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"Russia backs Damascus as it closes Syrian airspace." Well, yes, now, after Russia allowed Syrian air space to be wide open to Turkey for at least 5 days while Turkey obliterated more Assadist genocide equipment than has been destroyed in the entire war, killed hundreds of Assadist troops (Turkey claims 2000), as well as dozens of Iran-led mercenaries from various countries (leading Hezbollah to formally announce its withdrawal from northern Syria, after Baathist child-killer chicken troops ran away and left Hezbollah true-believers to face the music), bombed Assadist airbases as far as Aleppo, shot down half a dozen Assadist warplanes etc. All with not a peep from Moscow, which controls the airspace. The Assadist social media sphere is apparently full of wingnuts in shock, cursing Moscow. Highly ironic, too, considering it wasn't Assad that killed the 33 Turkish troops that provoked Erdogan's revenge, it was Russia. Why did Russia first bomb and kill Turkish troops - following years now when Erdogan and Putin have been meeting and working on the Astana process etc - and then open Syrian airspace to Turkey to decimate Assad's war toys? Hard to understand until you understand that Putin is pure Machiavelli - he couldn't give a stuff about Assad, but Russian power and influence requires Putin being the king-maker to hammer out the ultimate deal between his junior partner (Erdogan) and his satrap (Assad). Obviously if Putin's dirty manoevres have resulted in this absolutely beautiful spectacle of the destruction of so much of Assad's genocide toys, then I don't hold that against Putin, maybe it was the best result ever of anything Putin did - his regime as responsible as Assad's for the genocide in Idlib until a few days ago. But of course at the end of the day Russia remains in charge and now is drawing the line to Turkey. Which is also fine for Turkey - after all, Turkey's response is the first time Erdogan has done anything but talk as Assad/Putin bombed the place the pieces and drove another million to the Turkish border (on top of a million or so already there). Erdogan hoped Assad would understand that there was a line, as Turkey needs a buffer zone to prevent an extra 2 million refugees on top of the 3.7 million already in Turkey. But Assad did not stop - and the irony is that it was Russia - much more than Iran which was playing a very minor, back-seat role in idlib (due to it's anti-Kurdish alliance with Turkey) - that was pushing this super-hard confrontation, virtually leading Assad on. I think the deal is set, and it seems a Russo-Turkish (and possibly American) understanding will emerge from this. In the circumstances, with the crushing of the main revolutionary centres, a huge enough buffer zone plus a ceasefire (one that is actually a ceasefire this time, due to Turkey FINALLY showing what it can do if necessary) is, unfortunately, probably the best that can be hoped for at the moment in simple humanitarian terms. That is the problem with the rebels being dependent on Turkey, but then again that is something they were basically forced into. Turkey could provide them with the weapons so they could keep shooting down Assad planes themselves, rather than relying on Turkey doing it when it suits Turkey, but it won't. Needless to say, that means we should have no trust in Turkey's ambitions and motivations, and given its occupation of nearby Afrin it is certainly understandable if Afrin Kurds have mixed feelings about enhanced Turkish power nearby, but for the 3.5 million people in Idlib, and for Syrians all over Syria and the diaspora, this Turkish action of reducing Assad's forces to rubble is the biggest cause for celebration for many years, the only decisive hit against Assad ever, and I personally am celebrating with them. Just a few days ago, the chicken-shit regime was still shooting old women in the back as they were already fleeing, was bombing 10 schools in one day, was bombing the IDP camps where they had fled to, and today it is revealed to the whole world that when Assad has to fight an actual armed force, rather than children, hospital patients and medical workers, old people and fleeing refugees, his killing equipment becomes rubble and his "troops' duck for cover. If only this had been done in 2012, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved and most Syrian cities would not be rubble. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
