Every journalist, public intellectual and mouthbreathing tv personality has an opinion on what western strategy should be in Syria in light of the Russian involvement. It makes for a chaos in perpetual regeneration. However, the vacuum we've created in Syria by our inaction and the lack of leadership from president Obama and Mr Cameron having now been filled by the vile dictator Putin might make western strategy more simple. That is if we operate under the assumption we take advantage of the opportunity.
Many Sunni Arab nations in the region have been unwilling to take action against ISIS and in many cases have been supporting the Islamic State materially and strategically. This is because the dominant concern for the Sunni regimes is the threat posed by the rogue axis of the Syrian Ba'athist Alawite regime of Bashar Al Assad, the Shia twelver rapture cult IRGC, and their protector Vladimir Putin. Setting aside the many severe human rights offenses and the warped ideological export regime in Saudi Arabia and the embarrassment that is Turkey under the AKP and the unabashed Hitler loving islamist Erdogan, it isn't difficult to see their point. Saudi Arabia and Turkey have long been allies to the west. Saudi Arabia is actually surprisingly eager and cooperative in diplomatic matters despite their vile domestic barbarism and their fetish for pushing wahabbi islam on the world, and Turkey has become a serious liability in recent years after only being a problematic partner in the Cold War. Perhaps AKP lobbyist Porter Goss has something to do with it.
The Sunni powers are the worst kind of allies but they aren't wrong about the rogue theocratic axis. The Islamic Republic of Iran is controlled by a Twelver Shia Armageddon cult of revolution hijacking Bonapartists, pseudo-democratic Bolshevists, and sadistic senior citizens with a lust for WMD who lead the world in terror sponsorship, human rights violations, executions, and abuse of civil liberties. Their private Libyan fascist militia Hezbollah has a nifty flag featuring a not at all subtle mushroom cloud, as if promotion of the Rosetta Stone of anti-Semitism aka the Protocols of the Elders of Zion weren't despicable enough. The Islamic Republic has been successful at keeping their overwhelmingly young population of regime haters from executing a coup, but their Alawite subsidiary in Syria, the Ba'athist mass murderer Bashar Al Assad has not had the same luck keeping his prison riot of a country under control.
The Syrian Civil War is quite possibly the most confusing conflict in history with the sectarian militias, foreign fighters, state proxies, side dealing enemies, jihadist guerillas and the criminal sex shame cult as alternative makeshift startup state with dystopian fantasy appeal for the young and repressed youth seeking the medieval slave state of their dreams. The success of the Iranian cult and the survival of the genocidal tumor Assad would not be ongoing if not for their benefactor who is neither Shia or Alawite, the crimeboss, demigod, media magnate and "all things to all creeps" dictator leading the Russia Today Orthodox Church Federation to the ideal Russian imperial future: the Russian imperial past. Vladimir Putin may seem like a mutant villain from a cyberpunk comic book, but he's much worse.
Imagine the absurdity of a former KGB bureaucrat with a predilection for poisoning, shooting and bludgeoning political opponents being elected, reelected and then claiming squatters rights in the Kremlin. Once there he merges government with the imperial nostalgist-cum-Stalin revivalist colporteurs of arch-Christian national chauvinism in the Russian Orthodox church, reverses decades of nuclear non-proliferation, recycles the Sudetenland strategy in Crimea, and melds Europe's preeminent cultural felo de se in the masochistic far left and the sniveling far right. He sashays his way across the wreckage of his Caligulan bacchanalia fueled by adrenaline, tabloid journalism standards and Mafia panache, and remakes his proud country into a bitter vassalage of his knavish personality, a dour thraldom of belligerent jingoism, and a quickly closing society of maimed subjects to a theocratic syndicate of crony corporatist oligarchs and feudal lords oblivious to their state of geopolitical Siberia and with Herculean poll numbers Putin comes to the rescue to "fight Isis." In fact he is the bodyguard of an empowered Assad and the errand boy for the rogue axis of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The goal whether he knows it or not is the crushing of Saudi Arabia, which is simultaneously pure tribalism and a totally legitimate threat to the security and economy of the region and the world. The increased influence of Iran and Russia, their support for Assad and the racism against Kurds, Yazidis and other ethnic and religious minorities makes ISIS the more attractive choice for Turkey and their neighbors. This is obscene, but it is also the reality.
The presence of Russian troops along with Iran and Assad is going to be tough for the Islamic state and the other jihadist and radical groups fighting Assad in Syria. The alliances between these groups and the regional regimes will be increasingly difficult to conceal as this conflict continues.
The western democracies should leave Syria to this emerging international disaster. It does nobody any good to have Arab countries see the US and our allies as partners with Iran and Assad. Let Russia be the visible enemy in that regard. What western democratic open societies should do is focus efforts on Iraq and the Kurdish areas of Syria. The strategy should be to support the Kurds, remove ISIS from all Kurdish areas and Iraq, in so doing humiliate ISIS militarily and drive them into Syria where there will no doubt be a clusterfuck of mammoth proportions.
There really is no winning strategy or path to victory conceivable in Syria with Russia and Iran so heavily involved. We really can't say what victory in Syria would look like. We want to defeat ISIS and al Qaeda but everyone else wants to defeat Assad and Iran (and now Russia). We should define victory as securing Kurdish territory and removing ISIS from Iraq.
In Syria, apart from the Kurdish territory, we have good options. If we side with the regional regimes we are putting ourselves at odds with our Kurdish friends and cooperating with parties that have different goals and conflicting agendas with regards to ISIS. Siding with Assad was never an option and Russia can make the entire region their enemy by backing Iran and Assad without our involvement.
This is going to be a mess. It is time to take sides and declare to The Kurds and Yazidis and all people who wish to be free from terror and tyranny: "we are on your side and we are staying there until you're in and they're out."
