https://twitter.com/SherineT/status/516667015671861251 why are they doing that?
Let me start by laying out a general observation about war coverage. Any one report is by its nature granular--especially in raw tweet form. The best coverage in newspapers is usually the result of many reporters on the ground during any one event covering a host of different poles, military & political. So it's difficult at the best of times trying to understand the bigger picture from one reporter's observations. In a complex civil war, matters are worse. In Syria, you have government forces, you have competing (and outright hostile) rebel groups (mostly working as part of larger networks, but not always beholden to them) and massive outside influence, from Turkey to Jordan, to the Saudis and the Gulf States, to Russia and the US. It's exceedingly difficult to pronounce on what one report alone Means.
This specific (and again, granular) bit of information can mean a host of things. For a start, the FSA could simply be lying--with good reason. Given the unpopularity of the US attacks even in ISIS-held areas, why on Earth would the FSA (trying to be the primary rebel military authority in the conflict) cheer them on? Still less admit to coordination? Or even, why not, invent a story of US bombs feeling on them too? The US could be in on the act too, knowing full well it can't be wedded to the FSA.
It could just be a mistake. War is messy at the best of times. The Syrian Civil War is messy as hell.
It could also mean a much wider campaign by the coalition than we realise. If some reports are correct, that the FSA is compromised by radical groups of all stripes,the US might believe harming radical elements even within the FSA is Good Policy. But this has he net effect of helping Assad in the medium-term.
It could mean the US is actually trying to help Assad. This is a controversial thesis, but it is still possible. Given the choice between Assad and maybe even less savoury rebel groups, who might the US seek to support?
And then there's the sneaking suspicion that the US might be trying to do harm to ALL parties, if to varying degrees. We have precedent for this. My favourite example is that of the Iran-Iraq War, where the US propped up BOTH régimes at various stages in the long, horrible conflict. The point, of course, was to bleed white both opponents--making them ineligible contenders for regional hegemon. If there is something to the idea that the US actively WANTS to weaken these states and their social bases--if Balkanisation of the Middle East is actually the strategy, a view supported by many on the Left, but most recently implicitly rejected by Richard Seymour--then weakening all sides makes a hell of a lot sense.
It's still too early to tell, frankly, what the US is doing in Syria. It is this uncertainty--against Richard Seymour's apparent certainty that this is an attempt to prop up the regional state system, which I suspect is massively wrong--what should keep the Left in a highly critical, negative posture on US involvement.
This specific (and again, granular) bit of information can mean a host of things. For a start, the FSA could simply be lying--with good reason. Given the unpopularity of the US attacks even in ISIS-held areas, why on Earth would the FSA (trying to be the primary rebel military authority in the conflict) cheer them on? Still less admit to coordination? Or even, why not, invent a story of US bombs feeling on them too? The US could be in on the act too, knowing full well it can't be wedded to the FSA.
It could just be a mistake. War is messy at the best of times. The Syrian Civil War is messy as hell.
It could also mean a much wider campaign by the coalition than we realise. If some reports are correct, that the FSA is compromised by radical groups of all stripes,the US might believe harming radical elements even within the FSA is Good Policy. But this has he net effect of helping Assad in the medium-term.
It could mean the US is actually trying to help Assad. This is a controversial thesis, but it is still possible. Given the choice between Assad and maybe even less savoury rebel groups, who might the US seek to support?
And then there's the sneaking suspicion that the US might be trying to do harm to ALL parties, if to varying degrees. We have precedent for this. My favourite example is that of the Iran-Iraq War, where the US propped up BOTH régimes at various stages in the long, horrible conflict. The point, of course, was to bleed white both opponents--making them ineligible contenders for regional hegemon. If there is something to the idea that the US actively WANTS to weaken these states and their social bases--if Balkanisation of the Middle East is actually the strategy, a view supported by many on the Left, but most recently implicitly rejected by Richard Seymour--then weakening all sides makes a hell of a lot sense.
It's still too early to tell, frankly, what the US is doing in Syria. It is this uncertainty--against Richard Seymour's apparent certainty that this is an attempt to prop up the regional state system, which I suspect is massively wrong--what should keep the Left in a highly critical, negative posture on US involvement.