"Waiter there's a fly in my no fly zone".. friday beaver

Hey Johnny think we can make a no fly zone?

Grandpa Walnuts and his sidekick Lindy Graham have proposed a no fly zone in Syria and arming the rebels. It's time to take away the remote and car keys from these guys. 

Let's stop for a moment and look at the facts in all this. First off Syria is not like Iraq by any stretch of the imagination. Though Syria is run by a Baathist party like Iraq was that's where the similarities end. 

Just to institute a "no fly zone" would involve taking out a rather strong air force defense system eliminating the Syrian's ability to get airborne. That would be no easy task with a Russian base on Syria's coast. Plus we know Putin is set to send (if he hasn't already) surface to air missiles. 

Far be it from me to know the possibilities of such a mission so I leave that to people who study it for a living but my gut instinct tells me it's a fools errand.

A 2004 Stanford University paper published in The Journal of Strategic Studies, "Lessons from Iraq and Bosnia on the Theory and Practice of No-fly Zones," reviewed the effectiveness of the air-based campaigns in achieving military objectives. The paper's findings were: 1) A clear, unified command structure is essential. In Bosnia, during "Operation Deny Flight," a confusing dual-key coordination structure provided inadequate authority and resulted in air forces not being given authority to assist in key situations; 2) To avoid a "perpetual patrol problem," states must know in advance their policy objectives and the exit strategy for no-fly zones; 3) The effectiveness of no-fly zones is highly dependent on regional support. A lack of support from Turkey for the 1996 Iraq no-fly zone ultimately constrained the coalition's ability to effectively enforce it.

There's a bit less regional support this time around. For one thing Syria wouldn't be on our side. Canada and the rest of the coalition of the willing are unlikely to send troops as they did with Iraq the second time around. They'll all send cash but don't want their hands dirty. Iraq itself is a bit busy fighting it's own internal struggles, a mess that we left them with upon our departure. That would leave Israel who wants no part of such action. Jordan which has an army of only 100K and only 100 fighter aircraft, although we could use it to launch our aircraft. Which leaves only Lebanon who side with Assad and have already sent fighters into the country and Palestine which has no real military other than the PLO and Hamas which we consider a terrorist organization.

This barely scratches the surface of the complexities of such an encounter. A quick read of the breakdown of the players in all this reads more like the characters of a Russian novel with far reaching characters and grudges going back hundreds of years. If McCain and company think this would be a simple "us" verses "them" scenario he'd better study his history a bit more but then again I guess he didn't learn anything from Vietnam. So what's this really all about for John McCain one might ask? Wouldn't have something to do with the oil and gas reserves in Iran now would it? And we all know Johnny's just itching to make up for his short lived actions of the past. Why else would he want to bomb Iran to the tune of Barbara Ann?

Bank fails later...
UPDATE: No bank fails this week