Russia: Saudis goading U.S. to send troops to Syria
Powers maneuvering after failure of Geneva talks
Published: 9 hours ago
WASHINGTON – Saudi Arabia has offered to dispatch 150,000 troops to Syria ostensibly to fight ISIS, and Turkey has said it’s prepared to do the same, while the Russians have issued a stern warning against such action, according to a new report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
But the gestures by the Saudis and Turks are mostly posturing for the purpose of goading the United States to take the lead in sending troops to Syria, a high-level Russian official told G2 Bulletin.
“The regionals are using different tricks to push the U.S. to get involved more in Syria,” said the Russian official, who offered only to speak on background.
“I don’t believe that this will work, because the (Obama) administration has its own plan that comes from its national security goals,” he said.
He said the U.S. goals are “not what the regionals want for their own local goals.”
“Big guys play big (while) small guys try to get cover – (a trait) as old as history,” he said.
Get the rest of this report, and more, in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Defense Department sources have affirmed to G2 Bulletin that the U.S. has no intention of deploying troops on the scale it did in Iraq in 2003, even though it could send in additional Special Operations Forces, which now number almost 3,000.
Such a prospect stems from Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s comment last October that the U.S. is ready to take “direct action on the ground” in Syria.
Talks collapse
The Saudi offer came Feb. 3, a day after Syrian peace talks collapsed in Geneva due to serious differences from the Syrian opposition and the Russian demand for other participants with the opposition, including the Kurds.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey belong to a U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition that officially has 65 members. But their participation is regarded as a cover for their national interests in Syria.
“The question is whether Saudi Arabia is sure that its forces will not join the ISIS ranks in Syria,” wrote Middle East expert Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti newspaper Rai al-Youm.
Atwan pointed out that the Saudis for some 11 months have been bogged down in Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia, even though the country is “poor and has no advanced weaponry, tanks and aircraft.”
“Then what is Saudi Arabia going to do to the Russian airplanes and the Syrian army which has specialized irregular and unconventional warfare when it goes to Syria?” he asked.
He said Saudi Arabia has two objectives.
“First, it intends to escape the political psychological defeats in Syria and avenge Damascus after it failed to topple President Bashar al-Assad’s government despite spending billions of dollars over the past five years,” he said.
“Second, it wants to form a Sunni political and military alliance against the axis of resistance led by Iran.”
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http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/russia-saudis-goading-u-s-to-send-troops-to-syria/#bDeeLxpFXrkkKVKU.99
