Posted on 07/05/2018 4:17:22 AM PDT by Texas Fossil
And he appears to be getting plenty of it.
Putin knows that in approving the operation, he wasn’t simply enabling Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Syrian military forces to extend the regime’s control to an area that has been controlled by various rebel militia for seven years.
The Syrian military is an empty shell. Russia effectively serves as the Syrian Air Force. Iran and Iranian-controlled groups control Syria’s ground forces.
Israeli intelligence assesses that thousands of Iranian forces are deployed in Syria. The troops Iran commands are not predominantly Syrian. Rather, most of the ground troops in the so-called Syrian military are Iranian-controlled Hezbollah terrorists from Lebanon, and members of Iranian-controlled Shiite militia, which is in turn comprised of fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. Israeli intelligence estimates that some seven thousand Hezbollah forces and 9,000 Shiite militia members are deployed to Syria to fight on behalf of Assad’s regime.
In other words, when Putin ordered the operation against rebel-controlled Deraa province along Syria’s border with Jordan, and signaled that once Deraa was conquered, the operation would extend to Quneitra province along the Syrian border with Israel, he knew that he was fighting to enable Iranian forces and Iranian-controlled forces to take over Syria’s borders with Jordan and Israel.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
She blows away the noise and goes right to the meat of the situation.
Glick’s statement: “The Syrian military is an empty shell.”
Is very believable. With years of fighting and most of the country in shreds I often wondered just how that army could be replenished both in terms of men and materiel sufficient to control whatever territory they still have.
Putin is supposed to suggest Trump give Mueller a detailed report on the summit.
The Trump strategy in Syria is working IMO. It’s a larger strategy to weaken and deplete Iranian forces and rollback Russian power in the region.
We need to keep our toehold in northern Syria to protect our allies there against Russia, Syria, Iran and Turkey. After all of the fighting is over, Russia and Iran will be handed the job of rebuilding Syria. Good luck with that!! It should keep them occupied and drain ever more precious resources....
The US mission in Syria, as stated by the President, is to eradicate ISIS and go home.
There is no larger strategy for the military in Syria, nor should there be.
John McCain needs ghost writers nowadays and it looks like Lindsey Graham had a hand in this writing.
The people who are hostile to Donald Trump, who linked him to Russia, who unleashed the Muller Inquisition are the people who hold anti-Russia, anti-Assad views like those expressed here must be viewed with suspicion.
The GOP leaders like McConnell and Ryan always prop Mueller up when Trump attacks the witch hunt.
Kill as many Iranians stationed there as possible. We owe them for what happened in 79’. Proxy wars are what they do. 2 can play this game.
ISIS and al-Qaeda fully endorse that strategy. I am more concerned with what the other side did to us on 9-11 than what the Iranians did in 1979.
I agree that is the stated strategy. I’m just saying that the side benefits contribute to the overall strategy in the middle eastern region. Iran is our enemy over there. They are the ones that are building the nukes, they are the ones that are funding hamas and hezbollah to the detriment of our Israeli allies. They are the ones that are destabilizing the region. By our leaving Iraq we created a power vacuum in the region in which Iran and Russia has stepped into. This is part of that larger strategy to roll that back.
You sound like a deranged neocon, not the libertarian you profess to be.
Russia has no intention of rebuilding Syria. Nor are they financially able to. But Syrian oil might finance that.
Iran is currently not doing well financially either. And they are facing a revolt against their dictatorship.
Assad is very weak without Putin or Iran.
Russia wants control of or access to the Strait and the Oil.
Iran wants to take out Israel, which Israel will not allow to happen. We’re assurance of that.
Trump will give nobody a report, certainly not Mueller.
Mueller is long overdue on reporting the truth of the Russian ComDem connection.
Correct. It has been totally clear for a long time.
In the beginning the Assad’s Alawites were a very small percentage of Syrian population, but controlled everything, including the military. They took heavy casualties early in the war.
The so called power vacuum in iraq was created by the unsuccessful post-war reconstruction and the disastrous arab spring (Syria civil war).
Put Trump in Obama’s shoes, he would have made the same decision. Unless he could manage to force Saudi to pay the money.
While this assessment from an anti-Russia....pass the Novichok please....sarc...writer is being chewed over, the real fighting is going on in Syria.
Russia did not agree to an indefinite deconfliction zone in southwestern Syria. They considered the zone ended in April plus the Iranians were moved away from the southwest and are not participating in the current military action.
Lavrov is saying its unrealistic to expect a total Iranian withdrawal from Syria.
Trump and Putin will have to sort things out on July 16th and I hope they will be able to without this incident in the UK being used to sabotage their talks.
The Syrian military backed by the Russian airpower is pushing its way south to the Nassib crossing and west at Tafas betwwen Deraa and the Quneitra region.
We have Novichok being pushed by the UK and Iranian involvement being pushed from Israel and in between the two of them in the anti-Iran camp is the wealth of Saudi Arabia, home of Sunni Islam and the Al Qaeda jihadist movement whose fighters war against Assad in Syria.
I understand your sentiments and agree that Trump said he does not want to become (further) embroiled in another mid-East conflict. However, the situation in Syria is far more complicated than our media coverage has portrayed it and the main complication is Iran.
In classic Cold War proxy terms, the conflict in Syria is too much of a winner for most in the administration to abandon. We have minimal commitment there, but the casualties, financial loss, and loss of prestige that Iran is suffering is a big gain for little expense in strategic terms. Russia has the same problem to a lesser extent and even though the author is pro-Israel, she does sum it up well.
I do not want to be involved over there and do not think Trump wants to either as he said, but the old adage “we can deal with it now when the problem is small or deal with it later when the problem is large” applies to Syria. We have a minimal investment right now and I don’t think Trump wants to grow our presence, but handing Syria (and the border with Jordan and Israel) over to Iran is not acceptable either. It is a mess, but right now the mess is contained within the borders of Syria..... allow Iran to dominate and it will most certainly spill over into Jordan and Israel. Israel will not tolerate this so you have the Russian backed Syrian government, the forces of Iran doing their own thing, the remnants of ISIS and the unreliable rebel forces, and the U.S. backed Israel. The UN as usual is feckless. However, we back Jordan and Israel. Withdraw for a soundbite and the whole region sees that we abandon our alliances and that is NOT the Trump doctrine.
It is a big understatement to call the situation complicated. The meeting between Trump and Putin will be very interesting and presents the best opportunity for some kind of detente within Syria that freezes out Iran and further weakens ISIS. I do not see much downside here and I think Mattis and Bolton see both the opportunity and the necessity for us to protect both Jordan and Israel. The potential upside for Trump is huge and Putin sees this as well so even by maintaining the status quo in the tinderbox, Trump has the better position going into the talks/negotiation. Abandon the situation and we strengthen both ISIS and Iran and Russia appears stronger as we appear weaker.
Right, wrong, fair, or indifferent.... that is how I see it and as long as we do not put more forces on the ground I am willing to stick with Mattis and Bolton on this one for now. I think Bolton (and Mattis) have a middle ground in mind that will work for Russia and the US and her allies and that is why they pushed for the meeting. The odd man out will be Iran and anything that hurts them is good in my book.
If Carter didn't allow what happened in '79 to occur, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. I prefer we watch and let them kill themselves....
Putin to meet Netanyahu five days before Trump
PM calls on European leaders to stop appeasing Iran, especially after Iranian-backed bombing plot in Paris.
July 4, 2018
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Putin-to-meet-Netanyahu-five-days-before-Trump-561488
Is a pro Israeli perspective necessarily an Anti-Russia perspective?
I don’t think so.
Turkey and Iran are the destabilization problem children in the ME.
Syria has always been aligned with Iran. On face of it, it does not make sense. Until you look at the terrorists that Iran finances and at Lebanon.
Dry up the finance, and the terrorists are badly crippled.
Assad? He does need other Syrian’s to help keep Syrian intact. The only effective force outside of Iranian Jihadi’s are the SDF (including Syrian Kurds).
I think Putin understands this, but Assad does not think it is necessary.
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