Military support of Syrian rebels in by the US has by all accounts been minimal, it's primarily been non-arms tactical equipment. Arms support has come largely from the Gulf states / Iran. The idea that the US fomented the Syrian civil war is also largely groundless. If you want to talk about the private military sector, let's not forget that Russia is a major arms exporter.

Meanwhile Russia has armed and provided direct bombing to support Assad directly, a guy who uses chemical weapons and barrel bombs on his people to intimidate them. His Putin's priorities are to protect his only Mediterranean port in the Middle East and to use his war footing to prop up his own domestic support the same way he did in Ukraine.

If he wanted to end the conflict he would have pressured Assad to step down in favor of a traditional government and have the successor negotiate a settlement and eventual elections with moderate rebels. Instead he's poured fuel on the fire. The longer these conflicts last, the more radicalized the opposition becomes. Now that he's let it play out and fanned the flames, he can blame the US for creating the mess.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

He has some good broad points, but I agree with you RedSky that Russia is also acting in in self-interest, and it's a bit much for him to be preaching on this topic.

You would have to admit that Russia has been a bit more prudent about exercising that self-interest militarily than than the US has been.

@dag

Depends on what goals you define Russia as wanting to achieve by that intervention.

Politically, intevening in Ukraine was a huge boon for Putin because his domestic media machine spun it into a irredentist initiative of national pride and basically suffocated his domestic political opposition. Diplomatically or economically, Russia has gained little from its intevention in Georgia, Ukraine and now Syria. If anything it has frayed alliances with Central Asian states and raised tensions with former Soviet Eastern European states, many of which have large minority Russian populations.

If the aim was to act as a bulwark to NATO or stem its expansion, he's preciptated the opposite. Countries neighboring Russia have every reason to fear they'll be next. Not that he had anything real to fear from NATO or the previously proposed anti-missile shield which was really proposed against Iran. I would say Putin's basically acting as a petulant child, throwing Russia's military around to reclaim some kind of atavastic relevance on the international stage to distract his people while he sinks the economy into the ground due to his government's corruption and cronyism.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I would agree with that. Russia does seem to be maintaining its cold war "sphere of influence" strategy against NATO in trying to maintain a buffer zone. It doesn't seem to make sense in this era, but Putin is an old KGB hand - and I'm sure that's still how he thinks.

To think that the USA has for once not used proxies to deliver weapons, is, to put it mildly, insane. They had training camps since the beginning in Jordan. Same as the UK and France. There were huge old stockpiles of weapons in the Balkan for example. They somehow found their way to Syria into FSA hands, even though Saudis, Qataris, and Turkish mainly supported Al Nusra and IS. TOWs found their way to those extremists. Actually the USA sent those officially.

Of course Russia has its own interests there, but its not destabilization. That alone is reason enough to support them instead of the USA and their lackeys and boot lickers.

It has never been proven that Assad used chemical weapons. The investigators couldnt even find good indications for it. But that the extremists used chemical weapons in other cases was later confirmed. Funnily there wasnt such a huge fuss about it. Hmmm... wonder why.
The extremists also made it clear from the beginning that they dont want a successor from the current leader. They want power. They want a Sunni regime.

You then saying the ABM shield is only directed at Iran is ridiculous to say the least. MAD has its reason and saved us from otherwise certain global nuclear war quite a few times in the past. A shield like that can circumvent MAD, which is a wet dream of the neocons, always has been. Thats why the USA left the ABM treaty, NOT Russia.

Sad to see you didnt read the link (or ignored it) I linked you before. Instead you keep spewing out lies.

Lulz, I totally read that as there being military support of Syrian rebels who are in the US. *self facepalm*

As I said in that thread, I don't see an incentive for the US to intervene. This isn't the Cold War battle over spheres of influence, neither does oil have the same geopolitical relevance. Despite the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Libya, none has led to a spike in oil prices? Instead it's fallen precipitously. Why, because the US being the swing shale oil producer has capped world prices.

Meanwhile I listed the reasons for Russia to intervene, none of which you have challenged or refuted. TOWs have by all accounts been supplied by the Saudis. I don't think Russia is attempting to destabilize Syria, but they do wish to prop up Assad. Bombing has conveniently been primarily of non-ISIS rebels since they challenge the regime more directly than ISIS which is being bombed already.

Syria includes a litany of rebel groups some as radical as ISIS. From what I have read it is suspected that both the Syrian army and al-Nusra/ISIS used various chemical weapons. The Syrian army has undoubtedly dropped barrel bombs, weapons designed to create indiscriminate collateral damage to civilians just like chemical weapons, it is entirely consistent that they would have also tried using chemical weapons which is practical terms are no less likely to be deadly to civilians or likely to incite terror. There are by all accounts >5,000 different rebel groups in Syria. That you would ascribe them all as wanting chaos would suggest you've been fed a narrative.

A Cold War MAD mindset makes little sense today. Russian bombing of western Europe in some kind of hypothetical retaliation against the US makes no sense in this day and age. In any case it was scrapped because of Putin's paranoia.

Me fail English? That's unpossible!

Also transitional not traditional

The foreign policy of both Russia and the US is far more motivated by domestic policy than "imperialism" or "cold war tactics".

Putin just needs to appear to be winning. Winning wars, media arguments, just winning anything. Crossword competitions, ice hockey games, fishing, push-ups, literally anything. With not much to be gained in Ukraine quickly, he can switch to helping Assad to quash rebels and appear to fight the IS. Russian air support and logistics will have small losses and big PR gains. Putin is clever so he will avoid direct confrontation with the IS leading to a long stalemate and much destruction, in Iraq mainly.

Obama needs to do stupid unworkable things like "spread democracy", "help Israel no matter what", "broker peace in the middle east" and "support 'friends' of the US, some of them as bad as Assad" - its nearly impossible for him to have a sane middle east policy. There is nothing Obama can do in the short term in Syria. He probably cant reconsider his position on Assad and there is no reasonable path to topple Assad gracefully. Also no direct path to fight IS - Turkey will fight Kurds before fighting IS, Israel has to be careful.

Is Iran the key then? Iran is definitely not to be trusted http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/11903290/Eight-of-Irans-womens-football-team-are-men.html