Cameron says Syria's Assad could stay as leader in short term - Sky

Prime Minister David Cameron was quoted by Sky News as saying on Sunday Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could stay on as part of a transitional government but should not be part of Syria's future in the long run.

Sky's correspondent, travelling with Cameron to the United States, said Cameron was not ruling out that Assad could be part of a transition, but "what he is very clear about is that Assad cannot be part of Syria's future in the long run".

Earlier, the Telegraph newspaper quoted a government source as saying Cameron was open to keeping Assad in power in the short term while a unity government was formed in the country after more than four years of civil war.
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Opposition Labour Party will on Monday call for the Syrian government to be referred to the International Criminal Court for suspected war crimes. A Labour Party aide said Assad could not be part of a peace plan.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/09/27/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-britain-idUKKCN0RR0OB20150927

Bloody hell. Cameron wanted to bomb him to hell not that long ago and was setthing with rage when parliament wouldn't let him.

Now it appears they are edging towards Corbyn's solution which is a political coalition to cut off ISIS.

Whatever, this war in Syria has to stop and it's a coalition that is probably the best way to achieve that.

Agreed, both sides are a bad as one another and the innocents are caught in the middle.  There is no way of a military solution.  Whichever side you bomb you strengthen the other, and neither of them should be strengthened.

Well what is trhe lesser of two evils here?
Assad, he needs to go but the pressing matter is to deal with ISIS.
Surely you agree on that?
There is a coalition of nations teaming up against ISIS.
Russia, Iraq and Iran.

Cuchulain wrote:Well what is trhe lesser of two evils here?
Assad, he needs to go but the pressing matter is to deal with ISIS.
Surely you agree on that?
There is a coalition of nations teaming up against ISIS.
Russia, Iraq and Iran.

Assad at the moment is causing over 80% of the casualities, I'm sure the Syrians would be thrilled if we gave him the opportunity to cause more.

Well he has cause many casulaties which will now lets hope be stopped by the Russians, or then you can blame them.
The pressing need is to defeat ISIS, not just in Syria but in Iraq. There is little control in Syria and what is needed is to bring it under control. If that means the Russians get their hands dirty, so be it

Cuchulain wrote:Well he has cause many casulaties which will now lets hope be stopped by the Russians, or then you can blame them.
The pressing need is to defeat ISIS, not just in Syria but in Iraq. There is little control in Syria and what is needed is to bring it under control. If that means the Russians get their hands dirty, so be it

Er - the Russians are propping up Assad.  They both need to be stopped at the same time and it can't be done by military measures, even Cameron is getting that.

ISIS are the bigger danger at the moment.
They have imposed Theocratic rule.

So we should back the war criminal who had murdered thousands of his people to stay in power. Do you honestly think that if ISIS are removed that Assad wil walk willingly? I would very much doubt that will happen.

According to Didge, Theocracy is more important than barrel bombing children and having them in little bits all over the walls.  Militant Atheism strikes again with all the fundamentalism of any other religion and logic goes out the window.

And we haven't even got to the Kurds yet who are now being bombed by the Turks.

It's a mess.

Irn Bru wrote:So we should back the war criminal who had murdered thousands of his people to stay in power. Do you honestly think that if ISIS are removed that Assad wil walk willingly? I would very much doubt that will happen.

Never claimed he would walk, but we have an unprecedented situation goping on that if not resolved will see more millions fleeing. Of which you fail to grasp. I do not like the situation any more than you do, but something has to be done. We backed a war criminal before in Stalin in order to defeat an evil. Were we wrong to do so then? Like I say I want Assad out of power too, which I doubt after everything he would stay that much longer in power, as he will have turned millions against him. The pressing need is to destroy ISIS.
Let the Russians get their hands dirty for a change.

Night Irn

Cuchulain wrote:

Irn Bru wrote:So we should back the war criminal who had murdered thousands of his people to stay in power. Do you honestly think that if ISIS are removed that Assad wil walk willingly? I would very much doubt that will happen.

Never claimed he would walk, but we have an unprecedented situation goping on that if not resolved will see more millions fleeing. Of which you fail to grasp. I do not like the situation any more than you do, but something has to be done. We backed a war criminal before in Stalin in order to defeat an evil. Were we wrong to do so then? Like I say I want Assad out of power too, which I doubt after everything he would stay that much longer in power, as he will have turned millions against him. The pressing need is to destroy ISIS.
Let the Russians get their hands dirty for a change.

Night Irn

Well if he isn't going to walk then more death for his people.

Yes, the Russians need to do something which is what is required with a coalition to solve all this without even more bombs needing to dropped.

ISIS is terrible, but the fact remains, not only are the majority fleeing Assad, but they are also fleeing being dragged into Assad's army and ending up killing their own people.  You simply do not understand the situation at all Didge, you are just fixated on theocracy.

Night Johnboy, don't say goodnight if you don't mean it, the Waltons were always boring.

Assad is still the lesser of 2 evils, tactically we need to ally with him and Kurds to get any traction against ISIS.

the other Independence groups are already to disparate, backing one of them will just create a new Assad, better to support than over throw Assad and install non-military leadership.

Sorry Veya, but he isn't, his atrocities are just as bad as ISIS but in much greater numbers, and he is the reason there were uprisings in the first place and he gassed and bombed his own people before ISIS came along.  They are both terrible.

sassy wrote:Sorry Veya, but he isn't, his atrocities are just as bad as ISIS but in much greater numbers, and he is the reason there were uprisings in the first place and he gassed and bombed his own people before ISIS came along.  They are both terrible.

he is still the lesser of 2 evils

in practical terms he is the only option for the western side of the country.

ISIS are more of a threat generally though aren't they? Are they planning to take over more countries, and perhaps raise their flag over Buckingham Palace?

Raggamuffin wrote:ISIS are more of a threat generally though aren't they? Are they planning to take over more countries, and perhaps raise their flag over Buckingham Palace?

Yes

Vicar Of Dibley wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:ISIS are more of a threat generally though aren't they? Are they planning to take over more countries, and perhaps raise their flag over Buckingham Palace?

Yes

Well that's not on - they might frighten the horses.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Vicar Of Dibley wrote:

Yes

Well that's not on - they might frighten the horses.

We can ask Princess Anne to tell to 'naff off'

sassy wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:Well what is trhe lesser of two evils here?
Assad, he needs to go but the pressing matter is to deal with ISIS.
Surely you agree on that?
There is a coalition of nations teaming up against ISIS.
Russia, Iraq and Iran.

Assad at the moment is causing over 80% of the casualities, I'm sure the Syrians would be thrilled if we gave him the opportunity to cause more.

bollox

Raggamuffin wrote:

Vicar Of Dibley wrote:

Yes

Well that's not on - they might frighten the horses.

shag the horses more like

smelly-bandit wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Well that's not on - they might frighten the horses.

shag the horses more like

So if we should have been supporting the lesser of the evils (there are more than 2) then we should have been supporting Assad, Gaddafi and Saddam all along because they were the lesser of the evils? And now the Taliban have capured a whole town in Norhern Afghanistan and are on the rise again. I remember Big Andy saying we should have proped up Assad all along so was he right and we were all wrong? We encouraged and suported all these uprisings and now we're trying to solve it with more bombing from the air

A broad coalition can defeat ISIS by strangling them of the money and the assets they need to keep going. In any event they will just scatter and merge back into the population only to re-appear somewhere else.

We've tried to bomb them all into democracy and it hasn't worked so far - just more destruction and death measured in hundreds of thousand and still rising.

If we're supporting the war criminal Assad then he stays for good because he will not move out. After all he let his population worship who they wanted and were free to do as they please but they were not allowed to challenge his government.

So what bright spark has all the answers?

From what I understand Putin is putting together a coalition as we speak of Iran, Turkey, Saudi etc

we have tried bombing them and it has failed

whats the first rule of warfare - if your rounds are too small to stop your opponent then big bigger rounds

if conventional bombs wont work then its obviously time to start using nukes