Kerry: Russian fighter jets in Syria raise serious questions

[TwilightGardener]

19. Russia could have forced out Assad, in any number of ways, at any time in the

past few years. They could have intervened militarily in the last few years (the way they're doing now) to prop him up, to fight the jihadists, or to bring the civil war to an end. In fact, they watched us threaten Assad for quite a while--we were talking all sorts of tough, making it seem that regime change would happen again as with Qaddafi. They were not terribly concerned about ISIS pre-Iran deal, but as soon as the ink was dry, they're meeting with Iran and moving forces into Syria. This tells me something: all this time they believed that the US was unwilling to act in a conclusive way against Assad because it would jeopardize the Iran deal. Did we send those signals? Maybe as soon as the deal was done, they assumed we would immediately try to either take out Assad or establish no fly zones and increase our presence or strength (either with our troops or our trained rebels) and squeeze him while using ISIS as a pretext--none of which would serve their interests. So they suddenly move in with fighter jets and anti-aircraft systems (obviously not meant to fight ISIS) but with the stated goal of fighting ISIS. Hmm. I don't believe Russia is suddenly looking for a responsible end to the whole sorry situation and suddenly wants to work with us. I think they've been reading the signals and our intentions all these years, watching the timing, and are now moving to keep us out of Syria or controlling our activities to their/Assad's/Iran's advantage. Worry about jihadists and war and refugees and destabilization are not their main motivator--hasn't bothered them up till now.