Syria's army command notified officers on Sunday that Assad's rule had ended.... Assad, who has not spoken in public since the sudden rebel advance a week ago, flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination earlier on Sunday, two senior army officers told Reuters, as rebels said they had entered the capital with no sign of army deployments. His whereabouts now - and those of his wife Asma and their two children - remain unknown....
Thousands in cars and on foot congregated at a main square in Damascus waving and chanting "Freedom" from a half century of Assad family rule, witnesses said. The collapse followed a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East after many leaders of Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, a lynchpin of Assad's battlefield force, were killed by Israel over the past two months. Russia, Assad's other key ally, has been focused on the war in Ukraine....
The United States will continue to maintain its presence in eastern Syria and will take measures necessary to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Daniel Shapiro told the Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain's capital on Sunday. Before its defeat, Islamic State imposed a reign of terror in large swathes of Syria and Iraq....
Speaking of "whereabouts unknown"... where, if anywhere, is our President, the President of the United States?
Is Biden there at all?
Or is Trump already the acting President? No one stopped him from looking like the President yesterday at the French festivities.
If Trump is the relevant President, we already know his ostensible position on Syria: "THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT."
Opposition fighters in Syria, in an unprecedented move, have totally taken over numerous cities, in a highly coordinated offensive, and are now on the outskirts of Damascus, obviously preparing to make a very big move toward taking out Assad. Russia, because they are so tied up in Ukraine, and with the loss there of over 600,000 soldiers, seems incapable of stopping this literal march through Syria, a country they have protected for years. This is where former President Obama refused to honor his commitment of protecting the RED LINE IN THE SAND, and all hell broke out, with Russia stepping in. But now they are, like possibly Assad himself, being forced out, and it may actually be the best thing that can happen to them. There was never much of a benefit in Syria for Russia, other than to make Obama look really stupid. In any event, Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!
Posts
85 comments:
With everything else going on in the world it's still surprising that China hasn't made a move on Taiwan.
"With everything else going on in the world it's still surprising that China hasn't made a move on Taiwan."
They can't afford for the US to stop buying their stuff and they think it will fall into their orbit eventually without the need for military action.
Iran's proxies have taken a beating this year.
Added: Rumor is a Syrian airliner heading for the coast was downed.
Biden's main function after the election has been to distract (e.g., Hunter pardon) while the rest of the world's governments covers their tracks and suddenly sucks up to Trump. Both Assad and Biden are sneaking away like King Louis and Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution.
My wife and I have got an in-law suite that's just gathering dust so Asma al-Assad is more than welcome to come stay with us until she can get back on her feet. They're building a Wegmans nearby and I'm sure they'll be hiring.
January 20th can’t come soon enough.
Interesting times!
John Kerry lost his habibi.
This post-election period has shown with stark firmness that we need to move the inauguration closer to election day. 2 1/2 months is absurd, and especially dangerous right now. The United States has been without even a figurehead president for the better part of a year and the world is falling apart while the Biden cabal takes out its frustration on the American people, leaving little bombs everywhere it can.
It’s only going to get worse between now and Jan 20. It seems to be the goal of the Democrats to make Trump spend the next 4 years cleaning up their messes.
Remember when Obama (and then Biden) had to trot out the 'Office of the President-Elect' BS to be relevant?
Also
Find somebody who looks at you like Jill Biden looks at ... you know (Jay Asliken)
A wise man said, 10-12 years ago "Follow the pipes"
Syria may not produce much gas and oil but a hell of a lot flows through it on its way to turkey and Europe
https:/
6-8 pipelines through Homs but many other too.
Map
https://energy-cg.com/MiddleEast/Middleeast_Thumbnails/Syria_USA_Russia_DirectBattle_Image1x1_Feb18_EnergyConsutlingGroup_web.png
John Henry
Our pet terrorists loot the central bank in Damascus.
https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1865707658923352514
Syria though, was untenable. A lot of people looked at Assad as some kind of folk hero, but I never could understand it. Obama invaded and occupied his oil and grain territories and we took the spoils, starving their sovereign movement while we supported terror attacks, bombings, Israeli and American air strikes in support of "moderate rebels," eventually his control collapsed.
Two. things are now in play, Russia's naval base, which has a 49 year lease, but if it's surrounded, what. good is it? Imagine if Russia were to place serious weaponry in Cuba surrounding Guantanamo.
And now that Turkey no longer needs Putin, will he open the Black Sea to NATO warships? Erdogan is famous for going back on his word, so any deal that Putin made with him is worthless now that Putin no longer has any leverage.
NATO. ships in the Black Sea will open a new phase of the war as Ukraine continues its collapse. It's not as bad as Syria, but its army is melting away. Desperation breeds desperate gambles.
Correct unless we need 2 1/2 months to hand count the mailed in paper ballots with dubious signatures to determine who really won.
Wars are the real bonfires of the vanities. Like the stiff wind that blowed down the diseased tree, war discovers and exploits weakness.
Putin thought that he had leverage by routing gas through Turkey to Europe, Turkstream, but now a pipeline can be built from the Persian Gulf, and cut Russia out of the European gas market.
No matter how you slice it, this is huge, and more aftershocks are coming.
"The United States will continue to maintain its presence in eastern Syria and will take measures necessary to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State,"
So Obama's foreign policy run by Jake Sullivan remains. Does anyone truly believe Turkey is going to let 'rebels' run Syria? Your follow on post with Obama's projections about megachurches is certainly timely.
"would" not "will" this is all just speculation about opening the Black Sea to NATO.
Biden's Pentagon is quickly sending more money to Ukraine before Trump stops them. He may be a doddering old man, but he can push plenty of damage before the year ends.
Have they ever replaced a fallen regime with something better in the Middle East? You'd think it would be easy to improve upon Saddam or Qaddafi but that's not what happened. Assad is a tyrant, but after him the deluge.....As a general rule people prefer to live with tyranny rather than anarchy. They'll slide into anarchy and be grateful when the next tyrant takes control.....There are two things the US should never do: Get involved in a land war in Asia. Think that anything we do--including doing nothing--will make things better in the Middle East.
Where is Nancy Pelosi?
She's the one who went in over in 2005, donning a burqua with a bunch of democrat House harridans and Traitor Murtha in a media huff to kiss Ashad's ass so that he would attack Bush.
Give peace a chant.
If Germany had not gone to war in 1914, their growing economic power would have overwhelmed Europe within a generation. I've heard Chinese leaders express this on several occasions.
Jill is so happy he beat the brakes off Kamala.
Do people understand the "Syrian Rebels" include ISIS? Remember when Trump wanted to withdraw troops for Eastern Syria, and Mattis then resigned because i guess "eastern Syria" was the bulwark of American security or something? Remember when Mitt Romney then threw a fit, supported by Miss Lindsey, saying we were "throwing our noble Kurdish allies to the mercy of the Turks (our Nato allies!)"?
No, I guess not. The Globalists and Warmongers constantly change their tune. One minute, we must have bases in Country X, or fight group Y, or the sky will fall, and the next minute its forgetten. The only constant is their constant support for increased spending for the Defense Department, and foreign aid.
I still find it funny how American media and Hollywooders whine about American Theocracy - but they have little to say about actual Islamic theocracy.
BTW, I thought "ISIS" were the worstest people in the whole world. Almost as bad as "The far Right" or Putin. But now, they're part of the "Syrian Rebels", so everything's Jake. As for Biden he was never calling the shots, its only after Harris lost, that he stopped the pretense.
We owe France for two things:
1. Sending their fleet to Yorktown which blocked the Brits. Their help was invaluable to our victory in the Revolutionary War.
2. Not inviting Biden to the reopening of Notre Dame. Joe’s final humiliation on the world stage.
Give Cheech his pants.
I had forgotten that. Thanks for the reminder.
Biden was invited but had "scheduling conflicts" according to the white house.
My sources tell me that kamala was to go in his stead but is on a bender and they didn't think they could get her sober.
John Henry
Two amendments that would make sense would entail either moving the Election Day to January or the Inauguration to Dec 1, and a second amendment that stipulates all ballots must be counted by midnight on the day after Election Day. Good luck on passing either but they would be good ideas. Perhaps this could be done with regular legislation but that would make them too easy to repeal. Although once we had the second of these measures in place (vote counting) it might be a difficult sell to overturn it.
Oh my God, this gal could have starred in a film noir. Thank God for Melania or she would be scratching on his bedroom door. There's a part of me that hopes Biden has moments of clarity that allow him to see this and her for what she is. A jumped up groupie.
I saw where president trump told zelenski that if he wants to negotiate as a leader, he needs to dress the part.
Note what Jill was wearing. Instead of her usual slip over dresses, she was wearing something appropriate.
I wonder if our president told her she needed to dress right.
John Henry
I can't wait until these bitches are forced into the red cloaks on January 20.
I so miss Wegmans
It's a new place for Palestinians to live.
Our church is ultimately run out of Damascus. There are not many Christians left in Syria but please say a prayer for them if you are the praying kind of person. https://www.antiochpatriarchate.org/en/home/
And before you say it - yes, the Orthodox politically support the wrong people all the time. They have a mad gift for it. But you don't join the Church for its politics - it's a hospital for sinners (of whom I am chief).
Prayers still needed (and appreciated). Thanks all.
Did north really need south in?
Regarding Trump already being an "acting President" all I can say is that in nature every vacuum will be filled.
Can DOGE get it done?
Interesting simile, Enigma. Care to outline your Varennes?
Hands off is probably the best strategy until we see how things shake out. My impression of the rebels, dating back about a decade now, is that other than the Kurds, they're mostly pretty awful, either Al-Qaeda/Al-Nusra alumni, or Turkish proxies, or both, with a tiny handful of people who want to turn Syria into a democratic state aligned with the west.
Some of those options, we can do business with (like Assad). Some we can't. But no point in spending our political capital trying to bring about a particular result at this point. As long as they all hate Iran, Hizbullah, and Hamas, I think we can be pretty happy with this outcome.
I've previously said that Chinese leaders would have to be substantially stupider than the Austrian to mount a naval invasion of Taiwan against a full strength US Navy. If hypersonic missiles can't wipe out multiple carrier groups it would force China into war for decades- if they don't get defeated first.
By contrast, an invasion of South Korea might be more promising- especially after all that has just happened!
Don't worry plebes, the soulless, all-knowing organization known as the CIA has things under control. It's run our foreign policy for generations and only good things have happened, other than the occasional war with a million or so dead.
This is so obviously true. They will obstruct just like they did in his first term.
As always in the middle east, the new regime will probably be as bad or worse than the old regime. This isn't the Hungarians or the Czechs rising against Russia. There is no Lech Walensa in that crowd. To steal from PJ media (unfortunately, my memory fails me so I can't give proper credit): "There aren't no good guys ..(checks notes) there aren't no good guys". I liked every thing Trump said about it, especially "THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!" , truer words have never been spoken, Unfortunately, the pentagon/state department is saying "The United States will continue to maintain its presence in eastern Syria"
Michael writes, "If Germany had not gone to war in 1914..."
It's interesting how Germany's leadership believed their bustling economy couldn't endure unless they went to war in 1914 if not before. A strategic assessment conducted in 1912 concluded that Russia would achieve economic and military dominance over eastern and central Europe by 1920, and that a decisive war between Germany and Russia should come soon if the Germans were to have any hope of winning. Tsar Nicholas's mobilization order was greeted by the Großer Generalstab with a sense of relief -- war to the knife with Russia while Russia was still beatable.
"Scheduling conflicts"? Bah! Humbug! What is Biden doing that could possibly conflict? Is he too busy auctioning pardons?
Now comes the war to find out which of the rebel groups gets to rule in Damascus (I guarantee you they won't share power). That should allow another 3 million refugees to flee to Europe.
Didn't the offensive begin near Turkey and move south? I was assuming that Turkey was playing a key supportive role in this mess. Definitely not an expert on this one, I have some reading to do....
Nice of the French to host Trump's global inauguration party, and symbolically at the re-dedication of Notre Dame. The NYT characterized it as being treated like Colossus. Perhaps they should do some alterations at the Arc de Triomphe so it becomes "Trump de Triomphe" astride Paris.
See you there at sunset, Inga.
They don't have the capability yet. Estimates seem to be that October of 2027 is the best time for them to make a move.
serious question..
Who is running the United States of America?
Who's richer, Joe or Donald?
>doctrev...
I've previously said that Chinese leaders would have to be substantially stupider than the Austrian to mount a naval invasion of Taiwan against a full strength US Navy.<
That would be much more reassuring if only the US Navy were close to full strength.
Is Biden there at all?
Or is Trump already the acting President?
Well, someone's been the acting President for the last fours years. . . . .
"Obama invaded and occupied his oil and grain territories and we took the spoils"....can you offer concrete evidence as to how "we" did this??? My info says we took steps to keep those resources from ISIS, not to steal them for ourselves.
Here's what ChatGPT has to say: "Under Obama, U.S. actions in Syria were focused on counterterrorism and did not include an explicit strategy to occupy or exploit Syrian oil and grain resources. Any military presence or control over areas with resources occurred as a result of anti-ISIS operations, not as an invasion or occupation for economic purposes."
So...please give us evidence this info is incorrect.
Yeah let "someone" continue to do it until January 20. Best to have Biden off somewhere sniffing the hair of little girls. He does less harm that way. Of course he was going cannibal for a while eating some little baby's feet--but he forgot his dentures.
I agree but lean harder that this will be a replay of Iran, and they’ll all make nice pretty quickly. I’m afraid the rebels will soon make us miss Assad, horrific as he is. Hopefully Trump will be in office by then.
When this sort of thing happens, I go to the Unz Review. Yes, some of the propaganda is aimed at wooing us regarding our domestic policies, and Unz himself is undefinable, but most of it gives a good picture of what Russia and Iran want us to believe about them, written by skilled demoralization writers. That can be very clarifying.
Hopefully her burka’s at the dry cleaner. Or, even more hopefully, she’s wearing it for the “rebels” already, because they won’t let her take it off. Either way, Jan. 20 feels a long way away.
The only constant is their constant support for increased spending for the Defense Department, and foreign aid.
A significant fraction of which ends up in the pockets of cronies and family members of Democrats and RINO politicians. I wonder how Joni Ernst’s “investments” are performing these days.
Let’s send the cast of The Handmaid’s Tale over there to find out.
Unfortunately, Anita Dunn.
Ands the, Questor, Germany attacked France.
The PRC is totally vulnerable to targeted modern weapons sufficient to take out their Three Gorges Dam in an hour. They don’t dare fight the US. All they can do is to easily bribe the most powerful American politicians into giving them whatever they want.
Absolutely not to moving election day to January. First Tuesday after the First Monday is November works for a number of reasons. Usually no snow, no hurricanes, and usually no other extreme weather events to prevent people from showing up in person.
Assad in Moscow per Russian media.
Do the Syrian Rebels (no quotation marks necessary - that's exactly what they are) "include ISIS"? The simple answer is NO.
Those of us who've been following the details of what's happening know that ISIS was limited to six separate enclaves in the eastern desert, of which one has expanded, though expanding in empty desert doesn't help much, four are just the same size, and one (the smallest) has been captured by the Kurds. Here's a map: link. ISIS territory is the gray spots in east central Syria. The US has been bombing ISIS in the last day or two, and HTS doesn't seem to have any objection.
If you want to say that HTS, which actually defeated Assad, with a lot of help from the Kurds, the Druze, the general population, and an army that didn't want to fight, is just as bad a ISIS, knock yourself out. What they've said and done so far is a mixture of encouraging and worrisome, and no one knows what they will do with the power they have now. But do your damned homework before posting here, so you don't write stupid falsehoods.
Anton Gerashchenko observes on Twitter (link):
"In 2014, Assad promised to stay in Syria until the end and not leave the country under any circumstances.
'I am not Yanukovych!' Assad said ten years ago."
Now they're both in Russia, and Assad didn't even say goodbye, just flew away, abandoning his men. I wonder if they'll be at some of the same parties in Russia. Gerashchenko's tweet includes a picture of them drinking champagne together, so it wouldn't be the first time.
"Explicit" is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there, maybe "ostensible" would be better, or "declared" would have been more honest. Another accurate reading of your little quote, with an almost identical meaning would be "The United States has never admitted that the reason we took Syria's oil and grain was to deny them to Syria, it just happened that way."
If the goal wasn't to deny Syria the money and grain to pay their army and feed their people, we could simply have given over their oil and grain to them.
You know that the entire world has recognized Taiwan as a province of China, right? Any "move" on Taiwan, which conducts two thirds of their foreign trade with mainland China, BTW, will happen if an only if Taiwan declares independence, which they have not done yet. They still maintain that they are the legitimate government of all of China, so they concede that they are part of China.
There is a lot of brainstorming about changing the constitution going around. I've seen: 1.close the gap between election & inauguration (here), 2. Count ballots faster (here), 3. eliminate the pardon power (Andrew McCarthy, NRO), 4. Codify the filibuster (comments at NRO), 5. codify the SC at 9 (comments at NRO), 6. 18 year tenures at the SC (leftist twitter), and 7. abolish the EC (leftist twitter).
First, it is hard to change the Constitution especially when the results of a change are seen to be affecting one party differentially than the other. Second, Chesterson's fence suggests thinking about why it is that way before charging forward. Third, a lot of these things -- though not all, e.g., EC & the 20th Amendment -- can be done by simple legislation. Legislation itself is hard to pass and even harder to overturn, the latter because of the constituencies created by each law. So, I would advise the GOP to focus on legislation on mail-in ballots and IDs, as fixing that one thing will stop a lot of crazy crap. If you really want to go wild, outlaw public sector unions. Beyond that, leave it be.
See, the propaganda works on me too, not "foreign" trade, but trade outside of Taiwan. Taiwan cannot cut off China any more than an unborn baby can cut its own umbilical to speed up the process of being born.
"The United States will continue to maintain its presence in eastern Syria ...." But wait! At the debate Kamala said "...."
Dr rev
The Chinese don't need yo wipe out carrier groups. A single hit on the flight deck takes out the catapult.
Now the carrier is neutered almost as effective as if sunk.
It can still launch choppers and re-arm/supply/fuel the smaller ships.
That's not nothing but it isn't much
John Henry
The German military feared that Russia was becoming stronger. Russia's population and industrial production were increasing. Russia was improving its rail network and enlarging its army. The German military feared that war was coming and it was better to have it earlier when Russia was weak than later when it was stronger.
German businessmen, though, didn't have any fears that Russia would come to dominate Central Europe economically, financially, or industrially. The outlook then was a little like what it was at the height of the Cold War. Russia was a military superpower, but not an economic one.
LOL. Good one, Dr Weevil. Where did you hear that one? Did you know that Syria's new warlord has a price on his head of $10 million by the US?
They need to sink the escorts to eliminate defenses.
I hear he’s not that bad…
Assad is a bad person. His likely replacement will be no better and probably will be worse, though perhaps in a different way.
Biden is horrendous at foreign policy. Our current foreign policy by committee is no better and is probably worse, though probably in the same way.
It almost rhymes.
As other people have mentioned, the German military was very much of the opinion that if they waited much longer than 1914, they would probably lose to a quickly modernizing Russia. Russia had the population and resource advantages, but the country was a mess.
As for Germany's economy eventually overwhelming the continent, they still had the major issue that their petroleum supply was limited and their coal supply was insufficient. (They did have coal, but most of it was low quality which was a major problem for the navy.) They would be competing with the British Empire which seemed to have unlimited supplies of pretty much everything from its massive empire, and a Russia that, if it remained under the tsar, would have probably gotten its act together and had vast untapped resources to exploit. That's not even to bring the United States into the picture, which was generally self-sufficient on almost everything. If you want to say that Germany could become a post-war Japan where its economy was genuinely impressive and it flexed economic might, I can buy that, but if it got into a war it was going to have the same issues it had in WWII: limited availability of key strategic resources, ports that were easy for the Royal Navy to blockade, and insufficient manpower if Russia is involved.
Where did I hear that one? I gave you a fucking link, you stupid son of a bitch! And I am well aware of the price on Julani's head. I'm also amazed that you don't know that who goes on a terrorist list and who doesn't is hopelessly politicized these days - Biden took the Houthis off he list and hasn't put them on again, even as they keep trying to sink American ships. I'm also aware that some terrorists have turned into non-terrorist politicians - Menachem Begin, Gerry Adams, Nelson Mandela - and hope that Julani may decide to do the same. He may already have done so. Apparently he treated the Christians in Idlib quite well over the last four years, has appointed a Christian as provisional governor of Aleppo, and the atrocities I've heard of have all been done by pro-Turkish SDF, not HST.
Time will tell, but anyone who assumes that he will be worse than Assad is (a) a damned fool, thinking he knows the future, and (b) doesn't have a clue as to just how bad Assad was. When people on Twitter said "Syria will be just like Libya", someone pointed out that Assad killed more people just in his main jail in Damascus (where they're still digging out prisoners who've been there up to 40 years) than the number killed in the Second Libyan Civil War. But of course you wouldn't know that.
Syria is the remanence of Obama's policy. Obama, Putin, Assad and Iran are the losers in this.
Anyone posting about the military and naval situation in Europe in the years before WWI should read Douglas Brunt's "The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel."
Post a Comment