… from Press TV, Tehran
[ Editor’s Note: My long denied hope that Iraq and Syria’s (and Russia’s) military forces would have a formal and visible coalition for eliminating the US support ISIS elements in eastern Syrian has some wind in its sails once again.
A simple look at the map would show the potential for a classic pincer movement from the west and the east would not only block ISIS supply lines in Deir Ezzor province, (other than air drops from the US coalition) but cut off avenues of escape, other than the usual magically appearing US choppers that appear to evacuated ISIS cmdrs. at the last moment.
And secondly, to really secure both countries from continued destabilization efforts from the US coalition, the Abu Kamal crossing would have to be secured as critical supply line.
The US backed the Syria Kurds, by letting its proxy militant forces and ISIS groups tie down the SAA in attrition warfare, enabled the SDF Kurds to take control of the resource rich areas of Syria. Losing the water, prime agricultural and oil resources, would be a huge blow to Syria’s economic recovery and to give the Kurds leverage in negotiation their own new State.
I had assumed that Syria, Iraq and Russia would have formed their own version of a mideast NATO after ISIS had been cleared of most all of central Syria. After doing that they could then reposition their military forces to defend Syria’s outside borders. This turned out to be a dream on my part.
Despite the recent claims by Iraq, this standing up to the US announcement might still be bluster on their part as the US has its hooks still inside Iraq. The establishment of the US two new logistics bases in Iraq near the Syrian border reveals them to be combat and logistics support for the SDF in its continued control of the Deir Ezzor oil fields, denying those resources to Damascus.
Remember that the Kurds are socialists and have no real export economy. Their poor wives have a life sentence of living upstairs in their houses, only allowed out to go shopping or for religious services.
The Kurdish region needs resource revenue for all basic services, hence the US hooked them on “fight for us and we will help you take over these rich farming and oil regions”. Lost in the shuffle is that Damascus had always given the Kurds a fixed percentage of state oil revenues.
Some would view these US efforts as grossly interfering in the affairs of another state, an economic Balkanizing of Syria which has been the US coalition intent from day one, and a long list of other places under the catch all justification of “protecting our interests”. To date, the American people have not seriously protested this politically … Jim W. Dean ]
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– First published … January 01, 2018 –
The Iraqi prime minister has hinted that his country would play a bigger role in Syria to fight Daesh terrorists after the withdrawal of the US forces.
Adel Abdul-Mahdi made the remarks on Sunday, stressing that Iraq seeks to move beyond its current arrangement with Syria. However, he did not get into more details. He went on to say that top security officials from Baghdad met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus in a bid to “gain the initiative against Daesh.”
US President Donald Trump announced this month that he had decided to withdraw the approximately 2,000 US troops in Syria.
Iraqi warplanes and artillery have pounded Daesh positions inside Syria in the past, after getting the green light from Syrian authorities.
Earlier on Sunday, it was reported that Syrian President al-Assad has allowed Iraqi fighter jets to conduct airstrikes against the positions of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the war-ravaged country without waiting to be granted formal authorization for the assaults.
A high-ranking Iraqi official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Russia’s RT Arabic television news network that Iraqi warplanes will be able to enter the Syrian airspace and bombard Daesh sites under Assad’s directives.
The Iraqi official, however, highlighted that the Syrian president has demanded the Baghdad government to inform Syrian authorities before launching any aerial raid.
On December 12, the media bureau of Iraq’s Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement that Iraqi military aircraft had carried out two separate airstrikes against members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr.
The statement noted that the fighter jets targeted a meeting of Daesh Takfiris in al-Susah town, which lies in Abu Kamal district of the province, leaving 30 terrorists dead.
Another air raid destroyed a militant hideout in the same Syrian town, killing 14 Daesh terrorists.
Iraqi authorities have on occasions stated that they work closely with the Syrian government to monitor and target terrorist targets based on the efforts of intelligence and information departments of the security coordination committee formed between Baghdad, Damascus, Tehran and Moscow years ago, as well as coordination with the so-called US-led anti-Daesh coalition.
“If we perform a strike, we will coordinate with the international coalition, the joint security center and all the relevant parties. As we work together, we follow the principle of partnership to ensure safety and harmony between allies,” former Iraqi Ministry of Defense spokesman Tahseen al-Khafaji said in April.
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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Regarding an antithesis to NATO is something I thought of myself back in 2012-13 and for years I’ve been baffled by how daft the Kremlin and countries oppressed by NATO and GCC are. But all the losses Russia has taken, like that passenger plane shot down over Egypt by an AMRAAM C or D, show that the Kremlin not only is willing to take losses of that size and probably far bigger than so if we look at their WWII costs, to save humanity from WWIII.
All those losses have in the past two years made it evident that the Kremlin plays generally dumb and clueless about geopolitics being only that and not veil in a spiritual war conducted by the Illuminati.
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