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[–] NeedMoarGuitars 2 points 2 points (+4|-2) ago 

In just the past couple of years Russia has occupied Eastern Ukraine and the Crimea, so invasion of a sovereign nation. And while in the former, shot down a Malaysian airliner. Hardly anti-terrorist behavior.

Russia's advantage on the ground in Syria and Iraq is that they do not give a shit who they bomb while supporting Assad. Everyone else involved has to try to be accurate when targeting ISIS, and accuracy is inherently slow, not a sign of weakness.

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[–] TREDDITFIRST [S] 1 point 1 point (+2|-1) ago 

You are a great cool-aid drinker, probably the best.

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[–] RayLomas 1 point 0 points (+1|-1) ago  (edited ago)

Pretty much. We need to keep in mind, though, that ISIS is a convenient excuse for everyone to meddle into the conflict, and these who want this little proxy war to keep going, don't really want to have ISIS eradicated.

From what I gather, there are 3 main sides - first Assad with Russian help, the second "moderate" rebels supported by the US, Saudis and (unofficially) Israel, and the third - ISIS indirectly supported by Saudis (and US, which proxies their help through them).

Now, Russians are mostly trying to strengthen Assad to keep their influence in the Region, so they're targeting ISIS and "moderate" rebels, while pretending to focus on ISIS - this is quite simple.

US tries to prolong the conflict, so they gear up the "moderates" and perform inefficient support in the area. The whole hospital situation will be a good reason to slow down even more, in order to "reevaluate chain of command" or do other bullshit like this. US operations against ISIS are supposed to be pronounced enough to show that they fight them, but not intense enough to defeat them totally. American forces additionally create an image of incompetence and inefficiency - I don't know if it's good for them in the long term (from one side, such image leads to underestimating the opponent, from the other, it lowers the strength of American influence in regions which they're invested in).

After mentioning main sides, we need to remember that there are also Iraqi forces, Kurds, and Turkish army. Iraqis have no clear idea how to fight, and from what I observe they're only interested in securing what they have. Kurds fight in a (vain, sadly) hope to establish some kind of independence/autonomy after the conflict ceases. Turks claim to focus on ISIS, but actually care mostly about bombing Kurdish forces. Kurdish independence is undesirable for Turkey, as they have a sizeable Kurdish minority, which would cause an unrest, if a Kurdish region/country was established on Syrian/Iraqi territories.

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[–] tpdplsio ago 

I don't know why someone downvoated you; you've got it right. I think the dream outcome for the US here is to draw the Putin into a ground war against the US/Saudi-funded moderates/ISIS which will surely be a failure and so embarrassing for Putin that he loses power if he can't effectively control the media and the message that the average Russian hears. Losing prestige or spending a lot of money has never been a worry of the Americans when it comes to thwarting adversaries like Putin. The only issue is the US elections and how far this goes before there's a possible isolationist or anti-war president.

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[–] tpdplsio 1 point -1 points (+0|-1) ago 

Russian propaganda is usually pretty simplistic and this is part of it: "anyone against Assad is a terrorist" and "any anti-Russian Ukrainian is a Neo-Nazi."