The end game approaching
Syria and its anti-terrorism allies fight against multinational terrorism has indeed been remarkable in defense of all humanity, not only anti-terrorism countries and people.
According to a better late than never recent analysis by John McLaughlin, a former deputy director of the US spy agency CIA on OZY: “Global Eye: Foreign Affairs Through an Intelligence Lens,”, Syria has managed to score a victory in the nine-year war, while Turkey is “pulled agonizingly” in several directions.
“Syria’s [President Bashar] Assad has won — at least militarily, “John McLaughlin wrote in an article titled “Syria: is the end game approaching?.”
The Syrian Arab Army has been fighting against a host of foreign-backed terrorist groups, which have been wreaking havoc on the country since 2011. The Syrian government has managed to win back control of almost all regions from terrorists. Syria has now been engaged in a liberation operation in Idlib Province, the last major bastion of terrorists in the country.
The recent sweeping Syrian army gains, however, have coincided with a massive deployment of troops and military equipment by Turkey, which is evidently upset by changing conditions on the ground. Ankara backs terrorists fighting to topple the Syrian government. Those elements continue to target Syrian troops and allied Russian personnel.
Analyzing the situation in Idlib, the center for numerous terrorist groups, the largest of which is an al-Qaida offshoot, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, McLaughlin wrote that while Syrian government forces are advancing from the south, NATO member Turkey is pushing back.
“Turkey is pulled agonizingly in multiple directions. It opposes Syria’s advance but doesn’t want to fight Russia, with which it tries to maintain good relations in hopes of influencing an eventual Syrian political settlement, particularly the future of the country’s Kurds,” he added.
The anti-American sentiment is currently running high in Syria where the US is maintaining a military presence- occupation- under the guise of fighting Daesh.
“The United States, thanks to its hesitant policy during the [Barack] Obama administration and its erratic one under President Donald Trump, has forfeited most of its influence in Syria and over its future,” McLaughlin wrote.
“With the US drawdown and the changing mission definition — now oddly one of protecting Syria’s oil — Washington has left the region and Syria’s other players uncertain of its intentions and doubtful of its seriousness and staying power,” he continued.
He concluded, “Strategically, the US has probably lost more than we can now realize.”
Dr. Mohamad Abdo Al-Ibrahim