Tag Archives: Syrian conflict

FTAC – Clarification on Syria’s Medieval Meltdown

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Syria

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https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/06/02/assad-or-burn-it-assad-burns-it/

Moscow-Damascus-Tehran chose a long time ago to sustain political absolutism and produce between themselves a medieval spectacle, “Assad OR The Terrorists” AKA “Assad vs The Terrorists”. To get “The Terrorists”, Assad chose to bedevil noncombatants and early FSA, whose officers defected from his own corps, while allowing al-Nusra and others greater space and time — an act of incubation, deselection for combat — to consolidate.

No one likes this story — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/02/syria-assad-vs-the-terrorists-how-isis-defends-assad/ — because it suggests that Syria has been made into a complete theater of politics and war, courtesy of Putin, Assad, Khamenei, and, led into it by the early easing off, Baghdadi. The display or tableaux moves “the masses”, but it wasn’t necessary but to defend the politics of dictatorships (“different talks — same walk”) — and Syria has been all but destroyed by it.

We know there is such a thing as the medieval world because we look back on it.

The medieval takes up space in the world’s museums.

Is there such a thing as “modern”?

Perhaps time blends ages and experiences.

One may be certain, however, that what Assad has brought about in Syria combines modern aesthetic and social norms — recall that Concert at Palmyra — with a deeply medieval politics, one that feasts on blood and sets the other side up for doing as much.  Driven from the land or killed: noncombatants and perhaps the more modern of revolutionary units.

Posted to YouTube by Al Jazeera English, September 12, 2016.

Posted to YouTube by AFP News Agency, September 12, 2016.

BackChannels feels that Assad flanked by Putin and Khamenei and accompanied in their medieval journey by Baghdadi are “all in” for “absolute power” — “Different talks, same walk” — and none have either “internal brakes” or personal incentives for compromise.  However, external influences, starting with state (or “state”) money and either the want of it or the loss of it, might apply.

Also, for Putin, greater state interests plus, perhaps, interest in his reputation in history, may come to bear — no pun intended — for as the destruction of Syria intensifies and western intervention remains limited, it’s himself as much as Assad, the head of a Russian “client state”, who may in the world’s memory bear the brunt of responsibility for the horror of it.

Additional Reference

CBS/AP.  “Syria cease-fire — Assad’s “last shot” — seems to hold.”  September 13, 2016.

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FTAC – Syrian Wrap

15 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion, Russia, Syria

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The “Syrian Knot” binds to itself two kinds of power in the world:

Political Absolutism (Moscow) v Democratic Distribution of Power (Washington)

Behind that contest:

–Syria’s drought and declining agriculture (leading to protests in 2011), which in a good world would be less important, but for a dictatorship, getting rid of people one doesn’t really care about or care for in the first place seems pretty convenient.

–Dissolving of the Soviet 25 years ago (December 26, 1991), for which the Soviet had prepared in the 1980s, and which Putin has effectively dropped the communist ideology but sustained the architecture of the earlier organization of the state, i.e., secret police (FSB), central leader (himself), and a privileged class (the “Oligarchs”). Possibly (probably), Russian barbarism predates the czars, and the combination of very dirty deeds (like bombing refugee camps) and high culture (like the concert in Palmyra) have centuries of historical precedent (that assertion is something I want to research and better anchor).

In 2011, and in a quick exchange about positions, Obama and Putin played what in chess would be an opening gambit. Obama had offered the potentially democratic Russian state a “reset” and Putin handily declined in favor of producing a neo-imperial update on the Soviet model. The KGB became the FSB. The invention of the PLO became the continuation of relationships with Hamas, Hezbollah, PFLP, and others.

***

The cultivating and promoting of anti-Semitism in the world is a feudal-medieval ruse to deflect fault on the part of leadership toward the Jews.

Why the Jews?

The Jews have been doing battle with “political absolutism” since the humbling of Pharaoh — thanks to God — and their turning their backs on the same with a “mixed multitude”, i.e., others who shared the Jewish abhorrence of the tyrant. What follows about 4,000 years later is “uptake” by others, i.e., the Romans who turn to Judaism and later differentiation and expansion of subscription (which brings wealth) as Christians. Several hundreds years after that, Muhammad borrows from the Jews, makes himself central in access to God or the Idea of God, and we arrive about here with a long sorry history of medieval warring over “political absolutism” and the basis for it (e.g., “divine right”; “dictatorship of the proletariat”; etc.)

With dictators, you know my rule: “Different Talks — Same Walk!”

Now the “digest” version of the Jews and Russia —

Once Rome had burned, raped, and sacked Jerusalem, the Jews became everybody’s “guests” . . . so come forward a thousand-plus years and find the Jews, a People laden with laws from the time of Moses, a “problem” (more of an opportunity) — an alien enterprise, strangers in a strange land — to Russian Christians who could and would leverage anti-Semitism into the customary theft and murder.

Look into the history of the Cossacks and the Pale of Settlement.

Then go forward again into the Soviet enterprise and its repression of religion (“the opiate of the people,” said Karl Marx). Russian Jews found themselves trapped for decades in Russia by the forces of Soviet exploitation and possession. When it became possible to leave that atmosphere en masse, they did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Jews_in_Israel

Along comes Putin, and Putin makes it his mission to “defend” the speakers of Russian — “Russophones” — wherever they may be found. The ploy excuses aggression (as in Ukraine). With hundreds of thousands of the Jews of Russia repaired to Israel, he knows also to become modern in this fashion and stand against anti-Semitism!

Post-Holocaust, post-Hitler, what Russian leader would not do the same?

Let’s add back ISIS — Assad’s incubated horror — and “Islamic Terrorism” in general and its effects: when a mosquito pricks the skin, the skin swells. The body responds to in the insult. Of course, the hand slaps or slaps away the mosquito (or the bee or wasp), and it starts repairs against infection and against any poisons delivered.

So it is that each terrorist act encourages resurgent nationalism where it takes place.
Migration has similar effects: people want to close their doors seal their boundaries, and fend off those most in need.

It could be said that nature is cruel — or here with political nature that Putin, Assad, and Khamenei are cruel, but like the cowardly fireman who sets the fire and later offers to put it out (!), these have created a condition and perception in many of the west that they can handle ISIS — and they may, having incubated that enterprise to glorify themselves in battle against the same.

Oh brother oh sister — Israel is a precious jewel of a small state representing the character of a people who turned their backs on the idea that any man, including Moses, could represent God on earth. For the Jews, God is indeed greater, and while Moses gets recognition, prayer is always to God, not to Moses. That separation changes the politics, and when Titus of Rome destroys Jerusalem, the priests take the hit (because they failed!) and the scholars and teachers rise in the esteem of the community and the great conversation about ethics and morality comes to represent the Jews. Old Jewish wisdom . . . that’s just my opinion and not very good scholarship but something that might hold up to scrutiny.

Putin has melded many modern ideas into his own medieval atmosphere and the surface of related political theater — “Assad vs The Terrorists” — works for most who simply haven’t the time to examine (as I have) the complexity of the conflicts displayed or experienced.

Israelis don’t like being murdered by incited teenagers creeping into their children’s bedrooms — and there is Putin the Strong fending off Chechnya rebels and applying Russia’s most advanced weapons to the same once they have been channeled to ISIS in Syria.

The “west” has moved around Syria in its responding to post-Soviet neo-Imperial Russia in Syria and Crimea and elsewhere, but, give the devil his due, Putin has worked to weaken the European Union (the British vote on BREXIT seems to me an example of success with that) and NATO (Erdogan’s own embrace of despotism in Turkey accompanied by a go-ahead from Russia on the the “Turkish Stream” pipeline project seems also to affirm Putin’s influence and power) — and he has succeeded in partially renewing — or affirming — our world hosts immensely powerful financial and political elites — medievalism in the modern world.

Post-Soviet Russia saw two old clients — Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi — swept away into history, but with Assad in Syria and the way to Iran potentially laid bare, the dictators have taken their stands.

Would nature have forced mass (economic) migration from Syria?

Possibly.

But nature would not have incubated ISIS (by selecting other targets for bombing and combat earlier in the war) to later aggrandize and glorify the “abilities” of the “strong men”.

The conversation continued, always a few more words, a little more distillation of old observations and new ideas.

In the Garden of Eden story in the Torah, God introduces to Adam and Eve human awareness, self-awareness, and conscience.

It’s all right there at the beginning, i.e., a statement about our own nature — and it’s a good statement.

It’s not the Christian statement; it’s not Muhammad’s statement.

It’s a mysterious statement about the two that God will send off into human life and they will have to work to eat and wrestle with some thorny realities in the way of their own survival.

The dictators — caliphs, emperors, kings, sultans down through the ages — often bend the Divine to their own will, and then they use that power that comes from similar words and technologies in the worst imaginable ways.

The good seem either not powerful enough, proactive enough, or smart enough, frankly, to unmake the tyrant before he has got his hands on a serous treasury and a willing military.

Some could argue that the evil is as much our nature too.

I don’t know the answer to that.

I know that Syria represents perhaps the darkest tragedy of our time, as I believe it has been fashioned by Moscow, Damascus, and Tehran as a complete theater of politics and war.

______

BackChannels had a Muslim conversational partner for this post and one who advocated for Israel against anti-Semitic anti-Zionist smears launched in an advocacy site for the Syrian Revolution.  Questions were raised about Israel’s nationalist politics, links with Russia, and associated anti-Islamism.  Over the years, BackChannels has come to see Moscow promoting the amplification of political sentiment into internal conflicts beyond its borders.  Color codes “Red”, “Red-Green”, “Red-Black” apply to the reinvigorating of “old comrade networks” and the Islamic and Black Power politics that feed Black Lives Matter, Palestinian Solidarity, International Solidarity, Code Pink, and so many others nourished by the still moving inertia of old Soviet disinformation and related inspiration.

As Putin and Russo-Iranian politics have also promoted Far Right politics (Marie Le Pen in France, Jobbik in Hungary), the political color code “Brown” for nationalists and national socialists also applies.  It’s perfectly sensible that any space attacked by an alien force, conveniently “Islamist” these days, including “Islamist” against Muslims worldwide, will rally around its flag, and that whether it be in London or Islamabad.

A third force — i.e., a Moscow — helping to make that attack happen (by incubating ISIS; by using war to create conditions for mass migration irksome to one’s more true target regions and states) is something else: call it “diplomacy by other means” — and means generally beyond the public ken, for the public rarely has time and space for doing more than adjusting its perceptions according to major headlines.

Fast Link Reference

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/05/15/cold-war-cold-struggle/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/02/09/ftac-on-why-the-jews/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/02/syria-assad-vs-the-terrorists-how-isis-defends-assad/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/05/06/ftac-russias-not-so-appealing-turn-in-syria/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_pogroms_in_the_Russian_Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_Post-Soviet_aliyah

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/war-in-syria-russia-s-rustbucket-military-delivers-a-hi-tech-shock-to-west-and-israel-a6842711.html – 1/29/2016

https://www.oilandgaseurasia.com/en/news/erdogan-turkey-russia-agree-jointly-implement-turkish-stream – 8/15/2016

http://vladimirets.org/pale_of_settlement.htm

http://www.newsweek.com/us-accuses-assad-aiding-islamic-state-through-airstrikes-338582

https://yannayspitzer.net/2012/07/22/a-new-map-of-jewish-communities-in-the-russian-empire/

 

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FTAC – Syrian Tragedy and the Promotion of the Medieval Worldview

26 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Islamic Small Wars, Syria

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Assad’s central strategy, this with the probable collusion of its partners, has been to produce an interesting piece of post-KGB-style political theater: “Assad vs The Terrorists”, which becomes also “Assad OR The Terrorists.” First, however, he needed “The Terrorists”, and he needed bad enough terrorists to confuse the moderate opposition with them. He had a few ways of accomplishing this effect. He could spill Islamists out of his jails (I’ll refer to a piece on that bit of data in a moment) and he could focus his air and ground forces against FSA (the initial revolutionary force while giving the al-Qaeda Typicals (like al-Nusra and ISIS) time to incubate.

Mission accomplished.

With “The Terrorists” fully present, Assad could then make the demand, “help me, or help them.”

The same system makes way also for the Assad-side slogan, “Assad, Or We Burn the Country.” 

The western position: help neither, but try to help other forces strong enough in their own moral and fighting fiber to fight both — and the same have been fighting on their two fronts — against Assad’s forces and against Daesh.

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/23/9782082/isis-defeat-assad

Max Fisher’s piece attends to the complicated political nuts and bolts where I have emphasized a larger struggle between the medieval world of political absolutism, of which Putin, Assad, Khamenei, and Baghdaddi form a whole: the first three have in the fourth the enemy they need to write the future of the world their way. None appear possessed of any compassion sufficient to forestall their own inability in restraining themselves.

******

What has come from this has been a steady stream of “war porn” — indescribable images of death, dismemberment, maiming, and mutilation having for their subject tens of thousands of Syrian noncombatants. All who have watched the “Syrian Tragedy” — that’s my term for it — online have seen this horrific feed.

While we have also seen — and in some ways been made to see — Daesh atrocities conveyed in pictures and text, what we have seen also without end have been the targets and effects of Assad’s barrel bombing of whole areas. A portion of Homs today looks like Nagasaki after the ashes have cooled. Famously, the Palestinian Yarmouk Camp has been devastated between Assad’s forces and those of the Islamic State — http://www.longwarjournal.org/…/islamic-state-releases…

Fundamentally, the struggle between the post-Soviet feudalists (“absolute powers” each of them) and the Islamic feudalists is medieval in a particularly barbaric way: both are using modern weapons absent of any apparent compassion or conscience.

******

The medieval screed wants the division of all against all — and those who benefit from it have to promote that division as part of their own archaic, faulted, or otherwise misguided ambition — and for shame or honor, none dare admit fault.

Worse, the medieval of mind align differentially — according to national, religious, or sectarian nominal affiliation. Because you were born . . . Shia . . . because you were born . . . Sunni . . . because you were born Russian Orthodox . . . because you were born Arab . . . . because you were born Turkish . . . . these obligations (to bully, demean, and diminish others, to pick fights with others, the more helpless, the better, etc.) are incumbent upon thee.

The medieval world had been constrained by slow transportation, primitive methods of distant communication (runners with notes or messages) and personal weaponry. These medieval elements in the modern world are not so constrained and are both borrowing and leaking themselves into the platforms, as it were, of the progressive manufacturing of devastating weapons as well as other sectors generating the modern experience of community and technology.

Start with Assad’s planes.

The barrel bombs might be basic in various ways, but the flying machines are not.

Now: Russian cruise missiles launched from air and sea; on the ground, anything that can be gotten and carried.

______

Part of the online crowd supports the Russian position coupled with affinity for the Christian Church (which church matters less at the moment: whatever the true political topology may be, Assad’s opposition — “The Terrorists” — are all Islamists in the Baghdaddi tradition.  Often reached for in objection to that position are the many images of dead, injured, maimed, and mangled children or their parents.  In Assad’s war, the same have not been “collateral” or “in the way” of “The Terrorists”: by all appearances and by way of general barrel bombing most of all, they have been the certain targets of Assad’s so-called “defense”.

This video post on YouTube on May 3, 2011 appears among the earliest statements of the Assad concern for any opposed to its absolute authority in Syria:

Related from 2013:

“It’s more horrific than any other war zone I’ve worked in. Most civilians are caught in crossfire, they are never really caught in direct fire. It is direct fire this time” he told BBC News.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24593886 – 10/19/2013 – “Syria snipers ‘shoot at pregnant women,’ UK doctor claims.”

Such state-generated terrorism encourages sympathy for the Syrian opposition, including in the confusion “The Terrorists” that the Assad regime allowed to incubate.

There are many other and similar observations and arguments having to do with “Assad and The Terrorists” and the medieval barbarism put on display before the world.  The escalation attending Russia’s entry into the combat area, the side-by-side mix of Russo-NATO (U.S.) cooperation and “proxy war” have no effect on the kind of inhuman consciousness involved in sustaining the conflict.

It has been and remains BackChannel’s thesis that Putin, Assad, Khamenei, and Baghdaddi and what they represent — on this blog, 21st Century Feudalism — require one another for survival.

Related on BackChannels: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/02/syria-assad-vs-the-terrorists-how-isis-defends-assad/ – 10/2/2015.

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FTAC – Russia in Syria – Afghanistan? Nope.

13 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Syria

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Syria seems a much more confused battlespace with a Soviet / Post-Soviet backbone supporting feudal absolute power. Russia has returned to support of a Christian church — so it can’t be about “godless communism” — but retains strong alignment with the regime in Iran and the ophthalmologist in the middle. It looks to me like the Sunni-side Arab Emirates post by Hasan Hasan favors Sunni expansion (duh smile emoticon ) with murderous ISIS as its edge, not an evil entity worthy of destruction by both Shiites and Sunnis.

Sigh.

From the western perspective, medievalism is on full display, and, post-Enlightenment, battle is not reason and winning or losing in the same says nothing about metaphysics. Modern Obama has invoked the term “dumb war” for staying out of the Islamic partisan wars of the middle east. Having been right to do so, he’s narrowed the American scope to fighting “The Real Terrorists” (as opposed to Assad’s version of “The Terrorists”) and has had U.S. military campaigning against “ISIL” assets and leadership.

The conversation starter — a question: “Afghanistan II?”

Nope — not Afghanistan Two or too.

The prompt for the conversation came from this report on Russian battlefield losses in the Syrian Theater:

Nearly two weeks after the Russian intervention began in Syria, one could say it has not got off to a good start. Last week, the Syrian regime launched its first ground offensive against the rebels under Russian air support.

The assault, in Hama’s northern countryside, failed spectacularly – rebels affiliated to the Free Syrian Army destroyed at least 18 tanks and held their ground.

Hassan Hassan.  “How the Syrian crisis will change matters in Iraq”.  The National, October 13, 2015.

Considering the source and the role played by partisan opinion and reporting around the Syrian Tragedy, the report of so many tanks destroyed may do with buttressing.  Here it is:

The U.S.-made BGM-71 TOW missiles were delivered under a two-year-old covert program coordinated between the United States and its allies to help vetted Free Syrian Army groups in their fight against President Bashar al-Assad. Now that Russia has entered the war in support of Assad, they are taking on a greater significance than was originally intended.

Sly, Liz.  “Did U.S. weapons supplied to Syrian rebels draw Russia into the conflict?”  The Washington Post, October 11, 2015.

“We get what we ask for in a very short time,” one commander, Ahmad al-Saud, said in an interview. He added that in just two days his group, Division 13, had destroyed seven armored vehicles and tanks with seven TOWs: “Seven out of seven.”

Barnard, Anne and Karam Shoumali.  “U.S. Weaponry Is Turning Syria Into Proxy War With Russia.”  The New York Times, October 12, 2015.

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A Plan for Syria – Guest Post by Hasan Alsawaf

06 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Middle East, Regions, Syria

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ترجمة المقالة القيمة : 

هذه هي رؤية قصيرة للسياسة الخارجية الأميركية المقترحة على سوريا.

وكما نعلم جميعا أن الوضع في سوريا يزداد سوءا يوما بعد يوم. تم تشريد نصف السكان السوريين، وقد انحشر النصف الآخر بين الديكتاتور الأسد وISIS الإرهابي الذي لا يرحم.

اسمي الدكتور حسن الصواف، أميركي سوري اشعر بقلق شديد إزاء مستقبل سوريا، خاصة بعد الفشل الذريع لسياسة إدارة أوباما “القيادة من الخلف”.

الأولويات للتعامل مع الأزمة السورية هي كما يلي:

1- وقبل كل شيء، حماية المدنيين، والتي تتم من قبل القوات متعددة الجنسيات على أرض الواقع، وضمان سلامة جميع المدنيين، ومنع خروج أعداد كبيرة من اللاجئين إلى الدول المجاورة.

2- نزع سلاح جميع الميليشيات في سوريا، والتي قد تكون مهمة صعبة لإنجاز، ولكنها تصبح ممكنة مع إرادة المجتمع الدولي.

3- التخلص من جميع المقاتلين الاجانب والقوات الاجنبية غير الشرعية في سوريا.

4- عقد انتخابات وطنية ووضع البلاد على طريق الديمقراطية.

5- التأكد من أن سوريا المستقبل ستكون حكومة اتحادية وغير مركزية فيها جميع السوريين متساوون وحقوق جميع الأقليات مكفولة في الدستور الجديد.

ليس فقط واجب إنساني، ولكن أيضا واجب معنوي وأخلاقي ان يقف العالم معا لوقف سفك الدماء وتدمير البنى التحتية في سوريا ووقف التغير السريع للبنية الديموغرافية في ذلك الجزء من العالم.

ستكون سورية الجديدة دولة ديمقراطية حرة، تعيش في سلام مع جميع دول الجوار وتشارك بنشاط في المجتمع الدولي.

شكرا جزيلا ترجمة ومساعده في الرؤيه والانجاز الأخت الأم

Daad EssaMamary8

This is a short vision for proposed American foreign policy on Syria.

As we all know the situation in Syria is getting worse by the day. Half of the Syrian population has been displaced, and the other half has been squeezed between the dictator Assad and ruthless terrorist ISIS.

My name is Dr.Hasan Alsawaf, a Syrian American who is greatly concerned about the future of Syria, especially after the utter failure of the Obama administration policy “Leading from behind”.

The priorities to deal with the Syrian crisis are as the following:

1- First and foremost, protect the civilians, which is done by multi -international forces on the ground, ensure the safety of all civilians, and prevent the massive exodus of refugees to the neighboring countries.

2- Disarm all the militias in Syria, which might be a very hard task to accomplish, but is feasible with the will of the international community.

3- Get rid of all the foreign fighters and illegal foreign troops in Syria.

4- Hold a national election and put the country on the path of democracy.

5- Ensure that the future Syria will be a federated and non-centralized government where all Syrians are equal and all minorities’ rights are protected and guaranteed in the new Constitution.

It is not only a humanitarian obligation, but also a moral and ethical one for the world to stop the bloodshed and destruction of the infrastructure in Syria and to stop the rapid changing of the demographic in that part of the world.

The new Syria should be a free democratic country, at peace with all it’s neighboring countries and participating actively in the world community.

Thank you very much

Dr. Hasan Alsawaf
Former Senatorial Republican Endorsed Candidate for the State of Rhode Island
Rhode Island Republican Party Delegate.
Founder of the Syrian American Group.
Founder of American Muslims against Violence and Terrorism.

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Chicago Rules – Syria for Nuclear Deal?

08 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Russia, Syria

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Washington (CNN) Democrats on Tuesday gave President Barack Obama the votes he needs to prevent the Senate from passing a measure disapproving of the Iran nuclear deal.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/08/politics/iran-nuclear-deal-richard-blumenthal-ron-wyden-gary-peters-obama-democrats/ – 9/8/2015.

MOSCOW — Signs of an ongoing Russian military buildup in Syria have drawn U.S. concerns and raised questions of whether Moscow plans to enter the conflict. President Vladimir Putin has been coy on the subject, saying Russia is weighing various options, a statement that has fueled suspicions about the Kremlin’s intentions.

Observers in Moscow say the Russian manoeuvring could be part of a plan to send troops to Syria to fight the Islamic State group in the hope of fixing fractured ties with the West.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/russian-military-buildup-in-syria-suggests-putin-toying-with-troop-deployment-to-fight-the-islamic-state – 9/8/2015.

Iran’s president has said his country is ready to hold talks with the United States and Saudi Arabia on ways to resolve the Syrian civil war.

Shia powerhouse Iran is a leading patron of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and accuses Sunni rival Saudi Arabia and the US of siding with anti-Assad rebels and fighters.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/iran-ready-talk-saudi-arabia-syria-150908092549115.html – 9/8/2015.

US and regional reports that Moscow’s diplomatic and logistical support for Assad is shifting into major military backing has raised the prospect of Israel and Russia accidentally coming to blows.

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Israel-wary-of-Russian-military-build-up-in-Syria-415586 – 9/8/2015.

How quickly things come together!

Too quickly?

Could the Obama Administration have “offered” Syria — no resistance — as part of negotiations in exchange for the nuclear deal?

BackChannels cannot peek behind those curtains, but the shift from 2011 in which ordinary Syrians challenged the Assad regime’s absolute control of the state to this day in which the major media cannot help but promote the the theatrical  “Assad vs The Terrorists” (as if every loose fighting brigade was born of al-Qaeda) appears to have invited increased Russian military support and presence benefiting the despots — Putin, Assad, Khamenei — all around.

Moscow is not planning to transform its logistics center in Syria’s Tartus into a full-format military base, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and special presidential representative for the Middle East and African countries Mikhail Bogdanov told Interfax.

http://rbth.com/news/2015/09/08/russia_not_planning_to_transform_logistics_center_in_syrias_tartus_into__49078.html – 9/8/2015.

BackChannels close readers might recall that mention was made last December of Mikhail Bogdanov meeting in November 2014 with PFLP representatives and discussing the S-300 missile program.

According to the New York Times, “Russia has sent a military advance team to Syria and has transported prefabricated housing units for hundreds of people to an airfield near Latakia, according to American intelligence analysts.” The Times adds that “Russia has also delivered a portable air traffic station to the airfield and has filed military overflight requests through September.” The reports follow closely on the heels of similar allegations in recent weeks, including reports of new arms, and even combat troops.

U.S. military officials said Tuesday that Russia has moved new personnel, planes and equipment into Syria in recent days.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/09/08/expanded-syria-presence-would-carry-big-risks-for-russia/ – 9/8/2015.

http://triblive.com/usworld/world/9051310-74/syria-military-russian#axzz3lB2GsYnO – 9/7/2015.

http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/20140520/streets-of-tartus-lined-with-pictures-of-martyrs-for-assad – 5/20/2014.

Assad said: “The Russian presence in different parts of the world, including the Eastern Mediterranean and the Syrian port of Tartus, is very necessary, in order to create a sort of balance, which the world has lost after the dissolution of the Soviet Union more than 20 years ago.”

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2015/03/syria-russia-tartus-base-intervention-expansion.html#ixzz3lB1JneyN – 3/31/2015.

A report published on 27 June by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty says: “Russia’s greatest strategic and geopolitical interest in Syria is the use of a deep-water port at Tartus”.

That report goes on to say that Tartus can dock nuclear submarines, it is the receiving point for Russian weapons shipments to Syria and it is linked to a well-developed network of roads and railways.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-18616191 – 6/27/2012.

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