I have long warned that Islamic State’s defeat will be a double-edged sword.
- Positive: Syrian government-held territory effectively doubles, though mostly in terms of useless, depopulated desert.
- Negative: Status quo returns to that of several years ago, i.e. back when Assad was “killing his own people” so far as the Western press, without the superlative evil of Islamic State spoiling the optics.
Now that Islamic State is out of the picture, the regime change program can now in principle be safely resumed, should the “Western partners” decide on that.
There are, of course, more bulwarks against it now than back then, but they are all quite malleable:
- President Trump. Relevant back when there was a powerful protectionist/isolationist wing to counterbalance the neocons, but now that the latter are ascendant, this is no longer significant.
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Iran. Plays an even more critical now than ever before, with the continuous disintegration of the SAA (here is a translation of a Russian army colonel on the how and why).
This is putting strain on Iran itself, as recent protests have shown (in which spending on foreign wars was a big grievance). As was widely expected, they did not in the end amount to much. However, the Iranian government will still have to deal with the economic sources of those protests, and that money will have to come from somewhere. And there might be less money available, period, if the US manages to use this opportunity to reinstate sanctions.
- Turkey. Erdogan would prefer an Islamist Syria to Assad, but would prefer a unitary Syria even under Assad to a powerful Rojava occupying half the country’s territory. This largely explains his heel turn in Syria. Even so, there is nothing stopping him from doubling back should circumstances on the ground change yet again. It is worth noting that in the recent meeting between Macron and Erdogan – better known for Macron saying the EU should drop the hypocrisy of pretending that Turkey would ever become a member – the two men agreed that Assad could not remain President of Syria, and Macron went on to further argue that the Astana Agreements are not “constructive to peace,” since Iran and Russia “don’t share our interests.”
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US/Israel/Saudi Arabia. There is now a stunning convergence of interests amongst those powers, in stark contrast to the Obama period which were fraught with minor squabbles between all three. Israel is dead-set against Assadist Syria, and its star has perhaps never before shone brighter in Washington D.C. Meanwhile, MbS is implacable towards Iran even by Saudi standards.
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Russia. Putin has already gotten all the political capital (and Donbass distraction) he could hope for with his “short victorious war” against Islamic State.
Conspiracy mode engaged: The drone assault on Khmeimim – in line with a propaganda campaign explicitly aimed at undermining his domestic standing, which has already been faithfully echoed by Navalny – could be the “Western partners” gently telling him that he should start thinking of packing up his bags, with the threat of a more serious “conversation” at around the time of the Russian elections or the FIFA World Cup hanging in the air.
Okay, I should point out that this post is more an extension of my blackpill timeline – that is, an expression of gloomy presentiments and pessimistic possibilities – than it is a formal prediction (my actual predictions).
That article is almost two years old.
That and the insurgent failing to achieve what they were supposed to do.
Ultimately, Russia and Iran are more important than them.
And still busy in Yemen and still maintaining an unsuccessful embargo against Qatar.
Are you too blackpilled?
You seem to have failed to notice that the defeat of IS is huge military victory which allows the pro-government forces to focus on the insurgents. In the past, the eastern front was constantly forcing Damascus to divert forces. Combined with the removal of plenty of pockets, it means the Syrian government has a real chance to defeat the insurgents.
Club “Assad must go” can continue to whine, but unless they send (more of) their own forces into this mess, it does not matter. Their proxies are losing. Their proxies are lost.
One of the ‘strange elements’ in Syria, and in Donbass & Ukraine, is the paradox of Vladimir Putin’s ‘good relations’ with Israel that yet seems to leave Russia on the bad end of Israeli-tied operations
In Ukraine that takes the especially paradoxical form that some Jewish oligarchs have a certain working relationship in partnership with literal Ukrainian neo-Nazis
Which connects to another sometimes AK topic, the ‘neo-Nazi’ Daily Stormer website … which turns out to be run by a young Jewish guy … who used to do pro-Israel hasbara propaganda
The Daily Stormer – at the centre of the great post-Charlottesville censorship cyber-purge, ‘most popular Nazi website in the world’, 4 million visitors per month at peak – now at dailystormer.red –
Is headed by two key people, front-man and main author Andrew Anglin, and the IT tech ‘Nazi webmaster’, Andrew ‘weev’ Auernheimer, who apparently is Jewish, as both his mother and Auernheimer himself are quoted as admitting … As well as Weev’s pro-Israeli past, he is linked to another major Jewish hacker expert, said to be tied to Chabad
The ‘weev’ Auernheimer was in a US prison on hacking charges, then released with a ‘surprising legal victory’, upon which the former pro-Israel propagandist began helping to run the Nazi Stormer
3 possibilities here:
(1) Weev Auernheimer, as he says, is so opposed to Jewish power (like Gilad Atzmon) he has eagerly joined a Nazi site making continual ‘gas the kikes’ jokes
(2) Auernheimer and the Stormer are a USA intel agency ‘controlled opposition’ operation useful for:
— A pretext for general alt-right internet censorship and shut-downs, as has indeed been done
— Generally discrediting the alt-right, given that major media are now regularly citing the Stormer as favouring or opposing something, as a way to ‘poison the well’ of that support (Roy Moore etc)
— A rat trap’ to identify all those who contact or post comments etc on the stormer
— Generally degrading the alt-right, and euro-white-cultural heritage movements, by highlighting a very extreme racist form of them
(3) The intel agencies & kosher cabal, if indeed running the Stormer, are themselves fostering a resurgence of far-right 1930s ‘fascist’ ideas … preparing to eventually sell a Western world on a totalitarian package dressed up as ‘pro-indigenous-worker’, and which will do aggressive ethnic cleansing by ‘strong’ leaders … who might even be nominally opposed to Jewish influence, maybe even bringing down some Jews (Weinsteingate?) to make the show look good, maybe even expelling some to Israel too
This whole thing makes me think as well of the 1930s ‘Transfer Agreement’ between Hitler and ‘Labour Zionism’, Hitler helping 10% of Germany’s Jews to move to British Palestine with their wealth, and prepare to found Israel
If the “Western partners” could so easily do this at Khmeimim, why hadn’t they done this before?
Maybe it needed an American president to give the green light.
I don’t really think he’s too blackpilled.
When you look at everything from the sum of it :
Ie EuSa having almost 10x population & economy 6-70 crore EU + 5 eyes 30 in USA.
With total economy around 40 trillion ppp EU USA add Australia Canada & you have just over 10x Rus.
China say supports up to 20%. Still 4-5x larger
Huge swath of youth around globe basically shit libs especially in major urban areas.
West is going to clamp down hard & go full empire soon, tbh if it plays its cards right ie destabilize Iran then only Rus Hind in periphery are worth anything.
Just like colonialism was civilizing mission, later said to be economic same as know।।
China will again support the Turks like destroying Xinjiang & Malaya by extension all of C Asia
https://imgur.com/a/8hcMO
We can feel a war coming & we know we’re ill equipped
But we have Indra & Perun।।
You offer good sense and rational argument, but you should know those things can’t compete with the desire to be favorably looked on by hipsters.
Weren’t the oil fields also there?
Syria looks pretty toast. The one good thing about the Obama presidency is that he understood how to stand up to the Jewish lobby in the US, which was constantly beating the war drums for war against Syria and Iran(to protect Israel’s interests).
Trump has shown himself to be utterly weak and rudderless on standing up to the neocons, which is a stunning reversal given that he was never a strong Iraq war proponent(he was never actively against it in the run-up, despite of what he claims, but he was lukewarm at best and then quickly became actively hostile early on).
Russia doesn’t have much to win to stay around Syria forever, especially as Iran is bleeding. The big question here is Europe. If there will be a campaign to displace Assad, it would have to be done by military means. An assassination is of course likely, but that would create a huge power vacuum and likely a continuation of the civil war, but even bloodier. In short, even more refugees. Would Macron want that? Judging from his comments, possibly, but I’m guessing Germany and other recipient states would pull a massive break.
Of course the Israelis don’t give a shit. Their IDF generals are openly saying that they don’t care if some Europeans die in terror attacks since Syria in constant turmoil helps them. Fundamentally the problem here is that nobody is willing to stand up to AIPAC and other Israel First warmongers in the US. And as long as that remains true, the chaos will continue.
P.S. I miss a France which could actually say no to the conventional Western position, á la Chirac with Iraq or de Gaulle throughout much of the Cold War. That France has since long died and it’s now just a bleak puppet. A truly independent France would open space for dissent, but this underlines how much of Macron’s “reform” is just pleasing his oligarchic backers who want a superstate and a neo-Cohenist foreign policy.
They could have distracted the Syrian army with a build up on the Golan Heights. The Israelis didn’t even attempt to indirectly depose the Assads by that economical and indirect method, so they don’t really worry about Assads any more. Saudi (representing most Arabs) and the Israel lobby want Iran smashed. Syria and Russia will be discouraged from getting involved in defending Iran. Hence the strange bombings on Syrian airbases. I think an attack on Iran is coming.
I doubt Germany has much influence regarding the situation in Syria. And German media pushed the “evil dictator Assad is butchering his people” line very strongly; there certainly would be support for a “humanitarian” intervention among political and media elites.
The big positive of the IS defeat, is that the Syrian army no longer needs to defend a long front line against IS advance (instead it now has the Euphrates as a natural barrier between it and the US-proxy SDF), freeing up thousands of troops for offensive operations in Idlib and elsewhere.
“Continuous disintegration?” I believe the SAA has stopped shrinking in size. And while it’s hard to say how much the SAA has qualitatively improved since 2015 (other than presumably a large increase in morale, now that it is winning), the Russian training program has probably resulted in at least some such improvement.
“continuous disintegration of the SAA”
The fighting component of the SAA is Alawi. There are only 2 million of those people. Half of their military age men are either dead or wounded. What can the SAA still be expected to do?
Timeline is too blackpill in some respects.
“Status quo returns to that of several years ago, i.e. back when Assad was “killing his own people” so far as the Western press, without the superlative evil of Islamic State spoiling the optics.”
As long as the government keeps using artillery instead of equally deadly chemical weapons, this will not be an issue. HTS/JaN is too powerful now for even the most ardent neocon (but not, of course, the most ardent #TheResistance member) to pretend that Assad isn’t fighting al-Qaeda or that a rebel victory is either possible or desirable.
For some reasons or other, HTS has been severely weakened since the middle of 2015, and the other rebel groups have been weakened to an even greater degree.
“Putin has already gotten all the political capital (and Donbass distraction) he could hope for with his “short victorious war” against Islamic State.”
If the Idlib rebels are easy enough to defeat (and it looks so far that they are), that would add even more political capital to Putin. And this time, there would be no way for the U.S. to claim victory with equal plausibility, since they’re not fighting in Idlib.
“There is now a stunning convergence of interests amongst those powers, in stark contrast to the Obama period which were fraught with minor squabbles between all three.”
True. And all three seem to have accepted that the best course of options is to grind down the Syrian army+Hezbollah some more, but allow it to mostly win in the interests of regional stability (otherwise, they would never have permitted Hezbollah to reconnect with Iraq to the North of al-Tanf and would have sent far more aid to HTS) and (crucially) oust Assad after the war is over and replace him with a friendlier government.
The Turkish change in attitude is the biggest shift enabling the slow end of the conflict.
Iranian military aid to prop up the Syrian government is still quite popular. A color revolution there over the next year is unlikely; Rouhani’s too popular for that.
Not true. SAA elite units (such as the Tiger Forces currently rolling through Idlib), like the SAA in general, are majority Sunni.
I don’t think this was a matter of choice. They were simply outmaneuvered, caught by surprise by the speed of the SAA/Hezbollah advance to the border. Mattis is an Iran super-hawk and would have prevented the “land bridge” if he could have.
Now that the new Caliphate jihadis have suffered a demoralizing defeat it would seem that it might be harder to recruit more for another go at something similar. How big is the supply of chump cannon-fodder in the Islamic world wanting to sign up for one-way trips to paradise? The supply of proxy fools may have been burned through by now so the various actors may have to take things more into their own hands if they want to persist with their “Assad must go” routine.
I agree with your take. Including the part, which is very important, that it was Obama who was putting breaks in Syria.
Is it possible that Israel wanted to create a threat of Russia coming into Syria to force Obama’s hand as he was dragging his feet on Syria in 2012, 2013 and 2014? This may explain why there was such a good rapport between Putin and Netanyahu. The threat of Russian involvement was supposed to force American asserting themselves. Possibly Netanyahu miscalculated and Putin actually went to Syria while Obama did not preempt it. When Putin was in Syria it was too late.
With hostile to Israel Obama gone form the WH Israel now have Trump. Putin is no longer needed.
Tbh, it’s complicated. There’s a heirarchy whereby access to women is determined based on racial position.
The knowledge that no Arab sex slaves for non arab muslim, who’re majority, discourages most.
As for Nationalist concerns the amount of local sullahs willing to take a bat stick or sword into a riot is immensely greater.
With the reality of muh human rights & police protection, you & any number of street squads is not going to push them out without at minimum state apathy.
Whether you achieve your goals by infiltrating academia/media bureaucracy/legislature or military/police is up to you.
Taking control of labour/union is unlikely due to demographic disadvantage & treacherous bureaucracy legislature.
The general plan is to have the first 2 & 4th work together to subvert the 3rd.
High Low vs middle, then you gift them exclusive territory while also allowing them free movement।।
Rinse & repeat for centuries.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Sarkozy the biggest proponent of intervening in Libya, while Obama was more hesitant? I guess that could thought of as setting a policy somewhat independent of the US President.
Of course, the Europeans needed Ol’ Uncle Sam to actually do the job, which probably why France cannot say no anybody – if you depend on somebody else to do the stuff you want to do, in the long run you will just have follow what they are doing.
Incidentally (and somewhat Off-topic), but France’s decline to say ‘non’ doesn’t just apply to Washington, but to Berlin as well. The Paris-Bonn axis was an important driver of what did and didn’t happen in EU, but since Reunification the power gap between France and Germany as grown so large that it mostly Germany running the show now.
President Sarkozy was responsible for the full re-integration of France into NATO.
He did not want maintain independence from America, he wanted better access to America’s power and use it for his interests as he did in Libya.
Replace America with Europe, and you get what people like Macron want from Germany and other European countries.
“are majority Sunni”
Links?
There’s certainly some logic in this, but where is the pretext to attack Iran right now? Usually, there’s a huge propaganda campaign before an attack, now it would seem just out of the blue. While there is definitely a geopolitical rationale here, weakening Iran while forcing the hands of Russia, and also China, how could it be seen and portrayed as anything but that? The public in the US and Europe usually get at least a little foreplay to loosen them up for war.
I don’t think Obama and the wider US regime were particularly hesitant about Libya being attacked, and Clinton was positively enthusiastic for it. He was just hesitant about getting the public blame for it the way Bush II did in Iraq. The solution whereby the eager sycophants Sarkozy and Cameron took the blame whilst the US enabled them was ideal for all parties.
most of the oil is on the east side of Euphrates, aka Kurdistan and the Russians have a long term contract to develop it, since 2008 I think. It seems they have struck a deal with everyone involved and won’t support Assad in reclaiming the territory(I think they look at it as an interest payment).
On the other side, there is long term talk about developing the Levant offshore, which is firmly in Assado-russian hands. Some estimates on the quantities are bonkers, while others are in the ballpark of mainland reserves (cca 2 bl. barrels).
http://www.afpc.sy/images/content/body/map1.jpg
“The one good thing about the Obama presidency is that he understood how to stand up to the Jewish lobby in the US”
Are you joking?
Obama destroyed Libya, Syria and Yemen via air war and proxy war at the behest of the Israel lobby, not to mention significantly worsened relations with Russia and anti-nationalist meddling in the internal politics of various European countries.
He didn’t attack Syria when the neocon cabal wanted to. Instead he was wavering and referred the issue to Congress. (Something which presidents don’t usually do for a mere air campaign, at least not in recent memory – I know the Constitution requires it, but no one seems to care.) He also pushed through the Iran deal over the objections of the neocons. If he hadn’t done those two things, by 2014 Syria would’ve crumbled. So yes, he seems to have stood up to the neocons, at least over Syria and Iran.
Iran has a youth bulge, and has been forced to choose guns over butter. Weakening Iran with sanctions has gone as far as it can. The sanctions were a prelude to toppling the regieme. We tend to think overthrowing the mullas would be difficult, but the CIA wanted to help the Greens and Obama vetoed it. Push them into lashing out and then retaliate with airstrikes. Iran is every bit as vulnerable to break-up as Iraq. After the collusion allegations and US allies’ failure in Syria, Trump would benefit from humiliating the Russians and showing the US is still has the power, if it chooses to use it
So the Iranian regime put Ahmadinjad under arrest for supporting the protests.
This supports what I was saying about the real reason for the protests: the secular Nazi Iranians are sick of the Mullah’s weirdo religious quasi Nazism. Notice that the Iranian hipsters who want to see Gay Pride parades in Tehran have skipped out on these protests because neither side has anything to offer them.
I’m really not the kind of guy to hold a grudge, so those of you who were disputing my analysis on the other thread should do the following:
Do that and I am willing to turn over a new leaf.
Anatoly: You said that Israel wants Assad out. Are you saying that Israel would prefer a united Syria without Assad to a divided Syria with him? Netanyahu and the IDF are stupid, but not that stupid. I think Israel is satisfied with the status quo.
Eh, Ahmadinejad is neither secular nor is he a Nazi…he’s a religious populist who claims to be speaking for pious lower-class people. Actually might make some sense connecting him to those protests, given where they started (that “hisbollahi” city Mashad) and the prominence of economic demands (at least as far as one can be sure about those matters).
But I think you know that anyway and are just trolling the rest of us 🙂
No, I said that about Turkey.
According to Wikipedia, he was “ideologically shaped by thinkers such as Navvab Safavi, Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Ahmad Fardid”. The latter two weren’t clerics, one was a secular socialist (though warming to Islamism over time), the other an Islamist philosopher under the influence of Heidegger (!) of all people. So at least he’s more interesting than a simple populist Islamist. So far I think he’s been the only Iranian president without a clerical background.
Who are the Greens, how would they be pushed to lash out, and against whom, whereby retaliation by airstrikes would be a justifiable sell to the US public and “international community” i.e., Europe? Again, I understand the geopolitical logic, just not the means of getting there. I tend to think the next major conflict the US involves itself in will be the big one, the one whereby they either reestablish their unipolar dominance or are forced to abandon it forever.
Anyway, Greasy William has now joined this discussion, perhaps you can take it up with him. You both hate Iran, but he believes the US will never attack. Also, he thinks toppling the Iranian regime would be a net negative, because without the mullahs Iran could realize its true potential.
???
I’ve made hundreds of posts on Unz and I’m not inclined to dig through all of them, but I don’t believe I have ever said anything negative about Iran or Iranians so I’m not sure where you are getting that from.
Do you live in the US? It’s never gonna happen. Ever. The American public would not stand for it.
The only people I see talking about a US strike are either A) non Americans who don’t understand the political situation in the US or B) Paleocons who are pining for their glory days during the Iraq war who have had their brains melted by their own continued irrelevance.
Keep in mind that the Iran Internet Defense Forces have been promising us an imminent US attack for 14 years now and have never apologized for being absurdly wrong.
I make mistakes, but when I get stuff wrong I own it. Being a Paleocon means never having to say you’re sorry.
ROFL! I was just having an exchange with JL, funnily enough, in which self-awareness came up, and here you are offering yourself as the poster child for the opposite.
Just to save JL some time, here are a few of your recent highlights on this topic:
[emphasis added]
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-31/#comment-2074267
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/iranomaidan/#comment-2139248
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/iranomaidan/#comment-2139149
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/iranomaidan/#comment-2139824
Macron interview:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=amarmpour+macron+interview&&view=detail&mid=C957B193634226C6B327C957B193634226C6B327&&FORM=VDRVRV
16:00 into this video Macron clearly states what should happen to Assad. Expect the Trump admin to lay down the law in Syria sometime this year…probably sooner rather than later.
Greasy trolled you good.
[Shrugs]
Honest bullshit or trolling bullshit, bullshit is still bullshit.
Pfffshshwahahahaha! Good one!
Peace.
Note to Mr. Unz – a “pffffshshshwahahahaha” button would be appreciated.
He likes their women, but hates them. I think if he could somehow triangulate policy such that all Irani males were killed but he had access to all surviving women, he would be a very happy man.
I have suggested conversion to him in order to be able to get up to four, but I think his mom wouldn’t go for it.
Peace.
It was an obvious joke, I was surprised how it flew over your head… happens in the best of families.
Please use Google in future
The Greens (mainly urban and educated) got the CIA interested in the possibilities of taking the credit for Facebook and mobile phone coups. External humiliation by military reverses would cause discontent (almost every revolution in history came in the aftermath of a feature to assert national interests by the leadership). The CIA thought they could take the credit for an uprising in Iran as if they had orchestrated (like George Kennedy Young’ in 1953 against Mossadeq) regieme change in Iran. Iran is very unstable, and divided. A tempting target.
Isn’t that pretty much how alt-righters feel about Asians/Latinas?
In Randal’s defense, he got me too. GW isn’t exactly consistent in his views, and I’ve found he often ignores or skirts over requests for clarification. So his protestations actually seemed plausible, at least momentarily.
Ah, I see, I thought we were talking about 2017-18, not 2009. Are the Greens a thing in the latest protest movement? My understanding is that that demographic is sitting this one out. Anyway, I’m still waiting for a plausible scenario whereby the US can justify air strikes on Iran. Inciting the Greens, while relevant in 2009, doesn’t seem a viable strategy in the here and now. But I admit to not knowing much about Iranian domestic politics. Greasy William claims to know, and he agrees with me, so take it up with him.
The CIA thought they could get something going with only the urban elite Greens of 2009, and I expect they are working on something right now.
If he tips them the wink, US intelligence would resort to their stock in trade of lies and provide Trump with all the excuse he needs. The lie could be that Iran is about to produce a nuclear weapon due to them making secret progress, and surprise airstrikes are the only way to stop them. This justification would come as the attacks were underway.
Obama wanted to attack Syria but the British parliament said no and Dempsey went to Obama personally and said no. Add in Republicans in Congress actually listening to their constituents and he had no choice but to take up Putin’s offer. Obama has rewritten this in to his standing up to the foreign policy establishment.