Does anybody really know what's going on over there?
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We know what's going on but not how to solve it.
Basically it's a battle for religious superiority amongst the 70 + factions (denominations) of Islamists although it can be watered down to about 15 stronger groups as the most well known.
There has always been discourse in the region since recorded time over different factions and views on who's religion was best.
And the West is trying to figure out which group they want in power as they don't want to see a fundamentalist group like the ISIS Wahhabis in charge as not only will they not cooperate with the infidels, but they would become a fierce enemy against all non Wahhabis.
Think of it as Catholics, Jews, Unitarians, Baptists, Jehovas, Mormons, Anglicans, Scientologists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Luthers, Evangelicals, and the Orthodox and the many splinter groups within many of those groups etcetera. All claim to have 'the true way to believe'.
It all started (most recently) with the British Imperialism period but we will fast forward to the CIA looking for people friendly to American/British Oil interests.
They found that Ba'ath sect leaders (both Saddam and the senior Assad were Ba'ath) were the most cooperative. Both were anti Muslim and senior Assad had a long battle with Sunnis, who were comprised of a lot of Muslim Brotherhood types.
The Americans fool some people in 2003 into their coalition of the willing and that unleashes the various factions Saddam was put in place to control.
Moving along we have junior Assad crushing the Arab Spring uprising of 2011 but his concentration on punishing the citizens allowed the Taliban, Al Queda and numerous others to try and take over various parts of Syria,
Where it gets really muddy is both the Russians and Americans support Dictator Assad, at least for now, and the Saudis support ISIS because they both practice the hardcore version of Islam known as Wahhabi as do Boko Haram.
The USA makes a lot of money, and creates a lot of jobs, from selling weapons to the Wahhabi Saudis. That is why you never hear a Senior American govt official criticize the Saudis for all of their savage acts performed domestically under their Wahhabi beliefs, yet those same Senior American govt officials criticize ISIS when they perform savage acts under their Wahhabi beliefs.
The Russians make a lot of money and create a lot of jobs from selling weapons to Syria. They also use Syria as an outpost for their military. That is why we never hear of Russians criticizing Syria.
ISIS controls, and has for more than a year, most of the Oilfields in Syria and Iraq.
All the 'bombings' seem to be on Syrian cities, which of course gets the innocent civilians fleeing before they are killed.
In the spring of 2015, the government suffered a string of defeats to newly-formed rebel coalitions in the south and north of the country, including the provincial capital of Idlib, as well as to Islamic State in the east.
At the start of May, the president made a rare public acknowledgement of the setbacks. But he dismissed them as the ups and downs of a long-term war in which there were hundreds of battles, some won, some lost.
But in a televised speech two months later, following further losses, Mr Assad admitted that his forces suffered a chronic manpower problem, and that the rebels were getting increased support from their Saudi, Qatari and Turkish backers. The government, he said, would have to prioritise, and give up some areas rather than risk allowing key positions to collapse.
Increasingly worried about Mr Assad's precarious position and the rise of extremist groups, Russia began an air campaign against his opponents in September 2015. Moscow said it was targeting "terrorists", primarily militants from IS, but civilians areas and Western-backed rebels were repeatedly bombed.