Syrian government forces are expected to: 1. Leave Al Bu Kamal, Deir-ezzour, Palmira and stop at al-Qaryateyn to protect Homs. 2. Leave Daraa and retract to the limits of Damascus rural area. That will limit the defence of a larger area to a smaller area, secure Latakia, Tartous, Damascus and Homs.
Meanwhile Israel is considering annexing southern Syria.
Apparently some Iraqi militias Hezbollah forces are at Homs to fight, but HTS is still strong and is very well equipped, including with plenty of drones.
Most of the Syrian army has proven unwilling to fight. The troops are ill paid, the winning army was mostly disbanded, and the army troops subsisted by setting up checkpoints and extorting people who had to pass through them. The critical oil fields are under US control, so Syria’s government is poor. Hezbollah can’t send the amount of troops they sent in the past, for obvious reasons, and Russia is occupied in Ukraine and doesn’t have nearly as many “mercenary” troops to send as it used to.
(This map makes things look better than they are. The majority of the population is no longer under Syrian government control, nor is the oil.)
If Syria falls, Hezbollah is cut off from its Iranian supply chain, and Russia wants to keep its naval and air bases. As for Iraq, they have to figure that they’re next: once HTS has secured a bigger base in Syria, or taken most of it, they will turn on Iraq, as similar forces did in the past.
The situation is developing quickly, and a lot will depend on whether and/or where Syria and its allies can halt the HTS advance.
Assad has proved himself unable to do what needs to be done. His #1 need was to have a functional Syrian army and he failed at that. There may be good reasons for that, like lack of money and sectarian and tribal issues, but the bottom line is that the Syrian army’s willingness and ability to fight has so far been terrible.
If his allies do manage to save him, they should turn him into a figurehead and just the run the place themselves, it’s clear that he isn’t up to the job.
At the current time it seems the most likely outcome is Syria being partitioned between Israel and Turkey, perhaps with a rump Syrian state. But until we see if and where Syria and its allies manage to hold the line, it’s hard to say. All that being true, it’s also true that Syria in 2015 had been reduced far further than it is so far, so the situation is not, at least in principle, beyond rescue yet.
But Syria’s allies need to face the fact that the Syrian army is garbage and take over the war. If they don’t, the odds of success seem… bad.
Revelo
Position of Russia and Iran in Syria was always unsustainable, unless Iran could get hold over Iraq, which is not going to happen any time soon. So it should have been obvious to Assad that he needed to take whatever deal USA was offering, if he wanted to stay in power. As it stands, Syria will be partly dismembered by Turkiye and Israel and then the rump will be vassals of those states, who are themselves tightly connected with USA.
However, various factions fighting in Syria are not ethnically or culturally in tune with USA LGBT+ promoting western “liberalism”, so longer term perspective is that there will be some sort of realignment where groups who hate Turkiye, Israel and USA retreat to ethically Kurdish areas, where they might be supported by Iran and Russia. Kurdish areas are mountainous, so easily defended, especially with Russian anti aircraft support.
Big winner, if above happens, is Israel. If Syria falls, Israel can genocide or ethnically cleanse all of Gaza, southern or even all of Lebanon, much of Syria, some or all of Jordan.
With enough Russian and Iranian support, Kurdish resistance might collapse Turkiye. After which, anti-Israel forces might slip south from Turkiye along the coastal mountains. But this would take at least 10 years. Otherwise, Israel might succeed in their lebensraum plans after all.
different clue
Russia might want Turkey contained. Russia would not want Turkey collapsed. If Turkey were collapsed, then Russia would be concerned about the collective West filling that vacuum. So Russia would not back Kurds enough to risk collapsing Turkey.
If the Turkethnic government of Turkey had not tried to Tibetanize or Sinjiangify Kurdistan down the decades, the Kurds within Turkey might be happy campers today and not be the least bit available to help in collapsing Turkey. The Kurds outside of Turkey could not collapse Turkey all by themselves.
Victory does not go to the just. It goes to the most effective. If the just are also the most effective, then the just win the victory. Otherwise not.
Poul
The Salafists are on a roll. Russia and Iran are likely out of Syria next year, so the new conflict will be between Turkey (HTS/SNA) and US/Israel (SDF).
SDF has just taken over large parts of the Deir Ezzour region from the SAA.
So no matter how you look at it. Short term it’s a strategic victory for the US/Israel. Iran’s land routes to Damascus and Lebanon are gone.
I guess Hezbollah will not start the war again so Israel will decide if they will try to captured Southern Lebanon or settle for having knocked Hezbollah out of the war and focus exclusively the Palestinians
Iran has been push back to Iraq and Hezbollah will only have seaborne supply routes for missiles from Iran. I’m long-term looking at Hezbollah having to produce their own weapons like the Houthis .
Will the new Turkish backed regime in Damascus be Israel-friendly? Most likely not but they will be toothless and no threat.
Occasional Commentator
It’s over for Assad.
– Russia has indicated that if SAA won’t fight Syria is on its own
– Iraqi PMU have withdrawn back over the border
– Iranian state media that used to call HTS/AQ “takfiris” now refers to them as “opposition fighters”
– KSA, UAE and Egypt have urged Assad to leave Syria and form a government in exile
someofparts
So I guess this means we can finish the genocide in Gaza and Jared can build those condos on the waterfront.
Didn’t the West already try to pull a coup on the Turks? So now Erdogan is helping them and shafting his friends? Compared to him Trump could almost be mistaken for a statesman.
someofparts
All of a sudden this morning the little prompts that urge me to check out new websites have two links promoting vacation spots in Turkey. Maybe it will become the hot new relocation destination for Zionists.
Larry Johnson is on Nima right now breaking it down. He says nobody will give Turks the time of day at BRICS from now on. Johnson just said it – Erdogan has been played like a chump.
Wonder how this will impact the popularity of Turkish media. The production quality of their programming is as good as anything I see in the US. Yet despite that, we know that people stop watching when they realize they are being deceived – just ask the swamp vermin at MSNBC. When it comes to unwittingly disgracing themselves in front of a large audience, Joy Reid is right up there with Erdogan.
Forecasting Intelligence
My own view is Assad should do a deal with Israel, use the IDF to expel the jihadi forces and secure his heartland aligned with the Zionists.
Russians will be ok with that as long as the Iranians and their proxies are expelled. Following there Syria can align with the Gulf states again and Trump’s America.
Its the obvious deal at the moment.
Thanks to the stupidity of Hamas, the Iranian “axis of resistance” is defeated and fading away so Assad should best align with the rising Gulf/Israeli alliance in the Middle East.
We all know the Assad family only care about their survival (and given their track history of killing Palestinians) they couldn’t care less about the Palestinian cause. Time the Assad’s did a deal with the Israelis and secured their Alawite dominance for another generation.
Forecasting Intelligence
At a larger macro picture I’ve been saying for a while the next 4 years is make or break for Israel.
Secure their near abroad when the Americans remain dominant.
They are succeeding in that. Hamas and Hezbollah are both massively weakened.
Now time to resolve the Palestinian issue. Either work with the Gulf States and impose a solution on Palestinians or mass population transfer.
I would much prefer the 1st but it relies on Palestinians seeing sense. Accept a Saudi brokered deal or expect to be transferred to outside Middle East or maybe, if they are lucky, Egypt or Jordan.
KT Chong
Zionists desire to build a Greater Israel.
Erdogan and his “Grandchildren of Ottoman” dream of reviving the Turkish Empire.
The territories of the two empires overlap. It is just a matter of time for the two to clash.
someofparts
Forecasting Intel – and your planet of origin would be?
Nate Wilcox
(I posted this on the wrong thread yesterday, apologies.)
The Empire Strikes Back: Syria seems like a hit production that seems likely to succeed in cutting off Hezbollah from Iran and pushing the Russians out of their Mediterranean bases.
Longer term it seems almost certain to reduce Syria to even more of a fragmented, failed state than it has been for the past decade.
I’m very curious if the Russians and (especially) Iranians will up their game in response. Ever since the suspicious death of President Raisi and the election of Pezeshkian they have seemed frozen and inert.
Revelo
USA has been annoyed by Turkiye/Erdogan for some time, and now Russia and Iran are annoyed. If Kurdish areas become allied with Iran/Russia and become refuge for Hezbollah, Hamas and other militants opposed to Israel/USA, then fighting for independence of Kurdish Turkiye would be perfect way for USA, Russia and Iran to collude to clip Turkiye’s wings.
Israel/USA will want to lock down control over western Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, while Iran/Russia will be allowed to extend influence into eastern Turkiye and northern Iraq. USA will arrange for EU to pay for oil/gas pipelines direct from Persian Gulf to Haifa, thus reducing EU vulnerability to Iran.
Above moves greatly benefit USA power, so pressure will be intense to cut deals to facilitate this realignment. USA will sacrifice both Ukraine and Kurdish areas of Syria/Iraq, which do little for USA power, if this helps with expelling Russia/Iran from western Syria and Lebanon.
Z
Something I wrote about before that I have never seen put together by anyone else yet: Xi met with Assad on September 22nd in 2023 and announced that the two would unveil a new “strategic partnership” (https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20230922-china-s-xi-hails-strategic-partnership-with-syria-s-assad) and then on October 7th Hamas attacked Israel.
I suspect that Netanyahu ordered … through a myriad of back-channels to distance himself from any direct ties of responsibility for it … the Hamas attack, which had obviously already been tentatively planned for some future date, because Israel feared China building an economic, and possible military, presence in Syria and helping Syria rebuild their infrastructure and economy. So, the Hamas strikes were used to set off a regional war that was always intended, in my view, to eventually expand to Syria while Syria was still weak and before China could get a foothold in Syria and help Russia with in Syria.
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There is no country that Israel fears more than China because they haven’t infiltrated their financial systems, legal system, politics and government like they have of the Western governments, and Russia too for that matter, though to a much lesser extent since Putin tossed a lot of the Russian-Jewish oligarchs out.
Part of the reason for that is that the potential punishment, often swift, for business and political corruption is so high in China: death. Plus, it is much harder to infiltrate … bribe and blackmail … China’s government than the Western countries’ since no Jewish people can actually serve in it and get inside of it.
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China is going to have to enter the fray at some point on some level to help Syria or else the Assad regime will probably fall. For all we know though, it might be too late at this point to prevent Assad from being ousted. They better at least step up for Iran, or else that country will be dissolved into chaos as well.
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North Korea is always a wild card in geopolitical matters and the chaos that they could toss into the fray is either bomb U.S. bases in Korea and/or bomb Samsung. If they “merely” bomb U.S. bases that might be the wiser course of action of the two in some ways since it would be harder for South Korea to rally its citizens to go to war with North Korea and the South Korean government is already in turmoil and very unpopular with South Koreans right now.
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It doesn’t appear that Syria has gotten much help from Iranian and Iraqi militias and I am particularly surprised that there hasn’t been any reports of attacks on the U.S. military bases that are illegally occupying Syria.
It’s also very eerie how easily the attack on the Assad regime has gone so far. It makes one wonder if the Syrian Army leadership has been bribed and blackmailed so they are standing down the Syrian Army and will either take the money and flee the country or have some agreement with the Syrian occupiers to be given power to control part of Syria, though I’d have to say it would be a very risky situation to try to govern over some fragment of Syria and I’d imagine that it wouldn’t be worth any amount of money in the end if one valued their life above all.
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The notion that Miriam Adelson’s personal pedicurist, Donald “Toe-Jam” Trump, is against the reckless aggression exhibited by the directors of Weekend at Biden’s during its exiting episodes is misplaced, in my view. He certainly hasn’t been very vocal in protesting it. I’d imagine he is quite content to let them play the crazy “bad cop” and then come in to present himself as the reasonable “good cop” and try to land a deal with Putin on Ukraine. I’ve also read from at least one of Donald T’s incoming foreign policy nominees that they are in fact in favor of the Weekend at Biden’s actions and are actually coordinating those actions with them.
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The big prize in Ukraine, particularly for Larry’s and Stanley’s Asset Inflation Factory BlackRock, is Odessa so that Ukraine maintains a port and one can see the outlines of a deal for Russia to maintain their military ports in a castrated Syria in exchange for the Ukrainians to keep Odessa, but the problem with that deal is that the West, primarily the U.S., has so corrupted and armed Ukraine that Putin can’t afford to allow Ukraine to maintain Odessa because they have to destroy the current Ukrainian government in order to have a decent chance of a long-term peace and Ukraine is on Russia’s border. But, from our rulers’ perspective, it’s an even trade because in Syria, Russia has a port on the border of the country that they hold dearest: Israel.
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As I’ve mentioned several times before on this site: I would hardly be surprised if Larry’s and Stanley’s Asset Inflation Factory BlackRock is connected to an unmetered money hose from the Fed via the special purpose vehicles that they are managing for the Fed (https://www.pionline.com/markets/fed-chooses-blackrock-pandemic-support-programs). Unmetered in that the money that is pouring into BlackRock from the Fed isn’t being counted and is basically an infinite amount of liquidity to allow our rulers to Etch-A-Sketch the markets to behave the way they want them to. The reason the money flow is clandestine, of course, is so that the value of the paper dollar doesn’t disintegrate, which I suspect it would if the world knew how many of them are being printed electronically to manipulate the western financial markets via BlackRock and the Fed’s money hose.
There is no magic dollar counter out there, you know, that counts every dollar that’s in circulation and/or accumulated, so there is no way to truly account for how many there are and no clear way to detect an unmetered money hose. Plus, as far as I know, there is no independent entity that is accounting for how many BlackRock is being fed via their “special purpose vehicle” relationship they have with the Fed. Also, remember that BlackRock was the entity that was used, again via a special purpose vehicle arrangement with the Fed, to “stabilize” the financial markets in 2008. Back in 2008 though it was only Larry’s Asset Inflation Factory BlackRock since Stanley was tied up back then as the head of the Bank of Israel, which is Israel’s central bank.
In fact, I suspect that an unmetered money hose running from the Fed to BlackRock is indeed the unseen truth when I consider the absurdities in the U.S. financial markets … the inflation of the stock markets w/o nary a nod to geopolitical risks … and the stabilities in the behind-the-curtains, gazillion dollar, scantly regulated derivative markets that are inferred from the fact that we haven’t had any blow-ups since the Silicon Valley banks got bailed out a few years ago despite quite a bit of volatility in the interest rate markets. Also, remarkably, the oil markets haven’t blown up either due to geopolitical risks. The derivative markets are likely being used, in my view, to back paper future contracts that place downward pressure on the oil markets.
I read that the main German stock market also went into all-time high territory despite continual dismal German economic data largely due to cutting themselves off from Russian energy, with the likely assistance of the U.S. by destroying Nordstream II.
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Mind you that an unmetered money hose flowing money to BlackRock for them to “invest” in CIA front companies would also empower the CIA to get off-the-books money to run their operations and bribe whomever they want to with no practical limits on how much money they can offer someone to sway them to do their bidding or choose to face the harsh consequences for not ceding to our rulers’ diktats and instead of becoming personally rich, be personally bombed.
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The U.S. is currently involved in financing and weaponizing a pulverization of the Palestinian people, a war in Syria, a war in Ukraine, the bombing of Lebanon, a color revolution in Georgia, an overturning of a Romanian election, and probably an attempted coup in South Korea.
Which group is standing up the increasingly demented Lead Stiff of Weekend at Biden’s and directing these reckless, potentially catastrophic, actions? Which group of people stands to benefit the most from them? The Jewish Zionist Mafia” (JZM), in my view.
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Essentially, one might say, that what BlackRock is doing when they buy up Ukrainian assets is acting as an agent for the U.S. government by using the Fed’s fingerprint-less keystrokes on the Fed’s money making machine and handing over the “money” to Ukrainian politicians in exchange for real Ukrainian assets.
That would be one way of looking at it, though I look at it in another way: the U.S. government is actually an agent of the JZM and BlackRock is a very powerful and active branch of the JZM that has managed to get its claws on the Fed’s money-making machine, which isn’t surprising since for over 30 years, from 1987 to 2018, the Federal Reserve was headed by Jewish Zionist elites (Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen, Weekend at Biden’s current Secretary of Treasury). Also, I’ll mention that dual citizen Stanley Fisher, of Larry’s and Stanley’s Asset Inflation Factory BlackRock, became second to Yellen at the Fed after he left as the head of the Bank of Israel and before he went to BlackRock.
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These are dark days, very dark days, particularly observing helplessly from a distance the ongoing pulverization of the Palestinians, proof of which is fully accessible to people by going on the internet and seeing the damage that Israel has done to the Palestinian infrastructure and housing. And yet nothing is being done to stop it. In fact, the U.S. and much of the rest of the West is financing and weaponizing the operation and suppressing domestic dissent against it.
Hopefully, the lights don’t go entirely out for us on this planet via nuclear war, which the Lead Stiff of Weekend at Biden’s, also known as Genocide Joe, is particularly game to at least cede to the risk of since all he personally has on the line is probably five years max of vocally reminiscing about his days as a WWII fighter pilot with CornPop as his bombardier, having his diaper changed, and eating ice cream with a bib on. It doesn’t seem fair that someone like that has any power at all to toss his meager future into the pot and then raise the stakes to include the utter annihilation of humanity.
One possible thing that I can think might turn the tide is if Epstein’s client list ever gets leaked in some way and it is laid bare to the public Epstein’s ties to the Mossad, how many U.S. politicians have been blackmailed by the JZM, and the deeds they’ve done for the JZM.
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*Again, I will mention that when I speak of the JZM I am referring to a small but extremely powerful part of the U.S. Jewish community that consists of Jewish supremacist elites and has a controlling interest in the U.S. and derives its power partly from rigging the financial markets and blackmailing and bribing our politicians. The JZM is not representative of the entire Jewish community, of course. In fact, many of the folks who are fighting hardest against the JZM, in their own way, and the ongoing slaughter of the Palestinians are in fact Jewish.
When I mention that the JZM has a controlling interest in the U.S. what I mean by that is that although they can’t get everything they want from the U.S. government (though damn near almost everything), they can prevent the U.S. government from doing anything that they vehemently oppose. Also, related to that, once they get something changed through the U.S. government by legislation or, more frequently recently, by fiat due to Weekend at Biden’s slavitude towards the JZM, that benefits them, the only way for the U.S. populace to change it back is to overthrow the U.S. government because the Wailing Wallators in our rulers’ rigged obstacle course of a Congress and the U.S. presidency places the interests of the JZM far above the interests of the U.S. itself and its subjects.
Z
Daniel Lynch
This is, in many ways, a dark time. We stand by helplessly while a genocide is carried out and land is stolen. War is uncivilized, but much of the world is ruled by uncivilized people.
Russia’s Syrian bases are not essential to Russia. Unlike the U.S., Russia has never relied on a network of foreign bases. Instead, Russia has emphasized missiles and air defenses to guard its homeland. The Russian public does not support foreign wars, so Putin has no mandate to rescue Syria.
Hezbollah has the most incentive to aid Syria, but Hezbollah is in a weakened state. Iraq is not strong. Iran is perhaps the only neighbor capable of sending in the cavalry, but so far Iran has resisted getting directly involved in the various MidEast wars. Iran seems to be divided politically, hardliners vs. moderates who shy away from conflict. I think Iran’s inaction has been a mistake that will weaken Iran in the long run, but that’s just me.
Israel is also weak, but Israel is propped up by the U.S.. Turkey is not very strong, but its mercenaries are probably receiving aid from the CIA. Wars are expensive so SOMEBODY has to be funding the war on Syria. The U.S. is in decline, but is run by crazy people, and still capable of inflicting a lot of damage. The American public has been brainwashed to believe that anyone who disagrees with the West is a terrorist and we must fight ’em over there or they will be landing on our beaches. Dark times, indeed.
Forecasting Intelligence
Bloomberg:
With Syrian rebels edging ever-closer to the capital, President Bashar Al-Assad is making a last-ditch attempt to remain in power, including indirect diplomatic overtures to the US and President-elect Donald Trump, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
Potential deal with Israel? Unlikely but who knows.
Z
The under-the-printer tactics of our rulers IMO are:
1. Use the power of the dollar as a weapon and run an unmetered money pipe through Larry’s and Stanley’s Asset Inflation Factory BlackRock to create as much money as they need for their operations via the Fed’s “special purposes vehicles” arrangement with BlackRock
2. Use the unmetered money and BlackRock’s knowledge and reach to rig the financial markets and thereby inflate the value of our rulers’ and their allies’ assets, use the future markets to play paper future contracts derivative games to depress the values of critical resources such as oil and inflate dollar exchange rates in favor of the dollar, and use some of the unmetered money to “invest” in CIA front companies so that the CIA can bribe as many people as they need in order to create social and political unrest for their enemies and in countries critical for putting pressure on their enemies
3. Use surveillance and spy tech, often emanating out of Israel and forced on countries as part of U.S. aid packages, to blackmail assets to use as the stick for their carrot-and-stick tricks in order to assist them in creating social and political unrest for their enemies and in countries critical to putting pressure on their enemies
It’s not surprising that our rulers would do this because they don’t have the manufacturing capabilities to keep up with the Russian war machine but the unique advantage that they do have over their enemies, such as Russia and China, is the power of the U.S. dollar and they have fully weaponized it IMO and created them in a covert way so that they don’t destroy the worth of the dollar while they utilize an unmetered money pipe to create as many as they need of them to purchase power in other countries and inflate their own wealth.
The CIA and Mossad basically have a blank check to bribe whomever they need to and that is why they are able to buy off the Syrian military, persuade the politicians of Lebanon to turn on Hezbollah, turn Hezbollah fighters against their cause by giving up the locations of non-compliant Hezbollah leadership so that they can be assassinated, pay Georgian politicians and cops to stand up and down for their color revolution in Georgia, and buy off the judiciary in Romania to annul an election in such a short time span. I believe this because I have a tough time believing that they could simply persuade all of these entities to turn against their group’s and countries’ collective interests so quickly with mere reasoning or other forms of persuasion. The inflation that will almost undoubtedly eventually ensue will be blamed on global political unrest.
It’s a dollar blitzkrieg basically …
Z
Z
If you don’t believe it is as I say, and, of course, I can’t prove it, you have to at least admit that the Deep State certainly has quite a largess to carry out its operations and there doesn’t seem to be any limitations on what they need in order to get their way.
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Of course, the crypto markets also come in handy for our rulers to inflate their wealth and shift money around semi-covertly.
Another bonus on using the crypto markets is if you in fact control the crypto currency you are using for bribery and structure it properly you also have the receipts of the bribe money so you don’t have to continually bribe your assets every time you need them to do something for you because the bribe also acts as future blackmail material when you hold the receipts of the bribe, the proof of the bribe.
Z
Mark Level
Thanks to SomeofParts, Nate, & Wilcox, as well as to KT Chong, among others, very good info.
Some, I saw the same Larry Johnson clip, sure appreciated his take that Erdogan is such a snake, there will be multiple parties coming for him. One would wish that that included his own population, but the remnants of the decadent Ottoman Empire have long played an entirely malefic & horrific role in the world, since the Armenian genocide, then in pogroms along their periphery. Oh, and to answer your question about “Forecasting ‘Intelligence’ (sic) his home planet is Ziono-Kushner land. FI has tacitly broadcast approval for Israel’s 1980s extermination of 200,000 mainly native Guatemalans, mostly indigenous when the U$A was made to stand down from that by the Dems, before they became the other pro-war & genocide party!! FI’s Zion is not Bob Marley’s either!! More like low-rent Satan.
Erdogan will get his eventually; I think the prediction that if he imagines he will control the Pipeline from Russia & Azeri lands to I$rael for very long he is badly mistaken. The filthy Ukrainian Nazis provided drones for the terrorist HTS (Daesh 2.0) push deeper into Syria, and that will not be forgiven by Putin & Crew any time soon . . .
When does China step up, if ever? Their goose is the last one the Empire of Lies hopes to cook. Overall, I think the U$’s and Little (New Joisy- sized) US Izrael’s setting of fires everywhere & betrayal of everyone (they killed more World Central Kitchen white people last week, but I guess now that’s ignored as normative? Jose Andres gave them a pass anyway since he wants to stay bffs with dreamy faux-bluesman Antony Blinken.)
They have reached unheard of Spy-vs.-Spy levels of mutual betrayals, support of terrorists and head-choppers. If we even survive Biden’s far push into WW III territory (& no, Trump won’t slow it down, too dumb) future historians & the Rest of the World will certainly see the US as an unimaginable Evil far beyond what the German fascists pulled off in the 30s & 40s. Not that the “leaders” care in the least.
mago
Syria is an exploding shit show deteriorating by the hour, yet both the alt and mainstream media are pretty much ho hum, no matter the significance and ramifications on all levels. It’s huge.
Just want to mention that Lebanese cuisine is exquisite—maybe the crown jewel of the region. Israeli food? Hahaha.
Who’s more civilized? The thieves and thugs, the killers and land grabbers, or the descendants of ancient traditions and cultures?
Shove your matzo balls where the sun don’t shine.
mago
And please retire the “rebel” word, unless you’re maybe referring to the “rebel yell”.
mago
I’ll go kind and forgiving rather than pointing out some horrific grammar butchering in the comment section here since who knows whether it’s those with English as a Second Language people or just those who like to hear themselves talk and need a platform from which to speak.
People like you and me.
We all want to be happy.
Revelo
Iran is not threatened by the loss of its influence in Lebanon and Syria, and neither is Russia and certainly China would be a fool to get involved in such an inaccessible location. Mediterranean is destined to be a NATO lake and anyone who stands in the way will be crushed. Damned right there is a wall of CIA money behind what is happening, because consolidating USA/NATO control over the eastern Mediterranean is easily worth 5 times the $200 billion USA wasted in Ukraine. Iran and Russia will be strengthened, not weakened, by pulling back into the defensible mountains of Kurdistan.
Natural geopolitical division is that USA consolidates its hold over western Turkiye and the Mediterranean coast, thus pushing Russia out of the Mediterranean Sea permanently, while Iran/Russia push USA out of mountainous Kurdistan. Then Europe builds a pipeline from Persian Gulf to Haifa so oil/gas supply is less vulnerable to Iran.
China needs raw materials, meaning it needs access to Africa without blockage by USA allies in southeast Asia. Thus China needs to assist both Russia and Iran if they are in danger, and it will. If USA foolish enough to seriously threaten Iran, either directly or via Israel, then both Russia and China will intervene and use the conflict to test their latest missiles and aircraft against USA Navy and Air Force. USA will not risk potential humiliation. Iran might suffer if it becomes a battlefield, but it will not fall because the Indian Ocean access it provides to China justifies a wall of money unleashed by China even bigger than the wall of money unleashed by USA against Syria.
Carborundum
Current reporting saying that Damascus has “fallen” – real datapoint appears to be that opposition forces have entered Damascus and are asserting that the power structure has legged it. Overall, I’d have to say that those Syrian Allies held the terrain under their own two feet (which were moving towards the exit) nothing more.
Poul
Two days later and Damascus has fallen to HTS.