What Could Go Wrong? Saudis Want To Give Surface-To-Air Missiles To Syrian Rebels

When the Russians started flying from Latakia on September 30 it put the Syrian opposition in a decisively precarious situation.
Whereas the Syrian air force was largely out of date and relied on replacement parts and continual maintenance to remain viable, Moscow brought one of the most formidable sky attacks on the planet to a fight against rebels with zero air capability and exceptionally limited capacity to defend themselves against an aerial assault.
Starting in October, the Russian Defense Ministry began posting video clips (hundreds of them) depicting strikes on a variety of rebel and militant targets and The Kremlin also went out of its way to capture full color, HD footage of Su-34s and long-range bombers in action over Syria where the opposition was quite simply powerless to defend itself.
For about a month (sometime between mid-November and mid-December) it appeared that President Obama was right. The fanfare around the initial wave of Russian airstrikes had subsided and the push north to Aleppo appeared to have stalled. The “quagmire” it seemed, was real. Then, suddenly, Hezbollah surrounded Aleppo and reports indicated the Russian air force had implemented what amounts to a scorched earth policy when it comes to the militants battling Iranian forces.
Once it became apparent that the country’s largest city would soon be recaptured by forces loyal to Assad, both Turkey and Saudi Arabia began to weigh their options. A ground assault by Ankara and Riyadh would be a veritable nightmare for the US and the West. It would invariably devolve into a direct conflict with Iranian forces and the first time a Russian jet hit Saudi or Turkish troops the world would be plunged into a global conflict with the potential to drag every nation in the developed world to war.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 02/22/2016.