Posted on 01/02/2019 1:28:55 PM PST by BeauBo
The Syrian regime said Wednesday hundreds of Kurdish fighters had withdrawn from Manbij near the border with Turkey... "The information (we have) indicates that nearly 400 Kurdish fighters have left Manbij so far." The People's Protection Units (YPG), the main Kurdish militia in Syria, last week invited regime forces to deploy to the key city following a shock announcement that American troops would leave the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Potentially Saudis could manage the airspace over the Kurdish enclave after a US withdrawal. They have a modern air force, and have had PATRIOT air defense systems for a quarter century.
We will have to see if Turkey respects the SDF territory on the East side of the river. Turks have moved military vehicles up to that border.
The UAE is going to reopen an embassy to the Assad Government in Damascus, and the Saudis are in touch. So some moves toward settlement have occurred, without any big blowups yet.
FYI
Now how exactly is a regime different than a normal government? The Syrian government is a “regime”, and I also notice any republican president presides over a “regime”.
I also notice the Saudi absolute feudal monarchy is a romantic sounding “Kingdom”. But Assad is stuck with just a “regime”.
And I notice the word republic is really out of fashion too.
Lol...keep your interventionist day dreams to yourself Lindsey.
“Potentially Saudis could manage the airspace over the Kurdish enclave after a US withdrawal. They have a modern air force, and have had PATRIOT air defense systems for a quarter century.”
Who are the Saudis gonna shoot at? Turks? Syrians in their own airspace? God forbid, Russians? If the Saudis are invading via air, doesn’t Assad have the right to shoot an S-300 at them? The Kurds should make a truce, swear loyalty to their own Syrian government and that should keep the Turks away.
“swear loyalty to their own Syrian government and that should keep the Turks away.”
That did not work for them when tried in Afrin.
Turks invaded, overwhelmed the Kurds, Syrian Arab Army and their Iranian militias, and unleashed their Arab militias (many former ISIS members) on the civilian Kurdish population.
The Turkish military is more than an order of magnitude greater than the remaining rump of the Syrian military.
That is mostly because in Afrin we were approving the Turk move and were ready to respond hard to any Assad or Russian air support to them.
Lap dog Mattis even affirmed that the Turks were justified.
If we aren’t there setting up no fly zones, and attacking the Syrians anytime they dared to make a move (in their own country) outside what we permitted. If we leave, they can make a truce with their own government.
One of the main end state scenarios for Syria has long been a semi-autonomous Kurdish Region within the Syrian State, like the Kurdish Regional Government withing Iraq.
The Kurds will always need protection from Turkey. Both the Kurds and the Regime (common usage) have gone to lengths over the many years of war, to not burn the bridges between them.
It is a pretty likely outcome, unless foreigners support Kurdish aspirations.
The risk would be that the entire country is then consolidated as a Satrap of Iran.
Russians controlled the airspace over Afrin, not us.
They stood down in a trade with Turkey, to have their jihadi clients withdraw from central Syria (Eastern Damascus, Hama and Homs) North to Idlib - and into Afrin itself, where many have been given the houses taken from the Kurds in a grand ethnic/sectarian cleansing population transfer.
The Syrian regime said Wednesday ......
**********
Syria is hardly well governed; but why is its government the only one in the region that’s called a “regime”? In contrast, the more dangerous Turkish government is evolving into an Islamic state without such labeling — or false flagging — from the neocons or leftists running our foreign policy establishment.
“why is its government the only one in the region that’s called a “regime”?”
It just became a kind of naming convention during the civil war, to distinguish those groups among the whole witches brew, who were on the Government’s side.
Iran provided a lot of mercenary militias they raised from Shi’ite communities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon (each with their own names), as well as Iranian regular military and Revolutionary Guards Corps units. After years of high casualties and mass outflow of refugees, Iranian provided militias came to make up the bulk of the ground forces fighting for the Syrian Government - so called regime forces.
Another victory for Putin and Assad.
Fake news... it WASN'T tried in Afrin.
“Fake news... it WASN’T tried in Afrin.”
Google.
NY Times 22 Feb: Syrian Militias Enter Afrin, Dealing a Setback to Turkey
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/world/middleeast/syria-afrin-kurds-ypg.html
Syrian Army enters:
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-syrian-army-enters-afrin-assist-kurdish-forces/
The Kurds tried it - but the Assad Government was in on the deal with Turkey, so it was all for show.
As the Kurds say “Turks, Arabs, Persians - our only friends are the mountains”.
Thanks for the ping.
There is no appeasing Erdogan the Islamist.
He may have no choice but move away from this because of pressure by the region.
I suspected that Trump sent a clear statement to the players to end the war. After what Erdogan and ISIS did in Efrin, no one will ever believe anything he says.
He should pay a much higher penalty for his evil acts. God may deal with that. (Not the one he claims has chosen him)
Thanks for illustrating my point...your own links say it was some Syrian militia and not Syrian government troops that went to help out in Afrin.
In fact, I doubt you could even name the militia that went to help the Kurds, that’s how fake this news is.
Note that I gave you two links - the second was the Syrian Army. Google it yourself, before embarrassing yourself further.
Listen up...the second link you provided also makes NO mention of Syrian government forces (SAA), only local militia which operate under the loose banner of a National Defense Force (NDF).
Every Syrian village in government control has a National Defense force, and they’re set up to provide a modicum of organized resistance to roving bands of Western trained jihadists that plague the countryside.
The NDF are just local volunteers trained in civil defense with a couple of machine gun mounted Toyota pickups, and are otherwise not fit for service in the Syrian regular army.
After posing for some ‘fake news’ photos on the outskirts of Afrin, I’ll wager the mighty NDF hightailed it right back to whichever Syrian government controlled villages in the next province they came from.
There were no Syrian government forces fighting in Afrin and no agreement with the Syrian YPG to do so. To suggest otherwise is 100% fake news.
So the Kurds did ask (beg) the Syrian Army to defend the border against the Turks, but that did not work for them - the Syrian Government only made a fig leaf display. Tried - failed.
That is because the Syrian Army can not stop the Turkish Army, and everyone knows it. They still can’t. So asking the Syrian Government to defend them is pointless - they must ask Iran, who runs the ground war for the regime side, for any serious chance. Iran also currently lacks the capability to stop a determined Turkish attack there, but at least they pose a bigger deterrent.
In any event, the decision had already been made by Assad, Iran and Russia to trade the Kurds in Afrin, in exchange for the Turks ordering a bunch of the Sunni jihadis they sponsor to give up the fight in Syrian heartland areas like East Ghouta in Damascus, Hama and Homs. They ran buses for months, moving the Sunni jihadis and their families out of their old neighborhoods, and up into Idlib and Afrin, while the Turks drove out Kurdish populations from Afrin.
There is almost nothing left of the old Syrian Arab Army - even the few units they do field, have their ranks heavily salted with foreigners provided by Iran. In some cases they are almost entirely foreigners with Iranian officers (like around Deir ez Zour), carrying the old guidons, with just a few token Syrian military. The few units that are strongly Syrian or Alawite are kept close to the heartland and Latakia respectively, except for the Tiger Force which provides their limited armor for assaults.
In the many Iranian provided militias, like Hizbollah, there are basically no Syrians. As for the NDF that was sent to Afrin by the Assad Government, “The creation of the NDF was personally overseen by Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Suleimani.” according to Wikipedia. Few of the ones that went into Afrin spoke Arabic.
The Iranians have little interest in seeing the SDF Kurds preserved. It will serve their long term designs of dominating Syria like they do Lebanon better to have Turkey crush them, so Iran can re-form the remnants into more of their own surrogate militias. Even fewer of the Syrian Kurds are Shi’ite than are Iraqi Kurds - overwhelmingly Sunni, secular or other. They are a natural problem to the Iranian vision for the region.
The strategy of the Kurds just rejoining the Assad Government was long a feasible option, until effectively Iran took over. It may become an feasible option again if sanctions (or regime change) weaken Iranian control enough, or if Assad gets a broad peace deal, and the time and money to rebuild. But Iran will not willingly give Assad time to regain control if they can help it - they will actively organize the population and manipulate politics like they did in Lebanon, to consolidate Iranian control.
False...the YPG turned down requests from both Russia and Syria to turn over Afrin to government control and join them in talks on national reconciliation prior to the Turkish incursion. As a result the Kurds got chased out of Afrin by Turkish aligned rebels who are now busy displacing the local Kurdish population.
The Syrian government did nothing to stop the takeover in Afrin because the stupid Kurds wouldn't agree to stop fighting against them. Russia withdrew from Afrin because it was in their strategic interest to do so. The Americans didn't step in to help the Kurds for similar reasons...something the Kurds should have noticed.
That is because the Syrian Army can not stop the Turkish Army, and everyone knows it.
More fake news...the Turks haven't squared off directly with SAA for a number of very good reasons, not least of which is the Syrian Army is a lot tougher then some homegrown band of communist rebels. SAA have heavy artillery, tanks, and air support. They have a competent logistical fighting partner in Russia and a Syria v Turkey fight in Syria would risk igniting a wider regional war.
Doesn't change the outcome in Manbij for the not so bright Kurds either...they're gonna be losers again unless they bend the knee to Syria, turn the city over to Assad, and lay down their arms against Turkey.
Finally this notion that Iran is the invisible hand that controls Syria is just nonsense. Syria is a Russian client, always has been, and there's nothing Iran can do about that. Iran will continue to have influence in Syria just as they do now in Iraq and Lebanon, but never control.
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