With all due respect/regards to the ordinary Britons…., I didn’t knew UK was such an important player in the world stage. 😉 Its an insult to the American power that a UK vote made the difference. Tail wagging Dog?

Usually, US administrations prefer to have some allies participating as it makes it an international operation then so the potential for backlash is lower and it’s easier to convince their public/congress to support it.

Russian reflex , hiting the wrong targets !

It’s really unexpected given the fact that ISIS is not threatening Latakia.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/hundreds-isis-killers-give-up-6542752

Supposedly the US airstrikes are disturbing the cash flow within the IS territory..

I think that despite their “moderation” they are quite close to ISIS, especially due to a common enemy.

I wouldn’t go that far – while they (e.g. Army of Conquest and IS) are both Islamist groups which have different visions of Syria than would have been preferred by the West (i.e. they are not secular), I don’t think their visions and goals are exactly the same and thus don’t see them directly cooperating in the near future unless they are facing defeat (e.g. if one group gets defeated/absorbed by the other or there’s a massive Russian ground involvement on the offensive). If they both manage to sustain their expansion, I’d be more inclined to expect them to clash sooner rather than later.

1. Britain didn’t want to create Israel where it currently is. Why? Well it just seemed stupid placing it where they’d be continually surrounded by enemies.

2. They were continually at war even before Britain and France carved them up.

1. Who would be “Britain” in that particular case exactly? Lord Balfour, Lloyd George, The Foreign Office, The Cairo Office, The India Office, local British military administrators, etc.? Everyone involved had somewhat different ideas, misconceptions and agendas about the matter which also varied across time. Mentioning one of those shot-lived ideas on the alternatives to Palestinian territory that someone in the government suggested at some point which the Zionists eventually rejected as something that “Britain” generally wanted or didn’t want is misleading, especially when in the end, the British government did in fact make a written promise on the Palestine and later on facilitated immigration of Jews to their administered Palestinian territory as part of fulfilling that promise. The British government did later realize the problems the immigration created to their administration of the territories and worked on reducing it to a halt, but it was too late by then (of course, the stubbornness of the local Palestinian leader, his subsequent connections with the Nazis and the Holocaust happening also contributed afterwards).

2. By ‘they’ you mean Arabs? Care to share some arguments to this “continuing war” in the Middle East during Ottoman Empire? I’m not an expert on the Ottoman times, but am aware of occasional rebellions against the Turks (like e.g. in Egypt in the 19th century, where also British and French were involved), but hardly what one would consider a “continuing war”, especially given the frequent wars in Europe at the same time. But, what’s your point? I never claimed that things would be peachy if Britain, France, Russia, later the US and the SU, etc. didn’t play their games over this territory; just that they made the initial stage much, much worse (and continued to do so till this day).

What is this mobile system in the background to the right? Reminds me of Patriot SA battery. https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5656/21788874981_e6b2d6c911_o.jpg

Good catch. It resembles Smerch to me if it weren’t for those hydraulic “arms”. Doesn’t look like a radar (too long) or a SAM launcher (not vertical).

What I am missing with the Su-30MK2 is the qualitative jump compared to the F-14A..

It would be maintainable, cheaper to operate, have decent A2A missiles (rather than obsolete AIM-9 and AIM-7 variants though supposedly they can use the R-73s, too), some actual standoff and dumb bomb A2G capability, etc. The Su-30SM would be a smarter choice, but saying that the MK2 doesn’t bring much over those few F-14’s that can fly is a bit harsh IMHO 🙂

That close together, without transponders, and radio silent, the radars on the ground generally wouldn’t be able to catch any funny business.

But, again, who says they were undetected? Just because this article says so, doesn’t mean much.

Journalist is Hassan Haidar Diab, the first western correspondent to enter in reconquered Al Qusair, enough as a credential?

I know who he is, but that’s irrelevant here as he himself states that this is the information taken from the Syrian state media, not first hand information.