It’s a bitch of a day to be a dictator, especially one with any fingers in that toxic pie that we also refer to as Syria.
It appears that rebel forces, a term I use loosely to describe the various opposition forces, not necessarily aligned, that have broken out of their positions and attacked and taken Syria’s second-largest city of Aleppo. No rebel force has had a foot in the ground in that city since 2016, back when the Russians carpet-bombed them out of the place, while at the same time indiscriminately killing thousands of innocent civilians. You may know already that the Russians have never been accused of being bleeding-hearts when it comes to civilian deaths, or any deaths for that matter. That said, their murderous tendencies fit hand-in-glove with those of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and it was those Russian interventions, along with interventions from Iran and Hezbollah, that kept the slimy sum-bitch in power. He did, after all, almost lose that power as a result of the more generalized Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, but hung on by the hair of his chinny chin-chin with the help of his benevolent friends.
But things have changed for Assad, and not in the best of ways.
Those three outside interventionists that prop up his regime are all now themselves involved in existential crises of their own making, because all three kept sticking their faces in places where they did’t belong, and are now paying their respective prices for that.
I’ll go Iran first.
Iran is a Persian nation, while Syria is Arab, but Iran sees itself as the leader of the Islamic world, and as such has found it convenient over the years to declare that its national goal is to drive Israel into the sea, which is an easy thing to say when you don’t happen to border Israel itself. Nevertheless, a country like Iran can’t just sit there and watch a guy like Assad fall, because that would leave Syria in shambles, and Syria does border Israel. If the Iranians were to stand idly by, those Syrian shambles might one day coalesce around a government that actually makes peace with Israel, and there’s no way the mullahs in Iran could stomach that. So Iran would load Assad’s forces up with truckloads of arms, missiles, rockets, and pictures of Ayatollah Khamenei to be used against the opposition forces. This in addition to the direct military support being provided to Assad by Iran’s regional proxy Hezbollah, right across the border in Lebanon, also a state bordering on Israel. Iranian generals make up part of what would otherwise be known as the Syrian military’s general staff, and have a huge influence over what happens in Syria.
But it’s those sum-bitch Isrealis. You see, Israel doesn’t have much of a history — at least since 1973 — of sitting around watching while enemy forces gather around their perimeters with obvious lethal intent. The Israelis are the type that will actually be what we could call somewhat proactive when it comes to their national defence. Meaning they don’t necessarily wait for shit to happen before they bring their own shit to the table. So over the years, all kinds of Iranian scientists, particularly nuclear scientists, have found themselves blowing up, or being gunned down, or having their cellphones explode in their ears. It’s the damnedest thing. And Iran can’t do a thing about it, which they find to be humiliating, a reaction I find to be correct.
As well, Israel, with impunity, will fly sorties of its warplanes into Syrian airspace and blow up Syrian headquarters and logistic supply depots, often killing senior Iranian generals, which was probably their mission priority in the first place. And who’s going to stop Israel from doing this? Russia? Could you imagine a hapless Russian pilot trying to do anything against an Israeli counterpart? Net spasibo, as they say in the land of vodka and potatoes. Scratch one Russian fighter if they tried.
Iran’s military emasculation started when Hamas started the whole Gaza war by running across the border into Israel in a killing and kidnapping frenzy before retreating back into their tunnels and bringing death and ruination upon the very people they had “sworn” to protect. Hamas is an Iranian-backed and Iranian-funded and Iranian-armed proxy militia, and they were bombed back into the 15th century by Israel, which wasn’t that far to travel time-wise, since they kind of lived in the 18th century as it was. Nevertheless, scratch one Iranian proxy militia.
Another Iranian proxy militia, Hezbollah in Lebanon, intensified its military shelling and rocket attacks against Northern Israel in an attempt to show solidarity with Hamas and to draw Israeli forces away from Gaza. It worked.
The Israelis used this as a pretext to actually engage with Hezbollah fully, and as operations in Gaza wound down, started to apply the full might of Israeli military power towards Hezbollah. They started by using that old cellphone and pager trick that never seems to get old, and hundreds of Hezbollah leaders were taken off the board as their personal electronics started to blow up on them, simultaneously removing a big chunk of the militia’s leadership from the picture. Then came the Israeli airstrikes into Lebanon, even into the capital Beirut itself, where the IDF — Israeli Defence Force — had pre-located the positions of top Hezbollah leaders and systematically took them out, leaving the monster without a head. And when new leaders began to emerge, the IDF took them out too.
As they say in Arabic, a snake without a head is a snake without a head. Okay, so they don’t actually say that in Arabic, or any other language, but I’m just a guy trying to juice up a really good story here.
Hezbollah is a shell of its former self. Israel has pushed them well back from the Israeli border, so it kind of looks like they’ll be licking their wounds for awhile, possibly a long while since Mama Bear in Iran has its own wounds to lick.
Iran, furious and emasculated by what Israel had done to its child, fired some 200 missiles and drones of various types at Israel, with much sound and fury. Israel, with the help of the Americans, French, and British, shot almost every single one of them down. But that was the Iranian objective all along. Make it look like you’re attacking Israel so you look tough to everyone, all the while knowing that your attack is meaningless in that it won’t cause significant damage, thus provoking an overwhelming Israeli response. Because as tough as the Iranians like to imagine themselves to be, they’d be absolutely no match for Israel in a back-and-forth exchange.
The Israeli assassinations of top Iranian, Hamas, and Hezbollah leaders continued, even killing the head of Hamas as he attended the funeral of an Iranian prime minister who had died in a helicopter crash, right in Tehran, the capital. Furious, Iran had to respond, this time meaning business, and off flew another 200 or so missiles towards Israel, with a handful actually landing, but killing only a single person, ironically a Palestinian. Israel did respond to both of these attacks, in the first case with restraint, and in the second case with less restraint. As a result, Iran no longer has much in the way of credible air defences, the very thing needed to protect themselves from this very type of attack. Iran just sits there vulnerable, and Israel barely broke a sweat.
In the Syrian context then, Iran is currently bruised and bleeding and existing under a dark cloud of flies, not much help for the hapless Assad as he struggles to maintain control over his country.
And Russia?
You might have heard that Russia invaded Ukraine in what was supposed to be a cake-walk but instead turned out to be the equivalent of knocking over a barrel of hornets’ nests. Or like walking into a buzz saw, take your pick, both are bad. More like kicking over a hornet’s nest on your way to walking through a buzz saw before walking off a cliff.
Crocodile tears for Russia over here on this side of the keyboard.
I won’t get into the whole Ukraine thing because I already have. It’s just important to say that the Russian “involvement” in Ukraine has made it so that Russia can’t afford to be causing shit elsewhere for the time being, as they need everything they’ve got just to keep their heads above vodka at home. It’s Russia, itself, fighting for its life, and all of it self-inflicted. So while they’re pre-occupied in Ukraine, their presence elsewhere around the world is falling apart.
Wagner mercenaries in Africa being ambushed by Islamic militia, killing hundreds. An unfortunate engagement with some fifty U.S. special forces in Syria, where 40 Americans were attacked by some 500 Russians backed by 10 tanks and artillery. At the end of that dust-up, up to 300 Russians lay dead on the field, with 9 tanks and 6 artillery pieces destroyed. No Americans were killed or wounded, though some would develop symptoms of PTSD as a result. It was a humiliating encounter for the Russians. In Syria.
A naval base in Tartus, on the Syrian Mediterranean coast, that can’t be resupplied because the Russian Black Sea Fleet isn’t a fleet anymore because the Ukrainians sunk a good chunk of it without a navy of their own. Plus, even if the Black Sea Fleet was an actual fleet, they couldn’t get to the Mediterranean in any event because Turkey won’t let them pass through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, because of the Montreaux Convention, meaning nations who are at war can’t have their ships passing through that strategic choke-point which is entirely controlled by Turkey, who just happens to be a NATO member.
So Russia can do squat to help the Syrians as well.
It appears the rebels, having now taken Aleppo, are starting to march south, in the direction of Damascus, the Syrian capital. And Syrian troops in their path are melting away as I sip my morning cup of tea. It’s not looking good, at least for Assad.
Turkey, a nation that borders Syria to the north, is behind all of this, you can count on it. Turkey has their own history of being two-faced sum-bitches in their own right, but the key difference here is, as a NATIO member, they’re our sum bitches, which at least to me makes a difference when you’re evaluating sum bitches.
So go Turkey, or as you would prefer, Türkiye.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 