But Syriously…

 “Dear America, appreciate your allies… After all, you don’t have that many.” 

European Council President Donald Tusk

Putin meets with Trump after the President of the United States excoriated the Germany Chancellor, Angela Merkel, as an irresponsible member of NATO and a subservient lacky totally dependent on Russia for the bulk of her energy needs. Eviscerating his fellow NATO allies as if they did not exist, Trump continues to cozy up to America’s most powerful and constant foe since WWII: Russia. The same Russia that ignored its own treaties to invade and annex Crimea. The same Russia that has deployed unending military force and support to do the same with eastern Ukraine. The same Russia that has mastered cyber warfare to interfere with elections all over the Western world, particularly the United States. And the same Vladimir Putin whose fondest wish is to break apart the EU and fracture US-European relations as best he can. Donald Trump is Putin’s most effective instrumentality in achieving those goals.

But today’s blog is about that other massive Russian-backed elephant in the global “room of unending violence”: Syria. Home to a minority Alawite (Shiite) Bashir Assad dictatorship (10% of Syria is Shiite) that has run roughshod over his majority (80%) Sunni population. ISIS has been dealt a death blow in Syria, and the Assad regime is anxious to purge the last vestiges of non-ISIS rebellious Sunnis within its borders. Millions of Sunnis have lost their once-productive farmland to climate- changing desertification. Abandoned by Damascus (Assad), many Sunnis have joined an endless trail of migrants seeking a new life and an escape from crushing violence from their own government against them. Others have remained to fight.

Violence? Indiscriminate shelling and barrel bombing of Sunni civilians by the Syrian military. Schools. Hospitals. Apartments. Infrastructure. And the gas attacks that slaughtered tens of thousands of innocents, including too many very young children. What made this ruthless assault on Assad’s own people possible was Russia’s massive supply of sophisticated weapon and air defense systems, hardware (including missiles and aircraft), munitions, training and the rather direct participation of Russian soldiers and airmen in the fight itself (pictured above). Russia has also cozied up to regional predator Iran (the predominant Shiite nation on earth, heavily aligned with the malevolent Assad regime in Syria). Iran too has funneled munitions, troops and supplies to back the Assad regime’s assault on its own people.

Indeed, the Assad regime was once teetering. A rogue state with too much blood on its hands in a genocidal killing of its own people, Syria (under Assad) would not have been able to survive without Russian backing. But today. Assad is solidifying a rather distinct path to complete victory against his rebellious Sunnis. Effectively, Putin’s efforts in Syria have obliterated American interests in that region completely. Putin/Assad have mounted total victory against US interests, and now our biggest “threat” to Russia and Assad is that Israel might strike at Syrian and Iranian targets someday.

The July 8^th Los Angeles Times fills in the ugly details of Assad’s very imminent, Russian-backed, total victory against rebelling Sunnis: “It was little more than three years ago when rebels stormed the Nassib crossing on Syria’s southern border with Jordan. They rampaged through administrative buildings, ripping down the Syrian state flag and stomping on pictures of President Bashar Assad… At the time, it was seen as yet another loss for a government on the verge of downfall, its battered troops in desperate retreat across the country.

 “On Friday [July 6^th], soldiers raised the state flag once again over Nassib, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency [SANA] reported, in the run-up to a full cease-fire and the surrender of the rebels’ enclave in the southern province of Dara.

“The victory further cements a Russian-engineered turnaround for Assad, which has handed him back control over what the French once called ‘La Syrie utile’ — the string of major cities running from Aleppo down past Damascus and the country’s Mediterranean coastline… SANA posted images on its Telegram channel on Saturday [July 7^th] of soldiers flashing victory signs as they waved a [government] flag over one building. Others showed stacks of ammunition and armored vehicles abandoned by the rebels.

“It reported the Syrian army had also captured a number of border outposts east of Nassib and had already ‘shut down all illegal crossings and smuggling and supply routes for the terrorist groups,’ employing the government’s routine term for the opposition.

“Over the last two weeks, the skies over the south had been crowded with Russian and Syrian warplanes conducting hundreds of airstrikes on the rebels’ bastion, which at its zenith covered approximately two-thirds of Dara as well as the neighboring province of Quneitra under the control of Western-backed factions as well as jihadists from Al Qaeda and Islamic State… With some 320,000 already displaced since June 19 and lacking support from their Western and regional backers, the rebels announced on Friday that they had accepted a deal for a gradual handover of weapons and territory.

“Most of the displaced had fled to Dara’s border with Jordan and to neighboring Quneitra province near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, whipped by desert winds and temperatures that could soar above 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

“At least 15 people couldn’t endure the severe conditions; the U.N.’s coordination office for humanitarian affairs said they had died in areas close to the Jordanian border due to ‘scorpion bites, dehydration and diseases transmitted through contaminated water.’… Both Jordan and Israel had refused to let the refugees in, though they did allow aid to be delivered.

“Some 20,000 civilians had begun returning to their homes Friday evening, according to the pro-opposition watchdog the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights… Other rebel media activists said they had instead been transferred to the town of Busra al Sham under the stewardship of Shabab al Sunnah, an opposition faction that was now working with the government.

“The agreement, SANA said, stipulates the rebels give up their heavy and medium weaponry… Insurgents willing to lay down their arms and live under Assad's rule can join amnesty deals, and those who left their military service would be reintegrated into the army within six months… As in previous iterations, those who refuse will be bused to rebel-held areas in the north.

“All observation points along the border with Jordan would be handed back to government control, while state institutions and services would be restored. Residents could also return to their homes with Russian military police acting as guarantors of their safety.

“But rebel spokesmen insisted government troops would not be allowed in the area, which would instead be secured by a local force composed of former rebel fighters working under the Russian police. The army, they said, would also withdraw from the more than 30 villages it had taken in the latest offensive.

“At the time of writing, the army had not withdrawn and there were reports from a number of rebel activists of widespread looting by government forces… The rebel surrender clears the way for a government offensive on Quneitra, a volatile region with jihadis bunkered in a corner of territory between Syria, Israel and Jordan.”

Make no mistake, Russia is squarely and deeply committed to oppose US interests everywhere on earth. Its mission is an unsubtle effort to sow polarizing seeds within the electorates in the West, destabilizing those countries from within, and to deploy a “divide and conquer” strategy to unravel Western alliances designed to defend against Russia’s anti-democratic and predatory attacks. Putin and Russia are our clearest foes. They will never be our friends. Never. And any semblance of “friendship” is a simple mask of their true intentions. I fear that Trump’s overtures to Russia, aside from his envy of Putin’s autocratic powers, are simply based on the world telling him he cannot and should not do it. So he wants to do precisely that. A really bad motivation.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the only viable American policy with Russia must be one of containment, not an enabling appeasement.