Posted on 02/03/2016 9:27:21 AM PST by Trumpinator
After four months, Russia’s campaign in Syria is proving successful for Moscow
By Andrew Roth February 3 at 6:00 AM
MOSCOW — Four months after launching airstrikes in Syria, the Kremlin is confidentthat Moscow’s largest overseas campaign since the Soviet Union is paying off.
Under the banner of fighting international terrorism, President Vladimir Putin has reversed the fortunes of forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which were rapidly losing ground last year to moderate and Islamist rebel forces in the country’s five-year-old crisis. Government forces are now on the offensive, and on Tuesday, they scored their most significant victory yet, seizing the strategic town of Sheikh Miskeen from rebels who are backed by a U.S.-led coalition.
According to analysts and officials here, the Russian government believes it has won those dividends at a relatively low cost to the country’s budget, with minimal loss of life to its soldiers and with largely supportive public opinion of the war effort.
Also, we should remember all the Think Tank types shilling for Obama that declared Russia was doomed to failure in Syria because Obama is brilliant or some such.
The ISIS egg may have been laid in the stolidity of the Iraq war as fought by Bush but it was Obama who allowed the serpent's egg to hatch and breed.
This is excerpted but I think I forgot to click the button indicating that.
Well I sure hope our next president is able to stand up to Russia and Putin and stop them from killing innocent terrorists
The Russians did not turn the tide in Syria alone - Iran and the Lebanese Hizballah took some historic casualties on the ground - they were the ones who paid the blood price. The Russians provided high tech capabilities and professional management. In addition to the Russians, ISIS has been collecting powerful enemies who are building up. They now have the French carrier Charles DeGaulle dedicated full time to bombing them, and British SAS in downtown Raqaa designating individual (by name) jihadis on the move for airstrikes. Even the Japanese are contributing financially to screwing ISIS. The world is gradually mobilizing to clean up the mess of not only a withdrawal of moral American leadership, but an active undermining by the American administration.
Although the regime has not taken much ground in percentage terms, it has been effectively a one way street since the Russians jumped in - the regime and its allies advancing. Rebel counterattacks have been quickly reversed. And the land that they have captured has been strategic - securing the Alawite homeland, recapturing the roadway that links the Western cities where 70% of the population lives, encircling Aleppo (as of yesterday), and now cutting the last rebel main supply lines. They are nearing a strategic checkmate, perhaps this month.
Rebel casualties have skyrocketed. Rebel revenues have recently nose-dived, and their soldiers pay has been interrupted for the first time, especially ISIS. Supplies and new recruits which had been plentiful, have become scarce, and are now in danger of imminent cut-off. Rebel leadership is subject to assassination in their homes and headquarters.
The ISIS egg was securely imprisoned at the end of the Bush administration, in Camp Bucca Detention facility, along with much of the leadership of the Iranian surrogate Shi’ite militias which are now consolidating dictatorial control over areas of Iraq, just as the Iranian surrogate Hizballah did in Lebanon. Obama deliberately released these wolves from Camp Bucca within months of taking office, and colluded with the Saudis, Qataris and Turks to arm, train and fund these same Sunni wolves into fighting forces, including ISIS. Iran quickly re-established their released surrogates as well - instant civil war in Iraq, as a direct result of Obama’s policy. Obama then hastily pulled the cops off the street by withdrawing all US forces, shirttails flapping.
The blowback from supporting such fundamentally anti-Western war criminals is entirely the result of Obama’s policies - they are the center piece of his foreign policy - Arab Spring overthrows of moderate Arab Governments to install Muslim Brotherhood and Wahabbi regimes like ISIS. It is not something that just happened on his watch, it is the fruit of the central foreign policy efforts of his administration, running weapons from Libya and training “moderate” armies of jihadis. He has created the largest refugee movement since world war two, laid waste to ancient cities and a large percentage of the region’s industrial capacity, and taken home a Nobel Peace Prize in advance for his efforts.
Thank God that Obama’s destructive policies have largely failed, due to their ineptitude, the fortitude of some intended victims like the Egyptian military and the Kurds, Russian intervention in Syria, and unfortunately the success of anti-American Iranian expansion.
Time has been lost and the human toll has been huge, but it looks like the Obama drive to transform the Middle East is coming to an end, leaving mostly devastation in its wake. Instead of his grand vision of a new anti-western Sunni Caliphate to plague us for future generations, he will have to settle for just upgrading the anti-western Iranian regime to a nuclear power as his legacy. And a smoking ruin in the Middle East replete with orphans, widows and mass graves.
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