Syria regime says Kurdish fighters withdraw from Manbij

Yahoo News ^ | January 2, 2019 | AFP

[BeauBo]

Bottom Line Up Front: Your point is valid that the Afrin Kurds did not agree to submit to full Syrian sovereignty, in return for defense from Turkey.

There had been a working agreement not to attack each other throughout the civil war (although there were some incidents). They generally maintained a mutually supportive military relationship, where Government personnel and troops were safe in Kurdish areas (like Qamishli), forces could pass through each others lines, and battlefronts were coordinated effectively against a common enemy. The Kurds and the Assad Government actually continued working together on a number of levels to continue Government functions in the Kurdish areas - salaries were paid and revenues were remitted.

But the Kurds were holding out for a new constitution with more (or total) autonomy after the war. They did ask for military help to hold the border against Turkey, but they refused the ultimatum to surrender all rights to the Assad/Ba’athist dictatorship.

The Syrian Ba’ath is the last ruling Party on Earth modeled on the principles of Nazism - socialism based on race rather than class. While Ba’athism is often translated as Arab Nationalism, it is really better translated as the Arab Racial Dictatorship (Kurds are not Arab). The Iraqi Ba’ath conducted a genocidal campaign against their Kurds (al Anfal Campaign), consciously modeled on the organization and tactics of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen of Eastern Europe. Saddam’s uncle, who raised him like a father, was imprisoned by the British for participating in an attempted coup, to shift Iraq over to the Nazi side in WWII.

Life was significantly less oppressive for Kurds under the Syrian Ba’ath than under the Iraqi. Nonetheless, racial inferiority of Kurds was (is) official Ba’ath Party dogma, with lots of effects on opportunity and prosperity for Kurds.

Bottom Line: This is the same deal the Kurds will get from the Assad regime elsewhere - submit totally or die. That is what I meant by tried and failed - the Syrian regime will not provide military protection from Turkey without submission to absolute dictatorship. It has now been tested and proven under fire. The Syrian Regime will throw them to the slaughter of the Turkish and their jihadi wolves when the time comes that they lose protection. Kurdish women are held as sex slaves in Afrin today, by former members of ISIS, now employed by Turkey.

“the Turks haven’t squared off directly with SAA for a number of very good reasons”

Probably the top reason is that when push comes to shove, the SAA will not fight them. Turkey has moved their military into Syria, and is established their governance in these conquered territories from Reyhanli to Jarabulus. Turkey has blatantly armed, supported and directed anti-regime militias across Syria, including ISIS. As long as Turkey limits itself to less then total war, neither Assad nor Russia will risk total war with Turkey.

“this notion that Iran is the invisible hand that controls Syria is just nonsense.”

Iran is the power on the ground, throughout much of Syria (not in Latakia, and not so much in Damascus). At a time when the Russians station a dozen aircraft in Syria, Iran pays the salary and commands more than 100,000 assorted types of soldiers, and many more varieties of reservists and employees. They have a sophisticated, deliberate, long term, subversive approach to taking power. Persians invented chess.

They form local surrogate militias, guerrilla/terrorist cell networks and Intelligence networks that are loyal to Iran, and deliberately work themselves into greater power over time, taking control of the local economy, infiltrating institutions, buying off officials and assassinating the difficult ones. That is the main mission of Maj Gen Qasem Soleimani and his Quds Force within the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (Pasdaran). They exist to export the Shi’ite theocratic model of Government outside of Iran (under Iranian control).

They started by forming Hizbollah in Lebanon, gradually taking control over the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, and eventually the national government. Their surrogate militias in Iraq have established effective control of Diyala Province and are consolidating the oil fields of Kirkuk. Between Iraq, Lebanon and the Shi’ite population of Syria, Iran can and does field many times more Arabic speaking agents than can Russia.

About 18 million remain in Syria, mostly Sunni and about 10% Kurds. Iran has about 80 million, and leverages the large Shi’ite populations of Iraq (over 20 million), Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Having hosted a huge Afghan refugee community for decades, Iran has already demonstrated that they can mobilize Afghan Shia into light infantry in the tens of thousands when they want - at rock bottom prices.

Iran cultivates and uses the influence of Shi’ite clerics, who exert strong religious command authority over their followers, which the Ba’ath Party does not. When Ayatollah al Sistani in Iraq called for his followers to fight the Islamic State, hundreds of thousands of men reported for duty and took up arms. I saw Iraqis with green cards leave their jobs and businesses in the USA to go back and fight at his command.

Most of the top Shia clerics are from a small group of hereditary Shia clerics - like Muqtada Sadr, who can trace descent from the Prophet Muhammad and two Shia Imams, he is the great-grandson of a Grand Ayatollah who was the supreme Marja (Shi’ite religious authority) of all of Iraq, and both his father and father-in-law were Grand Ayatollahs. Although his family origniated with the Jabal Amel Tribe in Lebanon, they all go to Iran to receive their religious education and certification.

Iran can and does exert strong influence through religious means, as well as their military, intelligence, mafia-like business networks, and social service organizations. They are deeply embedded, and determined to burrow deeper. Agreements to have Iranian sponsored militia units withdraw from Syria have basically only produced having the troops issued Syrian identity papers and Syrian uniforms.

Assad will likely find it harder to extract himself from the complex grip of Iran, than from the overt heavy hand of ISIS. There is some possibility that Gulf Arabs like the Saudis and Emiratis may pledge a lot of reconstruction money to buy influence over the Iranians, but even that would be unlikely to succeed if Iran is not weakened dramatically at home, or overthrown.