Excellent article by one of our top Middle East experts on what is going on in Syria. Well worth reading if you want to understand the truth which is so often hidden from us by the media.
The Turks are in a bad position because the Syrian and Russians are winning and the Jihadis are facing the prospect of being surrounded and completely defeated. The Turks have blocked the refugees from Aleppo from entering Turkey probably as a way to put pressure on its allies to get Russia to stop the calamity that wil loccur to the Jihadis as they get surrounded. If the Turks try to up the ante and move into Syria, then our expert says that he thinks that NATO won't help them. It looks like it is all coming to an end and that Assad and the Russians are going to win.
'The Syria War Will Not Be a Quagmire -- Because Putin and Assad Are Winning'
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Edward Dark, a pseudonym for a respected commentator on Syrian affairs living in Aleppo, tweeted on Feb. 3, "This is the beginning of the end of jihadi presence in Aleppo. After 4 years of war & terror, people can finally see the end in sight."
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If government forces, moving north, can make friendly contact with the Kurds in the northeast, almost all Nusra and allied rebel forces would be nearly surrounded. The insurgents would be caught in a cauldron with their backs to a lightly populated and forested territory.
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With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan being the irascible character that he is, it is possible that we may yet see surprises, like a Turkish incursion into northern Syria aimed ostensibly at preventing the Syrian Kurds from linking up along the southern side of the Turkish border. But, if Turkey were to take such independent action, it would likely forfeit any NATO support beyond rhetoric, and any Turkish expeditionary force would have to be launched in the face of Russia's complete air superiority in Syria, which extends right up to the Turkish border.
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Put simply, should Nusra members (who are mainly Syrian) and other rebels try to disperse and hide amongst local communities, there will be no water in which these fish can swim, to paraphrase the Maoist adage. They will find little or no public support.
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Peoples who undergo the kind of trauma to which Syrians have been subjected either emerge as a psychologically defeated nation or they are strengthened by the crisis through which they have passed. I am quite sure from my visits to Syria through this crisis that its people will emerge stronger. Steel has entered into the Syrian soul.
I also expect Syria to soon again constitute a strong regional state. The meaning of this will be evidenced in a powerful, cohesive northern arc through the region -- and perhaps closer relations with Iraq. Correspondingly, certain Gulf states will find themselves eclipsed.
American and many European elites will find this outcome hard to swallow.
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The question is, will the bitterness at Syria, Russia and Iran's achievement poison America and Europe's attitude towards the new security architecture being forged in Syria? Will it be seen as anti-Western (which it is not), or will Europe manage to curb the Pavlovian NATO impulses sufficiently to establish some modus vivendi? The auguries are not promising."
www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/syria-putin-assad_b_9169998.html
What our expert fails to mention is the huge elephant in the room - the US elections. If Donald Trump wins, it is over for the Jihadis and the regimes who backed them. It is bad news for the Saudis and Turks, but Syria will be able to escape from its nightmare.
