Posts
Week twenty of the Russian military intervention in Syria: a ceasefire and yet another huge victory for Russia
This
article was written for the Unz
Review:
The
recent agreement between the USA and Russia really solves nothing, it
does not even end the war, and both sides are expressing a great deal
of caution about its future implementation. And yet, this is a
huge victory for Russia. While it is too early to say that “the
Russian won in Syria”, I think that it is now fair to say that the
Russian position on
Syria has won.
Here is why:
First:
nobody is suggesting anymore that Assad will be ousted or Damascus
taken. That, in turn, meansthat
everybody has now recognized that Syrian Arab Republic, backed by
Russia, has successfully repelled the aggression of the huge
coalition the AngloZionists built to overthrow Assad.
Second:
Russia has forced the UNSC and the USA to admit that the vast
majority of those who fight Assad today are terrorist. Of
course, this is not how this was declared, but if you look at the
organizations which the UNSC has already declared as ‘terrorists’
then you already have an absolute majority of the anti-Assad forces.
This means that the
moral and legal legitimacy of the anti-Assad forces is lies in
tatters.
Third:
regardless of what Erdogan does actually try to do next, there are
now clear signs that neither NATO, nor the EU nor even the Turkish
high military command want a war with Russia. And that means
that Erdogan’s
gamble has not paid off and that his entire Syria policy is now
comprehensively dead.
Keep in mind that following the treacherous attack on the Russian
Su-24 the Kremlin made it a policy goal to “Saakashvilize”
Erdogan. This goal is now almost reached and Erdogan’s future
looks very, very bleak: everybody ( except maybe the Saudis) is sick
and tired of this maniac. The best thing which could happen to
Turkey now would for the military to get rid of Erdogan and to
replace him with somebody willing to repair all the damage he did.
Fourth: all
the threats to impose a no-fly zone or to occupy Syria have now been
invalidated by
an agreement which basically declares that anybody not respecting the
cease-fire is a legitimate target for engagement and destruction.
Fifth: the
USA had to accept the humiliation of having to agree to all of the
Russian terms for the current ceasefire.
Yes, of course, the USA can, and probably will, try renege on part,
or all, of this agreement, but the precedent
has been set and
it will be very hard, if not impossible, for the USA to openly return
to the pre-2016 policies.
Sixth:
does anybody still remember the rhetoric of Hillary Clinton about
Syria and Russia? Her position was crystal clear: Assad must go
and those who support him “punished”. Even after the
Russian military offensive began, the US refused to tell the Russians
where the “good terrorists” were and where the “bad terrorists”
were. No exchange of information with Russians was acceptable.
Now the Americans had to agree to work with the Russians on a map of
Syria designating where the participants of the ceasefire and were
those who were not included in the ceasefire were deployed. In
other words, the
US will now have to share with Russia all the info it previously
refused to share and
work with the Russians on a daily basis.
Seventh: Russia
has basically co-opted the so-called “Free Syrian Army”.
How? By basically forcing every single faction in Syria to
chose between one of two possible statuses: being a ‘terrorist’
(and a fair target for destruction) or being a participant in a
political process entirely
designed by Russia. The
Russians are now even opening a “Truce Center” at the Khmeimin
airbase near
Latakia which will now “render assistance” to all the parties to
the ceasefire.
The new
face of Russian diplomacy :-)
This,
for the time being, mainly a diplomatic victory, of course, but a
Russian diplomatic victory made possible by a Russian military
victory. A tiny Russian military contingent has basically
completely neutralized the plans of an entire worldwide Empire.
That, in itself, is an amazing achievement.
The
other big winner here are, in my opinion, the Kurds who, according
to British officials,
appear to be coordinating their military operations with the Syrian
army and the Russian Aerospace Forces and who now might well even
achieve their dreams of joining the Iraqi and Syria regions of
Kurdistan. Which is just about the worst nightmare for the
Turks come true, hence the still remaining risk of a Turkish military
operation ostensibly to create a ‘buffer zone’ but really to save
face. That kind of intervention will remain a possibility for
as long as the Turks can continue to hope to commit aggression
against their neighbors under the protection of NATO and the USA.
And that ain’t gonna change anytime in the future.
And
then there are the Saudis. They are very, very angry.
They are angry to the point of making not so subtle threats about
using nuclear weapons to deal with their adversaries. See for
yourself:
Actually,
since Pakistan got The Bomb, I would not dismiss any Saudi claims of
having a number of nuclear devices. But what does that really
mean?
Absolutely
nothing.
It
is quite possible that the Saudis have the know how for a nuclear
device. And it is quite possible that they even got their hands
on enough nuclear materials for a few bombs. They might even
have succeeded in purchasing a few nuclear devices from the
Pakistanis or Israelis. But even if that is true, the reality
is that the Saudis don’t even have the military capability to deal
with the poorest Arab country on the planet (Yemen) and that they
most definitely don’t have the military capability to engage their
nuclear devices in a way which would allow them to achieve any kind
of military advantage. After all, what are we talking about
here? Using nuclear weapons against the Syrian military?
Against Iran? Against Russia? This is absolutely
ridiculous. The reality is that whatever nuclear capabilities
the Saudis might or might not have, the fact that they would make
nuclear threats is just a sign of weakness and fear, not a sign of
strength. This is why nobody is impressed by these statement,
least of all the intended targets of such threats.
While
it is quite true that the latest agreement between the USA and Russia
does not mark the end of the war in Syria, it is a turning point, a
kind of a Minsk-2 Agreement which nobody really wants to comply with,
but which seals the defeat of the AngloZionist plans in Syria as much
as Minsk-2 meant the defeat of the Ukronazi dream.
Time
is now on the Russian/Syrian side. With each passing day the
Russian task force in Syria will become more powerful, as will the
Syrian Armed Forces. That, by itself, will not be enough to
defeat Daesh, and we can expect a stiff resistance from the Takfiri
crazies, but the writing is on the wall for all to see: the more the
Russians and the Americans become directly and jointly involved, the
less Turkey and Saudi Arabia will be able to determine the outcome of
the war. In other words, while this is far from being the end
of Daesh, it is the beginning of the end for Daesh in Syria.
Yet
again the nay-sayers and Putin-haters have been proven wrong.
To be honest, so have I: I would never have guessed that the
Russians could have achieved so much with so little and yet they did
pull off this extremely dangerous gamble and they won. Only an
extremely skillful combination of military, economic, diplomatic and
political means could have yielded such a remarkable result but
Putin, apparently, found this perfect mix. The path ahead
remains extremely dangerous, for sure, but the outcome of the 20 week
long Russian military intervention in Syria is nothing short of
remarkable.
The
Saker
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.