Posted on 05/06/2018 1:42:16 PM PDT by mac_truck
Lebanon held on Sunday its first parliamentary elections in nine years, as citizens expressed cautious optimism that the country's rigid, oft-deadlocked sectarian political system could be swayed. Behind the scenes, however, one of the world's leading powers has quietly eyed the small state as a potential ground to project its power in the Middle East and into the Mediterranean. But it won't be easy.
With Syrian rebels and jihadis at bay, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government set to further extend its comeback, Russia has pursued a cautious overture across the border into Lebanon—a $1 billion dollar arms deal, including a 15-year repayment term at zero percent interest, as the Christian Science Monitor reported. Unlike Syria, Lebanon's precarious political makeup means there are no Kremlin-backed strongmen to turn to, but a rocky balance of power that has so far left the offer on the table.
"There is certainly an attempt to expand the soft Russian power in the region. This may translate into greater military cooperation and the signing (by the Lebanese) of a defense deal brokered last year," Maya Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told Newsweek. "The parliamentary election results may have some impact to the extent of swaying the pendulum slightly towards a pro-Russia camp. However, given the delicate power/sectarian balance in the country, this may remain limited for now."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
There was nothing limited about our bombing campaign against ISIS. It included nearly every platform in the US Air Force and CIA, Air Force, and Army Drones. I’m confident that you could find out a rough estimate of ordnance dropped if you’re truly interested. The AC-130s and A-10s alone were significant.
There’s this website counting them - https://airwars.org/ - and they say 107,129 bombs and missiles (Syria and Iraq both) from America and allies. The website itself seems to be a bit leftist, but I think the number might be right.
Russia supplies about 40% of Europe’s natural gas. They don’t want new competitors coming online. Qatar and Israel are both future competitors. So we know Russia’s motivation. The US motivation may be less direct and as old as the Marshall Plan.
I know for a fact that before and after Trump became president we bombed and burned up gun barrels killing ISIS. Fortunately, our military has done the unexpected and ground down these vile beasts.
I agree with you. I am not qualified to judge, but I suspect this 107k bombs and missiles is quite a lot.
Been away...
My use of “limited”, was referring to our attack on Assad for using the chemical weapons, not our decimation of ISIS.
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