Posted on 08/19/2015 8:52:13 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Syria approaching de facto partition amid Assad military setbacks
Regime forces have been ceding territory to rebel fighters and Islamic State to regroup in western strongholds
Kareem Shaheen in Beirut
Tuesday 4 August 2015 05.00 BST
The growing anarchy and stalemate in Syria has brought the country closer to de facto partition, as the overstretched and exhausted army of the president, Bashar al-Assad, retreats in the face of a war of attrition that has sapped its manpower.
The regime’s military has sought to retain a footprint in far-flung areas of the country, from Deir Ezzor in Syria’s eastern desert to Aleppo in the north and Deraa in the south, attempting to consolidate its hold over state institutions and protect its officer corps by retreating in the face of overwhelming offensives and subjecting lost territory to relentless and indiscriminate aerial campaigns.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
P!
Reports on geographic locations are useless without a map.
When you look at this Syria thing, you begin to understand that if you wish to “conquer” such countries, you really need a very large and omni-present occupying force....for indeterminate and indeterminable time. This was one of my biggest doubts about the Iraq war against Saddam when it was being threatened/proposed. What does it mean that you’ve “conquered” such a country? All around, you’ll have guerrilla fighters coming in across questionable borders; made more questionable by the conquering you’ve done eg; the vanquishing of the political structure of the country. You’re bound to have skirmishes and firefights pop up everywhere and anywhere. Combatants are uniformed, you can’t tell who’s who. The language is difficult for English-speakers; plus there is no democratic tradition; there is in fact a tradition of lying, cheating, tricking, faking. And above all, for Westerners, the idea of changing the dominant ideology from Islam to “democracy” or semi-democracy is blasphemy, a sin punishable by death in most cases.
So whatever we thought we were going to do there, I have little or no idea. As for what the Muslims do, it troubles me not to have one faction killing another. As long as we’re not involved.
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