This guy expresses the first one that flew to my mind: “I would expect the Assad government to bombard or starve any such territory,” said Ian Hurd, an expert in international law and associate professor of political science at Northwestern University in Illinois.

From the same article:

"The massacre at Srebrenica is a good example of why a corridor would require a protective military presence to be effective. Who would police a corridor in Syria?

At the moment, there is no Security Council resolution authorizing such an intervention. “Despite their neutral character, the success of humanitarian truces, zones, or corridors will inevitably rely on the international community’s political will to take coercive action in protecting civilians in Syria,” writes Claude Bruderlein, director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University.

Syria is increasingly perceived as a theatre for proxy war and struggle for influence between Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, and Shia countries like Iran. A unilateral intervention by Turkey or any other country could spark a whole other series of problems, and could well be seen as a declaration of war."

[link:http://www.irinnews.org/report/95101/briefing-why-humanitarians-wary-of-humanitarian-corridors|

If it's as stated in the article, someone insists that no planes fly in certain "safe" areas. <-- so far so good?

Ok then, exactly WHO enforces these 'no fly zones'? and HOW is that done? <--these are my 2 questions.

in Syria from the air, and threaten to shoot down any other aircraft. There is near zero likelihood that we would get a UN resolution authorizing this, so we would be acting on our own, outside of any international legal framework, and mainly to continue our efforts to assist batshit crazy sunni jihadists taking down, and then slaughtering the alawite shiites running the current government of Syria.

Especially now, with Russian fighter jets aggressively flooding the air ways with
their own agenda, which isn't entirely clear.

Protect the Assad government from all contenders. Assad is their longtime client and ally. The Russian navy uses Syrian ports and the Syrian military uses Russian hardware.

And if the roles were reversed, the US would do the same!

And they did...the US bombing of the medical facility in Kunduz, done in order to protect the Afghan government, America's client and ally!!!

Most liberals would not support the US using its military to support a friendly dictator. Whether it is in Afghanistan in 2015 or Egypt in 2011. (I suspect that Mubarak would have appreciated the US doing more to protect him.) I don't support other countries doing what I would not support my own country doing.

Maybe that's true if you confine the definition of what constitutes a political "liberal" in American politics to something narrower than usual.

Historically, you'd have to exclude John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton.

And today, you'd clearly have to exclude Barack Obama, whose administration, in it's effort to secure alliances in Africa, has aligned itself with some of the least Democratic countries on the continent including Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Angola. And that's to say nothing of the objectionable alliances the administration has curried in the name of "fighting Islamic extremism", or our continuing support of Saudi Arabia, or our looking past the right-wing nature of the new government in Ukraine.

Supporting authoritarian or right-wing governments in the name of some other national interest (regional stability, counter-balance, access to energy, shipping, etc.) is not just something that used to happen back in the 1980s. It's still happening.

I'm opposed to any U.S. military involvement in Syria.

military involvement in Syria.

True. There are fewer dictatorships now than there were in the 1970's and 80's but they certainly still exist and large countries often support them for large countries' national interests.

I trust that liberals, as opposed to conservatives, will work to see that there will be fewer dictators in another 30 or 40 years than there are now regardless of what large countries want to see.

And provide a safe haven for those who we support to operate in.

What would we do if Russia declares a no fly zone of it's own?

None of this was on the radar until Russia started bombing Isis...now we want to keep the war going and protect opposition forces.
It seems we are still doing regime change in the middle east, after the disaster of last time. The Neo Cons are still at work.

The war mongers would love a no-fly-zone.

The resistance fighters who remain, should be offered asylum in allied nations; stop the killing,
work with Putin take out ISIS.

I am wary of the consequences of engaging the Russians. If a couple Su-34s get blown out of the sky by the U.S. Air Force, how will Putin respond? Will he move the Black Sea Fleet down into the Mediterranean? This could get out of hand fast.

from their buddy Assad. Not that we'd want them to get mired in Syria...

have moved in with both air and ground forces, why would they want us to guard and coddle opposition forces against Assad in a protected area? The candidates, Repub and Hillary Clinton, have seized on this because they literally have nothing else to offer and want to sound tough against Russia and have a convenient solution at hand that they know isn't going to happen. Edit to add: and how would we keep ISIS/AQ out of the area?

There is reason to be horrified by the plight of Syrians and this is a simplistic "solution" that can be made by people without the power to do it. Obama, who could - violating international law and likely without Congressional support (which I 100% predict will not be there if Obama seriously pushes this - just as happened when Syria used chemical weapons.)

The wonder of suggesting something that can be intuitively (even if dishonestly) proposed that does not happen -- is you can claim it would have worked better than what was done. Hillary Clinton has done this with her claims that strongly backing and arming the "moderate" rebels in 2011 or 2012 would have led to a better result. As it didn't happen, people backing Obama's caution can point to many who joined AL Nusra (AQ) or ISIS, but the Republicans and Clinton would argue that had we just given them what they needed these moderates (who we now can't find) would have ousted Saddam and ushered in an inclusive, democratic government.

Note that Hillary Clinton does hedge a little by calling it an international no fly zone. How likely is it if Obama and others take this to the UN that this happens. Russia does have a veto. Not to mention, where would the no fly corridor be? There are at least 3 groups flying planes in Syria - the coalition led by the US, the Syrian government, and Russia. The first two have "de conflicted" now for a year -- and neither side has accidentally shot the other down. There are already talks on deconclicting with Russia. Clearly any area that these three consider to have ISIS in will not be included. The controversial Russian attacks are hitting an area with both Al Nusra and SFA rebels. Yet, in the first month of our coalition hits, we hit a group we labeled as an AQ group called Khorasan and Al Nusra in that same province the Russians attacked.

On the first night of a US-led air campaign, ostensibly to attack the Islamic State group last September, three bases for Jabhat al-Nusra and a second jihadi group, Ahrar al-Sham, were bombed in the opening salvoes.

The attacks killed more than 70 militants and Washington claimed to have struck cells of leaders who had been seconded to Khorasan and tasked with scoping for targets outside of Syria.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/28/khorasan-a-syrian-mystery

The article is interesting to read and could very well explain why Russia hit them - beyond protecting their bases or supporting Assad. These jihadis are said to come from the various "stans" -- which of course share a long border with Russia. If we saw them as dangerous - imagine why Russia can see them as dangerous.

The origins of those jihadis might also suggest why there is a real need on Russia's part as well as ours to get a diplomatic solution and then work very hard to repair the damage inflicted on Syria. This won't eliminate ISIS, but without doing this, there is no way to really end the danger of ISIS.

An international no fly zone is impossible, a US led one would not be approved internationally or by Congress. However no matter what happens - politically it is a cynical position that could work. It suggests that, unlike Obama, they care about the innocent people whose lives have been destroyed and the rebels we encouraged. Let's look at the possible ways this could play out:

1) The US/Russia?Iran?Saudi Arabia et al assist Syria in getting a transition plan that includes a cease fire - and it holds. This would be the least bad thing that could happen and likely Assad would initially still be there with some provision of elections in which he can not run. (What might open HUGE outrage is if to get there there is some amnesty that includes Assad as well as others on both sides.) The sad thing is that if the world got to this, Obama would likely be attacked more on this than on Iran! Having argued for something as aggressive as a no fly zone - the Republicans and HRC would argue that they could then have worked a better deal - just as the Netanyahu apologists now claim on Iran.

2) That does not happen and the US coalition and Russia continue the bombing flights - at "best" this further turns Syria into a wasteland and there are more refugees risking death to flee. ( and the "weak" Obama won't even protect them with a no fly zone!&quot At worst, they both fly and the "deconfliction" fails and one a plane is shot down by one of these factions. ( This is a disaster - and anyone NOT supporting the President will argue that he was to blame.)

Given how poor the choices really are in Syria, it would seem that any position AGAINST what Obama is doing is the safer position.

in the tradition of idiotic political bluster from Russia to Iran to North Korea. It a proven crowd-pleaser.

This can only lead for the need to send ground forces.

Terrible idea especially when Russia will cross the line in the sand.

And it would be an escalation of the US presence in Syria, which is really none of our business.

And it would set the stage for a potential confrontation with Russia, which, unlike the US, is in Syria with the express permission of its internationally recognized government.

And it would empower Islamic radical jihadis, who are quite nicely mixed in with the mythical "moderate rebels."

I stand with the president on this one.

We haven't been able to stop them anywhere without bombing the crap out of them.

With Russia in the airspace this can't happen without compromising in a manner that lets them meet their objectives. Those objectives don't include replacing Assad.

This idea of no fly zones was rendered moot the second Russia deployed airpower into Syria.

"President Obama complained Friday that Republican critics who want a no-fly zone over Syria had “half-baked” ideas and were full of “mumbo-jumbo.”"

http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/10/02/obama-criticizes-republicans-on-syrian-no-fly-zone-but-not-clinton/

I trust Obama to handle this.

and it is the correct move.

Clinton will be castigated as out of touch and too much in with the 1% to make money off this debacle.

I don't like to see Democrats second guess their President.....

All of that bullshit that Hillary was shoveling about not wanting to "second guess" Obama on keystone and then she second guesses him on Syria?

Gimme a break.

it was Syria that invited their long-time ally Russia, to help fight against the terrorists (all of them).
The USA, on the other hand, is violating international law by going into Syrian airspace uninvited.

We're by far the wealthiest single nation on the planet. No other nation comes close.
We are by far the most powerful nation militarily on the planet. No other nation begins to come close.
We have well-established strategic presences and alliances around the planet. No other nation comes close.
Our language and our currency are used as standards around the planet.

Thanks to new technology, we are now not only effectively energy independent (unlike almost all other nations), but we are now the largest producer of oil and gas on the planet -- and busy tightening the economic screws on middle-east troublemakers. They will eventually become less aggressive or we'll break them. It might not even be possible for us to prevent their being broken economically over time anyway since they are critically dependent on high oil prices, and the world has to move away from oil.

Russia is not only social and economically weak and unstable, but is nowhere close to parity with us in any of the above. Why anyone could be fooled into thinking our strategic thinkers are so stupid that we cannot use, and are not using, our tremendous assets to wear down our adversaries is beyond me. Social conservatives, maybe; they understand nothing but total destruction. But the others? Must victory require rivers of blood for them to recognize it?

It's how we won the Cold War. The Soviet Union broke itself trying to keep up with us and lost.
It's how we forced powerful and dangerous Iran to sign the nuclear deal. Iran lost.
Just a couple big ones among many, many....

TIME is a HUGE FACTOR that the 24/7 news cycle and impatient people trained to expect instant gratification have no interest in. But it's still a HUGE FACTOR and a major asset for us. Why? See above.

It's amusing how the media tries to turn this lopsided situation into a "horse race" narrative between Russia and the U.S. -- with headlines about Putin "upstaging" Obama in New York.

Bullshit. The U.S. president is still the main event and the one that the audience can't ignore.

Americans get their outlook from Hollywood movies and not from boring speeches at the UN.

"Bipartisan" is not a word we hear much these days.

and does anyone remember how well that worked out?

If the Russians want to turn Syria into a little puppet state and get shot at by Isis, let them. We already enjoy having a "friendly ally" that enjoys us fighting their war, perhaps Bibi and Bashar can have fun fighting amongst themselves and for a chance, we can just sit back and enjoy the show

These things have their own momentum. It is folly to start the snowball rolling.

why Russia was sending air combat jets and anti aircraft weapons when ISIS doesn't have any aircrafts, well its for stopping any foolish western attempts at implementing a No fly zone in Syria.

Regardless, the Russians should ramp up their bombing because Washington and Brussels are not going to sit idly by while Russia upstages them. They are scheming on ways to thwart their efforts to end the conflict in Syria.

How safe is it for people, including religious minorities, under the rule of those armed groups in the north and south of the country?

in stability than in democracy there while the people there prefer democracy.


http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/10/most-muslims-want-democracy-personal-freedoms-and-islam-in-political-life/

Then there is this poll in 2012 that showed they are right. Democrats were modestly more supportive of democracy than republicans but a majority still prioritized stability.


http://www.people-press.org/2012/10/18/on-eve-of-foreign-debate-growing-pessimism-about-arab-spring-aftermath/