I haven’t been commenting on the events in Syria because I don’t actually know what’s going on there. Initially, it appeared that a bunch of jihadists trained by the West broke into Syrian government controlled territory, and they looked like the typical IS characters on Toyota pickup trucks, armed with light weapons; they should have been easily stopped. However, that’s not what happened. Instead, the Syrian government forces retreated and crumbled away without actually opposing the invaders. Whether that is because of incompetence, cowardice, corruption or treason, I don’t know, but militarily speaking they were a non-entity. The terrorists took over the capital, Assad fled and Syria is no more. The Russians did some damage to the terrorists from the air, but since they had absolutely no ground forces to rely on, that did nothing, and they did the right thing by letting go of Syria altogether, because if its own people won’t defend it, why would they?

Israel is already taking advantage and entering border towns.

This entire thing smells of very good intelligence work from Israel and the West – bribe the key people in the Syrian military, spread discontent, use the fact that the Americans captured Syrian oil which made the Syrian government unable to finance the country etc., and then introduce the jihadis they trained in Idlib and other places to take the whole thing over in what, less than a week? That must be a record of some kind, even for the notoriously incompetent Arab armies. The Russians will now likely cut the losses, withdraw from the base they have there, and sigh in collective relief because they are no longer trying to push that rock uphill.

However, this doesn’t look over. Iran now lost a major ally in the region, and I don’t think they will just take it. Without Syria under control, Hezbollah would be exposed and their supply lines compromised, and the position of Israel greatly strengthened. Also, everybody blames Turkey for this, but they now betrayed Iran and Russia and thus lost the BRICS option that would allow them to gain independence from America and NATO. Basically, I don’t see Turkey as a winner here, despite the appearance. The only winners are Israel, America and presumably the UK; Turkey lost the option of strategic independence, Iran lost a strategically important ally, Russia lost its only foothold in the Middle East, but for Russia this was merely an unsustainable adventure with strained supply lines, that tried to fight fate and keep the incompetent Assad government and his rotten and cowardly army in place. This was a major win for America – they basically financed the destruction of Syria with profits from Syrian oil alone, they had no losses, they helped Israel, strategically harmed Iran, and made Russia look foolish.

Of all the aforementioned players, I think Iran is the least likely to just take the loss and shrug. Unlike the Russians, they have a very important stake in the region and they might decide that it’s worth it to go all-in and try to bring things back under control. In any case, this doesn’t look over. We now have multiple Arab countries without normal governments and unable to control their own territory, which makes them non-countries, I guess. Israel, as a major beneficiary of this, will feel encouraged, and will probably want to add Iran to this list.

Ukraine didn’t benefit from this at all, since the Russians refused to take the focus from what matters the most, and were not really distracted from destroying them. Their front line is crumbling and we’re approaching the point where the Russians decide how much of Ukraine they want to take, or, in other words, how much of Ukraine will they allow to become a hornet’s nest in their back yard, since the NATO countries are already talking about who will send how many occupying forces (aka. “peace keepers”) there. The Russians are not likely to allow this, but on the other hand they like the option of escalating the war even less, and they have to stop somewhere.