Assad will 'retake the whole country' hours after Kerry announces peace deal.

Syria's fragile peace deal descended into farce today after President Bashar al-Assad vowed to retake the entire country despite attempts by world powers to broker a ceasefire. In a rare interview published just hours after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced a planned truce, Assad said he would continue to fight 'terrorism' regardless. He also warned it could take a 'long time' to defeat opposition groups, including Western-backed rebels, because so many countries were involved in the conflict. Assad said his regime's eventual goal was to retake all of Syria, large swathes of which are under the control of rebel forces or ISIS.

The UK piece is basically a puff piece for Kerry and an anti-Putin/Russian hit. Tomlinson & Hunter (the Mail writers) pretty much follow the MSN meme for Syria. They hit all the right notes to keep the public believing that wars are won through peace deals/ceasefires when nothing could be further from the truth.

Wars are won when the last man on one side who is willing to die for the ‘cause’ is killed. Else the whole thing is just postponed until a later date.

The article fails to mention that there have been lines/divisions of responsibility/control set up between Russia and the US. Until now this situation has been a ‘gentleman’s agreement.’ This agreement give the US control of the Eastern part to include Rqqqa, while the Russians have the West from the coast up to just west of Raqqa. ISIS is now totally a US problem - at least for now.

Russia will continue to attack various groups opposed to Assad with its 40 planes in country and whatever number of Spez (Marines) they have allotted. Armor and command/comm vehicles are being given to Assad’s tank corps in the form of upgraded T-72s and T-90s both of which have explosive armor and are now more or less impenetrable to RPGs and TOWs (the launcher can measure his remaining lifespan in seconds - 2 certainly, 5 if lucky). Russia has proven it has not only the military equipment needed to fight a war, but the political will to do so in an efficient manner - Russia knows that killing ‘civilians’ happens and does not worry, since sparing ‘civilians’ and eschewing a legitimate target only prolongs the war, providing, in effect, a mini-cease fire for the enemy.

In sharp contrast, the US has proven that does not have the political will to win a war, even a small one, relating its powerful military to an expensive, left-wing social experiment designed to lose wars. As a corollary, the US has taken most of its military budget and sunk it into projects that do not work well - when they work at all - while just barely keeping its current equipment competitive; its overall military plan seems to be following the once-vaunted US manned-space program into oblivion and obscurity.

Assad, Hezbollah, and the Russians will keep on fighting until all the ground between the coast and the agreed on eastern boundary is cleared. What happens with the Russian forces at that point is open to conjecture. Assad intends to keep on going until the rest of the country is reclaimed. Now it gets very dicey as Assad’s forces cross into the US controlled sector and attack ISIS in Raqqa - will the US allow this, will the US provide air-cover, will the US’s air-cover be as intense and thorough as the Russian’s, will the US end up protecting ISIS - all questions which will likely depend on the actions of the wild card: Turkey.

Turkey does not want the Kurds to have a continuous strip along its border; it wants an enclave for the millions of Syria refugees some where along the border; Turkey has supported ISIS, but will it continue? Turkey, if it brings more that the 3000 troops it has on the Syrian side, will face Assad’s armies. What happens then? If somehow the Russians get dragged in, Turkey stands to loose a substantial amount of its military; if that happens how can Turkey stop the Kurds? What will NATO (the US) do?

Meanwhile, ISIS continues to grow as major players wrestle with nearly unanswerable questions which only a major war can solve.

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