Iraqi unrest, Syrian unrest, and ISIS/ISIL/Daesh

[Astronuc]

I've been reading about some of the recent history in the region. The time to things right was long ago, and it seems external intervenors mostly got it wrong.

As a result - we watched as Daesh evolved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzim_Qaidat_al-Jihad_fi_Bilad_al-Rafidayn

 

[mheslep]

I've been reading about some of the recent history in the region. The time to things right was long ago, and it seems external intervenors mostly got it wrong.

As a result - we watched as Daesh evolved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzim_Qaidat_al-Jihad_fi_Bilad_al-Rafidayn

Al Qaeda did not form in Mesopotamia. So what from that Wiki article do you see as a mistake, and when, with respect to Daesh? The fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottomans?

 

[Astronuc]

Al Qaeda did not form in Mesopotamia. So what from that Wiki article do you see as a mistake, and when, with respect to Daesh? The fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottomans?

Al Qaeda in Iraq (formed from it's predecessor Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which started in Jordan), which is not Al Qaeda, most certainly did form in Iraq under Jordanian radical Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/ResearchNote_20_Zelin.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama'at_al-Tawhid_wal-Jihad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi

So what from that Wiki article do you see as a mistake,

Not in the Wiki article, but the US foreign policy, and particularly that of the GWBush administration.

 

[mheslep]

Al Qaeda in Iraq (formed from it's predecessor Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which started in Jordan), which is not Al Qaeda, most certainly did form in Iraq under Jordanian radical Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq formed in Iraq?

Yes, AQI was formed as you say by an Al-Qaeda member, al-Zarqawi, who came from Afghanistan and was funded by bin Laden. Similarly there is AQ in Yemen, AQ in the Arabian Peninsula, etc. In the particular case of AQI, Al-Zarqawi was killed by US forces in 2006, and AQI largely disintegrated during the so called Sunni Awakening alongside the US surge.

And?

 

[Dotini]

Here is some really, really good news, and it makes me feel ever so much better:

MOSCOW (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday accepted Russia's long-standing demand that President Bashar Assad's future be determined by his own people, as Washington and Moscow edged toward putting aside years of disagreement over how to end Syria's civil war.

"The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change," Kerry told reporters in the Russian capital after meeting President Vladimir Putin.

----------------------------------------------------------------

President Barack Obama first called on Assad to leave power in the summer of 2011, with "Assad must go" being a consistent rallying cry. Later, American officials allowed that he wouldn't have to resign on "Day One" of a transition. Now, no one can say when Assad might step down.http://news.yahoo.com/video/kerry-calls-common-ground-russia-133755540.html

Russia, by contrast, has remained consistent in its view that no foreign government could demand Assad's departure and that Syrians would have to negotiate matters of leadership among themselves.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Ukraine:
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/us-secretary-state-john-kerry-left-speaks-russias-photo-162553471.html
US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, speaks with Russia's President Vladimir Putin during a m...

"We don't seek to isolate Russia as a matter of policy, no," Kerry said. The sooner Russia implements a February cease-fire that calls for withdrawal of Russian forces and materiel and a release of all prisoners, he said, the sooner that "sanctions can be rolled back."

The world is better off when Russia and the U.S. work together, he added, calling Obama and Putin's current cooperation a "sign of maturity."

"There is no policy of the United States, per se, to isolate Russia," Kerry stressed.
http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-moscow-talks-syria-ukraine-081842398.html

 

[jim hardy]

Here is some really, really good news, and it makes me feel ever so much better:

I just heard that too -

Great ! About time. Assad came across very reasonable on that Charlie Rose interview.


Will anybody admit US state department really bungled it ?

 

[russ_watters]

Here is some really, really good news, and it makes me feel ever so much better:

Can't tell if serious: which part of that was good news and why?

 

[S.G. Janssens]

Here is some really, really good news, and it makes me feel ever so much better:

Honestly, any cooperation with Putin makes me want to vomit. The fact that ISIS is a clique of rapists and murderers does not imply that Putin has to be pardoned for his many national and international crimes.

The West can and should show the rest of the world that it can deal with the scum that is ISIS without having to seek the companionship of other scum.

 

[mheslep]

I just heard that too -

Great ! About time. Assad came across very reasonable on that Charlie Rose interview.

How many chemical weapons attacks is President for life Assad allowed before he becomes unreasonable?

 

[mheslep]

"The world is better off when Russia and the U.S. work together"...

I agree with the disgrace that is John Kerry on this one point, but not in the way he means.

The fact the US and Russia are much restricted in cooperation due to Russian incursions demonstrates the consequences of a foreign policy that allowed Russia to become unworkable. Working with Russia would indeed by highly advantageous if executed by a US foreign policy that was not so utterly juvenile and naive with respect to Russia by way of ridiculous reset buttons. If Russia was seen realistically for the expansive and totalitarian power that it is, then it could be have been contained by real red lines by a US that meant what it said, yielding a Russia that never entered Ukraine shooting down airliners and never flew into Turkey.

 

[jim hardy]

How many chemical weapons attacks is President for life Assad allowed before he becomes unreasonable?

How many is he known to have made?
Sources i read were uncertain just which side set off those Aug 21 2013 bombs.

 

[russ_watters]

How many is he known to have made?
Sources i read were uncertain just which side set off those Aug 21 2013 bombs.

I'm not sure what your question has to do with his. Setting a limit doesn't require a count. However, if you're suggesting the number could be zero, the UN and US disagree - and it's their line. Point being: Obama explicitly acknowledged his "red line" was crossed. In any case, the number of attacks by Assad's forces is believed to be about two dozen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_chemical_weapons_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War

Also, I don't think the prohibition on use of chemical weapons only applies/should apply to Assad.

 

[HossamCFD]

This seems very relevant to the current discussion. Human Rights Watch published a report on Wednesday authenticating photos that document mass scale torture under Assad's government
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35110877

Human Rights Watch says it is confident photos smuggled out of Syria by a defector in 2013 showing 6,786 people who died after detention are authentic.

The group carried out a nine-month investigation into the 53,000 images handed to the opposition by a military police photographer, codenamed Caesar.

Researchers interviewed former prisoners, defectors, forensic experts and families of the disappeared.

The photos are mostly from the pre-ISIS period at the start of the civil war. Indeed it seems many of these people were tortured and killed for merely opposing Assad.

Among the 27 victims identified by HRW ... were Rehab al-Allawi, a boy who was 14 at the time of his arrest for having an anti-Assad song on his phone, and student Rehab al-Allawi, who was 25 when she was detained while working with an activist group.

My opinion of Assad has been the same since Deraa and Homs in 2011: he's a monster and a mass murderer.

 

[Astronuc]

Syria activists in hiding after Islamic State group killing
http://news.yahoo.com/syria-activists-hiding-islamic-state-112840555.html

Ibrahim Abdelqader and his friend Fares Hamadi were killed because Abdelqader belonged to a media collective, which secretly documents life at the heart of the Daesh's self-proclaimed caliphate. Family and friends have been forced into deep hiding. Hamadi was apparently at the wrong place and the wrong time.

 

[jim hardy]

Not living there i can't know what's actually going on.

If Assad is as he claims playing tough with ruffians sent from outside his country by folks trying to overthrow his government, i do not fault him.

Shame on both sides for the chemical attacks. That's a throwback to behavior of the world wars. Watch your documentaries, US stockpiled chemical weapons in Australia for the expected invasion of Japan. We didn't use them thank goodness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction][/PLAIN]
Australia conducted extensive research into chemical weapons during World War II. Although Australia has never produced chemical weapons, it did stockpile chemical weapons sourced from the USA and Britain.[7] Chemical weapons known to have been stockpiled included mustard gas, phosgene, lewisite, adamsite and CN gas.

Some of the stockpiled weapons in the form of mortar and artillery shells, aerial bombs and bulk agents were sent to New Guinea for potential use against Japanese tunnel complexes.[7] No actual use of the weapons was recorded although there were many trials using 'live' chemical weapons (such as shown in the picture to the right).

After World War II, the chemical weapons were disposed of by burning, venting (for phosgene) or by dumping at sea. Some 21,030 tons of chemical weapons were dumped in the seas off Australia near Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. This has been covered in a Defence report by Geoff Plunkett.[1] A complete history of Australia's involvement with chemical weapons - titled Chemical Warfare in Australia - has been published in book form by the Army History Unit (Defence Department) in 2013 (2nd Edn) [2] [3] Again it is authored by Geoff Plunkett [4].

A stockpile of 1,000 pound phosgene bombs was discovered at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Embi_Airfield&action=edit&redlink=1 in 1970 and disposed of by Australian Army personnel, and, up to 1990, drums of mustard gas were still being discovered in the bush where they had been tested.[7] Another stockpile of chemical weapons was discovered at Maxwelton, Queensland in 1989.[4] Australia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in January 1993 and ratified it with the Chemical Weapons (Prohibition) Act in 1994.[7]

 

[HossamCFD]

Not living there i can't know what's actually going on.

Interesting. Would you say that no one can know whether the Halabja massacre happened or not unless they were living in Iraq at the time?
We have a good handle on the atrocities committed by the Assad regime provided by independent international observers. The evidence is overwhelming and the scale of the atrocities is unimaginable.

If Assad is as he claims playing tough with ruffians sent from outside his country by folks trying to overthrow his government, i do not fault him.

My bold.

I think "playing tough" needs some quantification and perhaps you can tell me if you still don't fault him.

Here's a list of barrel bomb attacks in urban civilian areas by the Assad regime since the start of the civil war. The bombs mostly kill his own civilians in their homes, not "ruffians sent from outside his country".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syrian_Civil_War_barrel_bomb_attacks

They are typically made from a barrel that has been filled with High Explosives, with possibly shrapnel and/or oil, and then dropped from a helicopter.[1] Due to the large amount of explosives that can be packed into a barrel the resulting detonation can be devastating.[2][3] The Syrian military often dropped the imprecise bombs in urban areas leading to civilian death tolls. The BBC reported that between January 2014 and May 2015, only 1% of those killed by barrel bombs were rebel fighters.[4] There have been thousands of instances of the use of barrel bombs reported during the Syrian Civil War:

 

[jim hardy]

Would you say that no one can know whether the Halabja massacre happened or not unless they were living in Iraq at the time?

If that's the one i read about in Soldier of Fortune in 1988, reported by people with first hand knowledge namely soldiers on the ground, i definitely believe it happened. Saddam gassed them. It was about a year before i saw that reported in 'respectable' US news outlets.

From the wiki article you linked

International response at the time was muted. The United States intelligence and government suggested that that Kurdish civilians were not a deliberate target, and even that Iran was indeed responsible.[13][15]

What's the alternative to Assad?

I remain circumspect of non-first-hand reporting.. .

 

[russ_watters]

Jim, I find your position confusing. Saying we can't have an opinion unless we're there would apply to everyone including you and you clearly have an opinion. And that opinion appears to take Assad's side at face value and without analysis or qualification, which is a factual basis that strains credulity. It seems like you're using the "we can't know" condition as a way to dismiss any information except that provided by Assad. To me that's a bizarre choice.

Like Hossam, I also would very much like to know if you place any limits at all on "playing tough"...such as, perhaps, the Geneva Conventions' protections or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? It's rare that I see people being willing to make judgements based on 100 year old standards of morality/conduct (or face-value acceptance of the statements of a generally accepted criminal dictator). Heck, if that's acceptable, we could just nuke the place and be done with it!

Personally, I prefer making my judgements using all of the information available (that I can reasonably read/access, and accounting for source credibility) and basing that judgement on modern standards of morality and conduct. I can't understand judgements based on anything less.

 

[Dotini]

"If you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate."

So said Rand Paul, looking directly at Gov. Chris Christie, who had just responded to a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as to whether he would shoot down a Russian plane that violated his no-fly zone in Syria.
http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2015/12/17/america-first-or-world-war-iii/

 

[russ_watters]

"If you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate."

So said Rand Paul, looking directly at Gov. Chris Christie, who had just responded to a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as to whether he would shoot down a Russian plane that violated his no-fly zone in Syria.
http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2015/12/17/america-first-or-world-war-iii/

+1 for Christie. Glad to see his stock finally rising.

 

[S.G. Janssens]

"If you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate."

The USA were involved in two world wars before, and as a European I'm grateful for that, although I'm certainly not blind to the faults of US foreign policy in the past and present.

 

[jim hardy]

Jim, I find your position confusing. Saying we can't have an opinion unless we're there would apply to everyone including you and you clearly have an opinion.

Your well reasoned and eloquent post is noted, Russ.

Indeed i have an opinion
and one's opinions are formed from the summation information presented to him which he accepts as factual.

It seems like you're using the "we can't know" condition as a way to dismiss any information except that provided by Assad. To me that's a bizarre choice.

I think i qualified my statement with "If as he claims" .

Given that
US armed so called 'moderate rebels' to help overthrow Assad
and we at least played a role in the other overthrows over there
which seems a reversion to old foreign policy of keeping mideast unbalanced
and
Zbignew Brzezinski 's stated objective of spreading Democracy(translate US friendly governments) across the whole region( See his books Out of Control and Grand Chessboard )
i have to think US policy is still driven by Halford Mackinder's 1919 Heartland Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History
(which given his age Brzezinski doubtless studied in his formative years)
i question the judgement of whoever is directing US foreign policy.

It seems like you're using the "we can't know" condition as a way to dismiss any information except that provided by Assad.

i don't dismiss much of anything without chewing on it at length.
I do tune into Aljazeera, RT, Democracy Now, and find myself asking "What's the truth?"
I subscribe to and try to read Foreign Affairs, the CFR's magazine but it puts me to sleep.

http://www.cfr.org/syria/syria-need-diplomacy-de-escalation/p37326][/PLAIN] Of all the factors currently tearing the Middle East apart, none is more consequential than the war in Syria. The war has left some 250,000 Syrians dead, seven million internally displaced, and three million forced to flee to neighboring states and Europe. The conflict is exacerbating an already large regional sectarian divide, as the Bashar al-Assad regime's violence against a primarily Sunni rebellion fuels the growing conflict between the region's Sunni-majority states and Shia-majority Iran. The violence also leads desperate, resentful Sunnis from across the world to support whatever groups are most willing to fight that regime, including the self-proclaimed Islamic State. The November 13 Paris attacks tragically demonstrated that the repercussions of the conflict are spreading well beyond the Middle East. bold mine-jh

Just what he said - getting rough on rabble rousers

Anyhow - i don't think we need or want a return to the cold war or a major confrontation with Russia over Syria.

and I'm not convinced Assad is the worst thing for Syria, despite the calumny in US newscasts.

 

[mheslep]

calumny in US newscasts.

Calumny, as in, to falsely accuse with intent to harm? Why is it that you accuse US newscasts of calumny, and that you look instead to Aljazeera and the state controlled RT?

 

[russ_watters]

Your well reasoned and eloquent post is noted, Russ.

Thanks.

Indeed i have an opinion
and one's opinions are formed from the summation information presented to him which he accepts as factual...

Just what he said - getting rough on rabble rousers

Anyhow - i don't think we need or want a return to the cold war or a major confrontation with Russia over Syria.
[snip] despite the calumny in US newscasts.

Jim, I don't see how that answers any of the questions asked, except poking around the periphery a bit:

i don't dismiss much of anything without chewing on it at length.
I do tune into Aljazeera, RT, Democracy Now, and find myself asking "What's the truth?"
I subscribe to and try to read Foreign Affairs, the CFR's magazine but it puts me to sleep.

Do you not have any mainstream Western news sources on your list of your usual sources? I'd also be curious to hear what you think of RT and how it became one of your main news sources. While I do sometimes seek out such sources to see what they have to say, I don't generally consider what I get from them to be "news" but rather the opinion of the entity controlling them.

...and I'm not convinced Assad is the worst thing for Syria...

And you may be right about that, and in particular that the current quagmire hasn't really been improved by Western intervention. But there is a very wide gulf between "not the worst thing" and "I don't fault him".

 

[jim hardy]

Do you not have any mainstream Western news sources on your list of your usual sources?

I was addressing your point that one should have a variety of sources.
RT and Aljazeera push their agendas as hard as Thom Hartmann and Sean Hannity push theirs. Of course they propagandize and one watches them with that awareness .
For TV news i watch more ABC and PBS than anything else , they're the only two local stations we have. IMHO Frontline's reporting consistently stands out as 'fair and balanced'.

While I do sometimes seek out such sources to see what they have to say, I don't generally consider what I get from them to be "news" but rather the opinion of the entity controlling them.

And you don't notice similar spin by US networks ?

It's often revealing to watch both sides' coverage of the same event
because every argument has three sides
Party A's side
Party B's side
and the truth of the matter.

 

[HossamCFD]

I remain circumspect of non-first-hand reporting.. .

Fair enough. I have posted above about the HRW report confirming the torture to death of 6,786 detainees by Assad's government. The report relied entirely on first-hand reports of former prisoners, defectors, and families of the disappeared (including the 14 year old that was tortured to death for having an anti-Assad song on his phone). The evidence for the barrel-bomb attacks is also entirely dependent on first hand reports compiled by the UN and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights among other organisations.

I am genuinely curious as to whether you think all/most of this is fabricated. And if you acknowledge some of it, to what extent do you think this is justifiable and at what point would you start 'faulting him'.

 

[jim hardy]

Fair enough. I have posted above about the HRW report confirming the torture to death of 6,786 detainees by Assad's government.

Thanks.

I did some searching. HRW seems to be substantiating "Caesar" the anonymous defector who brought out photos of death factories.
Here's an article by a well credentialed reporter , that i'd not seen before last night
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/06/assad-war-crimes-syria-torture-caesar-hospital
and i find very credible

Since going into exile, Caesar has turned inward, according to several of his closest associates. He has stopped talking with some of his key supporters and will not speak with journalists. He has postponed several meetings with prosecutors in the U.K. and Spain, who would like to use his information to bring war-crimes charges against Syrian officials. But Vanity Fair, in an exhaustive investigation, has managed to piece together Caesar’s story with the help of his lawyer and confidantes, including members of Syrian opposition groups, war-crimes investigators, intelligence operatives, and Obama-administration insiders. All of these people have their own agendas, but their accounts reinforce one another. These individuals have also helped to furnish documents and provide entrée to medical-staff members who worked in the hospitals where Ceasar photographed—on the very wards that are at the center of the Assad regime’s brutally repressive machinery.

nobody can defend the behavior he describes ,

believe me I'm chewing on this

old jim

 

[jim hardy]

at what point would you start 'faulting him'.

when he fails to clean up his ranks

 

[mheslep]

when he fails to clean up his ranks

Which implies Assad did not order the torture, the mass executions and chemical attacks; that instead the "ranks" were acting independently. Why do you think this is the case? Especially given the dozens of reported chemical attacks, I can't imagine a scenario where those kinds of weapons are repeatedly made available to rogue Syrian Army elements without Assad's authority.

 

[HossamCFD]

Given the scale and the duration of Assad's crimes during the civil war, as well as how well they're reported, I don't in all honesty understand how he can deserve the benefit of the doubt.

 

[nsaspook]

Given the scale and the duration of Assad's crimes during the civil war, as well as how well they're reported, I don't in all honesty understand how he can deserve the benefit of the doubt.

There is no doubt Assad is a murdering 'secular' bastard who's main reason for support is being better than those rebels who want to replace him but there are limiting factors (Russian military forces stabilizing his control of Syria being the primary one) to his crimes currently. I would prefer not to see another failed state due to western intervention like Libya where ISIS 'reloaded' can reconstruct their plans for world-wide attacks from radical Islamic groups.

I don't expect freedom and democracy from him but most groups that want to replace him can't speak this lie without being considered anti-Islamic and then targeted for death.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/100000004053567/assad-says-syria-should-be-secular.html

 

[Dotini]

Military to Military
Seymour M. Hersh on US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war

"Barack Obama’s repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office – and that there are ‘moderate’ rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him – has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration’s fixation on Assad’s primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn’t adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washington’s anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped."
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military

 

[HossamCFD]

There is no doubt Assad is a murdering 'secular' bastard who's main reason for support is being better than those rebels who want to replace him

Whether the west should ally with Assad is a somewhat different discussion. I did argue against it a couple of times in this thread and I accept that many people have a different opinion. What matters to me at this point is that we acknowledge the crimes committed by his troops and his personal responsibility for them. If governments in the west are willing to cooperate with him as a lesser of the two evils then that is their business. I personally think it's the wrong move, and even from a pragmatic point of view it won't work because most of the rebels who are fighting ISIS on the ground do regard Assad as a bigger threat. In any case I accept that my view is in the minority, but I'll always try and argue against cleansing Assad from the moral responsibility of his crimes and regarding him as 'reasonable'.

I would prefer not to see another failed state due to western intervention like Libya

This I don't agree with. The west didn't start the civil war in Syria, and if anything it was the west non-intervention until it was too late that can be partly blamed for the huge death toll. Regarding Libya, I do think the west did the right thing and I wonder what would you do differently? Imagine Qaddafi was left to bomb Ben-ghazi to smithereens, as he attempted to before the no-fly zone was implemented. How could that have resulted in a better outcome. Yes Libya is a failed state but tens of thousands of lives were saved by the western intervention, and I don't think it's realistic at all to assume that without western intervention Libya would've been better off.

 

[russ_watters]

I was addressing your point that one should have a variety of sources...

For TV news i watch more ABC and PBS than anything else , they're the only two local stations we have. IMHO Frontline's reporting consistently stands out as 'fair and balanced'.

Fair enough - I was getting the impression that you only consulted outside the mainstream sources. Your opinions seemed to imply it. So, do you have anything to say about what we were discussing? You've said a lot of flat, provocative things and then just let them sit there. It's kinda bizarre.

And for the record, I got through 7:40 of the Assad interview before I had to turn it off. There were a number of chuckle-worthy (cringe-worthy) moments, but the one I bailed after was where he said something to the effect of that if his people want him to leave office they could just vote him out. If by "came across as very reasonable" you meant that he said all the right things, sure -- but you do realize that much of what he said was nonsense, right?

 

[jim hardy]

the one I bailed after was where he said something to the effect of that if his people want him to leave office they could just vote him out. If by "came across as very reasonable" you meant that he said all the right things, sure -- but you do realize that much of what he said was nonsense, right?

no actually i didnt carry that impression away from the interview. It's been a while now, perhaps i'll revisit it. I'd read someplace, probably Wikipedia, that in his early years Assad introduced 'progressive reforms' , but factions sprang back to life and violence restarted. His father was a ruthless strongman who'd barrel bomb a neighborhood if rockets were coming out of it. Assad went back to what he'd seen work as a young man, why i don't know not having been there.
Then we started arming the rebels and ISIS showed up not long after, with our armaments..
What're you going to do with ideology that equates tolerance with weakness?Heck yeah i think we should have left it alone. Now we need to help Putin help Assad stomp out isis. If Nuremberg trials are warranted after that dust settles, so be it.