[Peace] How the Syria War was Won

[C. G. Estabrook]

Some people think the ‘intelligence community’ killed JFK for his failure to overthrow the revolutionary government in Cuba.

The example, true or not, may be at work now in re Trump and Syria. What can Trump expect as the CIA’s (and the Democrats’) revenge for Syria?

—CGE


> On Oct 19, 2019, at 9:23 PM, C G Estabrook <cgestabrook at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  ...The first major game-changer was the spectacular Russian entrance in the summer of 2015. Vladimir Putin had asked the U.S. to join in the fight against the Islamic State as the Soviet Union allied against Hitler, negating the American idea that this was Russia’s bid to restore its imperial glory. But the American plan instead, under Barack Obama, was single-minded: betting on a rag-tag Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mix of Kurds and Sunni Arabs, supported by air power and U.S. Special Forces, north of the Euphrates, to smash ISIS/Daesh all the way to Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor.
> 
> Raqqa, bombed to rubble by the Pentagon, may have been taken by the SDF, but Deir ez-Zor was taken by Damascus’s Syrian Arab Army. The ultimate American aim was to consistently keep the north of the Euphrates under U.S. power, via their proxies, the SDF and the Kurdish PYD/YPG. That American dream is now over, lamented by imperial Democrats and Republicans alike.
> 
> The CIA will be after Trump’s scalp till Kingdom Come.
> 
> ...The Kurdish dream of a contiguous, autonomous territory from Qamichli to Manbij is over. Sunni Arabs living in this perimeter will resist any Kurdish attempt at dominance.
> The Syrian PYD was founded in 2005 by PKK militants. In 2011, Syrians from the PKK came from Qandil – the PKK base in northern Iraq – to build the YPG militia for the PYD. In predominantly Arab zones, Syrian Kurds are in charge of governing because for them Arabs are seen as a bunch of barbarians, incapable of building their “democratic, socialist, ecological and multi-communitarian” society.
> 
> One can imagine how conservative Sunni Arab tribal leaders hate their guts. There’s no way these tribal leaders will ever support the Kurds against the SAA or the Turkish army; after all these Arab tribal leaders spent a lot of time in Damascus seeking support from Bashar al-Assad. And now the Kurds themselves have accepted that support in the face of the Trukish incursion, greenlighted by Trump.
> 
> East of Deir ez-Zor, the PYD/YPG already had to say goodbye to the region that is responsible for 50 percent of Syria’s oil production. Damascus and the SAA now have the upper hand. What’s left for the PYD/YPG is to resign themselves to Damascus’s and Russian protection against Turkey, and the chance of exercising sovereignty in exclusively Kurdish territories.
> Ignorance of the West
> 
> The West, with typical Orientalist haughtiness, never understood that Alawites, Christians, Ismailis and Druze in Syria would always privilege Damascus for protection compared to an “opposition” monopolized by hardcore Islamists, if not jihadis. The West also did not understand that the government in Damascus, for survival, could always count on formidable Baath party networks plus the dreaded mukhabarat — the intel services.
> 
> Rebuilding Syria
> 
> The reconstruction of Syria may cost as much as $200 billion. Damascus has already made it very clear that the U.S. and the EU are not welcome. China will be in the forefront, along with Russia and Iran; this will be a project strictly following the Eurasia integration playbook — with the Chinese aiming to revive Syria’s strategic positioning in the Ancient Silk Road…
> 
> —Pepe Escobar
> 
> 
>> On Oct 19, 2019, at 8:13 PM, C. G. Estabrook via Peace <peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>> 
>> https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/18/pepe-escobar-the-road-to-damascus-how-the-syria-war-was-won/
>> 
>> [Pepe Escobar] 
>> I'm VERY pleased to present this special Syria essay for Consortium News. Yes, it's provocative, quite ambitious - and the emphasis is not geopolitics, but the arc of history. I had to sacrifice many ramifications for the sake of a concise narrative. I really hope this may be helpful, especially across the Global South, for anyone trying to make sense of the senseless, attempted destruction of Syria. And yes, in the end Syria wins.
>> 
>> ###
>> 
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