Bomb can not be friends
The unpredictability of the Syrian conflict intensifies as it continues. The further, the more. As soon as Syria there was an obvious break, immediately there are events that visually delay Syria's victory over terrorism. The capture of Aleppo continued a series of positive changes at the front and contributed to forcing the militants to truce, but in Palmyra the IS (IG and the other terrorist groups mentioned below are prohibited in Russia) made their adjustments. The Syrian and Russian military barely had time to squeeze the terrorist gang back into the desert, as the US brought down 10 tons of explosives on the Syrian airbase "Shajrat".
Another US leader enters into a strange confusion associated with illegal aggression against sovereign countries, alternating this with the support of terrorists and at the same time revealing struggle with them. Colin Powell’s new “test tubes” came from the hands of the Ahrar ash-Sham (Ansarul-Haqk) and White Helmets terrorist group, entrenched in the victim of an unknown chemical attack in the city of Khan-Sheikhun. Now, in the vicinity of the once-important Shairat airbase, IG terrorists are immediately trying to attack the US immediately after the 23 “Tomahawk” US gaps, just as the Igilovites revived the 17 of September 2016 after the allegedly mistaken US attack in Deir-ezor ...
Who in the West is interested in the probability that a chemical weapon was used for provocation or in the war of one of the groups of Syrian militants against the other? In favor of this version is the fact that in the vicinity of the city of Khan-Sheikhun in October 2016 fights broke out between the igil group of Jund Al-Aqsa and the entrenched Ahrar al-Sham. By the evening of February 9, 2017 Jund Al-Aqsa took control of Khan-Sheikhun and a number of other localities and a week later executed 150 civilians and enemy militants. In late February - early March, according to the concluded truce, Jund Al-Aqsa transferred militants to the Deir-ez-Zor area, but even after that, the fighting in this area continued between “Tahrir ash-Sham” (aka al-Nusra) ) and "Ahrar al-Sham" ("moderate" terrorists of the SSA).
And no one ruled out the possibility of an accident in the production of toxic substances. The same effect could be from the shells / bombs of the Syrian army in the next warehouse or factory of "moderate" Islamists for the production of chemical weapons. Especially since back in August 2016, the Russian VKS destroyed a similar plant for the production of OZH at ISIL. Who guarantees that the militants in Idlib do not do the same as their more popular counterparts? On the other hand, at the end of March, the government army took to oust all of these militants from the area and the version of Su-22 strikes at a chemical ammunition depot looks very realistic (according to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the SAR forces).
Nobody expected the United States to completely abandon its interests in the Middle East, but with the arrival of a seemingly pragmatic businessman in the White House, there was still hope that the aggression from this country would be at least temporarily interrupted, and the focus in this region would be biased towards combating terrorism, not with the legitimate authority in Syria. Alas, once again it is necessary to observe all the same United States with the mind of the leaders of this country, clouded with the delusions of grandeur. Daring to demonstrate his strength in Syria, Trump is certainly trying to look more resolute than Obama, whom he criticized more than once, including regarding the annexation of Crimea to Russia. The level of Trump's awareness of Syria is hardly beyond what the militant advisers give him on their own initiative, and such harsh and inappropriate decisions against the background of the Chinese leader’s visit indicate the unpredictability of the new American president, which, by the way, warned a number of Western experts. What happened to the Syrai Shairat airbase was to be expected if Clinton occupied the post of head of the White House, but Trump, with its contradictory statements before the elections, gave us a little hope for tiny changes in the US foreign vector.
The 59 "Tomahawks" were launched not into the militant bases in Rakka, not into the fortifications of militants in the Palmyra area, but into one of the most popular air bases in Syria. Having spent half the ammunition "Tomahawks" on two destroyers, the United States could not paralyze the operation of the airbase. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, only 40% of the missiles of an aging American army hit targets. The long-standing problems of the US armed forces, which today are only capable of local operations, selectively spending enormous resources on new, but not always reliable, toys are laid bare. Although the Israeli company ISI, based on satellite imagery, claims that the 44 rockets have achieved their goals.
The Shayrat airbase was used more than once by the Russian HQs primarily for the basing of helicopters, and the base played a crucial role in the release of Palmyra. Now, even the crew of Yevgeny Poddubny is free at the injured Syrian airbase where the chemical weapons were allegedly located. Not to mention the complete absence of the need to use such a terrible weapon in full view of the whole world in the conditions of more important and active hostilities in other areas. Indeed, against the backdrop of tough attacks by the IG, the Hama and Idlib Islamists, pursuing a truce, according to the West, look so threatening to the Syrian army that it uses a "chemical weapon" three times in two weeks. And who in the US cares about what the OPCW says about the elimination of all arsenals when there are on hand loyal business partners, “Mad Dog”, MacMaster and others contagiously infected with Russophobic McCain syndrome?
But we could have prevented these actions by taking a tougher stance towards the illegal actions of the troops of all countries that did not have the consent of the UN Security Council or the Syrian authorities. And above all talking about Turkey and Israel. Despite the expectations after the start of the operation of the VKS, Syria’s neighbors did not stop their aggressive actions. Of course, now they are trying to justify them in front of Russia and are simply forced to take into account the power of the VKS group, reporting on their military actions of the Russian Defense Ministry.
Israel has repeatedly attacked Syria from the air under the pretext of combating the supply of Hezbollah missiles aviationwithout going into its airspace. Moreover, the courage of Israel is extremely limited in Lebanon, where the bulk of Hezbollah is located and where weapons allegedly went. By the way, Israel was among the first to welcome Trump's criminal aggression.
Ankara greeted the USA with no less joy. Turkey’s actions against Iraq and Syria cannot be justified in terms of the sovereignty of these countries. Erdogan openly declared war on Assad, laying out the thoughts of all the "friends of Syria" out loud. Today, Turkey and the militants under its control took a number of settlements, including El-Bab, to the east of Aleppo, intending to turn in the direction of Manbij, and after that, Raqqi. It is very difficult to imagine how the Turkish army will openly transfer these points to the SAR army, and today Turkey is creating 2 new terrorist groups Coast Shield and Al-Asi Shield to control the land grabbed. Therefore, there is reason to say that Erdogan perceived an excessively rapid resumption of cooperation between Turkey and Russia as a blank check for the continuation of aggression in the Syrian Arab Republic.
US missile strikes again bring back the need to carefully calculate and analyze military operations in this country.
Now in Syria, there is a kind of “truce” similar to the Minsk truces, which does not resolve the conflict on its own, but only provides a temporary opportunity to use the SAR forces in other areas and remote chances for any successful negotiations. At the moment, none of the groups that have signed the armistice can be called “moderate opposition”. All of them are still composed of radical Islamists involved in the attacks and public executions. For example, “Jaish al-Islam” is behind the attack on the Russian embassy in Syria, and “Ahrar al-Sham” is part of the “Army of conquest” and is fighting in close cooperation with the “Front al-Nusra”, subjected to air strikes United States, was involved in the attacks in Tartus and Latakia. The Army of Conquest claimed responsibility for the assassination of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov in Turkey.
All attempts by the Islamists to negotiate usually only mean a desire to delay time to replenish their forces, to be able to regroup or leave the country. There are big doubts that the majority of terrorists will remain in Syria and strive for a peaceful life and participation in the formation of a new democratic system. We are talking primarily about their survival, which turned out to be in great doubt after the capture of Aleppo and against the background of the absence of any success of these groups on other fronts.
Aleppo is the biggest victory of the government forces in the Syrian war. In fact, the fully open war of the Syrian troops with all kinds of fanatics in the maximum safe format for the civilian population without the use of aviation in Aleppo greatly shaken the plans of many fans to climb into the internal affairs of foreign countries not to mention the benefits of destroying the terrorists themselves. Absolutely predictable hysteria in the West about this is wasted. They cannot help the destroyed and supplanted terrorists, as well as their advisers, facing Russia. Indeed, in Syria, there is an air base, which the West is afraid to even look at. And in general, it is a shame to the West when all hopes of overthrowing the disagreeables are crumbling, the militants are deprived of the main stronghold and this is happening so openly and transparently. Of course, we will continue to hear from there about the "thousands of children and women killed by the SAR army." This fake hysteria will grow in a wave-like manner with every military success of the Syrian army, in every major settlement. But the main thing is that Aleppo comes to life.
Everything would be fine, but the most severe conflict that has been going on for many years has pulled a lot of strength out of the state. If you look at the map, you can see that the Syrian army today controls primarily the densely populated part of the country and the highways connecting large settlements. This is used by mobile units of terrorists operating in the desert and extremely quickly finding holes in this kind of system. This time, Palmyra fell again. This is a failure not only in Syrian intelligence (which, by the way, has Iranian Drones) and VKS intelligence. Of course, militant pickups are not so difficult to spot in the desert by our drones, if they were there, because the rapid movement of militants leaves no chance for full-fledged space monitoring. The capture of Palmyra by militants is a tactical failure. Taking the city, the Syrian army did not consolidate the success. It was surrounded on three sides by an ominous desert strewn with ISIS flags. The rapid retreat of government troops was carried out under the threat of encirclement, and this is quite obvious. Initially, we heard about a tactical retreat and a complete evacuation of the locals. Then it turned out that 80% of the people had been evacuated, and dozens of Syrian and Russian armored vehicles were abandoned in the middle of the city. 5000 militants is an impressive number, given that in Mosul, which is being stormed by many times superior forces, now, according to the coalition, there are also 3000-5000 (in Aleppo there were 10). But for their confidence, the militants paid with the lives of a fifth of the attacking group and again the Syrian flag over ancient Palmyra.
In the course of the hostilities, the great role of various kinds of government militias can be noted. Their role has increased markedly as the forces of the regular army are exhausted, which, moreover, must also have certain reserves to repel external intervention and ensure security in the rear. The capture of Aleppo also forces one to calculate the possible counter-attack of the militants in this direction. The activity of government troops here is ensured by only one route. On both sides of the highway are the militants. From the west, shells still fly from the city. The city of Idlib itself is 8 times smaller than Aleppo and its capture can be much less painful. But, given the fact that militants are being driven here from all over Syria, the likelihood of a continuation of the truce is quite high, in which some of the militants will leave Syria completely through Turkey, some will live and be amnestied if they continue to go on dialogue. Idlib is a kind of exclusion zone, where militants can reflect on their behavior, rejoicing in the unfriendly “communication” with former al Qaeda allies. The futility of fighting with the Syrian army for the capitulation is even very clear, but the fragmentation of the formations that obey all sorts of sponsors is too large.
Today it is important for us to focus on arming the Syrian army and training soldiers. There is and there can be no other force on the territory of this state that would be able to restore order. Those famous explosives cars with suicide bombers are easily destroyed by anti-tank guided missiles in an open-field battlefield, which is shown by the practice of fighting the Iraqi army near Mosul, where Russian Cornets were used. To deprive the militants of armored vehicles is to deprive them of any offensive potential. There is also a clear lack of non-lethal weapons: the same UAV for reconnaissance, radar to detect the accumulation of armored vehicles, to identify the positions of enemy artillery and mortars. And if we talk about the long-term perspective, despite all the stories of the West and the Turks, it is most likely that the Syrian army will have to take Rakka, dragging the long-suffering Dair Alzour from the IG environment. Indeed, instead of throwing forces at directly supported US groups of moderate terrorists in the immediate vicinity of their “capital”, DAISh militants are attacking Palmyra, having very dubious prospects to stay in it any long time. It turns out that there is no threat to the IS and they understand it, and the bet on dubious groups with the loss of Aleppo has once again become a key element of the “strategy” of the United States in Syria. Various provocations with chemical weapons should play a big role in this in order to justify the support of the militants. And this is in conditions when even the armed forces of Iraq, Turkey and the Kurdish formations, which were openly armed by the West, along with the American special forces, with great delay, could barely completely surround Mosul.
Terrorists out of control of the West forced the West to engage in a demonstrative fight against terrorism and reduce at least open support to other militants, but the main goal remains the same - the displacement of Bashar al-Assad. The most favorable option for them is the change of power in Syria, by analogy with Ukraine, but instead of the “moderate” pocket Nazis in Syria, the “moderate” pocket Islamists should rule. Naturally, in today's conditions against the background of such a situation at the front and the support of Russia this is impossible. Missile strikes of the United States demonstrate the inability of this country to change the situation greatly in its favor. Instead of a show of force, a show of powerlessness was issued. Trump from this attack will not get the image of a "strong leader" in the eyes of the Americans. Similar to him could only provide significant success in the economy and a clear consistent position in the foreign policy arena. States have no such position. There is no Middle East strategy at all, and the fight against terrorism is now openly conceded to the fight against Assad.
If the Kremlin intends to prevent similar incidents in the future, then it is necessary to force the Americans and other violators of international law to leave the Syrian sky and the Syrian land. It is necessary to strengthen the defense of Syria and a clear signal that Russia is also capable of taking similar actions in the same Ukraine, but already having a clear strategy and a real result. Russia cannot count on the fact that the aggressive policies of the West will disappear. It can only be transformed, but the main tendency is the West’s reluctance to intervene in long-term full-scale campaigns, which means a high probability of subsequent local attacks where possible (for example, Iran, North Korea) and investing huge amounts of informational attacks and support of the opposition. militants whose goal is a revolutionary change unwanted regimes.
If we talk about the situation in Syria as a whole, then it can be argued that the main front of the war has now unfolded in the east of the country, but sooner or later the question of Idlib and the northern regions captured by Turkey will arise. After all, the capture of borders is extremely important to prevent the penetration of militants and weapons in the future. South of Syria, the capital and coastal areas will gradually begin to forget about the war. The Russian military by their presence give a clear signal to the enemies of Syria that it is protected and will not tear it apart after the failed seizure of central power. Perhaps the truce will give some groups of militants tired of war to join the peaceful environment and even become a kind of normal opposition, but we need to clearly understand that they will be in the minority alongside other militant Islamists. The sooner foreign players begin to realize the failure of the “Arab spring” in Syria, the better for everyone. Well, we have to help them in this. Although now Russia is at a loss from the actions of Trump. Tolstoy correctly said: "Many things that are completely inexplicable are sometimes explained simply by stupidity."
Another US leader enters into a strange confusion associated with illegal aggression against sovereign countries, alternating this with the support of terrorists and at the same time revealing struggle with them. Colin Powell’s new “test tubes” came from the hands of the Ahrar ash-Sham (Ansarul-Haqk) and White Helmets terrorist group, entrenched in the victim of an unknown chemical attack in the city of Khan-Sheikhun. Now, in the vicinity of the once-important Shairat airbase, IG terrorists are immediately trying to attack the US immediately after the 23 “Tomahawk” US gaps, just as the Igilovites revived the 17 of September 2016 after the allegedly mistaken US attack in Deir-ezor ...
Who in the West is interested in the probability that a chemical weapon was used for provocation or in the war of one of the groups of Syrian militants against the other? In favor of this version is the fact that in the vicinity of the city of Khan-Sheikhun in October 2016 fights broke out between the igil group of Jund Al-Aqsa and the entrenched Ahrar al-Sham. By the evening of February 9, 2017 Jund Al-Aqsa took control of Khan-Sheikhun and a number of other localities and a week later executed 150 civilians and enemy militants. In late February - early March, according to the concluded truce, Jund Al-Aqsa transferred militants to the Deir-ez-Zor area, but even after that, the fighting in this area continued between “Tahrir ash-Sham” (aka al-Nusra) ) and "Ahrar al-Sham" ("moderate" terrorists of the SSA).
And no one ruled out the possibility of an accident in the production of toxic substances. The same effect could be from the shells / bombs of the Syrian army in the next warehouse or factory of "moderate" Islamists for the production of chemical weapons. Especially since back in August 2016, the Russian VKS destroyed a similar plant for the production of OZH at ISIL. Who guarantees that the militants in Idlib do not do the same as their more popular counterparts? On the other hand, at the end of March, the government army took to oust all of these militants from the area and the version of Su-22 strikes at a chemical ammunition depot looks very realistic (according to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the SAR forces).
Nobody expected the United States to completely abandon its interests in the Middle East, but with the arrival of a seemingly pragmatic businessman in the White House, there was still hope that the aggression from this country would be at least temporarily interrupted, and the focus in this region would be biased towards combating terrorism, not with the legitimate authority in Syria. Alas, once again it is necessary to observe all the same United States with the mind of the leaders of this country, clouded with the delusions of grandeur. Daring to demonstrate his strength in Syria, Trump is certainly trying to look more resolute than Obama, whom he criticized more than once, including regarding the annexation of Crimea to Russia. The level of Trump's awareness of Syria is hardly beyond what the militant advisers give him on their own initiative, and such harsh and inappropriate decisions against the background of the Chinese leader’s visit indicate the unpredictability of the new American president, which, by the way, warned a number of Western experts. What happened to the Syrai Shairat airbase was to be expected if Clinton occupied the post of head of the White House, but Trump, with its contradictory statements before the elections, gave us a little hope for tiny changes in the US foreign vector.
The 59 "Tomahawks" were launched not into the militant bases in Rakka, not into the fortifications of militants in the Palmyra area, but into one of the most popular air bases in Syria. Having spent half the ammunition "Tomahawks" on two destroyers, the United States could not paralyze the operation of the airbase. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, only 40% of the missiles of an aging American army hit targets. The long-standing problems of the US armed forces, which today are only capable of local operations, selectively spending enormous resources on new, but not always reliable, toys are laid bare. Although the Israeli company ISI, based on satellite imagery, claims that the 44 rockets have achieved their goals.
The Shayrat airbase was used more than once by the Russian HQs primarily for the basing of helicopters, and the base played a crucial role in the release of Palmyra. Now, even the crew of Yevgeny Poddubny is free at the injured Syrian airbase where the chemical weapons were allegedly located. Not to mention the complete absence of the need to use such a terrible weapon in full view of the whole world in the conditions of more important and active hostilities in other areas. Indeed, against the backdrop of tough attacks by the IG, the Hama and Idlib Islamists, pursuing a truce, according to the West, look so threatening to the Syrian army that it uses a "chemical weapon" three times in two weeks. And who in the US cares about what the OPCW says about the elimination of all arsenals when there are on hand loyal business partners, “Mad Dog”, MacMaster and others contagiously infected with Russophobic McCain syndrome?
But we could have prevented these actions by taking a tougher stance towards the illegal actions of the troops of all countries that did not have the consent of the UN Security Council or the Syrian authorities. And above all talking about Turkey and Israel. Despite the expectations after the start of the operation of the VKS, Syria’s neighbors did not stop their aggressive actions. Of course, now they are trying to justify them in front of Russia and are simply forced to take into account the power of the VKS group, reporting on their military actions of the Russian Defense Ministry.
Israel has repeatedly attacked Syria from the air under the pretext of combating the supply of Hezbollah missiles aviationwithout going into its airspace. Moreover, the courage of Israel is extremely limited in Lebanon, where the bulk of Hezbollah is located and where weapons allegedly went. By the way, Israel was among the first to welcome Trump's criminal aggression.
Ankara greeted the USA with no less joy. Turkey’s actions against Iraq and Syria cannot be justified in terms of the sovereignty of these countries. Erdogan openly declared war on Assad, laying out the thoughts of all the "friends of Syria" out loud. Today, Turkey and the militants under its control took a number of settlements, including El-Bab, to the east of Aleppo, intending to turn in the direction of Manbij, and after that, Raqqi. It is very difficult to imagine how the Turkish army will openly transfer these points to the SAR army, and today Turkey is creating 2 new terrorist groups Coast Shield and Al-Asi Shield to control the land grabbed. Therefore, there is reason to say that Erdogan perceived an excessively rapid resumption of cooperation between Turkey and Russia as a blank check for the continuation of aggression in the Syrian Arab Republic.
US missile strikes again bring back the need to carefully calculate and analyze military operations in this country.
Now in Syria, there is a kind of “truce” similar to the Minsk truces, which does not resolve the conflict on its own, but only provides a temporary opportunity to use the SAR forces in other areas and remote chances for any successful negotiations. At the moment, none of the groups that have signed the armistice can be called “moderate opposition”. All of them are still composed of radical Islamists involved in the attacks and public executions. For example, “Jaish al-Islam” is behind the attack on the Russian embassy in Syria, and “Ahrar al-Sham” is part of the “Army of conquest” and is fighting in close cooperation with the “Front al-Nusra”, subjected to air strikes United States, was involved in the attacks in Tartus and Latakia. The Army of Conquest claimed responsibility for the assassination of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov in Turkey.
All attempts by the Islamists to negotiate usually only mean a desire to delay time to replenish their forces, to be able to regroup or leave the country. There are big doubts that the majority of terrorists will remain in Syria and strive for a peaceful life and participation in the formation of a new democratic system. We are talking primarily about their survival, which turned out to be in great doubt after the capture of Aleppo and against the background of the absence of any success of these groups on other fronts.
Aleppo is the biggest victory of the government forces in the Syrian war. In fact, the fully open war of the Syrian troops with all kinds of fanatics in the maximum safe format for the civilian population without the use of aviation in Aleppo greatly shaken the plans of many fans to climb into the internal affairs of foreign countries not to mention the benefits of destroying the terrorists themselves. Absolutely predictable hysteria in the West about this is wasted. They cannot help the destroyed and supplanted terrorists, as well as their advisers, facing Russia. Indeed, in Syria, there is an air base, which the West is afraid to even look at. And in general, it is a shame to the West when all hopes of overthrowing the disagreeables are crumbling, the militants are deprived of the main stronghold and this is happening so openly and transparently. Of course, we will continue to hear from there about the "thousands of children and women killed by the SAR army." This fake hysteria will grow in a wave-like manner with every military success of the Syrian army, in every major settlement. But the main thing is that Aleppo comes to life.
Everything would be fine, but the most severe conflict that has been going on for many years has pulled a lot of strength out of the state. If you look at the map, you can see that the Syrian army today controls primarily the densely populated part of the country and the highways connecting large settlements. This is used by mobile units of terrorists operating in the desert and extremely quickly finding holes in this kind of system. This time, Palmyra fell again. This is a failure not only in Syrian intelligence (which, by the way, has Iranian Drones) and VKS intelligence. Of course, militant pickups are not so difficult to spot in the desert by our drones, if they were there, because the rapid movement of militants leaves no chance for full-fledged space monitoring. The capture of Palmyra by militants is a tactical failure. Taking the city, the Syrian army did not consolidate the success. It was surrounded on three sides by an ominous desert strewn with ISIS flags. The rapid retreat of government troops was carried out under the threat of encirclement, and this is quite obvious. Initially, we heard about a tactical retreat and a complete evacuation of the locals. Then it turned out that 80% of the people had been evacuated, and dozens of Syrian and Russian armored vehicles were abandoned in the middle of the city. 5000 militants is an impressive number, given that in Mosul, which is being stormed by many times superior forces, now, according to the coalition, there are also 3000-5000 (in Aleppo there were 10). But for their confidence, the militants paid with the lives of a fifth of the attacking group and again the Syrian flag over ancient Palmyra.
In the course of the hostilities, the great role of various kinds of government militias can be noted. Their role has increased markedly as the forces of the regular army are exhausted, which, moreover, must also have certain reserves to repel external intervention and ensure security in the rear. The capture of Aleppo also forces one to calculate the possible counter-attack of the militants in this direction. The activity of government troops here is ensured by only one route. On both sides of the highway are the militants. From the west, shells still fly from the city. The city of Idlib itself is 8 times smaller than Aleppo and its capture can be much less painful. But, given the fact that militants are being driven here from all over Syria, the likelihood of a continuation of the truce is quite high, in which some of the militants will leave Syria completely through Turkey, some will live and be amnestied if they continue to go on dialogue. Idlib is a kind of exclusion zone, where militants can reflect on their behavior, rejoicing in the unfriendly “communication” with former al Qaeda allies. The futility of fighting with the Syrian army for the capitulation is even very clear, but the fragmentation of the formations that obey all sorts of sponsors is too large.
Today it is important for us to focus on arming the Syrian army and training soldiers. There is and there can be no other force on the territory of this state that would be able to restore order. Those famous explosives cars with suicide bombers are easily destroyed by anti-tank guided missiles in an open-field battlefield, which is shown by the practice of fighting the Iraqi army near Mosul, where Russian Cornets were used. To deprive the militants of armored vehicles is to deprive them of any offensive potential. There is also a clear lack of non-lethal weapons: the same UAV for reconnaissance, radar to detect the accumulation of armored vehicles, to identify the positions of enemy artillery and mortars. And if we talk about the long-term perspective, despite all the stories of the West and the Turks, it is most likely that the Syrian army will have to take Rakka, dragging the long-suffering Dair Alzour from the IG environment. Indeed, instead of throwing forces at directly supported US groups of moderate terrorists in the immediate vicinity of their “capital”, DAISh militants are attacking Palmyra, having very dubious prospects to stay in it any long time. It turns out that there is no threat to the IS and they understand it, and the bet on dubious groups with the loss of Aleppo has once again become a key element of the “strategy” of the United States in Syria. Various provocations with chemical weapons should play a big role in this in order to justify the support of the militants. And this is in conditions when even the armed forces of Iraq, Turkey and the Kurdish formations, which were openly armed by the West, along with the American special forces, with great delay, could barely completely surround Mosul.
Terrorists out of control of the West forced the West to engage in a demonstrative fight against terrorism and reduce at least open support to other militants, but the main goal remains the same - the displacement of Bashar al-Assad. The most favorable option for them is the change of power in Syria, by analogy with Ukraine, but instead of the “moderate” pocket Nazis in Syria, the “moderate” pocket Islamists should rule. Naturally, in today's conditions against the background of such a situation at the front and the support of Russia this is impossible. Missile strikes of the United States demonstrate the inability of this country to change the situation greatly in its favor. Instead of a show of force, a show of powerlessness was issued. Trump from this attack will not get the image of a "strong leader" in the eyes of the Americans. Similar to him could only provide significant success in the economy and a clear consistent position in the foreign policy arena. States have no such position. There is no Middle East strategy at all, and the fight against terrorism is now openly conceded to the fight against Assad.
If the Kremlin intends to prevent similar incidents in the future, then it is necessary to force the Americans and other violators of international law to leave the Syrian sky and the Syrian land. It is necessary to strengthen the defense of Syria and a clear signal that Russia is also capable of taking similar actions in the same Ukraine, but already having a clear strategy and a real result. Russia cannot count on the fact that the aggressive policies of the West will disappear. It can only be transformed, but the main tendency is the West’s reluctance to intervene in long-term full-scale campaigns, which means a high probability of subsequent local attacks where possible (for example, Iran, North Korea) and investing huge amounts of informational attacks and support of the opposition. militants whose goal is a revolutionary change unwanted regimes.
If we talk about the situation in Syria as a whole, then it can be argued that the main front of the war has now unfolded in the east of the country, but sooner or later the question of Idlib and the northern regions captured by Turkey will arise. After all, the capture of borders is extremely important to prevent the penetration of militants and weapons in the future. South of Syria, the capital and coastal areas will gradually begin to forget about the war. The Russian military by their presence give a clear signal to the enemies of Syria that it is protected and will not tear it apart after the failed seizure of central power. Perhaps the truce will give some groups of militants tired of war to join the peaceful environment and even become a kind of normal opposition, but we need to clearly understand that they will be in the minority alongside other militant Islamists. The sooner foreign players begin to realize the failure of the “Arab spring” in Syria, the better for everyone. Well, we have to help them in this. Although now Russia is at a loss from the actions of Trump. Tolstoy correctly said: "Many things that are completely inexplicable are sometimes explained simply by stupidity."
Information