US continues to ignore Russian success in Syria

The uncomfortable truth about the Syrian Civil War is that Russia is helping to end it.

When the Arab Spring first began in 2011 in Syria, protests were quickly absorbed into an armed conflict between Syrian Sunnis from the countryside, backed by Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and the rest of Syria, backing Bashar Al-Assad. The reason why Bashar Al-Assad never fell in the 6 years of conflict is because he is too popular with Syrians.

Since 2011, Assad's Syrian Arab Army have maintained a presence in all major cities in Syria except Raqqa in 2014 and Idlib in 2015. Even the inhabitants of Deir Ez-Zor city, populated by Syrian Bedouins, who are normally more receptive to ISIS, have remained allied to Bashar Al-Assad for the entirety of the war.

When rebels started making larger gains against the Syrian government in western Syria, Bashar Al-Assad called on Russia to assist his government in regaining control of Syria. Russia's accomplishments in almost 2 years have been more profound than US gains in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last 15 years.

The Russians learned from the US' mistake in Iraq: regime change leads to terrorism. The Russians, therefore, decided that the antidote to terrorism would be to do an "Iraq War in reverse": strengthen an existing regime, rather than change it. And it has worked.

Since the Russians have entered the Syrian Civil War, the city of Aleppo has been stabilized. Many of the rebels previously holed up in other Syrian areas have been moved into the rebel-held province of Idlib. And, more recently, deconfliction zones were established to enable the Syrian Arab Army to focus more heavily on ISIS than the other rebels. This has resulted in the Syrian Government regaining vast swathes of countryside in Aleppo, Homs and Damascus provinces.

The US has been silent on this. The chemical attacks earlier this year - neither proven nor unproven to be initiated by the Syrian Government - led President Donald Trump to order an airstrike on a Syrian airbase - the first time the US intentionally launched a military attack on the Syrian Government in the war. And Rex Tillerson, who previously said the Syrians should decide who their President should be, began to call for the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad.

Of course, the US is highly unlikely to engage militarily to remove the Assad regime in Syria. But it does show an attempt to undermine Russian efforts in Syria and focus the west's attention on its own war on ISIS rather than on Russian success in Syria.

However, should the US not learn from Russian success in Syria, they would be unable to end either the Iraq or Afghan conflicts. And with 20 trillion dollars of debt, the US cannot sustain their current foreign policy.

Tillerson: U.S. ready to let Russia decide on Assad in Syria

https://www.axios.com/u-s-ready-to-let-russia-decide-syria-2452572593.html

This is the best news I've heard all year.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has announced that the US is ready to let Russia decide on Assad in Syria. This means that previous statements of regime change by members of the Trump Administration, such as H.R. McMaster, have fallen on deaf ears.

Odds are that relations between the US and Russia will depend on whether or not Bashar Al-Assad is removed. But Russia understands that Bashar Al-Assad is a symbol to the Syrian people: a symbol of stability, protection of minority groups, "sticking it" to America by supporting Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran, and a symbol of secular Arabism. Russia stands to benefit more from Assad staying in power, as other countries will trust Russia to defend them, such as Haftar Al-Khalifa in Libya, the Houthis in Yemen and Iran.

So Assad is very likely to remain in Syria for the foreseeable future. This will mean one less country from which Salafi terrorism will come, and will force the US to score significant victories in the war on terror in other areas, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, this is the worst possible news for the Arabian Gulf. Much of the Arabian Gulf was set to benefit from Bashar Al-Assad being ousted from Syria, and with Assad set to remain in power, the Gulf is set for detonation. ISIS will come to the Arabian Gulf. Shi'ites from the Gulf will be exterminated and driven out. Houthis will win the Yemen war. But, scarily, ISIS may just capture Mecca and Medina.

But today, we can celebrate that terrorism is being meaningfully defeated in Syria. It is worth celebrations for the rest of the year.

Will Trump contain Iran in Syria?

This year has seen enormous advances by the Syrian Arab Army. Firstly, in January, Syria seized the key city of Aleppo. Since then, rebels have been either accepting the open invitation of the government to lay down their arms and rejoin Syrian life, or they have relocated to the province of Idlib, or they have remained, waiting for the Syrian Arab Army to mop them up.

Iran has been using Assad's Syria as part of a Shi'ite crescent from Tehran, Iran's capital, to Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. This crescent is a formidable challenge for the Trump Administration. How does Trump protect Israel if the anti-Israeli Assad government regains control of Syria?

Trump will not protect Israel by overthrowing Assad. Neither will Trump set up a military base in eastern Syria to stop supplies flowing from Iran to Hezbollah. It would take too many men, weapons, allies and money that the US does not currently have in Syria.

More likely is that the US will let the Assad government stay in power, but consolidate air bases in western and north-western Iraq, in the largely Sunni Arab areas. This will do several things. First, it will prevent Iranian weapons from reaching Syria through Iraq, because the US would destroy them on sight. Second, it will prevent Iranian-backed militias from attacking Sunni Arab Iraqis. Third, it will prevent ISIS from returning to Iraq in force, as the US will target them as soon as they are spotted.

Trump will likely contain Iran, but not by battling Iran in Syria, but by working together with the Iraqi government, to curtail Iranian influence there. Like Obama before him, Trump does not want to see the United States get in another quagmire after the two Bush-era quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq, and unlike in Syria, in Iraq there is support for a continued, minimal US presence.

Afghanistan is the other area which, in the immediate future, will be used to help contain Iran. Afghanistan has an enormous amount of potential resources. Rather than fighting Iran in Syria, Trump is more likely exert pressure to stabilize Afghanistan to make it strong, independent and anti-Iranian. An anti-Iran Afghanistan would go some way to curtailing Iran's dominance in the region.

Trump will also continue to support Saudi Arabia. The US will support the Saudi war on the Houthis - though this is unlikely to benefit anyone in the region, especially Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has additionally shown signs of supporting the Kurds in independence in Syria and Iraq, which would also go a way to containing Iranian influence. However, Trump's hands are tied. If he supports the Kurds too loudly in either Syria or Iraq, he would lose the Iraqi government as an ally. And that would be more disastrous for the US than maintaining the status quo.

All in all, these strategies of containing Iran do not include overthrowing the Assad government in Damascus. This strategy, which is trumpeted so loudly by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, is likely to fall on deaf ears, as neither James Mattis nor Trump nor Steve Bannon have any desire to be sucked into the unwinnable quagmire of Syria.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Kurdish areas are more likely to be utilized by Trump than overthrowing Assad in Syria.