature of the civil war and why it should be considered a defensive war. Are you caught up now?
It is not a “defensive war” it is a war that the regime itself launched proactively and created itself. It is the picture of offensive, as it was not the protestors that launched armed and army organized attacks, it was the regime. When it is that actor that has launched the process, it is not ‘defensive’ - any more than the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union was ‘defensive’
Your bizarre american fringe ideology seems to make it impossible not only for you to understand the economics, but also any politics.
There is no “catch up” at all, it is just to be noted the eccentric and fringe political framing you put on subjects and thus the eccentric view.
Isn’t this an oversimplification? Can’t the various factions just as easily say “We are defending ourselves form the Assad regime because this regime has a history of violent suppression of protests, it has rolled the tanks into the streets, and snipers killed many of the peaceful protesters”?
Then explain to naive, ignorant people like myself why the civil war actually started. You never actually addressed that criticism by Ramira. Provide citations for all your assertions because I like to do my own independent reading.
It is really very simple - the aggressor is that party that first resorted to violence and actual warfare. There is no doubt at all that it was the Assad regime.
It is a fun house mirror to call an aggressive use of lethal force against peaceful protestors (over many months and many repetitions) as defensive.
It did not go the way they thought and indeed they are now on the defensive, but in the same way the Nazis were on the defensive in the second world war, it was still a war of aggression.
Is the Syrian government on the defensive from citizens stifled by protest or from factions other than those peaceful protestors?
I didn’t call the tactics used by Assad to stifle protests defensive. I called the war that has been ongoing for several years defensive. Please keep up.
North Korea stifles dissent harshly, if they were invaded by the US govt they would be fighting a defensive war.
The factions fighting Assad are mostly foreigners, backed by foreign governments. Even Clinton acknowledged this in recent leaked emails. It’s like I’m dropping a nugget of wisdom on you each time I lap you.
The assertion that the factions fighting the Assad regime, now but particularly at the start are mostly foreigners is completely false (and logistically of course an impossibility).
Evidently you have confused some things you have read about the DAESH (which the Assad regime ignores mostly) with the larger combats in the populated west.
In fact, most of the effective forces backing Assad are foreigners - Iranians, Hezbollah and other Iranian-supported militias. The actual Syrian military hasn’t been in charge for some time now.