Syria’s so-called ‘cradle of the revolution’ has been liberated
The West’s campaign to topple Bashar al Assad is all but over
Vanessa Beeley
After three years of a fragile ceasefire and a campaign of assassinations of Syrian government ‘loyalists’ by embedded fundamentalist armed groups, the Syrian flag has once more been raised in Daraa Al Balad.
Western media persists in portraying the emergence of extremist armed groups in Daraa, south of Damascus, as the “cradle of the revolution” to overthrow the Syrian government. The reality is that Daraa was the touchpaper lit by hardline Libyan mercenaries imported into the city prior to 2011.
From Daraa, the “revolutionary” flames fanned by the US, UK and Israeli-led coalition headquartered in Jordan, funded by Gulf-state blood money, would engulf Syria for ten long years.
In Daraa, the CIA/MI6-backed Muslim Brotherhood extremist gangs fronted the orchestrated uprising, power multiplied by Libyan arms and terrorist factions and given credibility by the colonial media complex spearheaded by the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera.
Attempt to absorb extremist military into Russian-controlled armed brigades backfires
In 2018, an uneasy truce was brokered by the Russian reconciliation teams, and the illegal armed groups that remained in Daraa Al Balad, the hub of the violent US-sponsored insurgency, were persuaded to surrender their heavy weapons but allowed to keep their light arms as part of the peace deal.
Russia effectively attempted to bring these brutal armed groups into line by absorbing them into Russian-founded and controlled armed divisions.
According to armed-group-aligned media outlets, a former Free Syrian Army leader, Ahmed Al-Awda was given command of the 8th Brigade, “a subdivision of the Russian-founded Fifth Corps.”
However, this was perhaps a miscalculation by Russia in its desire to bring fighting on the southern front to a swift conclusion. The armed groups that had committed multiple war crimes and atrocities against Syrian civilians and anti-terrorism armed forces had no intention of relinquishing their campaign of retaliatory crimes against anyone they considered to be loyal to the Syrian government and state.
A vicious offensive was unleashed by these extremist gangs formerly associated with terrorist Al Qaeda and ISIS factions in the southern region.
Since mid-2019, even the EU-funded Syrian Observatory for ‘Human Rights’ reported on more than 1,136 attacks and assassinations that claimed the lives of 774 Syrians, including 12 women and 22 children, by gunfire, IED detonations, as well as suicide car and motorcycle attacks.
The gangs also fought among themselves, assassinating rival gang leaders and members.
In July 2021, civilians including a child were killed and injured when the armed gangs shelled the National Hospital in Daraa, having clearly replenished their heavy-weapons arsenal.
The presence of UK Special Forces in the region was an indication that the armed groups were still being trained in the use of IEDs for anti-government operations by the British – in March 2020, RAF Chinook helicopters based in Cyprus were scrambled to rescue an SAS soldier injured in an IED explosion “deep inside the warzone” in southern Syria.
I met Adham Alkarad, commander of the Engineering and Missile Division of the FSA, in September 2018 after a precarious visit to Daraa, while the ink was not yet dry on the Russian-brokered agreement.
Alkarad cornered me as a British journalist, assuming I was sympathetic to the cause, and informed me that they would never capitulate and that, even with light weapons, they would continue their violent US coalition-backed-crusade to topple the Syrian government and to wipe out “loyalists” who condemned the armed group’s presence in Daraa.
Alkarad told me back then that the protests would continue and that he would contact the BBC and CNN directly to elicit their coverage and support.
Alkarad designed the 500kg Omar Rocket that caused horrifying damage to civilian infrastructure and military targets during the reign of terror in Daraa. Alkarad was himself assassinated by unknown gunmen in October 2020.
Damascus loses patience with armed extremism and regains control of Daraa Al Balad
After months of negotiations, siege and military clashes between Damascus and the armed groups in Daraa, a final ceasefire was achieved on August 31, with Russia taking a less prominent role in the settlement. One week before this agreement was reached, King Abdullah II of Jordan had met with President Putin in Moscow to prioritise the resolution of the Daraa security issues.
On September 9, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained the agreement brokered to resolve the Daraa province tensions. It is interesting that this explanation was given during a joint press conference with Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs, Yair Lapid.
The original 2018 Russian deal with the armed groups had offered Israel guarantees that Iran and Hezbollah would be kept a safe distance from Israeli borders with Syria.
Lavrov effectively announced that the province would be handed back to the legitimate Syrian Arab Army forces and that extremist militants should again surrender their heavy weapons. Negotiations were underway about the withdrawal destination for the armed groups, as their remaining in Daraa was “unlikely.”
This is a blow for Israel, whose continued violations of Lebanese airspace and unlawful aggression against Syria have been largely unimpeded by retaliatory armed response and barely reported-on by the Western corporate media.
This might change with Damascus back in the southern driving seat and the shift in power that will almost certainly open the door to an Iranian and Hezbollah military presence closer to the Israel/Syria borders as a deterrent against Israeli offensives.
Certainly, when I entered Daraa Al Balad on September 12, we saw Russian and Syrian flags flying side by side, but in the square itself it was the Syrian flag that took pride of place. From conversations that I had with civilians, it was clear the ‘peace’ was still raw and volatile. Syrian soldiers from the 15th Division spoke to me about the prospects for lasting resolution and were optimistic.
A flare-up between armed group members and Syrian soldiers was defused respectfully while we were there. Children I spoke to told me they were glad to be finally going back to school. It is too early to predict the outcome of this agreement, but it is clear that there will be no compromise over Daraa and its surrounding countryside being back under the control of Damascus and the Syrian military until peace is fully restored and relations normalised between state and citizenry.
What does this power shift mean for Damascus and the US Coalition including Israel?
It is important to review the Daraa events in the context of emerging geopolitical alliances and concessions, in order to grasp the significance of what has just happened in southern Syria.
On September 13, the Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennet, visited Egypt for the first time in a decade, ostensibly to discuss Israel/Palestine relations with President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi. Egypt is moving towards normalisation of relations with Turkey, strained since the toppling of Muslim Brotherhood’s man in Cairo, President Mohammed Mursi, in 2013.
The Egyptian Consul General in Damascus has intimated that conditions for a full recovery of Egyptian-Turkish bilateral relations is the withdrawal of Turkey from Syrian territory.
Perhaps the most significant concession to Damascus in the aftermath of Daraa has been made by the US itself. Desperate to avoid Hezbollah being hailed as the champion of the Lebanese people after they secured oil supplies from Iran via Syria, the US Ambassador to Lebanon intervened to partially lift sanctions on Syria in order to facilitate the transfer of natural gas and electricity from Egypt to Lebanon via pipelines between Jordan and southern Syria.
Parts of the pipelines in Syria are in need of repair as they traverse Daraa towards Homs and then to Tripoli in northern Lebanon.
#Syria's Minister of Energy estimated the cost of rehabilitating destroyed pipelines: $10 million and four months of work.https://t.co/B6VBHfHxQO
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) September 7, 2021
This not only informs us why Daraa was pivotal to US energy and resource-theft plans in Syria, but also shows us the intelligence of the Damascus moves to secure Daraa at this pivotal point in the regional chess game. The US has had its hand forced by a nation that has resisted its proxy military intervention for ten years and by Syria’s most steadfast allies in Lebanon.
Jordan has for some time been trying to break free of its colonial chains and to normalise trade relations with neighbouring Syria. The breakthrough came in September 2021, when Syria was included in a four-way meeting hosted by Jordan and including Lebanon and Egypt, to focus on the logistics of Egyptian gas and electricity supply to energy-deprived Lebanon. This was the first visit of Syrian officials to Jordan since 2011–- the start of the dirty CIA/MI6-led war against Syria.
The final blow to US Coalition and Israeli/Turkish neocolonialist agendas in Syria came with the President Assad, President Putin summit on September 16 in Moscow. During a 90-minute closed session, the two leaders discussed military, political and economic priorities that included the Daraa province return to Syrian state control and the potential full and final liberation of Idlib in the north-west from Turkish direct and proxy terrorist occupation.
This summit, and the Syrian/Russian slamming of both Turkish and US illegal occupation and annexation of Syrian territory, does not bode well for the NATO member state regime-change project that has been an expensive, abject failure since its initiation in 2011.
The consequences of the Daraa resolution will be far-reaching for Israel, Turkey and the CIA/MI6 project to control the Syrian central economic hub in the Middle East.
Damascus, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have stolen the march on their enemies, despite the pressure Syria is under from the multi-spectrum war waged against it for ten years and it remains to be seen how the US Coalition will try to scramble back from this ignominious defeat and avoid admitting they have been forced to take a first step in normalising relations with President Assad.
Originally published on RT.com
Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist and photographer who has worked extensively in the Middle East – on the ground in Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Palestine, while also covering the conflict in Yemen since 2015. Follow her on Twitter @VanessaBeeley, or read her blog at The Wall Will Fall.
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Completely missing from news on US sites on Youtube. The end of the decade long multiple disruptions in the Middle East is much desired.
CIA/MI6-backed Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, toppled. But when will the CIA/MI6-backed Muslim Brotherhood in both the USA and the UK be toppled?
Two brief news updates.
From Pepe @theRealPepeEscobar: “Pay VERY close attention. Xi is inviting 33 LATIN AMERICAN NATIONS to be part of the Eurasia-Africa-Americas New Silk Roads.”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E_qBGidVEAgsytR?format=jpg&name=large
From Syrian Armed Forces: Launching a coordinated drive to clear illegal occupation forces out of Northern Syria. Russia warns NATZO member Turkey to withdraw its armed forces from Idlib.
We’ve obviously failed to mobilize pubic opinion with the tried and true techniques of referring to Assad as a ‘dictator’, ginning up anything that looks like minority suppression and assorted false flag chemical attacks so what follows is a constant low level of violence against that country. This is a hopeful sign that people are just not taking the bait any more — the easily led are consumed by domestic concerns and conspiracies, there’s none of them around to drown out the voices of reason and dissent here.
What we need to really explore is why we felt it was in our interests to destabilize — destroy — a relatively progressive, modern, Middle East state. Maybe they’d committed the gross sin of refusing to see Iran as the embodiment of evil. Maybe it was their skepticism over the liberation of Iraq (because they bore the brunt of the refugee fallout). There may have been more subtle motives in play — we all tend to think that the ME is all about oil but much more pressing is water. Iraq has it, Syria could be used to transport it. Water’s needed to ‘green’ the desert, something Israel’s famous for, but the local sources are limited — the West Bank’s an aquifer, the areas that get invaded in Lebanon are watersheds but not very big ones. (Much of Israel’s history, especially wars with its neighbors, are — we’re told — to defend against aggression but by some coincidence they always end up expanding into, and often taking over, watersheds.)
“What we need to really explore is why we felt it was in our interests to destabilize — destroy — a relatively progressive, modern, Middle East state.”
It is not in our interests to destroy any progressive secular Middle Eastern state. It was not even in Israel’s interest. But it is in the interest of certain Anglo Zionazi Capitalist interests. The tale wagged the dog.
VIVA SURIA IN SHAH ALLAH
Very fine work from the always excellent Vanessa Beeley. Indeed this is what proper journalism looks like: a disinterested presentation and analysis of the facts as perceived on the ground.
The coverage of the same issues by the Western MSM is agitprop of the worst kind.
Yup. The financial costs of corporate military technocracy increase every year. The human costs also rise… Countries like Syria join the destruction of history, in order to supply the present populace with more slaughter and more weapons.
This financial counter only applies to the United States. A country that spends 10 times more per year than the nearest “enemy” State. How many billions has it taken to “liberate” countries like Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Syria???
Total Cost of War on Terror
Total Cost of War on Terror to Taxpayers in the United States (nationalpriorities.org)
“A funny thing about the U$ Congress is that they measure their wars in dollars”. — Anatole France
I’m puzzled ! Months ago it was revealed the Australian government had ordered 85 million ‘covid ‘ doses for 2022, and a further 25 million doses for 2023.
As Australia’s population is around 25 million, 85 million doses is more than enough to dose EVERY Australian three times… Meaning ?
It was intended way back then that all children & infants would be jabbed, not just everyone 18+, or 16+; that a third dose was intended, call it a ‘booster’ if you want; and more jabs would be required in 2023..
My puzzlement is over why so many still believe “They wont come after the kids !” and that “fully vaxxed” means being jabbed only twice.
The definition of “fully”, like that of all words central to the current War Against Freedom, is fluid. (As Humpy Dumpty explained to Alice).
Also baffled about this ‘flu’ becoming the major issue. Always spreading, always more dangerous, always more infective, always the issue of the day while the ME is relegated to old news. The US ‘withdrawal’ may be the result of Middle East countries resolving their issues without the US.
A member of the Situationist International once remarked “Whenever i hear the word culture i reach for my chequebook.” I’m reminded of the comment every time the government, Expert, or Professional, claims a need for a media campaign to Educate the public about the latest Something of Concern. Such always has me guessing what the slogan will be: governments etc all deeming that a slogan and education campaign are the same thing.
Wars are never a total failure for arms manufacturers and all ancillary industries profiting in genocide.
I just stumbled upon an interesting story about CCP vaccine diplomacy: “Syrian Minister of Health Hasan al-Ghabash welcomed the Chinese COVID-19 vaccines at the
international airport of Damascus, Syria, on July 29, 2021. The Syrian Health Ministry received a batch of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines provided by the Red Cross Society of China.”
I wonder why Sinovac and not Sputnik was the jab of choice, or perhaps it was a pharmaceutical duo.
It’s fascinating how this virus is so geographically specific. More than
15,000 desperate refugees in the most dismal unsanitary conditions are under a bridge in Texas none are masked or vaxxed and none are dying from COVID.
In Delhi India COVID has been wiped out: “97% decline in Delhi cases with Ivermectin is decisive – period. It represents the last word in an epic struggle to save lives and preserve human rights. It’s a victory of reason over corruption, good over evil, and right over wrong. It is as significant as David’s victory over Goliath. It is an absolute vindication of Ivermectin and early outpatient treatment. It is a clear refutation of the WHO, FDA, NIH, and CDC’s policies of “wait at home until you turn blue” before you get treatment.”
Maybe, COVID is an imperialist “gangster disease” emerging from the US funded biological lab in Wuhan serving the interests of International financiers, WEF, Wall Street, big tech, big pharma, and CCP hoodlums. Perhaps, it’s One Big World after all.
Right from the start I noted from WHO figures (Covid-19 Deaths by Country) that Con-19 was a disease of affluent Western countries with a strong banking system.
Notice, how the countries most aligned with the US are going “whole-hog’ into coercing vaccine passports. All Western liberal democracies seem like they’re being digitally colonized by an international World Order. It’s as if the international hedge fund ghouls decided the West was going to “replicate” China’s technocratic surveillance state as a preferable way to sustain control.
An Australian Capital Territory (ACT) politician has said that once the target of 80% vaxxed-with-an-experimental-risky substance is reached ‘it will take around a week to vax the remaining 20%’..In Military terms, as the military is in charge, ‘a mop-up operation’.
The ‘mop-up’: a “covid cluster” will magically be discovered in an apartment block. resulting in severe restrictions on occupants. They’ll stay locked-up until all have been given ‘full’ injections. Should any continue to resist there’s collective punishment – delayed “freedom” – turning occupants against the recalcitrant.
For others, the mop-up will be pursued by ‘public health’ employees, backed by police and military, going from house to house.
Submission will be entirely voluntary.
Was it Mao Zedong who said “Power To Those who Own The Syringe !” ? Or was that “Power comes out of the barrel of a gun !” ?
‘Political power comes through the barrel of a gun’
Mao said Justice comes out of the barrel of a gun. He won justice for his country by defeating the European puppet regime (Kuomintang), the Japanese Army of Occupation, and the would be U$ Army of Occupation,
RT?
Is that a problem?
They’re too objective.
It is for Russophobes..
“emerging geopolitical alliances”
I think that covid has demonstrated that shifting alliances have settled some time ago. (Were their serious deviations in the response to the declared pandemic? A couple of times and those deviations – Burundi, Tanzania – were dealt with. I’d like to read more about Syria’s response to the emerging global biosecurity police State.) The world is united – against God and nature, even if games are played so that those who profit from war (monetarily and emotionally) can continue to profit and vent their anger at God and all that is decent.
There are many bought journalists in the world but it is always refreshing to read the words of Vanessa Beeley, who, together with Eva Bartlett, gave us on-the-ground reporting from war-torn Syria. Otherwise we might never have known what was really going on. Now, thankfully, as when the Yanks took their collective butts out of Vietnam, some kind of normality can return.
We have no longer got to refer to such journalists as part of the alternative media. They are indeed the new media. And the new media is going to replace the corporate-owned presstitutes and stenographers that dish out indoctrination from the Daily Dirt.
Double vaxxed. Got coof
Chris Rocks not.
https://thephaser.com/2021/09/vaxed-chris-rock-gets-coof-tells-everyone-to-get-vaxed/
Orwellian. Get jabbed so you can get Covid .. safely.
“This is a tie in to his soon to be released video: How not to get your ass kicked in by the Scamdemic Gestapo!”
“Unfortunately it results into one being turned into a lab rat victim of Billy Eugenic’s Toxic Viral Cull Juice Euthanasia Death Shot Gene Experiment. The result of which is fatal in many cases.”
The lady is 70years old .. here is the ugly video. https://youtu.be/w2WbNKxE6gw
And it takes two Bombardier Black Beetles to hold her down.
Yes but just a seven vote swing in the British parliament in 2013 and things might have turned out a lot worse for the people of Syria
But the Virus war is going great along with the climate war
Or the control all war as they should be called.
As Globalist are busy deindustrialising the west , they even want to stop farming.
Energy prices are set to rise a lot. So the lack of heat to ward off winter will kill more.
Figure me this
Every year they give a vaccine for the flu. Yet every year a lot die in the winter from the flu. But why the winter. They think that as people retreat indoors away from the cold.
This close contact gives the flu virus more time to spread.
So now lockdowns make sense.
Quandtifying the Evil. Coming soon on https://moneycircus.substack.com/archive
But viruses are not contagious, you have been brainwashed too.
What you think viruses exist?
read carefully I said ‘They think’. I have no idea if a virus exist. I can not see them so how can I know. Take all information with a piece of salt.
I was pointing out the contradiction in what they say is real
Namely clustering together at home helps the spread of the flu virus
But clustering together at home helps stop the spread of the covid virus.
Agree. Also,
:- the flu jabs have been vital to keep the disease going, as others explained here some time ago. I.e., flu jabs lead to flu variants.
:- none of the great medical experts seem to have any opinion on the disappearance of flu.
They have been told to keep their mouths shut. To become “a great medical expert” (ie, a media mouthpiece) like Neil Ferguson you must advise only what the regime pays you to advise.
My mentor Prof.Robert Harkness used to remark that, up to a certain level of authority, scientists were pushed by the opinion of their peers; but above that level they were pulled by a gravitational attraction emanating from the sphere of government.
“just a seven vote swing in the British parliament in 2013 and things might have turned out a lot worse for the people of Syria”
How the Westminster regime votes is irrelevant to the people of Syria. Or to us, for that matter, because Britain is not governed from Parliament.
10 years of this qualifies Assad the title of Hard Man, while so immensely calm.
Ophthalmologists rule.
Good update on the mostly forgotten US attack on Syria . That struggle is over for now as the goldfish mentality in America is filled with fear of the Covid plague , Biden versus Trump , and China. The collapse in Afghanistan becoming part of internal fight in the US , causing barely a ripple among the masses.
Good news, more reality is dawning over covidian bureaucracy.
This decision was presented to public as .. “we can handle 1% of mostly mild Covid cases” in schools. While in fact 1-3% is official range analytical specificity of PCR test (infection diagnostic specificity is always zero for PCR) meaning that it is zero or low infection prevalence situation and hence all PCR test positives are false positive according to WHO. The “coronavirus” is not present in school population and hence pandemic is over, all pandemic measures including genocidal vaxxing must be rescinded as they are harmful for children development and teachers health.
Hope you’re right.
The covidian bureaucracy will of course see it differently – because of the unbelievable money involved…
“Either the world becomes a garden, or it becomes a battlefield”
Dr Josef Heringer
(June 25, 1941 – )
Nice thought.
I wish I could remember that poem about the peacefulness of the garden contrasted with the underground battle between the roots. It was written a long time ago, and I was relieved recently to read recently that there is much mutual cooperation going on underground, as there is above ground.
Once everyone in Syria has a “smartphone”, the war is over.
Everything else is gilding the lily.
The CIA
Capitalism’s Invisible Army
“The crime syndicate that keeps on giving.”
“We inject the World. Cull Juice anyone?”
Yet our own smartphones have left us just as vulnerable to a different type of war…
One which is no less deadly to the evolution of our species.
Well put.
So the West talks to Taliban, but won’t talk to Assad?!!
Women in secular Syria are happy when peace reigns…
Many, many thanks to Britain’s very own Vanessa Beeley, from a British expat in Israel. Daraa is the province nearest to Israel, hence most subject to subversion by Anglo Zionazi Capitalist influence, as well as direct armed intervention by NATZO’s ISIS proxies via its border with Israel. For this reason, while most reports are focussed on NATZO’s armed toehold in Northern Syria via NATZO members U$A and Turkey, it was a delight to read this snippet from Vanessa on complete liberation in the South:
“The consequences of the Daraa resolution will be far-reaching for Israel, Turkey and the CIA/MI6 project to control the Syrian central economic hub in the Middle East. Damascus, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have stolen the march on their enemies, despite the pressure Syria is under from the multi-spectrum war waged against it for ten years.”
Actually, I think Israel lost Daraa years ago. It is Druse territory, and the Druse had a policy of political neutrality because there are many Druse in Israel. But when the Israeli army introduced NATZO’s Saudi Wahabi terrorists into Daraa, the Wahabi began shooting up Druse as apostates. The Druse fought back, but when the Israel army began treating wounded Wahabi terrorists in IDF field hospitals! That was when Israel lost Daraa, in my opinion as a mere onlooker.
Vanessa, being on the spot as always, has given an authoritative account of the course of negotiations for the NATZO’s ignominious retreat.
“There was a stone in the middle of the road,
In the middle of the road there was a stone”
The stone was Syria.
“The West’s campaign to topple Bashar al Assad is all but over”
That’s been the claim for years now. And yet….
And yet?
And yet the war and occupation continue on
You are not keeping abreast of events. The war is not over, but the tide has long since turned. Idlib next?
“You are not keeping abreast of events”
Thanks for telling me what I’ve been doing ?
‘The war is not over, but the tide has long since turned”
Has the tide turned?
What about the entire north east?- Chock full of US military bases, huge in size, with airstrips etc.,? As the US backed PKK pilfer oil from that huge chunk of Syrian territory impoverishing the rest of the nation?
Well what are you going to do about it? ……Thought so.
If Erdogan pulls his troops out of Idlib, Syria, then the only obstacle to Syrian sovereignty over its own territory are the US troops protecting American oil, which happens to be under Syria feet, and the Kurds. And the Kurds always align themselves with the losing side.
It is likely just a matter of time. Russia though, could have handled things much better and it wasted too much time and effort negotiating with too many “agreement incapable” parties. However Russia and others seem to be slowly getting what they and Syria want and that is of course the complete removal of all the anti-Assad factions from occupied land. Amongst other places, that will includes the various factions in Idlib, the US squatters in Syrian oilfields and the occupiers cleared out of the Golan Heights. It seems that yet more humiliation is on the way for some.
Have you read their latest humiliation? Iran is welcomed into the SCO:
“A rudderless West watched on, as the 20th anniversary meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization focused on shaping up Afghanistan and kicking off full-spectrum Eurasian integration.”
https://thesaker.is/eurasia-takes-shape-how-the-sco-just-flipped-the-world-order/
With a photo of the delegates, appropriately labelled “The Cradle” (of the Eurasian Revolution). In this report by Pepe Escobar, Europe is referred to by its proper geographical name, the Western Peninsula of Eurasia.
Twenty five years ago I scared a French Cultural attache, at a public meeting on “Iran and The Bomb” in Israel, by referring to EurAsia from Dublin to Vladivostok. Nowadays of course I would have added: and Beijin.
It’s a ‘claim’ that’s been true for years too. It’s just taking the boobies in the USukiz ‘elites’ and the booby in Ankara a long time to realise that they’re beaten, and that they have no chance of succeeding; especially with Russia still steadily there, and still facing them down.
Everyone in the USukiz ‘elites’ who still has two working brain cells knows the the West has no realistic answers to Russia’s current generation of hyper-speed weapons; and that the Russian ruling coterie has no intention of blinking. The Russians know that the secure safety of their own state relies on their steadiness in their near-abroad. Think back into recent history, starting in 1940; further back if you like. Find a time when Russians blinked in the face of their attackers…
Soon, both Syrian and Lebanese airspace will be completely stitched up by Syria’s Russian air-defence systems. And – as the US goes down into its own ‘collapse of USSR’ time – the thugs running zionistan-in-Palestine know that the days of their apartheid colony in the Levant are numbered. No-one else in the world is going to subsidise their racket as the dying Anglozionist empire has.
I suspect too that they’re just beginning to see that their nuclear weapons are quite useless to them in the event, except as a very fast-acting mass-suicide method: self-inflicted zyanide. Iran’s missile fleet alone guarantees that, quite apart from all the other opposition such as Hezbollah’s own huge missile arsenal. Iron sieve? Joke!
There must be a whole lot of slow-dawning ‘Oh shit!’ moments going on amongst the zionists right now. The time when they have to make peace with their Arab – and Persian – neighbours, and agree to live in equality with them, is approaching inexorably.
Even MobinS-the-Fool is waking up to all this, and rearranging the al Saud gang’s alignments accordingly. Still seething about getting his arse kicked by the Houthis, after his gratuitous gung-ho aggression against them. But mercilessly constrained by the realities.
“The West’s campaign to topple Bashar al Assad is all but over”. Exactly right. Just a slow, slow burn of appalled realisation going on amongst his attackers, that’s all.
“especially with Russia still steadily there, and still facing them down”
Is Russia ‘facing them down”? Depends how one interprets that term?
Russia is pragmatic.. Turkey is pragmatic….
The US has to be pushed out for there to be any real claim of Syria being liberated. That’s the reality of the situation in my opinion.
Link
Turkey is in Syria because Russia has okayed their presence- there is no doubt of that in my mind. Assad talks the talk, but, he’s shrewd as well. He knows what his limitations are. He knows what his strengths are. I’ve long been of the mind that Assad complains loudly but knows that Turkey has no interest in seeing the Kurds occupy and control that very large piece of Syria. And on that they are in agreement.
Yes Penny, you describe very well a complex balancing act, aka realpolitik. I don’t disagree with your observations. But such acts are always mobile, tending towards conclusions not yet realised.
Still, the reality is that the Anglozionist empire is beaten in Syria, and in the entire ME, and the slow realisation and piecemeal withdrawal will be drawn out and messy. But it’s already happening, and it will continue to a finish – because the Az empire, and especially it’s stronghold, the US, are on the skids.
They’re getting pushed inch by inch out of the ME because they no longer have the ‘world-hegemon’ – hah! – means to hold it, and as time passes, that will get worse, and they’ll go full Saigon/Kabul eventually on the whole region – helicopter extractions and all – LOL
OTOH, Russia has recovered spectacularly from its own ‘collapse of USSR’ time, and is now governed by a faction firmly determined not to let anything like that happen again, as long as they have power. An early upshot, apart from the undeniable upgrading of Russian civil life that’s currently going on, is that Rus technology, being scientific-realist rather than oligarch-ripoff-serving, has produced a new generation of war-toys to which the West has literally no answers, and no prospect at all, even in the medium term, of countering them effectively.
With USAmerica sliding slowly down the tubes, Erdogan – who’s a booby, but still quite a crafty-realist politician – will accept that he absolutely needs Russia’s friendliness – and China’s and the Belt and Road’s too, btw – and that he can’t hold territory in Northern Syria and get that seriously-essential friendliness at the same time. Both China and Russia have historical and current reasons to be wary about Turkey. They will continue to lean quietly on Recep to toe their joint line. And Recep – or his replacement – will cave eventually. They have imperative needs for what only the Sino-Rus duopoly can supply. The Ottoman empire will not be resurrecting any time soon.
And – as ever – the fool Kurds will realise belatedly that they’ve backed the wrong gamble – again. Fortunately for them, they’re still likely to be welcomed back tolerantly into liberated Syria.
I should perhaps point out that I sympathise with the Kurds, being myself a member of a nation whose homeland is – for the moment – still a province of someone else’s still-posturing-and-strutting ex-empire; the bits and pieces that are still left of it. But Kurds haven’t been too successful at picking the best side for their own national liberation. Their nation is still fragmented, and the short-term prospects for reunification and liberation don’t look brilliant exactly.
Cheers Penny! 🙂
Still banging the anti-Russia drum. What’s your suggestion for getting rid of Syria’s uninvited guests, that’s if you actually want them to go.
I don’t think Penny is anti-Russian. If I may summarise our ten years of friendly agreeing-to-disagree over the probable endgame, Penny holds a “realist” position and knows the Turkish/Kurdish area of Northern Syria, but her perpetual gloom reminds me of Mrs.Mopp in WW2:
“It’s being so cheerful as keeps me going”.
Analysis of the Patriot anti-missile system (by Jeffrey Lewis of Middlebury Institute of International Studies, USA) showed that it had only intercepted one missile – an old Scud – over 28 years. Yet, Saudi Arabia paid $5.4 billion for it in 2015, Romania $4 billion in 2017, Poland $4.5 billion in 2018 and Turkey $3.5 billion in 2019. – Conn Hallinan 2019
I know, m. Laff? I’m falling about! An even bigger Iron Sieve. That’s what happens when cut-throat salesmen – with imperial military thugs looming behind them – do their bamboozling stunts on the venal politicians of smaller countries. The suckers get sold turkeys…
And a Saudi prince paid half a $Billion for an Oxford-certified Leonardo.
A professor of physics at Israel’s Technion told me that Uncle $cam’s Patriots did more damage in Israel than Saddam’s Scuds did. I used to go out at night to watch the Patriots; they went off with a really spectacular Flash Bang Wallop!
Deraa is a lot closer to Damascus than the northern areas currently out of government control. Deraa had more potential to produce a sudden collapse of the Assad government than these areas, so its neutralisation is a significant victory.
The amount of bombs dropped on the Palestinians, Syrians and the Lebanese communities are untold. The amount of life lost and destruction is right in front of your eyes. Also untold. That’s if anyone cares to look.
Thanks for the article Vanessa!
“It’s like Baghdad’s Green Zone… but without the old world grace and charm.”
“beep, beep.”
What exactly is the official story and who are the officials that concocted it ?
After a certain age, people are expected to do their own homework…
A picture is worth a thousand words
You’ve made my day
Thanks. First laugh I’ve had today.
I guess this would make the occupied north of Syria top priority for the US/nato/isreal criminal pact. They are going to need more trucks now their southern pipeline plans have turned into a pipe dream.
For a country to withstand the brutal and total war waged against it by criminal ‘leaders’ in the west, says a lot about its people. For ten years the Syrian people have stood by their country, its leaders, and its values. That’s twice the length of war Blighty suffered during WWII. A war we are now inflicting on Syria, having steamrolled through Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, proudly holding a rubber stamp from the UN like it was a banner.
These Syrian leaders have done a fine job defending their country and people from the criminal mob, who for the moment have their sticky fingers on unlimited power and resources.
The gov’t in Damascus does have a silver lining in the chaos as they can rebuild a Syria fit for the modern era. Let’s hope that the rebuilding will not include companies from countries who attacked Syria and destroyed the place.
The criminality of Assad’s enemies does not mean he’s a non-criminal himself. He put his leadership before the lives of half a million of his own people which no good person would do. A good leader paradoxically will always refuse to be one.
😂🤣😂🤣😂
At various points rumours appeared in the MSM that he had fled to Russia – wishful thinking at the CIA, MI6 or Saudi HQs, faithfully transmitted by the scribes who pass on their wishes… Given the barbarity of his opponents I doubt whether it would have saved many lives if Assad had fled and left al-Nusra etc. to take over.
The reason the huge majority of Syrians inside and outside Syria voted for Assad in May is precisely because he did not abandon his people even when ISIS terrorists were less than 20km from his home.
Christians, Alawites, Shia and even secular Sunnis had nothing to gain from an opposition consisting mostly of takfiris, and much to lose if they won. Together they may have been as much as 40% of the Syrian population. One British or US journalist actually admitted that Christians tended to support Assad, but then turned it into a “serve them right” if the opposition won and slaughtered them, and said they should cease backing Assad forthwith if they did not want that to happen.
Assad could stand down to avoid bloodshed instead of being part of a war. Joseph Stalin fought the Nazis but that doesn’t mean he was a good person.
Or he could be a good little nazi and lie to his people and waste their money killing innocent civilians and destroying property. Something every western leader has done throughout the past hundred years.
You need a new rock as the one you have presently is letting in the light.
So will you jump off a cliff? In the name of preserving intellect, of course.
Right. Elections are the answer. Not. Perhaps the warmongers could, you know, leave Syria alone?
Replaced by what? No indications that the “opposition” could form a stable government. They often fought each other as much as they fought government forces.
Forgot to mention Vanessa, thanks for all your hard work bringing us the facts.
Ditto that! And for the steadfast courage that has so shamed the Western mediawhores who can’t hold a candle to you, Vanessa! Deep, deep respect!
Sorry, i couldn’t decipher your comment from all the bullshit.
You might as well have said the same about Churchill and the UK in 1940.
We could easily have avoided all that bloodshed by letting Hitler’s tanks roll up Pall Mall.
Every nation has to decide whether to surrender its values and its culture or surrender some of its lives to retain them.
It’s not for me to judge what decision the Syrian people took, but they do not seem to regret the decisions they have made…..
I’m no admirer of Winston Churchill but unlike Joseph Stalin he did not kill his own people. What’s Assad’s record in dealing with Syrian people?
Churchill did not kill his own peoplel He used ANZAC – Australian and New Zealand soldiers. Churchill’s cannon fodder. 1915. Gallipoli.
Churchill in fact did kill scores of his own British civilians as “First Lord of the Admiralty” in an open conspiracy to bring the USA into WWI. He loaded up the passenger liner Lusitania with munitions as cargo. Germany did everything possible to warn potential passengers that the ship was a fair target for their U-boats including attempting to sell ads in the NYC papers saying as much. Wilson got the US into the war based on this German “atrocity.” Does this “technique” sound familiar?You will not read a whisper of this in CIApedia, but James Corbett does a thorough report on it. As for Churchill, a psychopath does not change his spots between world wars.
Was Churchill the guy who bragged “The World is My Oyster !” ?
So central to stories of The War are stories about Churchill i’ve often wondered if The War was a play put on just so Churchill, The Star, could shine. The War being only a backdrop.
Winston Churchill’s policies are partly to blame for the Bengal famine in 1943 that killed 3 million people. At the time the Indian subcontinent was a British colony so those 3 million could be considered Churchill’s “own people”.
True, Winston Churchill was a bad human. Just because his enemy was bad, it doesn’t imply he was good. The same point I’m making about Assad and his criminal enemies. Should Churchill have given up on Britain for Adolf Hitler? Of course not but people should not say Winston Churchill was an ethical person either like this article’s author is implying with Assad.
Oh Churchill did kill several million of what were nominally ‘his own people’, with the preventable, but deliberately ignored Bengal famine. At a time when Indians were volunteering to fight in WW2, on Britain’s side. One of Churchill’s many criminalities.
Your taking Orwellian Speak too literally. Your basically saying a good parent will just step aside, stop protecting their kids the more intense and drastic the kidnappers efforts get. Obviously spouting on behalf of Brigade 7 Seven but still making a total fool of yrself
I don’t know too much about Assad but I doubt he cares about Syrian civilians as much a parent cares about his/her children. I have no problem in changing my opinion about Assad if you can show me that he cares more about his people’s welfare than his inherited presidency.
A good parent will do whatever it takes to protect his/her children, even if it means stepping aside for whatever reason. Assad is putting his real or imagined rights before his people’s rights. He’s protecting no one.
Who should he step aside for?
Will the bombing continue until the right candidate is inserted?
My mother was a ‘good parent’ in that, like a mother duck, she’d savage any bastard who thought they could harm me. That was her right, hers alone..
60 years later, and i can still recall her yelling down the Christian Brother teacher for giving me The Strap. But there were no restraints on her using one on me at home. Ah, such Fond Memories…
You really need to elaborate. (I have no interest in ignoring Assad’s crimes, whether or not his people support him. Did he allow the torture Maher Arar and others? Does Syria torture people? As far as I can tell, his people do support him. But they too shouldn’t ignore his crimes.) In any case, I would like to know what his response to the covid hoax is. National leaders across the globe are taking their marching orders from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, Augustin Carstens and the rest of that powerful gang. Syria is not outside the global system of Corporatocracy. It’s simply an unfortunate, and convenient, target of the war-mongering component of the Corporatocracy. (The more socialistic you are, the more likely you’re going to be targetted for military attention by the fascist executive of the Corporatocracy. Not to mention propagandized trolls who engage in endless, mindless anti-communist ranting.) Randolph Bourne was mostly right. He wrote that war is the health of the State. It’s the health of the Corporatocracy State, which includes the powerful military industrial complex.
‘Unlimited’ power and resources, Peter? On which planet are they keeping those? Certainly not this one.
Vaccination situation in Syria:
https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/updates-covid-19-vaccination-syria-august-2021-enar
Assad and his wife supposedly had Covid in March and took the Russian Sputnik vaccine in June.
I can’t see them having access to any other kind of vaccine – embargoes etc.
They could also get Sinovac from China; a real old fashioned one-dose flu vaccine made from inactivated Corona virus.
China is ready to provide that. It began investing in Syria even as the first signs of imperial defeat appeared.
Thanks! There’s another article linked to on that page. An excerpt: “WHO welcomes a new donation from the Kuwait Fund For Arab Economic Development to support health care for all people-in-need in Syria. This new contribution of US$ 3 million comes at a critical time as the health system faces shortages in resources due to sanctions and is overwhelmed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.” Syria is screwed. How is this liberation?
“overwhelmed by the ongoing covid-19 pandemic” I bet! Like all the other countries which have chosen – or have been forced by economic conditions – to take a laid-back attitude to the ‘pandemic’, and see what laisser-faire herd-immunity can do.
Rather better than all the states that have obediently followed the World Hoax Organisations diktats, as it’s turning out; especially now that the poison-stabs are proving to be such a huge disaster. Countries which have evaded that have been lucky.
When the time comes that it’s possible to assess accurately what has been Syria’s experience with the covid-flu, I surmise that we shall see that they too have had the good fortune to have been deprived of the ‘correct’ WHO-mandated responses to the c-flu.
The newspaper of a small Greek left group fraternally connected to the British SWP complained about the deal in its latest issue, citing some supposedly Syrian micro group – probably two men and a CIA handler. The fight against Assad must continue, the handler said.
The British SWP or Socialist Workers Party was set up by Tony Cliff aka Yigael Glückstein. From his wikipedia entry:
Cliff grew up in British-ruled Mandatory Palestine; notable Zionist and future Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett was a family friend and frequent visitor to his family home. He had two prominent uncles: the noted doctor Hillel Yaffe and agroinomist and Zionist activist Haim Margaliot-Kalvarisky. His piano teacher was a sister of Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel, and his father’s business partner was one of Weizmann’s brothers.
Cliff was born in Mandate Palestine about the time it came under British rule. His trajectory was hardly a typical Zionist one. He spent most of his life in Britain although he seems to have had a long fight to get a British passport and his residency was long in question – I believe he had to move to Ireland for a time. Saying he was related to so and so does not tell us very much – it sounds like he could have made quite a career in Israel with these connections – so why didn’t he? His group has tended to condemn Israel, whether sincerely or not, and this is by no means true of all left groups in Britain (another group, Workers’ Liberty, defends Israel and calls opponents anti-Semitic).
A (Stalinist) critic of Cliff did make the observation that his adoption of an Anglo-sounding name for his political career in Britain suggested he wasn’t as confident that British workers were as free of xenophobia or anti-Semitism as he claimed. Although his son, Donny Gluckstein, hung onto his original name.
The excuses people make for the pretend opposition, no wonder they find it so easy.
Actually I find him and the SWP deeply suspect, I just don’t think it has anything to with his family knowing Moshe Sharrett ad infinitum. He could have just been another Zionist, but for whatever reason he set off for the island of rains.
“He could have just been another Zionist, but for whatever reason he set off for the island of rains.”
This is precisely the point.
I’m not sure that your position here is logical.
I am not sure I am arguing with logical people. His name was Gluckstein… he was born in Palestine… his family knew some Zionist luminaries… Elders gathering in a Prague cemetery once a century… Protocols…
That’s good to know.
Nothing can stop stupidity.
I suppose attempts can be made to stop it spreading.
But nobody competent works in a position of such responsibility today.
When it comes to the slaughter of innocents, the Empire of Ignorance, Hypocrisy, War and Greed has now surely surpassed that other Empire Of Ignorance,War, Hypocrisy and Greed.