The New U.S. Strategy in Syria is Bound to Fail
Firas Samuri
The leading analysts repeatedly stated that the U.S. has failed to overthrow President Bashar Assad. Recently, The National Interest reporter and researcher, Doug Bandow, has made sure of it during his trip to Damascus. He claims “at long last, the conflict is winding down. Assad has won, and Washington has lost, and America’s approach has been a disastrous failure.’
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is considering the possibility of changing the current political course that previously hasn’t led to any success. Today a new strategy for the war in Syria is hastily working out. According to Stratfor, an American geopolitical intelligence platform and publisher, the U.S. is focused on the full withdrawal of the Iranian military and their proxies from Syria, as well as on changing the current Syrian government.
The ‘war strategy’ particularly highlights the Russian and Iranian approach. However, the United States could hardly be expected to force Moscow and Tehran to leave Syria, as these states are acting officially in fighting terrorism at the invitation of the Syrian President. Due to allies’ support, the Syrian Arab Army is now controlling more than 60% of the territory and is going to liberate Idlib enclave soon as well as the areas occupied by the U.S. and Turkey.
It’s worth noting that the U.S. has illegally deployed at least ten military bases in northeastern Syria. These territories are under the Kurdish control and are rich in natural resources such as gas and oil. Moreover, in September 2018, the U.S. forces have started setting up two additional military bases in al-Qamishli region in al-Hasaka province. According to the new strategy, Washington intends to preserve its influence in the area by resolving two missions simultaneously. First, it is planned to carry out total control over gas and oil deposits for the American corporations. Second, continue to destabilize the situation until power in the country is changed.
Besides, one more U.S. military base is located in al-Tanf not far from the state border with Iraq and Jordan and near the al-Rukban refugee camp. The U.S. SOF trains opposition fighters there. Initially, the Pentagon planned to occupy the whole region of southeastern Syria, but the SAA backed by Iraq had derailed the U.S. plans by connecting western Syria with the Syrian-Iraqi border north to at-Tanf.
To sum up, the Pentagon controls about 30% of territories in northeastern and southern Syria. Another 10% of northwestern Syria is under control of the Turkish army and its military formations.
By the way, some Middle East experts are sceptical about the new U.S. strategy in Syria. They believe that the U.S.-designed plans will fail as Washington has not been able to overthrow Assad for years of the conflict. The also suppose that fighting terrorism and a possible risk for their motherland being transformed into another Libya consolidated the Syrian nation most of which trust their leader. After all, people have stopped to believe the information transmitted by Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.
The plan to drive Iran out is also hardly possible. Washington is fairly not ready for the confrontation with Tehran and is likely to limit itself to economic and diplomatic solutions.
However, we should not expect the US military would leave Syria. The White House won’t take that step. Otherwise, it could lose the influence in the region and the American corporations would be deprived of income. President Trump is interested in gaining economic benefits of the U.S. oil companies’ presence in northern Syria. Consequently, it is too early to speak about the withdrawal of the U.S. troops. There have been no serious prerequisites.
The U.S. will have to leave the country only when Assad regains control over Idlib and establishes the dialogue with Kurds. Such a development is possible only in long-term perspective.
That is why the current task for the Syrian army is the restoration of peace in Idlib Governorate that is currently run by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Huras al-Din and other radical groups. The government forces have already prepared for the offensive. The large-scale military operation is to begin if the jihadists reject living the buffer zone by the Russian-Turkish arrangement.
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The Men from Uncle, making hay while the sun shines:
Syrian Arab News Agency — The US-led coalition on Saturday launched a new aggression on the Syrian territories under the pretext of combating Daesh, bombarding residential buildings in Hajin city in Deir Ezzor province, killing and wounding dozens of civilians….
The sources said the coalition’s aggression claimed the lives of 15 civilians and wounded others, most of them women and children who had been living in the houses near Khaled Ibn al-Waleed Mosque.
On October 29th, the US-led coalition launched attacks on several areas in Hajin using internationally-banned white phosphorus bombs.
https://sana.sy/en/?p=150334
Washington in general has no idea of the filthy moral state to which it has descended. It’s like a savage who has never seen a bar of soap.
And the next generation – the offspring of this wretched tribe – will not even remember what such a bar of soap once was.
To think that The White House, Congress, Senate and the Supreme Court all consider themselves to be the most civilized of U.S. institutions…
Not any more.
If I read this report correctly, American corporations are extracting oil and gas illegally from another foreign country.
If that is the case, should not those companies be sanctioned and fined?
That Brian, is it in a nutshell. What do you think ‘ISIS’ was doing there? Convoys of trucks transporting oil from Syria to Turkey, and no one batted an eye lid. They are so brazen, they can actually tell the truth and still no one will do a damn thing about it. The problem is that the American people generally, and some Brits are the ‘thickest’ on the planet. Why else would they allow themselves to be propagandised and whipped into a frenzy to go killing innocent women and children they haven’t even met and don’t even know, all on a pack of lies that they just couldn’t be bothered to research themselves. Most of them couldn’t put a drawing pin in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria. but were convinced that there was a Dr No type organisation, hiding in mountains with laptop computers controlling the terrorist??? Gullible or… Read more »
The US plans for partitioning Syria were mentioned by Lavrov not long ago, the big question is who would govern this nascent state? The US initially had the Kurds in mind with Rex Tillerson’s plan, it was not well thought through with the Turks going ape shit, not only that the Arab tribes in the east may not like being governed by the Kurds. The bottom line is that all states in the region will reject partition, especially Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey, after Syria Turkey has the most to lose, Syrian Kurd’s joining forces with Iraqi and Iranian Kurd’s would directly threaten the Turkish state with its estimated 14 million Kurdish population, the Turks have no intention of allowing the US to enable this plan to take hold. I hope the Syrian Kurd’s work out a deal with Assad which gives them some form of cultural and local legislative… Read more »
Long post by analyst Canthama BTL SyrPer essentially confirming the upbeat comments from James Graham and Alexandar below: Canthama #280025 Developing event in Syria on the past few hours that worth following through today and tomorrow. As many of us know, thousands of Iraqi PMU soldiers were sent to the border with Syria a week ago by the new Iraqi Government, breaking the Abadi-US deal to leave the border between Iraq and Syria without strong protection against ISIS-US. It is believed that as many as 10,000 PMU soldiers arrived in the area and many more arriving everyday, including some brigades of Iraq 9th Army. The PMU effectively blocked ISIS attempt to break through the border after the very suspicious SDF-US retreat from Jabal Baghouz. The PMU was instrumental in defeating this ISIS attempt, which is seen by Iraq as a fr.sh US/France maneuver to allow ISIS to breed again in… Read more »
(Lightly armored) Russian military ground forces have escorted a UN Humanitarian Aid convoy into the al Rukban refugge camp. If the SAA had done the escorting, the Zionists would have attacked it and blamed Assad.
A recent US report claims they have flown 580 sorties in Syria. Of those, 3 involved dropping bombs (on something). The other 587 were claimed to be escorting or intercepting SAA/RuAF flights. This video shows the reality of 3 of those ‘interception’ sorties somewhere in east Syria.
The unidentified RuAF aircraft (Su-30, Su-35) seems to have approached 2 French Rafales and 1 US KC-10 mid-refueling (possibly without them knowing). After showing its under-wing weapons and rapidly climbing above the 3 NATO aicraft for best firing position, the 3 scarper pretty sharply.
What is new about this new plan?
Also links to https://www.mintpressnews.com/ are not working for me.
“people have stopped to believe the information”
is nearly opposite in meaning to:
“people have stopped believing the information”
I used to make this mistake. The trick to the first phrase is: “people have stopped [doing something else, so now they] believe the information”
“Stopped” is a funny word. Does the sun stop shining because you’re not interested? Does anyone or anything stop existing because you say you have “stopped.” Maybe it’s because there’s a change in the kind of motion from one to the other. Say, you stop at traffic lights. You’ve disengaged the transfer of power from the engine to the wheels and braked. But did the car stop and did the world stop turning?
“Second, continue to destabilize the situation until power in the country is changed.”
For the Empire, it would not mean that when power in the country is changed, they will let Syria (or any other country not to their liking) enjoy a stable situation where democracy and prosperity flourish. The opposite is far more likely, where squabbling and various groups are set against each other to continue driving the descent of the country into hell.
Libya is a small model. This what the the criminal masters (USGOV-FIVE EYES+NATO+Israel) do: exploit every weakness and plant the seed for more havoc.
The plan for Syria is the Zionazi Oded Yinon Plan ie to vivisect the country, break it into four pieces, and kill as many civilians as possible as ‘mitzvot’ in accord with Talmudic doctrine. And remember, as Deputy Knesset Speaker Smotrich declared a few years ago-Damascus belongs to the Jews’.
I agree with some of your posts, Mulga, but unfortunately you’ve got a one-track mind and your comments, such as the one above, often make my flesh crawl.
If a ‘Zionazi’ (I presume you mean Israeli) plan for partitioning Syria actually exists, can you give us some references to support your point?
The relationship between Jewishness, Zionism and current Israeli policies needs some clear thinking and you are not providing it.
Real Peter: “If a …plan for partitioning Syria actually exists, can you give us some references to support your point?
I was surprised by this question because until recently everyone and his brother had such a plan — including the original Oded-Yinon. So I rubbed my eyes in case I’d been dreaming, and searched “Syria partition plan”. Check; there are a lot of plans to partition Syria out there on the web — mostly from foreigners.
‘Zionazi’ refers to the ruling Israeli elite and their supporters in the Diaspora. Zionism is for the Jews as Nazism was for the Germans, and the history of Zionism eg the collaboration with the Nazis in Germany to transfer Jews to Palestine in the 1930s, and Jabotinsky’s open admiration of Mussolini etc, show that clearly. It is not the ideology of all Jews, and many good and decent Jews inside Israel and the Diaspora oppose it. As for the Oded Yinon Plan, it first appeared in ‘Kivunim’ magazine in 1982. It is easily accessible on the Net, and it outlines Zionazi ambitions to destroy all Israel’s neighbours, and break them up into powerless statelets along tribal and sectarian lines, starting with Iraq, then Syria etc. It has been reiterated by among others, Nutty-yahoo et al in ‘A Clean Break’ since. And, if you open your eyes, you can see it… Read more »
A prior post in SyrPer which to bolster James Graham’s positive view below; which I endorse because the new Iraqi govt has reversed the policy of Iraq’s recently ousted U$ puppet regime, and allowed the PMU (Iraqi Popular Resistance Forces) to re-engage against NATZO’s terrorist mercenaries on Syria’s Eastern border, in conjunction with the Syria Arab Army: “aleksandar #279959 Hajine. This withdrawa of the Kurdish fighters leaves there only tribal fighters, which opens the door for a joint offensive of the SAA and the PMU Iraqis from the Iraqi border towards Hajin. This could eradicate Daesh there, and would allow the SAA to control its border zone with Iraq over the east shore of the Euphrates. The any airstrike of the Coalition on the PMU would see as a provocation by the Iraqi government. All south east Syria along Euphrat will be liberated, from Al Qaim to Der Ez Zor,… Read more »
The Liberation of Idlib will begin soon. The “New Kurdistan” dream is dead and buried. The Kurds will do a deal with Assad. Iraq wants rid of the US and their proxy forces, DAESH. The US is way out on a limb. Russia is 100% behind Syria. Are the Americans going to just sit there and steal oil?
” The large-scale military operation is to begin if the jihadists reject living the buffer zone by the Russian-Turkish arrangement.”
I reckon it should be “leaving” and not “living”. 🙂