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Syria: will it prove to be the empire's final quagmire?
The West's long descent from the 1993 Wolfowitz Doctrine, one Pyrrhic victory after another.
December 14, 2024 | By Alex Krainer
On Sunday morning we woke up to the most surreal news: the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is no more. From the day the new-and-improved Jabhat al-Nusra, now renamed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), launched their attack on Syria (Wednesday, 27 November at 7:50 AM) to Sunday, 8 December 2024, only 11 days' time. In those 11 days, Damascus fell and president Assad fled to Russia. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) offered next to no resistance and HTS drove straight through Syria almost unopposed.
All of a sudden and seemingly out of nowhere, the already strategically defeated Western empire suddenly scored a brilliant victory and everything changed. The media and social networks are chock-full of stories about how this happened and explanations of why it happened this way. Supposedly Syria was too week, its troops too poorly paid, its leadership too corrupt to withstand the onslaught from Idlib.
The same Syria and its army under the same Bashar Al-Assad fought a concerted attack by Al Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra, Khorasan and other moderate head choppers supported by Turkey, US, UK and the whole Arab league. They resisted for four long years, from 2011 until 2015, when Russia finally came to their rescue. The same Bashar al-Assad refused to flee Damascus back then. Since 2016, Syria had 8 full years to regroup, rearm and reinforce their defenses against the incursion which was fully expected.
Syria folded with a stronger hand
Not only that, in those past 8 years the circumstances changed quite substantially: until last Sunday, Syria was facing a much weaker West, a fractured Arab street (the Arab League, with the exception of Qatar was at least overtly supportive of the Assad regime). In 2011, Russia and Iran had a cold-to-hostile relationship but today they are in a close alliance and both were fully supportive of Syria. Furthermore, Iran and Saudi Arabia are no longer enemies and Iran has largely consolidated its dominance in the region.
The insurgency brewing under Turkish protection in Idlib wasn't a secret either. Iranian intelligence warned Assad and Syrian leadership months in advance that an attack was being prepared. HTS's leader Mohammad al-Golani made no secret that HTS's objective was not only Aleppo but Damascus itself. According to US reports, HTS & friends have been attacking Syrian positions almost constantly since 2022 and SAA had heavily fortified positions capable of containing attacks from Idlib towards Aleppo. But when the attack came, they offered almost no resistance.
Keep in mind, the jihadi forces from Idlib counted between 20,000 and 30,000 troops. Syrian army counted nearly 270,000 troops. An invading force would have to outnumber the defending forces by a factor of 3:1 to overcome their resistance. As it was, the defenders outnumbered the attackers almost 10:1, were well equipped and well armed in fortified positions. This is the reason why the Israeli intelligence thought that Idlib incursion was a suicide mission. SAA's best forces were concentrated in Hama, but when HTS attacked, Hama fell without a fight.
Four beers to die defending your country
Why did all of Syria fall without a fight? I suspect that many of the knee-jerk explanations circulating at present will prove wrong. The stories about poorly paid soldiers and corrupt commanders make as much sense as office fires bringing down steel frame towers. This simply can’t happen that way.
I served in the army during war and I remember that my salary was good to pay four beers out in the city. Regardless, I don’t recall a single conversation about whether our pay was enough for us to obey our orders. How and why the Syrian army vanished in 11 days’ time requires a better explanation. Either way, if I were sitting on the (currently) winning side, I'd be very worried by now: the only place you walk into this easily is a trap.
The big picture: Syria and Ukraine are two parts of the same war
Time will tell, but here are a few dots that might make coherent sense if connected. First off, the conflict in Syria is part of the same conflict that's also being fought in Ukraine. On 29 November in Astana (two days after HTS launched their incursion into Syria), Vladimir Putin said the following with regards to war/peace in Ukraine:
Squashing British geopolitics
Today's wars are driven by the Western imperial oligarchy as they struggle to maintain their dominance and to impose their "rules-based" global order. The central element of their agenda is an overarching imperative to preserve their hegemony over the Eurasian landmass. This long-held obsession draws roots from the British Empire. It was explicitly articulated at the turn of the last century by the British scholar and statesman Sir Halford Mackinder.
Following an extensive study of world history and geography, in 1904 Mackinder published a seminal paper titled, "The Geographical Pivot of History" in which he argued that the Empire's exclusive focus on sea power was misguided and that the destiny of the world would be shaped by land powers. Mackinder hypothesized that the long-term viability of states therefore critically depended on their space and location and concluded that optimum conditions of space and location were only to be found in the inner regions of Eurasia which he named the Pivot Area: a large expanse roughly encompassing Russia, the Caucasus region, Kazakhstan, Iran, and Afghanistan.
In Mackinder's framework, the Pivot Area is surrounded by the Inner or Marginal Crescent which includes Europe, Northern Africa, Asia Minor, the Arabian Peninsula, India, China and Japan, while the lands of the Outer, or Insular Crescent included the rest of the world. For Mackinder and the British imperial cabal, the Pivot Area was strategic because it was capable of emerging as an independently viable economic power that could spawn a powerful rival empire.
The introduction of Trans-Siberian railway in 1904, facilitating improvements in the region's internal communications and transport which the railway made possible, was seen as a major catalyst of this development, as well as a cause of alarm for the imperial cabal in London.
Please go to substack to continue reading and to listen to ALex Krainer's analysis.
Patrick O'Carroll - Trump Prepares Goyim to Die for Israel
Israel Annexes Part Of Syria, Iran Recovers, Russia Pulls Out, Turkey Waits, West Applauds
Syria: will it prove to be the empire's final quagmire?
The West's long descent from the 1993 Wolfowitz Doctrine, one Pyrrhic victory after another.
December 14, 2024 | By Alex Krainer
On Sunday morning we woke up to the most surreal news: the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is no more. From the day the new-and-improved Jabhat al-Nusra, now renamed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), launched their attack on Syria (Wednesday, 27 November at 7:50 AM) to Sunday, 8 December 2024, only 11 days' time. In those 11 days, Damascus fell and president Assad fled to Russia. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) offered next to no resistance and HTS drove straight through Syria almost unopposed.
West's moderate head choppers in action
All of a sudden and seemingly out of nowhere, the already strategically defeated Western empire suddenly scored a brilliant victory and everything changed. The media and social networks are chock-full of stories about how this happened and explanations of why it happened this way. Supposedly Syria was too week, its troops too poorly paid, its leadership too corrupt to withstand the onslaught from Idlib.
The same Syria and its army under the same Bashar Al-Assad fought a concerted attack by Al Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra, Khorasan and other moderate head choppers supported by Turkey, US, UK and the whole Arab league. They resisted for four long years, from 2011 until 2015, when Russia finally came to their rescue. The same Bashar al-Assad refused to flee Damascus back then. Since 2016, Syria had 8 full years to regroup, rearm and reinforce their defenses against the incursion which was fully expected.
Syria folded with a stronger hand
Not only that, in those past 8 years the circumstances changed quite substantially: until last Sunday, Syria was facing a much weaker West, a fractured Arab street (the Arab League, with the exception of Qatar was at least overtly supportive of the Assad regime). In 2011, Russia and Iran had a cold-to-hostile relationship but today they are in a close alliance and both were fully supportive of Syria. Furthermore, Iran and Saudi Arabia are no longer enemies and Iran has largely consolidated its dominance in the region.
The insurgency brewing under Turkish protection in Idlib wasn't a secret either. Iranian intelligence warned Assad and Syrian leadership months in advance that an attack was being prepared. HTS's leader Mohammad al-Golani made no secret that HTS's objective was not only Aleppo but Damascus itself. According to US reports, HTS & friends have been attacking Syrian positions almost constantly since 2022 and SAA had heavily fortified positions capable of containing attacks from Idlib towards Aleppo. But when the attack came, they offered almost no resistance.
Keep in mind, the jihadi forces from Idlib counted between 20,000 and 30,000 troops. Syrian army counted nearly 270,000 troops. An invading force would have to outnumber the defending forces by a factor of 3:1 to overcome their resistance. As it was, the defenders outnumbered the attackers almost 10:1, were well equipped and well armed in fortified positions. This is the reason why the Israeli intelligence thought that Idlib incursion was a suicide mission. SAA's best forces were concentrated in Hama, but when HTS attacked, Hama fell without a fight.
Four beers to die defending your country
Why did all of Syria fall without a fight? I suspect that many of the knee-jerk explanations circulating at present will prove wrong. The stories about poorly paid soldiers and corrupt commanders make as much sense as office fires bringing down steel frame towers. This simply can’t happen that way.
I served in the army during war and I remember that my salary was good to pay four beers out in the city. Regardless, I don’t recall a single conversation about whether our pay was enough for us to obey our orders. How and why the Syrian army vanished in 11 days’ time requires a better explanation. Either way, if I were sitting on the (currently) winning side, I'd be very worried by now: the only place you walk into this easily is a trap.
The big picture: Syria and Ukraine are two parts of the same war
Time will tell, but here are a few dots that might make coherent sense if connected. First off, the conflict in Syria is part of the same conflict that's also being fought in Ukraine. On 29 November in Astana (two days after HTS launched their incursion into Syria), Vladimir Putin said the following with regards to war/peace in Ukraine:
"Let me underscore the key point - the essence of our proposal is not a temporary truce or ceasefire, as the West might prefer, to allow the Kiev regime to recover, rearm, and prepare for a new offensive. I repeat: we are not discussing freezing the conflict, but its definitive resolution."And what is Putin's definitive resolution? It's nothing less than the creation of a new security architecture between the "heartland and the rimland" to use Halford Mackinder's terminology. In other words, Putin is determined to end British geopolitics once and for all. The following section is an excerpt from my upcoming book about the conflict in Ukraine and I believe it is fully relevant to the recent events in Syria.
Squashing British geopolitics
Today's wars are driven by the Western imperial oligarchy as they struggle to maintain their dominance and to impose their "rules-based" global order. The central element of their agenda is an overarching imperative to preserve their hegemony over the Eurasian landmass. This long-held obsession draws roots from the British Empire. It was explicitly articulated at the turn of the last century by the British scholar and statesman Sir Halford Mackinder.
Following an extensive study of world history and geography, in 1904 Mackinder published a seminal paper titled, "The Geographical Pivot of History" in which he argued that the Empire's exclusive focus on sea power was misguided and that the destiny of the world would be shaped by land powers. Mackinder hypothesized that the long-term viability of states therefore critically depended on their space and location and concluded that optimum conditions of space and location were only to be found in the inner regions of Eurasia which he named the Pivot Area: a large expanse roughly encompassing Russia, the Caucasus region, Kazakhstan, Iran, and Afghanistan.
In Mackinder's framework, the Pivot Area is surrounded by the Inner or Marginal Crescent which includes Europe, Northern Africa, Asia Minor, the Arabian Peninsula, India, China and Japan, while the lands of the Outer, or Insular Crescent included the rest of the world. For Mackinder and the British imperial cabal, the Pivot Area was strategic because it was capable of emerging as an independently viable economic power that could spawn a powerful rival empire.
The introduction of Trans-Siberian railway in 1904, facilitating improvements in the region's internal communications and transport which the railway made possible, was seen as a major catalyst of this development, as well as a cause of alarm for the imperial cabal in London.
Please go to substack to continue reading and to listen to ALex Krainer's analysis.
________
News update for 15 December 2024:
There are negotiations underway to move Russian naval and military assets to the port at Tobruk, Libya:
Israel's next target: Iran.
Considering Iran is up next those behind Israel will require America for the final push into Iran:
The Israeli's took the Golan Heights to protect themselves from potential threats from the head choppers but more importantly to secure the critical water resources that are under the Golan Heights. The Israelis and the Druze have always gotten along so it is likely the Druze will fit right in to Israel's plans:
What is behind fueling all this chaos and destruction around the world? The Anglo-American empire is not going to stop until it controls the entire world:
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