Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog 10/8/2019
Before getting into the latest developments in Syria, let’s not forget that the entire reason we’re there is the Obama Administration’s foolish decision to try to overthrow Assad’s government on the cheap, actions that precipitated us showering pallets of money onto various jihadi groups and (along with the failure to achieve a status-of-forces agreement with a still wobbly Iraq) engendering the rise of the Islamic State, all with very little to show for our efforts except some eight years of Syrian bloodshed.
Unless you’ve been keeping up with every twist and turn of that very long war, it’s hard to understand how Syria has come to the current pass, since there were over a dozen different factions at various points in the civil war, including Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, and Russia. Basically, Syria ended up crushing just about all rebel forces in the south (thanks to a goodly amount of Russian help), while stalemating with jihadist groups and the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army in the north. Meanwhile, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces crushed the Islamic State with American/allied logistical backing and airpower, leaving them in control of Syria east of the Euphrates, all the way up to the Turkish border.
Given that Kurds are our allies, as well as the closest things to goods guys in the Middle East outside Israel (and maybe the Druze), many were disturbed to hear that the Trump Administration is withdrawing American troops from northern Syria in advance of a Turkish invasion.
Is this concerning? Yes it is. Recep Tayyip Ergodan’s jihadist regime deserves no support from America, and the safety of our Kurdish allies is a legitimate issue. But the news also brought about a number of wild overreactions from all points of the political spectrum.
More:
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=42166
