“There is one view the GCC countries will be kneeling before the US with Syria’s fall”
SYRIA’S hopeless predicament as a “forever flashpoint” of geopolitics started since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the French takeover of the country and eventual “independence” in 1945-1946 from de jure to formally gaining de facto independence.
The explosive mix of religious-ethnic groups of Sunni, Druze, Christian, Shia and Alawite and the enduring interference of Western powers condemn Syria to endemic conflicts.
In 2003, former US NATO command chief Gen. Wesley Clark in his “The Clark Critique” which he also narrated in public interviews, revealed the US’ plans to attack seven Muslim states” in seven years, a plan he criticized as a “Cold War approach.”
The seven countries were Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Syria, with Iran as the final target. Syria survived as Russia intervened in 2015, but the US strangled Syria’s oil supply, taking over Syria’s oil fields with 1,000 troops and rebel factions.
In October 2019, President Donald Trump admitted before global media the “U.S. will be ‘’keeping the oil’ in northeastern Syria” (actually stealing, a war crime) which constituted 70 to 80 percent of Syria’s oil production.
This, plus economic sanctions, are reasons for Assad’s fall whose government penury compelled Assad to pay his Syrian Arab Army soldiers and generals from $7 and $40 per month only, hardly enough for survival, while the rebel jihadist generals were getting $2,000.
The economic squeeze on Assad and his nation is one of the major reasons Assad’s Syria lost the will to fight.
Instead, Assad arranged with and through Russia a relatively peaceful transition to the new rebel government which has retained momentarily Assad’s prime minister and other government officials, and announced it will respect “diversity” (freedom of religion), and a stable transition (although violations are already being reported).
Syria is now being carved up. Israel, taking the Golan Heights, then bombing and demolishing Syrian military facilities that the new Sunni Islamic fundamentalist government may turn on it eventually, while the US and its Kurdish proxies consolidate its own areas and Erdogan’s proxy Syrian National Army fortify itself in its controlled areas.
Diverse Syrian terror groups from Central Asia, Eastern China, Russia’s Caucasus are anticipated to be used by U.S. in its geopolitical destabilization elsewhere.
It is now evident that negotiations between Assad, through Russia with the backers of the rebel groups commanding only 25,000 fighters, are for a controlled withdrawal.
Several discussions followed reporting direct orders from Assad to his 200,000 strong army to fall back without fighting from Aleppo, Hama, and Homs until finally nearing Damascus, the army was ordered to shed their military uniforms and blend into the civilian mainstream.
There are still many murky shadows in the background, but it is clear Russia avoided a situation where it would bleed indefinitely if fully committed to sustain the Assad government, avoiding the Afghanistan situation of the Americans before.
Likely too, a Russian deal with the insurgents of the new government is most likely through Turkey and GCC countries, major backers of the new government. Hence, Russia’s air and naval bases in Latakia and Tartus continue to be secure.
There is a view that China lost geopolitical stock from Assad’s fall, but as I see it, this loss is only minimal and indirectly through the losses of Russia and Iran which, at the moment, is the biggest loss along with Hezbollah and the Palestinians.
There is one view the GCC countries will be kneeling before the US with Syria’s fall, but I doubt this thesis as China will still be the biggest buyer of GCC oil and money talks a lot.
In the Philippines, the two-year old high intensity intervention of the US to re-assert its domination has succeeded in severely dividing the Filipino political milieu while forcing a severe deterioration of its economic-financial conditions after cutting off major economic lifelines of China to the Philippines.
The World Bank has just “trimmed” Philippine growth outlook which is even actually worse that figures show, as the massive decline in people’s living conditions is real and palpable.
As Philippine economic conditions continue to deteriorate faster, its national fragmentation transpires, and the easier for the US to use in its geopolitical “flashpoint”.
