The Wall Street Journal reports Assad Expands Control in Syria After U.S. Pullback, Pact With Kurds.
A quickly forged agreement between Kurdish forces and the Syrian government to confront a Turkish military campaign has reshaped alliances in Syria, transforming an erstwhile partner of the U.S. in the fight against Islamic State into a force more closely aligned with Russia and Iran.
Syrian regime military convoys entered areas that have been outside government control for years on Monday, including numerous towns along the northern border with Turkey and near the city of Raqqa, the former de facto capital of terror group Islamic State.
Late Sunday, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces struck an agreement with the Syrian government that essentially meant switching from one military backer, the U.S., to another. As part of the deal, the Syrian military will position itself to prevent a Turkish-led incursion from expanding throughout northern Syria, according to an SDF statement.
Details of the deal were still being worked out, said Sinam Mohamad, the foreign representative for the political wing of the SDF. One potential outcome, according to Ms. Mohamad: The SDF force that the U.S. spent hundreds of millions of dollars to train, arm and support could become part of the Syrian army.
After more than eight years of conflict, Syria’s government, which is backed by Russia and Iran, is on the verge of clawing back most of the country.
Russia has played a mediating role in talks between the Kurds and the regime. “We consider this to be the only path toward creating a sustainable and stable situation,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a day before Turkey launched its offensive.
Russia the Biggest Winner
So what?
The US has done nothing but make a mess.
US Goal Down the Drain
All the weapons the US gave the Kurds are now fighting for Syria as opposed to fighting ISIS.
The US goal of overthrowing Assad is now down the drain.
That’s a good outcome.
Taking out Saddam Hussein in Iraq was a major mistake, so was taking out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. The former led to the creation of ISIS.
An overthrow of Assad would not have done anything good either.
Syria 7,000 Miles Away
Saudi Arabia Even Further Away
Bring the Troops Home
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The only Country that has killed Turks is…SAUDI arabia….
What is Erdo gun going to do about THAT ??
Boykott Turkey……until they REVENGE Kassoggi
Turkey is a geo strategic nation that borders Russia. Used by the US during the Cold War to restrict Soviet access (naval) to the Med. Today moving closer to a Russian alliance.
Anybody see where this is all going???????
Doesn’t border on Russia, but did when Georgia and Armenia were Soviet states.
Is Turkey coming to rescue the captured isis/daesh wajabis..?
it sure looks like it, so hopefully, the Syrian army will take over the Ahol prison and sentence every one of those sychos to death by their own bombs….
The west should pay the Syrians for lifetime jails for all isis men AND women AND kiddies too….NO mercy should be met with..NO Mercy….
So NO human rights to NON humans.
I agree the US shouldn’t have interfered in Syria. But given that they did, I think it is pretty low to ally with the Kurds only to let them all of the sudden down and hand them on a plate to Turkey. It looks like Trump got played again, this time by Erdogan. Also, it will be harder to find reliable allies in the future after this display of betrayal to an ally.
Are you totally braindead? The Kurds are not being handed on a plate to the Turks.
No. The big WINNER is SYRIA and Assad.
Russia does not have that much to lose, and so not that much to gain, but Syria has everything to win. Getting rid of all uninvited foreigners is a very big first step.
The Kurds are really mad at the USA. One of the reasons (stated Saturday by their leader) is that when they were in a much better negotiating position, the USA did everything to block seeking an arrangement with Assad (and salvaging as much regional autonomy as possible). In the end, the Kurds would rather have the protection of Assad than any other party, as is true of every minority in Syria, the only way to escape genocide by terrorist Jihadis.
Trump did not decide anything. Erdogan told him he was finished talking after 4 years of talking. Get out or be caught in the cross-fire (which the Turks arranged after all, Oops, Sorry, our bad). All the criticism of Trump neglects the fact that he had no choice.
Erdogan doesn’t give a rat’s ass about ISIS or escaping ISIS fighters. Since 2011 Turkey has had an open porous border. All the IS Jihadi’s came in across the Turkish border. Fighters went there to recuperate, poison gas was smuggled to Jihadi’s across the border with the help of the Turkish secret police (on the record in Turkish Parliament), ammunition poured over the border. True, Turkey is host to 3.5 million Syrians, got to give them that. But they watched willingly as whole factories were relocated from Aleppo to Turkey, and Erdogan has sympathies with Muslim Brotherhood-ish brand of Islam. Turkey is protecting Idlib and the tens of thousands of fighers left there.
Turkey only cares about the Kurds. Whenever the Turks participated in “coalition” bombing, they dropped bombs on Kurds, not ISIS. For the Turks all Kurds are terrorists, just as Israel has routinely been referring to Palestinians as terrorists since the seventies. Everybody in today’s world refers to their enemies as terrorists, because the American example shows that you can declare international law and the Genevan convention as inapplicable simply by using that word.
It is not the Turks that are fighting, it is the FSA brigades, barely distinguishable from all the other Jihadi terrorists, including the IS fighters held in stockades in al-Hasakah governate. They are Arabs and many are tribal enemies of the Kurds, an open invitation to war crimes. Erdogan thought it a stroke of genius to repopulate the border area with Syrian Arab refugees, separating the Syrian and Turkish Kurds and getting rid of the refugees.
Nobody cares about the Kurds. Can you remember any outrage when the Turks were shelling the downtown cores of ancient cities like Diyarbakir in 2016, slaughtering innocent civilians? These Kurdish cities predate the arrival of the Turks in Asia Minor, and the people in them faced modern artillery with nothing but their bare hands. The West only shows humanitarian outrage when it is part of some CIA narrative to herd public opinion where they want it to go.
The Americans will hole up in al-Tanf, where they have been abetting remnant IS groups making Deir Ez-Zor unsafe and blocking oil and supplies from reaching Syria (sanctions) so that no reconstruction is possible, and helping the Israelis to thwart traffic from Baghdad and Teherean to Damascus and Beirut.
The first rule of the Syrian conflict is that everybody is lying. Americans dropped more bombs on Syria the first day of bombing in 2014 than in the 2 prior months defending the Yazidi and northern Iraq. The ordinance was dropped on infrastructure to weaken the Syrian state, not on ISIS. They dropped special munitions on transformer stations in Aleppo to knock out the power grid permanently, also disabling the supply of drinking water and sewer treatment in a city of 4 million. America rescued ISIS brass on numerous occasions by helicopter and even acted as their air force in confrontations with the Syrian army. What they could never do was bombing the ISIS oil convoys (in hundreds of miles of open desert for … sake) clandestinely exporting oil to Turkey (and via Turkey to Israel), like the Russians did, crippling the ISIS economy within months. Do you really think that America, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, France, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Noway, Syria, etc., were all there to fight ISIS (like they all keep saying), but these small bands of intrepid Black Hood super men imbued with supernatural powers by Allah were fighting and winning against all the global powers while filing their bullets from lead ingots in their tents by night?
And a final question. What was it that protesters were demanding in Dera’a in 2011 when this civil war kicked off, with casualties among soldiers starting on day one? They were demanding separate schools for boys and girls, and lifting the prohibition on the hajib in class. The MSM calls this fighting for democracy against Assad.
Great post !
“Everybody in today’s world refers to their enemies as terrorists, because the American example shows that you can declare international law and the Genevan convention as inapplicable simply by using that word.”
That’s Progressivism, and all of Progressivism, in a nutshell: Newspeak, and pretending entirely arbitrarily interpreted arbitrary “so called” Law, has anything whatsoever to do with “Rule of Law,” as opposed to arbitrary rule.
Worried about ISIS? I thought ISIS was just a JV-team. Obama told us so…oh lordy, lordy, lordy, he didn’t lie to us, did he?
The feigned concern about Syria is totally nauseating….. People should have the balls to declare ‘war’ on Turkey or Syria or Russia or whoever – otherwise, stop bitching….. Our troops coming home.
Where’s the brilliant dream team of Harvard law professor, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie (the Socialist Heart Attack in action) Sanders? Sounds like they’re advocating for more war….
Elizabeth Warren, April 6, 2017
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Statement on the U.S. Military Strike in Syria
“…the Constitution gives the power to authorize the use of military force to the legislative branch. Expanded military intervention in Syria requires action by Congress. If President Trump expects such an authorization, he owes the American people an explanation of his strategy to bring an end to the violence in Syria. We should not escalate this conflict without clear goals and a plan to achieve them.”
Bernie Sanders, April 13, 2018
Sanders Statement on Syria
“It is Congress, not the president, which has the constitutional responsibility for making war. The international community must uphold the prohibition against the use of chemical weapons, but it is unclear how President Trump’s illegal and unauthorized strikes on Syria tonight will achieve that goal. After 17 years of war in Afghanistan and 15 years of war in Iraq, we need a political strategy to bring peace and stability to the region, not more U.S. military intervention.”
Declare war or stop talking…..
US foreign policy is now run by “Neo-Con Clowns on Acid”. Expect “spectacular” results.
I thought he fired Bolton
The Kurds are not a freedom loving people that would mold a western style country. We had no business in Syria in the first place. We have wasted lives and $ and the area is worse each year.
We don’t need their oil (Saudis or others). The ChiComs and the Europeans do. Let the middle east be their problem.
I’m glad Trump is doing this. The DC war empire profits from this. This is draining the swamp and the entire DC area hates it. That’s a very good sign.
“The Kurds are not a freedom loving people that would mold a western style country.”
And Westerners are no longer, if they ever were, a freedom loving people who would mold a civilized country.
Instead preferring to mold their countries into a Peronist Hegelian synthesis of Stalin and the Nazis.
The biggest practical problem the Kurds face, is that they have been too busy trying to mold themselves after failed Western norms, in order to appeal to Western donors and situational military allies. Which now turns out to have been betting on the wrong horse, as the West is receding. And The Middle East (dysfunctional as always, but still less so that the current West) is stepping in to fill the void.
Erdogan himself is a prime example of this decades long development, which has seen Turkey change from a state playing up it’s “western-ness” to one more like it’s Eastern neighbors. This has left “Kurdistan” caught in the middle of the Greater Middle East, rather than on some civilizational border between the ME and Europe. And that’s not a spot very forgiving of the kind of childish progressivism the Kurds have been attempting to cultivate to appeal to Western allies for the past few generations.
Russia the biggest winner ? Let s hope so, that s what it deserves, after all it was Russia, not the US, that defeated ISIS! Remember how Russia saved the famous Palmyra site from further destruction by ISIS in just a matter of weeks ? All the US ever wanted was to topple Assad in order to appease the backward Saudi regime clientele ! To achieve that goal the US didn’ t even refrain from collaborating with outright terrorists like Al Qaeda,( those responsible for 9/11 in case you forgot), and probably even with the ISIS barbarians.! Yes Russia can be proud of its phlegmatic, straigthforward, no nonsense president , admirable man when compared with our big mouth, spineless, unpredictable and definitely unreliable poor excuses of western leaders…..Trump included.
Putin is nothing more than a regional gangster. The U.S. and these Syrian Kurds defeated ISIS with no assistance from Russia. The key question: Why did the U.S. accept the task of defeating ISIS? I believe to create some regional order and to keep Iraq from falling apart and creating even more havoc. It now appears that Erdogan is committed to taking a section of Syria under Russia’s control, and Russia makes no difference here as bombing Syrian apartment blocks is more Putin’s style. There are no winners here in the old heart of the Ottoman Empire just losers, and the U.S. has little strategic interests at stake.
hahaha …you must be kidding….The Russians achieved in a matter of months what the yanks couldn’t do in years because of their clueless, false, deceptive criminal policy
Mish nobody wins in this mess,As a confrontation awaits along The Euprates river in a city called Kobane btwn still present US troops and the Russian backed Syrian Army.
“PS: I wish the edit function worked on this site, or take it out of the menu!”
Maximus – the edit function works for me and is supposed to work for everyone. Anyone else having problems? What Browser?
I’ve had that problem a few times on Firefox and haven’t tried any other browsers. Each time I noticed a typo immediately after posting, so when edit failed I deleted and reposted.
I think I used to be able to edit on Firefox, but that was probably a year ago and I have no idea what changed.
Mish, Edit is dead, dead, dead for me, running Google Chrome on Windows 10.
Chrome/Win10 — Edit works, but edited text ignored [post & cancel have the same effect]. Delete and reposting works, but Delete also deletes reactions by other users [!], something that happens regularly.
Mish, when I say Edit is dead, I experience exactly the same as Webej describes.
The Edit routine appears to accept modifications and posting, but changes nothing in the original post.
Edit doesn’t work on Win10/Chrome.
Also, one of my posts, but not the other, disappeared yesterday. No paranoia (but I know you are all out to get me), just odd.
Google chromium on Linux, but not unique to this browser or OS. I can edit, but the post does not stick. Delete and repost is the only option.
I can edit, but the changes are not saved. Firefox, Windows.
Edit doesn’r work on my Google Chrome on Win8
Ie, edited changes do not take as mentioned by others above
Why would Russia want to spend lives and treasure in the Levant? As soon as Syria is consolidated, they will be out of there. Not unlike the US, that is not the region where their security or economy rests. It’s like a bad sequel to Lawrence of Arabia.
PS: I wish the edit function worked on this site, or take it out of the menu!!!
Putin has stated this plainly (“Do you realize what you have done?”)
Russia and China are genuinely afraid of the spread of Jihadi foment throughout central Asia, having large Muslim populations. A large portion of the foreign IS recruits are Chechnyan, and Russia has had huge problems with foreign abetted Muslim inspired insurgents in Chechnya. Vacuums created by US democracy export have created IS-type Jihadism in formerly secular states such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. We might not like Assad, Saddam, or Ghadafi, but they kept these factions at bay. Getting rid of them have lead to terrorism, massive death and misery, as well as genocide of minorities. Western responses (leveling Raqqa and Mosul with humanitarian non-barrel bombs) have proved to be far worse than the tactics used by former strong men who were apparently more realistic.
Russia has always felt called to be the protector of orthodox Christianity and civilization. The orthodox communities that marked the origins of Christianity have been decimated (literally) since the West started interfering in the Mid-East, particularly recent American “nation-building”. Russians identify with this population.
Russia will withdraw if the situation becomes more stable, since it has no vital economic or strategic interests at stake. However, Putin is never taken literally at this word, since the West has convinced themselves that everything he says is a self-serving lie which serves as a foil for his true motives, which is to play the opposite player in the great game of geopolitical chess which they have convinced themselves everybody else is also playing (“Russian revanchisme & geoplitical resurgence”).
Russia also lives off of selling oil and weapons…… Neither export which is served by excessive stability in the Middle East.
Can anybody make sense of this latest tweet? It sounds like a reversal of his decision to get out of NE Syria. Obviously we have no intention of leaving the country, or even most of the country, but this sounds like Trump caving to pressure.
Yes. Al-Tanf is not in the NE, and is not contiguous with the Kurd/US controlled territory. In fact, it straddles the border with Jordania. Al-Tanf is a basis for IS-like factions which continue to harass the region, abetted by the “anti-IS” USA. Al-Tanf is instrumental in Israel’s goal of disrupting traffic between Baghdad (and Iran) with Lebanon and Syria.
That sounds right. I’m always wondering with Trump whether the words have any meaning or not. They usually don’t, but he mixes it up just enough to keep everyone (or at least me) guessing.
No you are wrong. Trump knows what he is doing. He is playing 9D chess and 3D checkers at the same time.
Let Russia have the middle east. All of it. It’s a quagmire, a hell hole from hell, a money pit, an empire destroyer.
It wasn’t always on fire. It experienced long periods of relative quiet, even during the two world wars.
Over the past 70 years we have cozied up to the two worst regimes in the region, both of whom love to meddle in the affairs of other countries, and it’s no surprise things have gone way downhill. Political Zionism and Wahhabism have been poisonous to wide swaths of the world, all with Uncle Sam’s blessing!
Russia wont have that which it doesn’t want, she’s not an Evil Empire like USA. She knows she has more to gain by working with others based on mutual benefit. Like USA once did.
The issue is just about troops, but about money. Often these allegiances are nothing more than they are our allies as long as the US opens up the checkbook.
This is like the Notre Dame fire contributions. Everyone pledges, but it is mostly the Americans who carry on their pledges. If others won’t step up to their commitments, the US soldiers and taxpayers should not cover them.