Unreasonable!

Jimmy Carter and Robert Pastor wrote:

“These preconditions should not be controversial, but they mean that Syrian factions — and their supporters — would have to back down from their former unreasonable demands.”

Yeah, I guess demanding freedom from tyranny is really quite unreasonable. That’s why I guess, the U.S. did not support us, and pro-democracy activists and moderate rebels were left to face Assad’s killing machine, oiled by Russia and Iran, on their own, seeing that Saudi, Qatar and Turkey supported the other extreme.

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Syrian rebels have taken iconoclasm to new depths, with shrines, statues and even a tree destroyed – but to what end?

Robert Fisk: Syrian rebels have taken iconoclasm to new depths, with shrines, statues and even a tree destroyed – but to what end? – Comment – Voices – The Independent.

While #Assad embarks on a wholesale destruction of our cultural heritage by bombing places like Old Damascus, Old Aleppo and Old Homs, Al-Qaeda adopts a more piecemeal approach, destroying our heritage one statue at a time, garnering more public attention and generating more publicity in the process, so that the likes of Fisk can use it to smear and defame the entire rebel movement.

A Realization

Barrel bombs being dropped daily on rebel areas in Aleppo, civilian installations such as schools and field hospitals are often targeted. Famine and denial of medicals services, including medicines and vaccines, are being used as weapons by the Assad regime in Eastern Ghouta and throughout the country. Worsening weather conditions have created a virtual nightmare for refugees in their tent encampments, especially in Lebanon, Jordan and along the long border with Turkey. Still, thousands are fleeing daily to nearby countries to escape bombardment and starvation.

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The New Power On The Ground In Syria

The New Power On The Ground In Syria.

There is no denying at this stage that Zahran Alloush, his Jaish Al-Islam and his Islamic Front, are among the main power brokers on the ground at this stage. Working in tandem with Jabhat Al-Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham, they have managed to isolate ISIS, but ISIS, in a sense, always wanted to be isolated. Their uncompromising stands make them impossible to work with on a consistent basis. Every now and then, the two camps will cooperate, but most of the time they will compete. Groups like the Syrian Martyrs Brigades and Al-Farouq are not taking direct part in this development, but their fight will be more to protect the niches they have already caved out for themselves in the central parts of the country, than, to posit any direct challenge to either IF, Al-Nusra or ISIS. The turfing of the “liberated” areas is almost complete now. All that is left to do is kick pro-Assad militias out, before pushing further into regime-held territories. Regime advances have been halted and reversed, but so long as the regime maintains loyalist militias in opposition territories, and so long as it continues to control parts of Aleppo and Damascus, this war will continue. It’s about carving out territories now, and the regime will not be allowed to maintain the huge chunk of territory currently under its control.