Russia to Bomb in Iraq, create Baghdad Command Center for Syria, Iraq and Iran efforts against ISIS
This thing is moving quickly now and the US is getting pushed out:
The comments were the clearest signal yet that Baghdad intends to lean on Russia in the war on Islamic State after U.S.-led coalition airstrikes produced limited results.
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Shi'ite militias, long mistrustful of the United States, see Russia's intervention as an opportunity to turn the tables.
"The Russian intervention came at the right time and right place and we think it will change all rules of the game not only in Syria but in Iraq also," said Muen al-Kadhimi, an aide to Hadi al-Amiri, the most powerful Shi'ite militia leader.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/07/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-russia-idUSKCN0S112120151007
Much more at link, including:
Russians announced a joint operations command center for Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia to be based in Baghdad.
Iraq cites slow delivery of US weapons and ineffective military operations against ISIS as reasons for switching to Russia.
This new dynamic is trouble for Abadi, the US-aligned Iraqi PM.
= new reply since forum marked as read
KSA has tried to crush investment in fracking but it hasn't worked and KSA is getting desparate
He has launched a costly war against the Houthis in Yemen and is engaged in a massive military build-up - entirely reliant on imported weapons - that will propel Saudi Arabia to fifth place in the world defence ranking.
The Saudi royal family is leading the Sunni cause against a resurgent Iran, battling for dominance in a bitter struggle between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East. "Right now, the Saudis have only one thing on their mind and that is the Iranians. They have a very serious problem. Iranian proxies are running Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon," said Jim Woolsey, the former head of the US Central Intelligence Agency.
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Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook to "negative" in February. "We view Saudi Arabia's economy as undiversified and vulnerable to a steep and sustained decline in oil prices," it said. ...In hindsight, it was a strategic error to hold prices so high, for so long, allowing shale frackers - and the solar industry - to come of age. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/oilprices/11768136/Saudi-Arabia-may-go-broke-before-the-US-oil-industry-buckles.html
The Syrian army got completely routed today. The Saudi's have been arming the rebels for years now with heavy equipment (like RPG's and TOW's).
It's unfortunate but you need ground troops and occupying forces and a heavily trained military. Russia is not going to do that (they're calling this just training exercises that will be over in a few months, good luck with that). Syria's military is wholly underequipped and undertrained to do what needs to be done.
It doesn't help that Russia is calculating that taking out the rebels will help take out ISIS and bring stability to the region, this is a losing strategy because the rebels are battle hardened for years (and the minuscule "training" the US provided hardly changed that). Russia basically got the Syrian army to get routed today because it emboldened them to attack a city that they simply had no power to do. My guess is that Russia is trying to pull a Libya intervention with airstrikes. It might have worked when the thing was fresh but I don't see it at this point.
We're looking at a Colombia-style FARC type of scenario. Entrenched disparate groups with lots of firepower lasting a long time. And it took ground forces reduce FARC.
(And mind you, I am only advocating for a peaceful end to this war which has killed 200k+ people, mostly civilians. I don't care who "wins."