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And next, Syria?

In TNI Is Russia Really 'Winning'?
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Consider another key issue where Russia has purportedly gained during 2016: its Syrian intervention. Certainly, Russia has been successful in bolstering the Assad regime, and preventing its collapse. The intervention has also played well on television, giving Putin popularity at home, and giving Russia greater clout in Middle East diplomacy.

At the same time, the intervention has further worsened relations between Russia and the West, particularly as violations of humanitarian norms in Syria have contributed to Russia’s international pariah status. And while it has become trite, it is true that there is no military path to victory for Russia in Syria. They lack the ability to restore the Assad regime’s control over all of Syria, and cannot easily withdraw without leaving the impression of defeat. In effect, Russia is now encountering the same problem that the United States did in Iraq and Afghanistan: swift military intervention is relatively easy, but mopping up an insurgency is substantially harder.
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Be careful of what you wish for.

The fall of rebel East Aleppo and all that preceded it may well be remembered as the easy bit of the Russian intervention in Syria much like the much shorter US cakewalk to Baghdad. The US venture in Iraq was severely complicated by the Iranians exploiting it to their advantage while the entangled superpower tried to thrash free from its unwanted entanglement and label that victory. Not a trick Uncle Sam really managed.

Behind the charade of talks with the US Russian regional diplomacy has been deft but flaws are evident that may be finally fatal.

Here what enables the low footprint Air reliant Russian intervention is Iranian provided manpower that's only going to become more necessary as the SAA dwindles. The Russians are roped to an IRGC intent on a future war with Israel they have reason to fear. That's a conflict that could drag in even the Putin adoring Trump.

They can't shift the human stain of the obstinately uncompromising Bashar. Putin may despise Syria's bumbling, much diminished despot but the Assad clan's leader is still its greatest warlord and will likely thwart sensible Russian-Iranian attempts at any negotiated settlements. He'll remain on top of his rotten Kingdom, as the international community sulks, a great disincentive to the aid Syria would need for reconstruction.

And that's just basic stability as with the US in Iraq a Syria that isn't a host to transnational terror threats is far from Russia's grasp. Putin's version of COIN is liable to be seen to fail in this respect in a Syria plagued by evolving varieties Takfiri.
 

It's not the lying; it's that from Kerry down State are so bad at straight faced falsehood. Compare the effortless way Lavrov dissembles to Kerry. Perhaps Foggy Bottom reporting to a true father of lies in the Oval Office may improve in that respect.
 

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Assad's powers would be cut under a deal between the three nations, say several sources. Russia and Turkey would allow him to stay until the next presidential election when he would quit in favor of a less polarizing Alawite candidate.

Iran has yet to be persuaded of that, say the sources. But either way Assad would eventually go, in a face-saving way, with guarantees for him and his family.

"A couple of names in the leadership have been mentioned (as potential successors)," said Kortunov, declining to name names.

Nobody thinks a wider Syrian peace deal, something that has eluded the international community for years, will be easy, quick or certain of success. What is clear is that President Vladimir Putin wants to play the lead role in trying to broker a settlement, initially with Turkey and Iran.

That would bolster his narrative of Russia regaining its mantle as a world power and serious Middle East player.
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Article points out the Iranians do not appear to be on board with any regime change scheme.

I'm not sure here if the Russians are delusional or simply selling Ankara a crock. Despite their Air they can't even get Bashar to shut up about conquering all of Syria let alone edge him out of power in 2021. And I doubt Bashar's own promise to stand down is a bare faced lie.

Of course Erdogan may be quite happy with a face saving porky while the TSK moves to choke off the infant Rojava.
 

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Later on the same program he Skyped with a young woman who, along with Jones, would pen the alt right’s alt-history of the Syrian war. The version of history Donald Trump would use to build his world view. The young woman who Jones hosted called herself, Syrian Girl Partisan aka Mimi Al Laham aka Maram Susli, a pro-Assad youtube commentator who had been releasing English language videos since the beginning of the uprising. Her commentary condemned the Syrian opposition, and was designed to make inroads with the American far right.

“I’m not gonna come here and deny that the government wasn’t a dictatorship, it wasn’t corrupt, that, you know, that people weren’t angry with it. I’m not gonna say that there wasn’t a legitimate reason for people to want to create that change but the fact is that was totally exploited and even pre planned by the foreign agendas, the US, NATO, basically the global elite as you call them.”

As Jones emphatically agreed and Mimi went on.

“It’s absolutely undeniable that little children died in Damascus three days ago and that the images are shocking and anyone cannot deny that and I’m not gonna comment on the Nature of the gas that was used I’m gonna leave that to experts. and I also don’t want to implicate the rebels as a whole…. I don’t want to implicate them directly because I’m sure some of them have families that live in that area and I believe that they themselves are pasties to a global game that they are cannon fodder for and the powers that be have managed to convince them that they are going to get armed that they are going to get no fly zones… they want to divide Syria up into mini states and they wanna crush any rogue state.” Alex answered this by saying “Yes any state that isn’t run by Goldman Sachs!” Laham’s words about “letting the experts decide” were the opening chapter to a saga that is far stranger than fiction.
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Where Trump seems to get his views on Syria and much of the world for that matter. Little wonder he's not happy with CIA briefings.
 

Operation Euphrates Shield's very basic problem.

It's very easy to imagine the Turks taking ground only to have the disorganised rebels lose it to IS or the PKK. Weaken the PKK too much and the Turks can enable an IS recovery.
 

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Resisting the Temptation About Syria

It is tempting to think the Syrian civil war will end in 2017, now that the forces loyal to Bashar al Assad have retaken the critical city of Aleppo. Indeed, they now control a few major cities and have the luxury of consolidating the gains they have made. But the conflict will not end, at least not in 2017. The loyalists are simply pulled in too many directions to achieve a decisive victory. In addition to holding their territory in the north, they must now try to clear the rebels located between Aleppo and Damascus and around Damascus itself. They will also be drawn to areas held by the Islamic State in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, where their comrades are currently besieged. Retaking territory in the energy belt around Palmyra will be a priority too. Put differently, there is still a lot work left for them to do, and any number of things can shift the balance of power in such a conflict-ridden country.

The constraints on the loyalists, however, are but one factor preventing the conflict's resolution. In 2017, the presence of foreign powers will also complicate the Syrian battlefield, much as it has in years past. The United States will adapt its strategy in Syria, favoring one that more selectively aids specific groups in the fight against the Islamic State rather than those fighting the al Assad government. Washington will, for example, continue to back Kurdish forces but will curb support for rebels in Idlib. The consequences of which will be threefold. First, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia will have to increase their support for the rebels, including the more radical ones, the United States has forsaken. Second, their support will give radical elements room to thrive, as will the reduced oversight associated with Washington's disengagement. Third, Russia will be able to cooperate more tactically with the United States and its allies as it tries to exact concessions, including the easing of sanctions, in a broader negotiation with Washington.

Notably, Russia will cooperate only insofar as it helps Moscow achieves those goals, but given Moscow's limited influence on the ground in Syria, there is only so much it can actually do. Still, that will not stop Russia from trying to replace Washington as the primary arbiter of Syrian negotiation.

While other powers are preoccupied with the fight against the Islamic State, Turkey will expand its sphere of influence in northern Syria and Iraq, driven as it is by its imperative to block Kurdish expansion. In Syria, the presence of Russian troops will probably prevent Turkey from venturing any farther south than al Bab in northern Aleppo. From al Bab, Turkey will try to drive eastward toward the town of Manbij to divide and thus weaken areas held by the Kurds. Turkey will also lobby for a bigger role in anti-Islamic State operations in Raqqa. Turkey will deploy more of its own forces in the Syrian fight, both to obstruct the expansion of Syrian Kurdish forces and degrade the Islamic State.
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I would not bet on the Turks in Iraq. They've managed to really piss off 90% of the Arabs and are mainly enabling the Iranians in the process. A once unlikely anti-Turkish PKK-IRGC Hashd alignment would no longer be a surprise.
 

Lund notes #2 is an interesting inclusion. Ahar is not defined as "moderate" by the US but would be by the Turks who back them.
 

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Susan Rice: Well, first of all, I think the equation needs to be dissected. Rwanda was a horrific, preplanned, premeditated genocide that occurred over 100 days. Up to 1 million people were killed, largely with machetes, house to house. It was shocking in its speed and its scope. Rwanda at the time was a country of maybe 7 million people, so imagine the toll that that took. The world wasn’t focused, and the genocide snuck up on most people — not everybody, but most people — and happened with lightning speed. The international community was completely paralyzed in deciding how to respond.

The United States had just literally, seven days before the genocide occurred, removed the last of its American forces from Somalia. The last thing that was on the minds of members of Congress, the administration, the press corps, was a new intervention into a place even less known than Somalia to try to prevent a genocide that was happening literally house to house with machetes. I’m not making excuses for the United States or for the international community; I saw firsthand the tragic results of our collective failure to act. But that was very different from what’s happened in Syria.

Syria is a civil war. Syria began as a popular uprising, just like the other experiences in the Arab Spring, with a repressive government that responded by basically killing the protesters. It’s not a genocide, it’s a war, and there’s a difference. Genocide is a preplanned attack on people because of who they are. This is a interstate conflict.

TC: So the definition of genocide has nothing to do with the number of casualties?

SR: No, no, no. It’s not about number, it’s about intent and method. The question for the United States from the very beginning is “What can we do about it, in Syria?” Should we intervene in the middle of a civil war, post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan, in the Middle East? If we did, what would that involve? Would we try to put ground forces on the ground and separate folks? Would we fight Assad? Would we create a no-fly zone? I think personally the judgment the president made that it is not in our national interest to become involved in another civil conflict, in another Middle Eastern country with forces on the ground or even an air campaign, made sense, and makes sense.

What we have done is when the threat has been directed at the United States, i.e., the terrorist threat from ISIL or Al-Qaeda in Syria, is to go after them.
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An important distinction. Folk bandying about genocide at the first sign of mass casualty nastiness do rather devalue the concept. IS's micro-genocide of the Yazidis may not be as great a crime as Assad's slow moving slaughter of Syrians on rebel turf or even the rebel's policy of attrition against their conscripted countrymen but it does fit the bill of methodically trying to wipe out a people just because they are that.

Of course the US had already intervened directly in what was effectively a decades old civil war in Afghanistan that had killed over a million souls back in Soviet times. That was a decade and a half ago. It's still going on with casualty levels not much lower than Syria's currently, a rather serious collateral terrorist problem that's spread into Pakistan and very substantial flows of refugees to distant Europe.
 
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/28/the-real-us-strategic-blunder-in-syria/

The administration was unwilling to be at cross-purposes with its Sunni allies, the former official recalled, because of the direct US military interests at stake in its alliances with those three states: the Saudis effectively controlled US access to the naval base in Bahrain, Turkey controlled the airbase at Incirlik, and Qatar controlled land and air bases that had become central to US military operations in the region.

What was a disastrous blunder in terms of the consequences for the Syrian people, therefore, was the only choice acceptable to the powerful national security institutions that constitute what has become the US permanent war state.
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Last edited:
CrabbedOne said:
In TNI Is Russia Really 'Winning'?
Be careful of what you wish for.

The fall of rebel East Aleppo and all that preceded it may well be remembered as the easy bit of the Russian intervention in Syria much like the much shorter US cakewalk to Baghdad. The US venture in Iraq was severely complicated by the Iranians exploiting it to their advantage while the entangled superpower tried to thrash free from its unwanted entanglement and label that victory. Not a trick Uncle Sam really managed.

Behind the charade of talks with the US Russian regional diplomacy has been deft but flaws are evident that may be finally fatal.

Here what enables the low footprint Air reliant Russian intervention is Iranian provided manpower that's only going to become more necessary as the SAA dwindles. The Russians are roped to an IRGC intent on a future war with Israel they have reason to fear. That's a conflict that could drag in even the Putin adoring Trump.

They can't shift the human stain of the obstinately uncompromising Bashar. Putin may despise Syria's bumbling, much diminished despot but the Assad clan's leader is still its greatest warlord and will likely thwart sensible Russian-Iranian attempts at any negotiated settlements. He'll remain on top of his rotten Kingdom, as the international community sulks, a great disincentive to the aid Syria would need for reconstruction.

And that's just basic stability as with the US in Iraq a Syria that isn't a host to transnational terror threats is far from Russia's grasp. Putin's version of COIN is liable to be seen to fail in this respect in a Syria plagued by evolving varieties Takfiri.
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This smacks very much of wishful sour grapes . These analysts ...whove predicted failure at e ery turn only to be proven consistly wrong...would earlier have scoffed at the very notion of what the Russians have achieved thus far , at the very notion of the jihadi stranglehold over Allepo being broken so quickly.


Unlike the US in Iraq they haven't gone there to regime change, occupy, nation destroy , steal oil etc . They're there at the direct request of the government . With very strong local military, political, social and economic allies in an Arab state theyve enjoyed strong relations with for decades . They're in the process of splitting one militant backer ..Turkey..away from the US and who are now desperate to end the war and blaming the yanks for IS . The yanks aren't even invited to the peace talks. " Assad must go " is but a distant memory from a host of figures departed/ departing from the scene .
Incoming Trump shows no appetite at all for arming the jihadists, their foreign sponsors are peeling away . won't be much of a proxy war when the western powers and turkey ...sick and tired of the blowback from their ill advised venture...no longer want proxies . The militants can't win now, Damascus secure, Allepo secure, no Clinton to the rescue..hundreds of them in recent weeks have downed arms, taken reconciliation deals and joined the Syrian army and it's militias. The militants now know they can't win. That's a massive disincentive .

Now there's another major ceasefire , brokered without any US input . Hopefully they won't "accidentally " bomb the Syrian positions again in order to wreck it .

Assad is constitutionally obliged to step down from the presidency after his final term is up . No reason to suggest he won't . He's never spoke of " reconquering " his own country by military means, merely ensuring it remains a unified territory . There's a very healthy reconciliation process in place that's seen thousands of militants drop their weapons and go back to their lives . Even go back to the army . That process of national unity , often unpopular with his own support base, isn't exclusively military by any means .
 
Casually Red said:
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Assad is constitutionally obliged to step down from the presidency after his final term is up . No reason to suggest he won't . He's never spoke of " reconquering " his own country by military means, merely ensuring it remains a unified territory . There's a very healthy reconciliation process in place that's seen thousands of militants drop their weapons and go back to their lives . Even go back to the army . That process of national unity , often unpopular with his own support base, isn't exclusively military by any means .
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On The NYT Defiant Bashar al-Assad Vows to Retake ‘Every Inch’ of Syria

An exact quote:

"The way we liberated Palmyra, and before that many areas, we will liberate every last bit of Syria from their hands. We have no choice but to be victorious,"

"Our war on terrorism will continue not because we like war. They imposed the war on us," he added, reiterating his often-used line of blaming foreign countries for the conflict. "The shedding of blood will not end until we uproot terrorism, wherever it is."​

Something Bashar has implied repeatedly. Pointedly repeated when the imperious Russians promised negotiated settlements. He's not a man of his word but here his equally bloodyminded supporters do expect him to deliver. All the Russians have ever managed is to get the Baath to attend talks. The only meaningful interaction I can recall with the SNC delegation was a demand beards be shaved before they'd even talk to them.

The Assad clan rewrote the Syrian constitution to anoint Bashar in a few days. It's a meaningless piece of paper that they own. The Russians have never been able to produce a plausible successor and there's no reason to suppose Bashar will ever oblige the Russians. His clan never has even when the IDF threatened to destroy their Kingdom. It's a reckless contempt for arrogant Great Powers shared by the Iranians.
 

What a carve up. Or attempted carve up. Trump is already celebrating a vicarious victory but it'll likely sour.

Putin used 60K troops to brutally crush his Chechen province in the 90s. Perhaps a 3:1 ratio of counterinsurgents to insurgents. The usual COIN planning standard is 4:1. Idlib province alone is a bit bigger than Chechnya in terms of population.

60K is perhaps the full strength of deployable R+6 forces. As they conquer ground they'll need to leave sufficient holding forces diminishing offensive clout. Otherwise they'll be doomed to play Whackamole as they have over reconquered and quickly lost Palmyra. Ahar al Sham, the largest most effective rebel group, has about 25K beards; the size of the Chechen resistance. The wider revolt is over 100K strong and they've got foreign backing that the plucky but isolated Chechens never had. The Holy soil of Syria will always draw Takfiri.

Trump likely subtracting the bungling CIA from the existing MOC's makes little difference. Turkish and Jordanian intelligence did all the front office work anyway. The US role in the existing T&E program was worthless. They just lose the overly fussy hand of Langley and can do what they will. That probably won't be trying to topple Bashar but nor will it be keeping him in comfort.

Jordan will seek to thwart the IRGC's plans in the South. Ankara will have its strategic depth in Northern Syria just as Rawalpindi relentlessly pursues that in Afghanistan via Taliban proxies. It's very hard to suppress a well funded insurgency with secure rear basing. We have not managed it and neither have the Russians. There's about 30K US forces and 180K ANA barely holding Afghan together currently in the face of 60K Taliban.

How Syria goes really isn't hard to figure in military terms. Bashar would be wise to seek terms short of their abject surrender with the rebels but Bashar does not do wise. So the liker of war will fight on growing more dependant on what's really an IRGC backed army of occupation to secure Useful Syria as his limited nub of manpower slowly erodes. And there's no regime General/Warlord strong enough to stage a merciful coup to take his head at least not yet.
 


Not just a narrow faction opposed by most Syrians but one that restarted a long pointless war with a major NATO ally directly to Rojava's rear. Unlucky but you make your own luck in these things and the US often appeared very shortsighted in Syria.
 

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Syria will be a prime subject of the most immediate clamoring for action. But the extremely complicated war—actually, a collection of wars—in Syria is a classic case of a mess with no good solution. Much criticism of current policy has consisted of exasperation over continuation of the deadly mess while giving insufficient attention to the inadequacies and uncertainties of any alternative. The difficulty of trying to pursue a good cause without also aiding bad ones is symbolized on the ground by the cooperation and intermixing of supposedly moderate opposition forces with the local Al Qaeda affiliate.

The United States does not have a significant interest in the political composition of a future regime in Damascus. “Assad must go” slogans should be discarded. The Assads provided the closest thing to stability that an independent Syria has ever known. The only conceivable alternatives in sight would be no better on the stability front and apt to be even less appealing ideologically. Bashar al-Assad will not realize his declared aim of recovering every inch of Syria, but neither is there a resolution of this war in sight that does not leave his regime, with Russian and Iranian backing, with the western spine of the country that it currently controls.

Understandable repugnance over the regime’s brutality should not lead to the heart overriding the policymaking head. Nor should policymakers make the mistake of responding to human suffering by escalating the war. Escalation in the form of a no-fly zone, for instance, should not proceed without better answers than have been provided so far to questions about who does the fighting to maintain whatever situation on the ground a prohibited airspace is supposed to protect. Other questions that need answers involve force-protection requirements and what they mean for the overall scale of any military operation, and the risks of further escalation in the form of direct U.S.-Russia clashes.

The most positive contributions the United States can make regarding the Syrian situation involve multilateral diplomacy that encourages outside players to promote de-escalation and that supports whatever compromises exhausted inside players can accept. Being multilateral means going beyond the U.S.-Russia duopoly that crafted so many failed cease-fires and including Turkey, Iran and the Gulf states. U.S. diplomacy should build on shared interests in not seeing carnage continuing indefinitely, while recognizing relative motivations behind those interests that differ. Like it or not, Russia’s motivation to maintain its decades-old foothold in Syria, even with a client regime that rules only part of the country, is stronger than any corresponding U.S. interest there. The Assad regime’s motivation to continue to exist is stronger still.
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I doubt if Trump will have much interest or leverage in Syria but that may be just as well. He'll flail at IS as it regroups in the shadows.

It's probably time to realise the danger in Syria is not that Russia might succeed but that they'll probably fail in most of their goals just as the far more powerful USSR did in such difficult ventures. The odds are not with them.
 
On Rudaw Any form of region in northern Syria unacceptable, gov't official
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Damascus will not tolerate any mention of a separate region, federal or otherwise, in the north of the country, says a Syrian official, referring to the Kurds' recent announcement of a federation.

"Imposing federation and talking about northern Syria is not accepted," Basam Abu Abdullah, adviser to the Syrian Ministry of Information told Rudaw.

Any system to run any part of the country should be voted for by the Syrian nation, Abdullah explained.
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It's academic under the Assad's but even if they had a fair vote on that it's highly unlikely any form of federal Syria would be accepted.

Big contrast here between what the regime is willing to accept and the federal ideas the Russians have been trying to push. And tolerating PKK autonomy in interim was originally a pragmatic regime survival strategy. A deal with the rebels seems even less likely.
 
On TCF The Five Most Important Events in Syria in 2016
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5. Assad Failed to Resurrect the Economy

In 2016, the Syrian economy continued its slow-motion implosion. The value of the Syrian pound fell dramatically in early 2016. In May, the price of a dollar had passed 620 pounds and moved on 700, compared to 47 before the uprising and around 400 at the start of 2016. Central Bank interventions pushed the price of the dollar down again, but this didn’t last. By summer, the dollar price was back above 500 pounds and there it remains.

The Syrian government is putting on a brave face. Its 2,660 billion pound state budget for 2017 has been advertised as its biggest spending spree ever, a 34 percent bigger budget than the previous one, even though its dollar value is significantly less than that for 2016. But the government is finding it increasingly difficult to keep services running. Consumers suffer from inflated prices, businesses are failing, black-marketeering spreads, and state and army salaries have been dramatically hollowed-out. Even to run basic security, the regime is increasingly forced to rely on decentralized self-funding or foreign-funded networks of militias. There was no catastrophic financial meltdown in 2016, but in the long term, this is all bad news for Assad.
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Probably Bashar's biggest weakness and one Trump might effect if he moves to ease sanctions.
 
CrabbedOne said:

What a carve up. Or attempted carve up. Trump is already celebrating a vicarious victory but it'll likely sour.

Putin used 60K troops to brutally crush his Chechen province in the 90s. Perhaps a 3:1 ratio of counterinsurgents to insurgents. The usual COIN planning standard is 4:1. Idlib province alone is a bit bigger than Chechnya in terms of population.

60K is perhaps the full strength of deployable R+6 forces. As they conquer ground they'll need to leave sufficient holding forces diminishing offensive clout. Otherwise they'll be doomed to play Whackamole as they have over reconquered and quickly lost Palmyra. Ahar al Sham, the largest most effective rebel group, has about 25K beards; the size of the Chechen resistance. The wider revolt is over 100K strong and they've got foreign backing that the plucky but isolated Chechens never had. The Holy soil of Syria will always draw Takfiri.

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Chechnya is mostly mountains , forests and gorges . Often very difficult to access and ideal territory for insurgents to hide and operate in . The closest Syria has to that terrain is Latakia , the mountain redoubts of the Alawis and which has almost been fully cleansed of the nut jobs. There's no comparison between Syria and the caucusus mountains as regards the physical environments troops have to operate in . These troops can manoeuvre with a great deal more scope and efficiency . And many of these military forces are volunteers , not the Russian demoralised conscripts of the 90s . Although the SAA has its share of them too . And what's more many of them are local unlike in chechnya. Republican guard, Tiger forces, HB , other formations and the like are well motivated, trained and equipped . the speed with which they cleared both the mountains of Latakia and the East Allepo offensive was pretty astounding . Very few saw that falling before christmas .They can definitely fight in highly challenging terrain and environmentregardless of the regular ..monthly..predictions of their imminent demise since 2011 . And unlike in Chechnya they've massive local support . Another major factor.

Turkey now seems destined to abandon many of its proxies . Without that open border and direct assistance they're screwed even in the short term . losing Allepo means they can never challenge the seat of power without direct intervention by the US ...all out war on Syria, Russia and Iran . Highly highly unlikely now Clintons shuffled off . Many thousands of these militant forces have shown for some time now they've no stomach for a fight with the SAA ..particularly southern front . Many have been sitting about doing very little during the good times. And now it's the very bad times .

What we are looking at now are a series of irreversible tactical defeats for the contras , Turkish support rapidly cooling, US support going the same way and the very real possibility in the near future of co ordinated US and Russian strikes on IS and Al Q . they won't last too long under that . and add to that equation very serious contra feuding between the myriad factions and warlords that'll get worse as their situation becomes more dire and desperate . Writing looks to be very much on the wall .
 
Casually Red said:
Chechnya is mostly mountains , forests and gorges . Often very difficult to access and ideal territory for insurgents to hide and operate in . The closest Syria has to that terrain is Latakia , the mountain redoubts of the Alawis and which has almost been fully cleansed of the nut jobs. There's no comparison between Syria and the caucusus mountains as regards the physical environments troops have to operate in . These troops can manoeuvre with a great deal more scope and efficiency . And many of these military forces are volunteers , not the Russian demoralised conscripts of the 90s . Although the SAA has its share of them too . And what's more many of them are local unlike in chechnya. Republican guard, Tiger forces, HB , other formations and the like are well motivated, trained and equipped . the speed with which they cleared both the mountains of Latakia and the East Allepo offensive was pretty astounding . Very few saw that falling before christmas .They can definitely fight in highly challenging terrain and environmentregardless of the regular ..monthly..predictions of their imminent demise since 2011 . And unlike in Chechnya they've massive local support . Another major factor.
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Well that's what the neocons said when folk told them the Iraqis might cut up rough in a guerrilla war: no geographic cover no problem. Yet out in open desert by Palmyra small well led IS offensives have broken R+6 forces twice this year.

The terrain in Syria (both geographic and human) is very similar to Iraq were 150-180K highly trained US troops and something like 150-250K local forces pursued an insurgency of 100-150K for half a decade ending in its strategic defeat in 2008 largely because it split and the 100K strong Sahwa turned on the remnants. Iraq never really was still but political violence did drop dramatically. With a seemingly successful strongman finally in place the US was then able to skedaddle. They left a large, very well equipped entirely volunteer ISF that was imperfectly trained but together with the Pesh looked pretty good by Syrian standards. What could go wrong?

A few years later Sunni Arab Iraq rose again resulting in a less bloody second phase of civil war putting to flight both a large US trained ISF and the Pesh. Endemic corruption and governance that was both absent and repressive of the sort typical of Damascus are often blamed for the recurrence. In reality it was probably inevitable. This second revolt was supported by perhaps 10% of Iraqis at its peak and had very limited external support. Yet Baghdad came close to catastrophic state failure. Local rebel support and justified grievance across the Sunni Muslim world over Syria is certainly higher.

Syria for the Russians looks like a far more difficult task than the multi-trillion dollar US project in Iraq. It's by no means certain that Syria follows a similar pattern but Iraq is not an encouraging parallel. Stability was never a likely outcome in Syria regardless of who won.

We are still at early days in the regime's COIN campaign. I'd equate the fall of East Aleppo to the USMC taking of Fallujah a dozen years ago. The Syrian revolt may have suffered a major defeats but remains large. It has yet to sink to the ruthless savagery of the insurgents in that war. To get it to the Iraq 2010 stage of a manageable terrorist war is years away. These things tend to run out beyond a decade.

It's often forgotten politically the US's ambitious goal was supported by a solid majority of Iraqis. Both Kurds and Shia Arabs supported the new establishment and it has had the complicity of most Iraqi Sunni Arabs at points. The subversive Iranians wanted US forces away from their borders but were onside for inverting Iraq's sectarian order. The Turks were eager investors in the Iraqi reconstruction ending up with Irbil as a client and ally.

Baathist Syria is at best a badly damaged state with a bleak future. It may exceed that for the rebels but regime support is relatively narrow and often reluctant. In Syria devious revolutionary Iranians are fundamentally at strategic cross purposes with the Russian neo-imperialists they invited in as muscle. The unbowed regime really doesn't appear to agree with either of its allies on the End Game and isn't afraid to say so. The Turks remain Russian enemies willing only to compromise their ant-Assad goals due to the PKK's Syrian land grab.

Landis a year ago was predicting the eventual demise of Alawite rule simply due to demographics and a huge youth bulge of mostly poor Sunni Arabs from rural backgrounds who tend to loath the Baath. He predicts an Assad victory now but I'd not be optimistic about how that looks. The fundamental numbers are not with the regime. Unlike oil and manpower rich Shia Baghdad or Irbil Baathist Damascus needs a permanent IRGC/HA army of occupation and a dole of financial support. That's a rub that will provoke endless enmity from the Gulf. Its war chest empty Damascus can only offer licences to loot from the civ pop to its warlords by way of baksheesh. There is no economic space for the sort of South American Authoritarian Consolidation that's kept the Baath in power.
 
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Syria, attack on Conoco gas plant in Feburary 2018
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