Russian warships cross Bosphorus, en route to Syria

AFP ^ | September 5, 2013

[maggief]

Three Russian warships crossed Turkey's Bosphorus Strait Thursday en route to the eastern Mediterranean, near the Syrian coast, amid concern in the region over potential US-led strikes in response to the Damascus regime's alleged use of chemical weapons.

The SSV-201 intelligence ship Priazovye, accompanied by the two landing ships Minsk and Novocherkassk passed through the Bosphorus known as the Istanbul strait that separates Asia from Europe, an AFP photographer reported.

[maggief]

Background:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3062876/posts?page=2#2

[maggief]

A trigger-happy community organizer with a bruised ego?

[Starboard]

Is Obama willing to risk a regional conflict or WWIII to protect his credibility? Maybe, but I would hope that the congress will not be willing to take this insane risk. Just one miscalculation and it would be game on.

[Starboard]

Could be. But one thing we know for sure: its all about him. It always is.

[maggief]

Humeyra Pamuk @PamukHum

Reuters energy correspondent. Covering Turkey, the Gulf and the wider Middle East. Londonlover. Personal account.

Istanbul/Ankara

3h

Turkish TVs reporting #Russian war ships crossing through the Bosphorus to Med #Syria pic.twitter.com/gdcp0yobwj

[Starboard]

They are interested in breaking our economy
*******
Then this objective coincides with Obama’s, although they are not as good at it as he is.

[A CA Guy]

They don’t lead from Obama’s behind as well as Obama does.

[rdcbn]

This is a perfect example of why Obama is such an absolutely incompetent, ineffective and feckless leader.

This is the real world, as opposed to the academic little bubble world he and his yes men and sycophants live in/

If he intended to attack Syria, he should have done it immediately when support was high and Assad and his allies, especially Russia, were caught off guard and unprepared.

By the time this dithering idiot actually acts, Assad will have protected his assets with an American attack in mind, the Russians all have moved all of their assets to counter ours and the Russians may upgrade Assad's air defense systems.

The chances of the US forces accomplishing the goal of destroying Assad's capabilities has went down astronomically, the risk to American military assets taking part in any military action has increased a hundred fold and we have a much larger Russian presence which could trigger a much larger and more serious war with Russia if Obama screws up any military action.

Obama has mishandled this so badly it's hard to see how he could have done worse up to this point and he has done immeasurable and lasting damage to the United States as a consequence of his actions.

The scary thing is that, while he could not do worse up until now, he can much much worse going forward. In fact he has almost unlimited capability to screw up and turn the Syrian event into a geopolitical nightmare up to and including blowing this up to a serious regional or world war.

[RadiationRomeo]

I’m thinking the Russians are going to do some quick ‘peace keeping exercises’ and imbed their troops with the Syrians ‘to restore order’. Then if we attack Syrian installations we will be killing Russians too. The two subs and the destroyer could retaliate for the ‘brazen attack’ on its military.

[353FMG]

No. Check!

Checkmate is only goes to him who launches the last missile — ICBM or otherwise.

[donozark]

Obama tryin' to get his "street creds." But Putin ain't scootin'!

This is some serious firepower on the move from Mother Russia. And we already have plenty in Med Sea and more on the way.And for what? Around these 'ol hills, when one spots a Fujita Five Tornado, you run away from it. Not toward it...

[353FMG]

“....Jeb Bush could win the Presidency in 2016, and the Noble Peace Prize dimwits are forced to award him the prize because he ended Cold War II.”

.
The prize will go to Putin.

[dfwgator]

They are going to pull another “Pristina Airport”, and this time they aren’t going to leave.

[Starboard]

Good post. Obama simply has no idea what the consequences of his little adventure will be. Quite frankly, this is a golden opportunity for Putin to exploit: a confrontation wherein the U.S. has no real international support. He’s holding the cards on this one.

[aegiscg47]

I have serious doubts that the Russian ships are going to turn on their fire control radars in this kind of situation as that would be suicidal for one thing. Second, I'm sure that the Navy already has 3D maps of the target areas with locations of air defenses mapped out along with their engagement zones, SAM and IAD search radar frequencies, etc. They'll choose routes for the cruise missiles that will give the Syrians a very low chance of knocking them down and my guess is that at least 95% will hit their targets. There's not much the Russians or Syrians can do at this point to stop that kind of a strike.

[dforest]

If we back away from everything considered, who the hell is stupid enough to allow democrats to run a war? Especially with a political hack and fool for CIC.

That should be enough to scare the hell out of anyone.

And who is at the Defense helm. Chuck Hagel. Be afraid!

[353FMG]

History?

The way things are going today, history will be written by the muslims who will declare Obama the greatest POTUS ever.

You still see America’s future too rosy.

[massgopguy]

Russia deployed Borei Class Missile Subs carrying 16 Bulava Nuclear Missiles with 6 war Heads each. Google “new Russian subs” YouTube. Check out the Target Area on the demo.

[trisham]

You may be right. I’m certainly not optimistic for the near future.

[Vermont Lt]

I do not think anyone in the world believes that we would not win a conventional confrontation with any other power in the world. We could beat Russia, China, and anyone else for that matter.

That is really not the issue.

The issue is about how much pain we can tolerate. Say we fire 100 cruise missiles and a dozen make it in. Then what? Do we send in B1’s and B2’s? Do we send in the carrier based planes? And how many of those can we afford to lose. While we can defeat most ground to air systems, we are not “perfect.”

If we fire from the ships, what are the chances of retaliation from the Syrian or Russian Navies? A full scale attack on our ships (massive missile launches at once) could overwhelm our defenses. What if we lose a destroyer. Not the fleet. But if one missile hits a destroyer, what happens.

Again, such an attack would result in the devastation of the Syrian navy. And their air force will have already been destroyed.

What we forget is the Arab mindset. The arab mindset is not about winning wars. It is about taking on the big enemies. All they need to do is give us a bloody nose (a la Beruit.) We get a bloody nose and we retreat—no question about it.

It is pretty clear that American people are not hungry for another attempt at occupying a middle eastern country. That would be suicide based on the lack of political will we have for fighting that kind of a war.

And finally, the big question is this:

With our intervention, if successful, Assad will be finished. He knows this. We know this. And his generals know this. My question is at what point does he get taken out by his own military? And, if the military knows the rebels will kill them after a coup, then does it make sense to go down trying a massive, all out attack on Israel?

I don’t think the Generals would allow that to happen, knowing it would mean the end of Syria’s existence as a state. It would also mean a greater attack from Iran.

What no one is talking about is an attack by Syria in the other direction. Anyone with half a brain knows that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are behind this whole thing. What are the chanced that Syria and Iran respond with a massive attack on them. They do not have the “iron dome” that Israel has. Our Patriots are not going to stop a massive fusillade of missiles. That could knock out oil production in the Gulf for years.

This is the scenario that believe is the outcome. Russia wins (they become the largest oil exporter, AND the gas line through Syria becomes moot.) Syria wins because Assad stays in power (a little longer). And we are caught looking in the other directions.

And, from a personal point of view, the House of Saud gets their asses handed to them. And that always makes me happy.