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  • I have pinned the post to prevent a wave of similar posts.

    It is a sad day for the resistance in the Middle East. A US proxy has won yet again and their terrorist groups will destroy another country.

  • Israel will colonize and settle the south, Turkey will begin restoring the Ottoman empire in the north, and the US will continue occupying the east for oil, but at least people in Syria are now free to go around destroying Christmas trees. (I despise Christmas but still.)

  • I felt this was going to happen yesterday with all that was going on. I didn't think it would happen this fast.

    Guess no more Assad memes though as looks like in the end he was the one who had to go.

    This shows how persistent the US can be though. People spent years joking about them failing to remove him and they just kept on plotting and doing their thing and sure enough Russia didn't want to expend their own treasury or people on fighting a war that is after all not along their borders or neighborhood. Because unlike the US they had no ambitions for strategic defeat.

    However the US did. And the US will see this as a strategic defeat for Russia and press the advantage. These terrorists were assisted by, trained by and with Ukrainian fascist intelligence. They are going to turn Syria into a hub for training their pawns, for spreading extremism and destabilization across the region. As a way to blunt the belt and road, to cut it off from Africa. And these people will be taken further afield, they'll pop up in Africa to do US work against the AES Sahel states, they'll pop up in eastern Europe or Latin America or Asia and will be a continuing problem as they are hardened, experienced, trained fanatics and they are going to cause some trouble for all the multi-polar forces. Just as the US intended.

    This is why the US should not be counted out until they're actually out. Everyone crowing about the US having egg on its face, taking an L in Ukraine and the whole world seeing the genocide in Palestine and then they just pull out this huge win. Turns out the material on the ground situation is what they've actually won while we've won some feel good points and some PR which does little.

    I agree the zionists will annex part of Syria for greater "israel" do some war crimes and oppression there, try and drive people out. They and the western pawns in Syria could also turn their attention to Lebanon and punishing or ruining Hezbollah given the zionists already decapitated the leadership there.

    It's like the 20th century. Things seemed to be going alright. Revolutions were popping off, there seemed to be a fervor with the original post-colonial movement for change and then in came the big bad USA with coups, color revolutions, dictators, extremist groups, etc, etc. They're playing the same playbook and I'm sorry to say I think outside of some of the core countries of BRICS+ such as China, Russia, DPRK, Vietnam most of their partners are fragile enough to be vulnerable to being destroyed by these kinds of overt tactics. When the dollar hegemony and economic coercion aren't enough alone it shows the US is not only willing but able to pull out the same kind of barbarity and intelligence-driven subterfuge to incapacitate and destroy enemies.

    This is a major shift of the tides. If the west manages to pull off sending NATO troops into Ukraine and Putin blinks and accepts an armistice then I think they have the momentum again to stop or severely slow China, to stop or severely slow BRICS, to stop or severely slow the multi-polar world and buy themselves decades of life. Let us hope then Putin does not blink, that the west is inflicted in fact with a strategic loss in Ukraine. Though even that's not the end of the story. The west will as we've seen here try again for another color revolution in Ukraine in 5 years, 10 years. They will take their hardened Ukrainian Nazis and use them as their agents to destabilize key places, to kill people, to do all their dirty work they've somewhat backed off on since the end of history and their attempt to paint themselves as better than they ever were.

    Even if Russia wins in Ukraine, they get all their objectives, the west is going to use Syria and those they evac from Ukraine to continue setting fires around Russia and also China, in Georgia, in Moldova, in some of the other central Asian republics perhaps.

    And as we've seen the west profits immensely from the fact still no one wants to fuck with them. Iran doesn't, they're conserving their strength afraid they're next and perhaps simply not having the logistics to actually wield strength in Syria with the zionist regime there and the US and its regional pawns blocking them. Even Russia still acts this way, still thinks there is a way to be reasonable with these people. So who is there left? No USSR. Russia isn't that interventionist and even if they were they're bogged down in Ukraine and could be for years. China is out due to their stances. Iran feels pinned down. The US has retaken west Asia and with it probably destroyed China's hopes for a belt and road to Africa actually succeeding this decade.

    This is in other words a very bad day for the Syrian people, for the Palestinian people, for the multi-polar order, for China, for Russia, for Iran.

    • This is why the US should not be counted out until they’re actually out. Everyone crowing about the US having egg on its face, taking an L in Ukraine and the whole world seeing the genocide in Palestine and then they just pull out this huge win. Turns out the material on the ground situation is what they’ve actually won while we’ve won some feel good points and some PR which does little.

      This just comes across to me like cynicism under the guise of a political analysis backed up by exercising vision as 2020 in hindsight.

      Is this a loss for the cause and should be acknowledged as such (as opposed to hiding from reality)? Yes. Is it really worth dooming about the trajectory of the next decades? No. A loss is something to learn from and adjust because of. The world is a lot bigger and more complicated than one country, and we do no favors trying to oversimplify the trajectory of things, especially in a way that can undermine hope and morale. People need to know what they're contending with and they need to not be complacent about it - on that, I can understand the need for not being overconfident. But there is another side to that, where a person can go so far in the other direction, they're underestimating their own capability and in doing so, undermining their own efforts because they give up before they even try. And I know from personal experience: me and anxiety know each other well, and one of the things anxiety can cause is avoidance due to letting fear control.

    • Agreed, this is a big loss. The west will certainly try to wring every ounce they can out of this victory. But how far they succeed depends on how others respond and the balance of forces between them. And in the medium and long term, the trends are still on our side. Not that that's any solace to the people currently living through these nightmares.

    • There is a lot of doomerism in this comment section -- understandably so, because this is a tragedy for the Syrian people and a setback for global anti-imperialism. But we need to be careful of falling into the trap of thinking the United States is omnipotent, or some kind of Manichean, unstoppable power of absolute metaphysical evil.

      My read is this. Nearly every regime change operation mounted by the United States over the past five-eight years has been an embarrassing failure; this from the country that was once able to topple governments in the global south (and in the north as well) almost at will. Currently the US is led by one of the most incompetent administrations in recent history. If you doubt this, consider the way Biden's foreign policy undermined the dollar (foundation of US global supremacy), and undid the result Kissinger and Brezinski spent decades trying to bring about, namely driving a wedge between Russia and China. These developments were, it is true, a long time in the making, but Biden greatly accelerated them. I ask then: is it credible that the United States, at this point in time, was able on its own to mount a regime-change operation as impressively effective as the one we just saw in Syria? It seems to me that the speed with which the Syrian government fell rather points to serious internal problems; understandable in a nation which has been at war for over a decade, but problems none the less. In other words, this was likely not a stable government -- there was interior rot we didn't know about; and the US state department may be just as surprised as we that their operation worked.

      The best-case scenario for Syria at this point is, of course, an Evo Morales situation where the Assad government comes back from exile. I do not think that is likely. This a tragedy for Syrians, beyond many people's ability to comprehend. But it does not necessarily change the overall trajectory of world history.

      • I really like this analysis. I won't pretend it doesn't make me feel some type of way, this situation. Or that it isn't a substantial setback. But this is a good frame to look at it in.

    • China definitely isn't sitting this out, the government has admitted that when the time comes in the coming years and decades, they will unleash retribution on the U.S. and their compradors when the situation is ripe.

  • And I'm still over here hoping things get turned around. Syria hosts Russia's only port in the Mediterranean, as well as airfields, allowing Russia to project power into the Middle East and Africa. So far there have been no reports of Russia abandoning its bases (although some ships reportedly left).

    The smart move for SAA would have been to retreat to a defensible position and then launch an insurgency against HTS. HTS is deemed a terrorist organisation and they do not enjoy the broad popular support like the Taliban do in Afghanistan, so they do not have the means for a protracted war or sustained conflict, meanwhile Russia can continue supplying SAA through the ports/airfields.

    This would force the US/West to openly give support to people they have labeled terrorists, which would be a lose-lose for the US.

    Putin said Russia isn't going to help SAA if they're not willing to fight for their country. Maybe I'm being naive, but I'm wondering if its a ploy to make SAA appear weak, Sun Tzu and all that.

    Assad's family left weeks ago, so this wasn't such a surprise. Also, from what I've seen/read, the SAA didn't abandon equipment like the Afghan Army did when Taliban advanced. The SAA seems to have retreated with their vehicles, there is no sign of a rout. Remember, when Ukraine started pushing hard and fast on Kherson and Kharkov the Russians also abandoned their positions and retreated, giving up a lot of territory; Western media said it was over for Russia then.

    The thought of Assad/Syria falling saddens me, but I'm not willing to give into doomerism yet.

    Apparently it's over. Fucking sucks.

    Still not giving into doomerisms though. HTS is a gang of thugs whose only "success" so far, that the Western media has been able to dig up, was them running Idlib "sort of, kind of okay" (and probably with Turkey's help) while recognising that they led a terror campaign against Kurds, Shia Muslims and anyone who opposed them. I don't think the people of Syria will accept HTS so easily. I could be wrong (again), but it gives me some hope that the HTS rule might be very short-lived.

  • I never expected the Syrian army to fall this quickly, but it didn't look good in the first place.

    Back when they were fighting back, the bull of the fighting force that didn't come from Iran were formerly pretty active paramilitary groups that were incorporated into the Syrian army. After these fighter served full term in the army and got discharged, they joined up with other paramilitary or mercenaries groups, such as Hezbollah or Wagner group.

    Now that practically every experience fighters on Assad's side are busy elsewhere, the entire forces on Assad's side are pretty much underequipped conscripted troops that have neither the skill, experiences, equipments, nor the morale close to what the previous generation of fighters processes. Now add the fact the rebel groups are unsubtly support by the Yank et.al., and...well, you can do the rest of the math yourself.

  • Islamists are supposed to support islamists against Yugoslavia(, Bosnia), Russia(, chechens), China(, uyghurs), the AES and other african countries, ...
    And they're also opposed to other islamists, such as Iran.
    In the end, they're possibly just a western tool.

    On the other side, it's manifestedly supported by the population, otherwise the overthrowing wouldn't have happened in days, let the population decide then.

    I have some doubts that they're islamists, perhaps only on the level of Türkiye or Iraq, hopefully not like Egypt, but there'll be elections apparently, so we'll see.
    Georgia is still resisting, and Romania didn't say its last word, but Syria fell, not Israel. We'll see the consequences for Iran and the others...

    (edit : that was uselessly harsh, most muslim countries have islamic laws, only a few of them 'don't have islam as the state religion'/'are secular', i.d.k. what's wrong with me, they'll do as they want, islam will certainly have more influence than before and they're good/pious, but yeah, they may end up pro-Israel&pro-west despite the past, and anti-Iran&anti-Russia. They, and their future actions, will be part of the history lessons of syrians schools for many generations now.)

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