whether or not the Zio-USUK manipulated the Resistance to initiate it, they had no choice. Berletic doesn’t appreciate the deadend horror of living under the zionazi boot. It was either a slow genocide, or a fast one.. A prison break was inevitable. All things considered, given near-demilitarization of the combined West, this was an opportune moment.

💠@ejmalrai:
⭕ I spoke to senior diplomats in #Damascus #Syria who told me that the new militant commanders have knocked on some doors and confirmed their intention to respect the diplomatic immunity of all personnel.
[the goons were better schooled this time, in order to divide their sea of enemies and give themselves time in which to digest Syria. They’ll play nice for a few weeks, at most.
NB – an exception was made for Iran’s embassy, which was sacked]
⭕ In the Middle East, there’s a troubling eagerness to elevate leaders to near-mythical status, erecting statues and celebrating them as saviors. Yet, when those same leaders fall, the celebrations shift to their downfall. Why glorify a living leader in the first place for simply doing the job they’re supposed to—serving the country? Leadership is service, not deification.
⭕ The ‘axis of resistance’ has achieved far more strategically in a decade against very powerful enemies than critics are willing to recognise or admit, no matter how desperate they are to downplay its impact.
🔻 C1: The axis of resistance has indeed accomplished much. But its downfall was not due to the lack of strategic brilliance, it is the corruption and perfidy of its so-called leaders Russia and Iran. And the misplaced trust the resistance had in them.
🔻 EM: It has survived for a long time but there were fatal mistakes, like all states and non-state players who were/are involved in the Middle East.

💠@imetatronink:
⭕ 🤔 I have long been of the opinion that Russia’s Syrian bases represent strategic imperatives for Moscow.

I am now revisiting that assumption in the context of potential open war between Russia and the US.

I have not yet reached a conclusion, but I am thinking about it …
🔻 C1: Potential open war between US and Russia can have many scenarios. However the only scenario that can have a conclusive outcome is that of an ICBM exchange. And all the other scenarios would necessarily eventually lead to the afromentioned scenario.
🔻 WS: I’ve given the question a lot of thought. I vacillate between conclusions.
📜 To Nuke or Not to Nuke?
🔻 C2: Turkey, indeed, the Turkish Sultan, wants a piece of Syria. Maybe he’s negotiating with Russia. Let’s not forget that the Turks sell armaments to Israel, although the Sultan accuses them of genocide.
🔻 WS: Everyone in the region is already laying claim to what they consider to be their own.
🔻 C3: Paul Craig Roberts says the initiative is in the hand of the West

US Opens a Third Front Against Russia

🔻 WS: I do not find Roberts’ analysis compelling, and I have not for years — except for when he cites me verbatim without attribution, which he has done on multiple occasions.
[PCR was proven right on this theatre. OK, I’ve got a soft spot for the old fella]
🔻 C3: Who has the strategic initiative today?
🔻 WS: At this point in time, the Russians indisputably hold the strategic initiative over the collective west in every meaningful respect.
🔻 C4: Sorry, final thought. Precisely when Iran & Russia each demonstrate military capabilities beyond expectation & beyond the West’s, both countries, even as they use this to deter escalation & buy time, find their strategic position undercut…
🔻 WS: I do not subscribe to the conclusion that Russia’s and Iran’s strategic position has been impaired in the least.

I don’t understand at all why so many people are rushing to that conclusion. I perceive no basis for it.
🔻 C5: their ability to fuel in the Mediterranean is quite important, but I don’t really understand how any of this was let to happen and of course the propaganda is thick
🔻 WS: In the context of an open war between Russia and the US, why would a Russian surface naval presence in the Mediterranean be essential or even important?

I have not yet arrived at an answer to this question, but it is one I am contemplating.
🔻 C5: perhaps it isnt but it seems key to not be trapped without fuel if Turkiye closes the Straits
🔻 WS: Non sequitur.

The only pertinent question is whether or not a Russian surface naval presence in the Mediterranean affords a meaningful strategic military asset in the context of an open war against the US/NATO.
🔻 C5: NATO has put a whole lot of effort into denying Russia naval bases on the Med, they must think it is important
🔻 WS: The empire views everything as a zero-sum game. But here at the end of 2024, that is no longer true — at least it’s not true for the other major powers on the planet.

I repeat: if the US decides it wants to make a play to gain “full control” over the western Levant, Russia and China will stand clear and let them try.
🔻 C5: The Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean would not last five days in war. (Surface fleet)
🔻 WS: Neither would the US fleet.
🔻 C6: In that context it is not essential and most certainly not “existential”. Others have pointed out the importance of the bases to RF interests in Africa. Losing them is bad optics but sometimes you have to take the “L”.
🔻 C7: And in the meantime 🇺🇸 builds the its largest European base in 🇷🇴
🔻 WS: Against the overwhelming will of the Romanian people, and within easy striking distance of Russian territory.

No US bases in eastern Europe will survive the first day of a war against Russia.
🔻 Brandon: It’s not important. If necessary, they’ll peel out of there. It just means that they will fight to the death over Sevastopol and Kaliningrad ports. Because, let’s face it, the plan for NATO is to push them out of ALL of the warm water ports
🔻 WS: Sevastopol and Kaliningrad are eminently defensible. The US Navy could not operate in the Baltic, Black, or eastern Mediterranean seas in the event of war against Russia. Nor could they operate in the Persian Gulf.
🔻 Brandon: Russia had better build more of those systems then because my understanding is that there are only 4-5 Oreshniks and the NATO leadership is obsessed with the Warm Water Ports. It’ll take more than a handful of Oreshniks to break their mental illness
🔻 WS: Oreshniks are irrelevant to the discussion.

The Russians wouldn’t use Oreshniks to defeat an attempted blockade of its various ports.

And I challenge anyone to present a credible plan for NATO to deprive Russia of its seafaring power.
🔻 Brandon: You saw it in 2010, when the USG attempted to pressure the Kiev gov to not renew the lease of the Russkie base at Sevastopol. You’re seeing it again in Syria. Now that Finland and Sweden are in NATO they’re going to try to figure out a way to squeeze Kaliningrad.
🔻 WS: I repeat:

I challenge anyone to present a credible plan for NATO to deprive Russia of its seafaring power.

NATO is an empty shell. The US Navy is incapable of projecting decisive power into any seas within Russian missile range, nor into the Persian Gulf, nor the China seas.
🔻 Brandon: I’m telling you the deluded few who purport to run the West, have convinced themselves that this Warm Water Port Rollback strategy is the silver bullet needed to oust Russia as real world power. It’s insane. And dumb. But that’s what they believe. Because we’re led by children.
🔻 WS: In their minds, it’s always still September 2, 1945 in Tokyo Bay.
🔻 C8: Apparently the ports are an important link in Russia’s logistics support for its operations in Africa.
🔻 WS: The Bosporus is not closed to Russian cargo ships. And the cessation of war in Ukraine will reopen the straits to Russian warships as well, per the Montreux Convention.
🔻 C9: Focused on victory in Ukraine, Russia may have abandoned Syria, facing Turkey, NATO, and Israel. In a full conflict, defending their Syrian bases seems unlikely. Turkey has outmaneuvered Russia and Iran—checkmate?
🔻 WS: I’m not even sure what Turkey is doing. All I’m certain of is that they are in way over their heads.
🔻 C10: On balance it is still highly unlikely that the 2nd Cold War will become hot. And if it doesn´t, not completely losing the Near East IS a definitive strategic imperative for Moscow. And they WILL lose the Near East entirely, if they lose Syria. I hope they understand that.
[this was before Damascus fell]
🔻 WS: What do they lose? How is Russia’s strategic posture impaired by vacating its bases in Syria?
🔻 C10: Man, you are wayyyyy too intelligent to ask such a question.
1. Russia cannot POLITICALLY afford to lose a country where it has a military base. The diplomatic/psychological importance cannot be overstated.

2. Like Cold War I, Cold War II is a zero sum game on a global map. And it is won or lost on points. (Like Go, unlike Chess.) Russia cannot afford to focus on Eastern Europe alone. It must contest every region (together with China). Losing…

…a couple regions like the Near East entirely means losing the game.
🔻 WS: This is utter nonsense. We are not entering Cold War 2. We are witnessing the end of an empire and the return to a balance of powers multipolar world.
🔻 C11: Until full-on war, it’s the most direct line to Africa–AND to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil–major shipping routes for all Russian products using Black Sea ports, thereby increasing reliance on Baltic & INSTC via Iran. Reputational loss in Global South, ⬆️reliance on land routes.
🔻 WS: Russian seaborne trade via the Mediterranean has not been interrupted, nor would it be if they left Tartus tomorrow.
🔻 C11: It could be, more easily than Baltic trade. And if this latest move demonstrates that they have no leverage over Turkey, then the bases will be a symptom not a cause of strategic weakening. As might be a further pro-NATO shift by Turkey on UKR. Peacekeepers, anyone?
🔻 WS: Turkey will not close the Bosporus to Russian shipping. And Erdogan won’t live much longer.
[what is this fixation. Does he have Sicilian or Arab blood? “There Must Be Blood”]
🔻 C12: If Russia sees Istanbul as the hilt of a Turkic kilij spreading across the mid-east and central Asia into China, a real 21st century Eurasian regional player, then having access to a southern warm water port should Turkiye ever close the Bosphorus would be a useful card.
🔻 WS: The Turkish straits are a valuable income-producing asset. But they only make money when ships move through them.
🔻 C12: No doubt it would be an extreme situation before Turkiye closed the straits, but not one beyond comprehension as this chaotic first half of the century unfolds.

A stone on the board of west Asia has potential and cultivating that is this century’s Great Game.
[this latter point is eschatological. This is coming. The closing of the Bosporos to Russia. I posted Greek Orthodox prophesies on the matter months ago – that Russia would fight Turkey, and not for the sake of (NATO) Greece. An islamic coalition from land and Russian Navy would storm Constantinople…]
🔻 C13: Withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria signals a major strategic defeat.
If Russian forces remain, the collapse of Syria was prearranged.

With Hamas destroyed and Hezbollah defeated, the fall of Syria is a strategic defeat.
🔻 WS: I am not disagreeing, but I invite you to defend the proposition that Russia withdrawing from its Syrian bases constitutes a “major strategic defeat” at this point in time, given the now-altered parameters of long-range Russian strike capabilities in Europe and the Middle East.
🔻 C13: As stated before.
If the naval base remains, regime change was prearranged with Türkiye.
If Russia withdraws, major strategic defeat for Russia.

Russia doesn’t need submarines in an enclosed space as Mediterranean.
Shore complexes in Crimea can wipe out anything there.
🔻 WS: Why would a Russian withdrawal from its Syrian bases represent a “major strategic defeat”?

I don’t think you understand the potential importance of Russian attack subs against US/NATO ships and subs in the Mediterranean.
🔻 C13: I understand where you are coming from and agree Russia could be cutting Syria in anticipation for a much larger Europe wide nato war.
Its WWIII and Russia will defend itself first before anyone else.

The result however is that Russia has been expelled from the Mediterranean.
🔻 WS: There hasn’t been any “expulsion from the Mediterranean” at this point — and there may not be.

And besides, you can’t “expel” the Russian submarine fleet from the Mediterranean. It will remain no matter what.
🔻 C13: You just mentioned long range missiles yourself.
Nothing on the surface of the Mediterranean would survive land based complexes in Crimea and the Caucasus.
As for submarines, they will be busy in the Atlantic.
🔻 WS: Russian attack subs would be necessary to hunt and destroy US missile subs in the Mediterranean.
🔻 C13: Leaving Syria is a major strategic defeat.
How is it not?
Russian forces and assets on the ground, now Russian forces and assets won’t be.
🔻 WS: How would Russia’s strategic posture be impaired by vacating its bases in Syria?
🔻 C13: It would not be impaired in Russia, only West Asia and the Mediterranean.
In a conventional war, this would be needed.

I’m not sure why are you arguing.
America left Afghanistan, has their strategic posture changed in America?
No.
But they’re no longer in Afghanistan.
🔻 WS: I am engaging in an intellectual inquiry, as I clearly stated in my initial post.

Why would Russia’s Syrian bases be important in a conventional war against the US?
🔻 C13: Perhaps you haven’t noticed but Türkiye is the US and the US is Türkiye.

Now the war is exclusively in the Caucasus.
🔻 WS: No, I had not noticed that, nor do I believe it is true.
🔻 C14: not so sure about Russia withdrawing. |link|
🔻 WS: Me, neither. I’m simply working through an intellectual exercise.
🔻 C13: 2nd.
Iran is next.
The destruction of Iran or regime change completely ends BRICS+.
The fact that Iran allowed its allies, Hamas and Hezbollah get destroyed and Syria to fall, means regime change is now 90‰

Remember Pres. #Raisi was murdered and everyone lied about it.
🔻 WS: This is misinformed silly talk.
[but this is internal nazi/zionazi narrative atm. And they act based on their own spun delusions]
🔻 C13: Odd statement.
Are you under the impression that the “resistance” is “gaining ground”?
🔻 WS: Hezbollah savaged the IDF in southern Lebanon. They are hardly “defeated”.
🔻 C13: The child rapists suffered casualties, sure they did.
But the objective was clearly not to conquer Lebanese territory but degrade Hezbollah, which they did.
Hence the fall of Syria.
Hezbollah accepted surrender and continued bombing with no response.
What do you call that?
🔻 WS: Child rapists? What?
🔻 C15: Russia and Iran are retreating from Syria because in the coming war with the US they would be easy targets there. The Iranian-Russian war effort will have to be conducted from the Iranian-Iraqi territories
🔻 WS: Well, your rationale could be correct, but your premise remains unfounded: there is no evidence, as of yet, that Russia and Iran are “retreating” from Syria. They may do so, but it hasn’t happened yet.
[written before Damascus fell]
🔻 C15: They have clearly instructed their proxy (SAA) to stand down. That’s a retreat. I don’t think they will keep a lot of forces in a Turkish-dominated Syria. Their forces will be vulnerable to US attacks once the inevitable Middle Eastern war breaks out. We’ll see whether I’m right.
[and this is an excellent POV. Iran and Russia were never doing bulk of ground fighting. They can continue from a distance – missiles/bombing/dronification/ISR, and few C&C on the ground, for the next round]
🔻 C16: Russia’s defense has emphasized missiles and air defense to guard its homeland, not foreign bases to guard an empire. Nor does Russia need ME oil.
🔻 C10: This is a global zero sum game. Russia cannot afford to lose the Near East, because it cannot afford to let America get full control over the Near East. And it has to protect its allies or it will have no allies. This is serious.
🔻 WS: The US cannot “get full control” over the Near East. The very idea is ludicrous. It simply could not be done. The US does not have the power projection capability to “get full control” over ANY overseas region.
🔻 C10: The Near East is a power vacuum if Russia leaves.
It doesn´t take much to fully control a power vacuum.
Apart from Israel, near easterners themselves have zero agency. I think you underestimate that fact.
[bingo]
🔻 WS: You grossly overestimate US power projection capability.

And you clearly do not appreciate this reality: 📜 All for One and One for All
[and Will underappreciates the satanic profiling and control systems achieved by the British Empire over the Turks and desert bedouins…]
🔻 C10: Ah, you misunderstand my position:
1. The Chinese and Russians are clearly winning.
2. BUT you CAN lose a won game, if you get careless and start making catastrophic mistakes
3. You do not need much power to control an empty region. Without Russian presence the Near East is empty
🔻 WS: If the US decides it wants to attempt to “get full control” of the Near East, the Russians and Chinese will gladly cater their meals.
[(1) Will assumes this is being done for the US. And he forgets the demons fight for every inch of land, having house money in terms of sea of zombie proxies]
🔻 C10: They have near full control already.
I mean I don´t like their empire (obviously) and we both agree it is weaker than most think, but they still control a few regions nearly completely. And this includes the Near East.
Because let´s not kid ourselves: Arabs count for nothing.
🔻 WS: Here are the essential facts of the current geostrategic situation:

China controls its local seas.

Russia controls its local seas.

Iran controls its local seas.

If the US wants to make a play to control the western Levant, none of those three major powers will object.
🔻 C10: The problem is that the game is played and won or lost on the world map, not on local maps of Russia, China and Iran.
I very much hope for them that they understand this.
🔻 WS: I would submit that everything Russia, China, and Iran have done since hot global war erupted in February 2022 — and especially in recent months — leans strongly to the conclusion that they understand perfectly well the scope, stakes, and potential long duration of this conflict.
🔻 C10: It IS existential, if you perceive the big picture.
If Russia lets Assad hang out to dry, all prospective allies in Latin America, Africa, South East Asia will desert.
🔻 WS: No they won’t. Because the alternatives are even worse.

And most of them are wise enough to understand that you cannot permit “perfect” to be the enemy of “good enough”.
🔻 C10: Well, Russian performance in Syria was not nearly good enough.
🔻 WS: Apparently it was good enough for them, for as long as it was deemed necessary.

But Russian sovereign interests are not best served by perpetuating the mistakes of the crumbling colonial empires of the early 20th century.
[agreed. They performed heroically. It was on the locals, and other civilizational-states, to do their part]
🔻 C17: Do you think the Russians are overextended, or are they throwing in the cards because they see limited benefit? Seems like precision hypersonic targeting has rendered traditional military bases somewhat obsolete, if you ask me.
🔻 WS: I think they’ve probably struck a deal with the Turks.
🔻 C18: How abandoning an ally in their hour of need should be seen? How would they be trusted to form other alliances in the future?
🔻 WS: In what fashion has Russia abandoned any ally in its hour of need?

The Russian air force has been flying almost around-the-clock combat sorties in behalf of a Syrian army that has abandoned its own territory as fast as possible.
🔻 C19: Is it possible Russia has made a deal with Israel to keep its base in Syria in return for allowing the overthrow of Assad?
🔻 WS: Highly improbable.

The Israelis are in no position to make deals with the Russians at this time.

I roll my eyes at everyone who makes the Israelis out to be big-time power brokers. Relative to its many enemies, Israel is weaker at this moment than at any time since 1948.
🔻 C20: I don’t think this is an option for Russia. Of course defending the heartland is what is in Russia‘s DNA. But the Empire of Hate does not allow her to restrict herself to bordering conflicts. If Russia wants to survive it MUST go global: wars, allies, weapons, the full program.
🔻 WS: Russia lacks the power to do what you propose. Her capability to project power globally is very limited.

But she can defend herself.

If Russia starts trying to defeat enemies in every corner of the world, she will destroy herself.
🔻 C21: True. Time & again collective west, sort of empire we talk about, has acted in unison in so far as their domination interests go. Be it allied nations or nato alliance or always coming together in conflicts since WW2 till now. Whereas not true for sovereign respecting sovereign
⭕ ‼️ When the Chickens Come Home to Roost

It took a little over a century, but the terms of the ill-conceived partition of the post-WW1 Ottoman Empire will now be revisited.

It will not proceed peacefully.
🔻 C1: Great to bring up the initial Sykes-Picot plan for remembrance
🔻 WS: It is VERY pertinent. The events of today quite literally trace their origins to the clueless fashion the UK, France et al. carved up the Ottoman Empire a century ago.
[far from clueless. Cut up with exquisite satanic calculation. And it won them a century of arab servitude, still ongoing, although not for long..]
🔻 DrWolf @aestheticTerror: I’m not sure that was clueless, proces of decolonising has been pretty much the same everywhere. They carve up the territories in such a way to make them unstable so they can set the region on fire and reinstate their influece whenever they want…
🔻 C2: Mr. Willy, does this mean that Russia will share a border with Turkey? (first picture)
🔻 WS: Not sure how Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia would feel about that, not to mention the Turks, and Iranians, and Kurds.
🔻 C3: Syrians wanted a change – now let’s hope that that it will be what Syrians have wished for.
🔻 WS: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
🔻 C4: Never since Sykes-Picot have the Arabs (any Arabs) got what they wished. He who thinks otherwise knows absolutely nothing about the Middle East.
🔻 C5: A deal of some sort must have been made. The reaction of Russia, Iran, and China was strangely relaxed. I think Russia realised that to keep its bases in Syria and the dardanelles open, it had to bribe Turkey. I can’t see Iran’s rationale, they lost their land bridge to the Med
🔻 WS: Most Iranian trade already travels by sea from Iranian ports in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
🔻 C6: imetatronink with Syrian development, do you think Russia’s negotiation power on Ukranian territory with West will reduce now? The map you have been saying will it happen?
🔻 WS: There is no relationship between the two things, except in the sense that the Russians are doing in Ukraine essentially what the Turks, Kurds, and others claim the right to do in terms redrawing arbitrary century-old borders on a more logical basis.
⭕retweet:
🔻 Kit Klarenberg: Seeing this being reported everywhere ATM. If true, then Syria has effectively ceased to exist as a state. Balkanisation and Western puppet extremist governments will sprout everywhere. Hard to believe Russia et al would allow this to happen without a deal of some kind.
[“The General staff of the Syrian Arab Army has ordered the surrender and disbanding of all remaining units.”]
🔻 WS: [links: “‼️ When the Chickens Come Home to Roost” above, and]
And I don’t believe the would-be Sultan will live long to exult in his imagined triumph.

We’ve now entered the hard-ball realpolitik era of the end of empire. And the Sultan strayed into a game way out of his league.
🔻 C2: Firstly, when have we ever truly departed from the “hardball realpolitik” era? Secondly, over the past few weeks you’ve been wrong about Russia and their interests, wrong about Assad and his power and wrong about Iran and their influence. What makes you so confident about Turkey?

It seems rather arbitrary of you to use the fall of Assad’s regime, essentially a hollow shell of a drug and crime syndicate, as the dividing line between implied “softball” and “hardball” political eras.
[LOL. This is a turk lady I’ve quoted a lot. Indeed, blood is thicker than water. She IS insightful at times..]
⭕ 🔻 Lord Bebo: 🇸🇾 The people are looting Assad’s presidential residence! |media|
🔻 WS: Non dimenticate l’argenteria!
⭕ 🔻 Visegrád 24: Turkey has defeated Russia and Iran in Syria.

It has to be said clearly.

🇹🇷🇸🇾🇷🇺🇮🇷
🔻 WS: 🤡🌎 Arguably the single most clownish propaganda account on this platform – and that’s really saying something.
🔻 Alaa Pasha: Turks are with everyone and against everyone
🔻 Visegrád 24: As always
🔻 C3: What do you call a Polish anti-Muslim but pro-Islamist?
🔻 Visegrád 24: Don’t worry.

Serbia will join the EU too one day
[I should have started following these clowns ages ago! How much entertainment i missed out..]
🔻 C4: I don’t follow that account. But this certainly is a big setback for Russia – they have lost their foothold in Syria.

It pushes Russia quite a few rungs down the international power structure, to a regional power, from a superpower.
🔻 WS: Nonsense.

In the first place, we don’t know the status of the Russian bases.

Secondly, by your logic, the US should have lost superpower status when it abandoned several huge bases and many billions worth of equipment when it skedaddled from Afghanistan.

So the coast may fold shortly too. The news yesterday of S400 redeploying from Hmeimim to Tartus was likely true. Russia appears in process of evacuation..

💠 @PressTV:
⭕ Opposition armed groups enter Bashar al-Assad’s presidential palace in Damascus.   |media|
⭕ Militants in Syria announce fall of Assad on state TV   |media|

Night is falling

💠 @Strategika51:
⭕ Al Joulani is the son of a wealthy bourgeois. His father was a consultant to the former oil minister and to major oil multinationals, Jeunesse dorée. He falls in love with a young girl from the ruling Alawite minority elite. Her family rejects him. This is the beginning of his personal transformation. He veers towards extreme Islamism, then destructive nihilism. It’s a story with a certain resemblance to that of a very nice Austrian painter who was rejected by the Vienna Art School. He would go on to become rebel leader, then supreme leader of the Syrian rebellion, and soon one of the strong men of the Levant.
The legends office is still in full swing.
⭕ Syria: rebels release all detainees from Homs prisons.
Political police headquarters abandoned. The mobilization of 50 traffic police to defend the city was a bad idea.
⭕ Syrian armed forces withdrew from Homs towards Al-Qusayr.

Further southwest, the Lebanese Hezbollah announced the departure of 2,000 of its fighters to Syria.

💠 @ejmalrai:
⭕ Syria’s geopolitics is extremely important in the Middle East. Nevertheless, its instability won’t stop after the change of leadership
⭕️ 🔻 C1: Can you also tell us why are you that pesimistic please? I know it looks extremely chaotic but why these words?
🔻 EM: Homs is almost over and Damascus is no longer holding.
⭕ The next questions: Who will rule #Syria? What kind of ruling it will be? Who will change the constitution? Who will finance the reconstruction?
🔻 C1: Usually, we’re the ones who ask and you’re the one with all the clear and honest answers 😄😍
🔻 EM: This time is too complicated Mary.
⭕ It looks like what will remain of the old #Syria will be limited to Homs, for now, and on longer term Latakia – Tartous only. #Lebanon should think about defended its borders.

People in #Damascus should think of their future in the next 24-48 hours.
🔻 C1: Aaah Elijah, is it that bleak ? 💔💔💔💔
🔻 EM: worse.
🔻 C1: ejmalrai how do you think this will impact us in Lebanon on the short and long run?
🔻 EM: Very unpredictable. We need to wait for a while.
⭕ It is over.
[I think he meant Homs fell. Perhaps a pun for the Baathist era too]

💠 @Middle East Spectator:
⭕ — ❗️🇮🇷/🇸🇾 Javar Larijani, top advisor to the Supreme Leader, Imam Khamenei: ‘Resistance forces have entered the field, and are organized. The Syrian Arab Army can clearly no longer defend Syria, this matter should have been in our hands from the beginning.’
⭕ Surprisingly, HTS still hasn’t entered Homs. It seems they’re just going to wait until Assad falls due to an insurmountable amount of pressure. Or will we see our first real fight?

💠 @Strategika51:
⭕ Who will strike first?

This is no longer about Kung-Fu Wushu. It’s about mutually assured destruction.

💠 @Fotros Resistance:
⭕ ✏️ One thing is for certain: Turkiye replaced Saudi Arabia as the center of influence on extremists.

For years, it was Saudi Arabia who had direct influence in the region with its Wahhabi ideology, which Israel made use of, to further its agenda in West-Asia.

After many investments into normalising relations with KSA, Israel likely saw no serious future with them. With Al-Aqsa Flood, Israel realised Turkiye’s influence and invested in a grand scheme to replace Wahhabism with Ottomanic centralisation.

Saudi Arabia is improving relations with Iran on a daily basis, it was not feasible for Israel to completely rely on them. So the hybrid warfare shifted towards Turkiye.

Why is Turkey such a great alternative? Economically, Iran relies heavily on Turkey. Unfortunately, Iran has invested so much in this economic relationship that severing ties would significantly harm its already fragile economy. This dependence is also why Iran (and Russia) avoid naming Turkey as the culprit for the unrest in Syria right now.

Not trying to give you fear, but I’m afraid we’re witnessing only the beginning of things.

With the martyrdom of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, we’re witnessing the loss of his “Barekat”.

Barekat means the blessing or divine favor. The prosperity he had over the region. It’s going to take time to heal this prosperity.

💠 @Seyed Mohammad Marandi:
⭕ As the #GazaHolocaust continues, Erdogan, Netanyahu, and Al-Qaeda are attempting to break the Axis of Resistance  |media|
⭕ Why is the Zionist regime bombing the Syrian-Lebanese border?

To help Al-Qaeda, of course.
⭕ Netanyahu’s ally wants to take Damascus   |media|
⭕ 🚨🇸🇾🏴 Syria on Fire — Who Benefits?

Vanessa Beeley, Kevork Almassian, and Prof. Mohammad Marandi join #NewRulesPodcast to talk about the outside powers destabilizing Syria and their motives.

(1:32) Israel
(6:43) USA
(11:34) Qatar
(14:53) Turkiye
⭕ Never forget that the collective West continues to support the ongoing Gaza Holocaust.

Support the Resistance.

Silence is complicity.
⭕ 20 more Palestinians have been slaughtered in yet another Israeli airstrike targeting a residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Western elites, diplomats, and mainstream media journalists want you to forget that the #GazaHolocaust continues
⭕️ More slaughter in Khan Yunis last night.

Don’t let the Erdogan backed Al-Qaeda invasion of Syria be used as a means to distract attention away from the ongoing #GazaHolocaust
⭕ As we slept last night, the #GazaHolocaust continued.

Who fought for Gaza? Who supported the Resistance in Gaza?

Who supported Netanyahu? Who did business with Netanyahu?

💠 @ejmalrai:
⭕ It cannot be ruled out that the attacking forces are bypassing #Homs and heading for #Damascus. More information is needed to confirm this.

#Israel will inevitably move in and annex more Syrian territory in the south.
⭕ If the Syrian government collapses, #Turkey will be remembered as the driving force behind it and the one that allowed #Israel to annex more Syrian territory just to satisfy Turkish domestic politics.
⭕ The southern front poses a dual threat to Damascus. On one hand, it could emerge from Dara’a, where opposition forces continue to resist the Syrian government. On the other hand, the threat could come from Israel, should Homs fall. Such a scenario might embolden Israel to annex additional Syrian territories, including the Golan Heights, Quneitra, and potentially the Druze region of Suweida. This would further fragment Syria, creating an opportunity for regional players to carve out spheres of influence and secure their territorial or strategic gains.

Homs Draws the Map of Syria’s Division and the Levant’s Future

⭕ The information about #Damascus under siege (today) is completely false. The southern provinces have been evacuated but they don’t have the weapons and means to represent a danger to the capital.
[Assuredly, The Beneficial Empire is working to provide the Voentorg.]
⭕ This video is from al-Suweida, south of #Syria on the borders, but spreading on social media as #Damascus. |media|

💠@imetatronink:
⭕ Syrian Girl 🇸🇾: BREAKING🚨Israel says it will invade Syria if Homs falls. A last minute be a land grab near the border to overstretch the Syrian army and lead to the quickening of the fall.

⚡️The Hebrew page “Zeev Rubinstein” – Israeli political source:

“If Homs falls, Israel will enter Syria and establish a buffer zone.”
🔻 WS: I remain convinced little is as it seems in Syria. I can’t quite put my finger on it yet. But events, as reported, are not painting a coherent picture. I’m waiting for the “other shoe to drop” to clarify matters …
[it’s Eschatological. And this region rarely made sense! Mad men in a time of madness…]
🔻 WS: I increasingly suspect someone is getting “set up”, but that the someone in question has no sense of the fact that he’s the mark.

A few more days should bring some clarity.
🔻 QUR’ANAVIRUS DOCTOR:
Isaiah 17:1

“The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.”
King James Version
[the core folks of Greater Syria are resilient. Consider how well Hamas fights today, even within the savage ruined rubble of Gaza. Damascus has many years to fall. Given their isolation in the region, and infiltration with remote-controlled ideological zombies, it is wise to retreat and circle the wagons…]
🔻 C3: They’re not abandoning major cities as a “clever ruse”.
🔻 WS: The fact remains they ARE abandoning major cities — without a major fight — almost certainly because they have been ordered to do so.

If this is the case, then they must believe they are luring the “rebels” into a disadvantageous position.
🔻 C4: What and who could be set up?
🔻 WS: The easiest mark is always whoever is most desperate to win a big pot on a good hand.

In my view, the Israelis are, by far, the most “desperate for a win” player at the table.
⭕ 🤔 Wond’ring Aloud …

The so-called “Syrian Rebels” — supplied, trained, and paid by their US/Israeli/Turkish benefactors — are indisputably effective agents of chaos.

But can they organize a functioning polity capable of governing?

And if not, what’s the real end game here?

🔻 C1: I put this together for a podcast in 2018. It still stands on a macro level.
[nonsense sold to gluttonous fools. PetroSheikhs and Five Eye intel dupes, for example. To provide the bankrolling and goons to clear the lebensraum.]
🔻 WS: I’m dubious that this massive project can be completed and maintained in an environment of constant governmental instability and social unrest.
🔻 C1: Probably so, (the pipeline), but this won’t stop the neocons from trying.
And just deposing Assad and throwing the Russians out of their bases will be a huge defeat inflicted upon Russia as they succeed in Ukraine. Russian forces as far as Africa will be difficult to maintain without the Syrian lily pad.

This is also a defeat for Iran, which will not be able to resupply Hezbollah in Lebanon. The IDF is already turning back Iranian transport planes. Look of for an Israeli “buffer zone” in S. Syria.

As a counter move, Russia and Iran will put more pressure on far-flung U.S. bases by providing more arms to U.S. adversaries such as the Houthis.
[more simplistic nonsense. Magnier made the telling point – even at worst moments of Syria in past, Hezbollah was being supplied. The folks of the region know their desert trails. Smugglers are available aplenty given massive impoverishment. And they’ve acquired massive “import substitution” since and make much of their own. And if all fails, they can revert to simply-armed guerrillas that can stay the fight for 1,000 years, when Pax Judaica is prophesied to lack even a decade of existence.]
🔻 C1: The HTS invasion of Syria was planned and supported from Turkey. Turkey will be in control of Alleppo at least. The US and its surrogates will keep eastern Syria and the oil fields. That oil is going out to Turkey.

Israel is talking about a “buffer zone” in southern Syria. IDF fighter jets have already turned back Iranian transport planes. American A-10s are attacking Syrian Army forces and providing CAS to the HTS.

Syria will be cut in half when the HTS reaches the border of Lebanon. Damascus will be landlocked and put under siege. Assad will flee or he will be killed. Russia will lose its bases in Latakia and Tartus, thereby losing its force projection in the region and into Africa. It also cripples Russian naval force projection in the Med.
🔻 WS: Such an ambitious reshuffling of the geopolitical deck in the Levant would require the FULL focus of the empire’s power projection capability — for YEARS — thereby ceding to Russia and China unobstructed expansion of their respective spheres of influence.

Is that the choice?
🔻 C2: To cut supply lines between Iran and Lebanon
🔻 WS: Easier said than done.
🔻 C3: They may try anyway, what else can they do? They might actually succeed.
[I’ve heard some arab says the point of negotiations is to negotiate. Perhaps for some, the point of wars is the war itself. To inject negativity and black magic and woe into the global commons. To smother the bright sovereign harmonious multi-nodal world under the sheer weight of Darkness. Such efforts and ill-will always exist.]
🔻 C4: This has been the problem with so many analysts like you. Amazing nalysis on certain issues, but then it stops at the Muslim world. You simply do not understand and because you don’t, you deny Muslims their agency. Sit back and watch the show
🔻 WS: I welcome you to enlighten me on those points you believe I fail to understand.
🔻 C4: The Greater Israel
[bingo. why is it so hard for so many to admit it??]
🔻 C5: Yes indeed, this is the main question here as its clear their western backers will not relent until they get their way.
🔻 C6: End Game Has Always Been [above photo]
🔻 WS: This is a ridiculous pipe dream. Israel does not now, nor will ever possess at any time in the foreseeable future, the capability to occupy and govern the area indicated on this map.
[he’s thinking in rational modern terms. Think of the current to-be-dispossessed as medieval “Amalek” like the Gazans.]
🔻 C6: When Boris Johnson told Ukraine to stop negotiating and fight to the last Ukrainian, what was the real end game?
There was none. No strategy, no plans, no big picture, just pointless ideas that seem clever at the time.
🔻 C7: If you think the West ruled the world for 500 years w/o a plan you’re a damn fool. Plan was written in RAND’s extending Russia. And now they are hitting Russia other places too.
🔻 WS: The history of the past five centuries of so-called “Western Rule” is replete with repeated proofs that:

Nothing EVER goes as planned.

This time will be no exception.
⭕ 🤔 The more I ponder the possibilities, the more persuaded I become that Erdogan is the mark. He thinks he is in the process of pulling off a brilliant scheme that will make him a living legend.

I think it’s more likely his days are numbered and few.
[concur. Either way, by either side. A condom has been used..]
🔻 C1: Will, How do you explain that to geopolitics Dummies like myself?
🔻 WS: Geopolitics for Dummies 😏

Erdogan has been feeling a little “less than” since the world started changing really fast a few years ago. Now all of a sudden he has a resurgent superpower Russia and a regionally dominant Iran on his borders.

And all his fancy NATO-built military is suddenly looking old and feeble.

So, in a fit of pique and envy, he went down to the Turkish treasury, “borrowed” a couple pallets of gold, and bought himself a plausible deniability army and a big sack of $1M poker chips.

Then, looking a bit disheveled after a few shots of Rakı (for courage), he sauntered into a backroom big stakes poker game. An Israeli doorman took his coat, and led him to an empty chair at a table where Russia, China, Iran, and an anonymous US intel source were already seated.

Over the course of an hour or so (it only seemed like weeks), Erdogan lost his entire stake, waved a Topkapı dagger around menacingly, cursed the others in the name of some obscure ancient Assyrian god, swept the table of cards and chips, and staggered out the door with a flourish.

The doorman snatched the dagger, stabbed the Turk on the threshold, and threw the body in the sea.
[wow. he should copywrong this. It may be the AZE script for the universally despised Turk!]
🔻 C2: I would not underestimate Erdogan. He knows how to leverage the conflicts between US, Russia, Iran, Israel, Syria, Europe, to Turkey’s advantage. He’s keeping S-400, getting F-35s, his forces are in Libya and Syria, Damascus seems within reach of his forces. Who’ll stop him?
🔻 C3: However, Russia needs Turkey to help circumvent sanctions, block the Bosphorus, do all kinds of other things, which means it can’t afford to wholly antagonize Turkey, either. Iran’s ability to project power into Syria seems dwarfed by Turkey’s.
🔻 WS: Iran’s ability to project power into Turkey dwarfs Turkey’s ability to project power into Iran.

Russia’s and Iran’s ability to arm the Kurds to take over much of southeastern Turkey dwarfs Turkey’s ability to defend against such a move.

You see, there are MANY considerations.
🔻 C3: In theory Iran can strike Turkey with missiles as it did Israel, but Turkey is an Article 5 NATO country. And even the US gave up on arming the Kurds b/c it didn’t want Turkey to drift closer to Russia. Turkey’s ability to shift alliances on a moment’s notice is a real plus.
🔻 WS: Article 5 is a myth. 📜 Little Stick
🔻 C4: When Iran attempted to project power into Azerbaijan during the Karabakh war, the Turkish minority in northern Iran blocked the highways and forced their tanks to return. You have significantly misunderstood the power dynamic between Turkey and Iran.
[take with salt. the commentator is a turk woman. I do not know the internal dynamics, but much of top Iranian authorities are themselves Azeri-Turk, wise to that region. And it is doubtful the central authorities would countenance such regional misbehavior at any point, much less in time of existential war]
⭕ retweet:
🔻Karim Franceschi:
1/ Assad’s forces are done. Homs is indefensible—his best troops were in Hama, and when the time came for close quarters urban combat, they folded. SAA must retreat now, taking forces and materiel to the Nusayriyah Mountains to their last defensible line. |THREAD|

2/ If they don’t move soon, they risk losing both troops and resources they can’t afford to replace. Tartus is non-negotiable for the regime—it’s home to Russia’s naval base, the only reason Assad is still in power.

3/ This is a chess game now, but Assad’s pieces are being swept off the board faster than he can move them. SAA need to set up fortifications stretching from: Krak des Chevaliers, To the M4 highway heading to Latakia. They must deny access to the coastline at all costs.

4/ A loss of Tartus doesn’t just jeopardize Assad—it threatens Russia’s entire Mediterranean foothold. That base is key to resupplying the remnants of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). Lose it, and it’s game over.

5/ As Clausewitz said, “War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.” Jolani has flipped this—using politics to prepare for war. Years of diplomacy with historical enemies have paid off. In northern Hama, HTS secured peaceful takeovers and defections.
[this appears a key plank of the Collapse of Assad Gov: defections & betrayals, in addition to simple cowardice of the demoralized.]

6/ But the most outstanding part is Jolani’s “too good to be true” proposal for a decentralized Syria ruled by councils that recognize Syria’s ethnic, religious, and sectarian diversity—essentially what AANES proposed from day one, only to be rejected by Assad at every turn.

7/ Turkey is furious at Jolani’s decentralization rhetoric. By Erdogan’s decree, all HTS assets in Turkey have been frozen, sending a clear signal. For Ankara, HTS’s overtures threaten its main goal: destroying the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
[the thieves already break out, and they’ve not even completed the overthrow! The grasping hubris]

8/ Erdogan’s fury ties back to the 2016 invasion: Operation Euphrates Shield meant to block Afrin from uniting with Manbij and the rest of Rojava. For Ankara, ISIS wasn’t the problem; but the solution to the Kurdish question—but Kobane stood, and pushed back, and AANES was born.

9/ Turkey’s occupation of northern Syria has one goal: dismantling AANES at all costs. HTS’s push for decentralization revives the vision Turkey invaded to destroy, putting Ankara and Jolani on a direct collision course.
🔻 C2: @imetatronink your disposition about the dagger wielding gambler?
🔻 WS: I think both the Turks and HTS et al. are in way over their heads.
⭕ ‼️ War video producer is the new chic. This one even has a good soundtrack song.

But the drones …

They’re sweeping the battlefield with them, fiber optic thread streaming out behind, AI algorithms doing things a human controller cannot match.

Welcome to the new world of war. |media|
[this massive AI was deployed to shocking effect against hapless ill-prepared commanders of Syrians, and their allies among the Iranians and Russkies. Everything learnt in 404 was used here, to devastating effect against a weak naive foe]
🔻 C1: Prevents early detection and EW interference, seem to remember seeing a range of over 30km (could be off on that).
🔻 C2: War is evolving rapidly … unfortunately …
We need to stop the forever wars.
🔻 C3: We all thought Terminator was a sci fi dystopia
[this drone assault has compounded the disaster for Syrian army. the cherry after the EW, PsyOps, raw conscripts, betrayals, and spreading panic]
⭕ 🔸 To repeat what I wrote on December 1:

“I will say this: IF the Russians had good reason to believe Turkey (and Iraq and Iran) would honor a 100-year treaty for Russia’s eastern Mediterranean bases, the Russians would sell Assad and Syria down the river.”
🔻 C1: Would you trust Turkey?
🔻 WS: No. But I would hurt them really bad if they betrayed me.
🔻 C2: The Russians are not such fools as to trust Turkey, a NATO member, ruled by a deceptive and untrustworthy player like Erdogan to make such deals with them.
🔻 WS: Trusting Turkey is irrelevant. Buying time is.
🔻 C3: We’ll never know. Turkey’s guarantees never last longer than 5 minutes. Assad is their best bet for now. If he can’t be saved, then Aliwite/Shiite eastern Syria can become a mini state under Russian protection. Assuming Russia considers its east med bases a vital enough interest.
🔻 C4: Would you risk being put in that situation? Sorry if the questions are burdensome but I’m trying to think about future situations.
🔻 WS: We are in the midst of World War Three. You do what you need to do in order to buy time until you can do what you really want to do.
🔻 C5: It seems we are living in times of border reconfiguration. Do you think this phenomenon will be exclusive to the Middle East and Eastern Europe?
[excellent point! I’d considered this whilst reading Craig Murray’s article. If the fools succeed in collapsing fake Lebanon and merging it with most of Syria that they hold – they’ve also collapsed Sykes-Picot themselves, just as Putin said the US destroyed the USD by itself. Maybe that’s why civ-states pause right now – why interrupt a fool demolishing his own structures of control??]
🔻 WS: No.
🔻 C5: That’s what I thought. Dark times lie ahead for many innocent people
🔻 C6: From Nibiruan diplomatic archives, trust without leverage leads to cosmic instability. Strategic deterrence through capability demonstration remains most effective way to maintain interplanetary agreements.
⭕🔻 Big Serge ☦️🇺🇸🇷🇺: If you’re reading the tea leaves, this is a very large leaf with “bad news” written on it.
[links:
🔻OSINTtechnical: Russian forces have evacuated their S-400 long-range SAM battery from Khmeimim Air Base in western Syria.

Multiple 5P85SM2 TELs were spotted earlier today
driving south down the M1 highway towards the port of Tartus. |THREAD| ]
🔻 WS: What is the provenance of this video, and upon what basis does the attached conclusion rest? How do we know this AD battery is evacuating Khmeimim to Tartus (presumably to be withdrawn via ship)?
🔻 Brandon Weichert: I thought they were fortifying Latakia. Meh, who cares anymore? The West has created such a shatstorm in Syria that, regardless of what happens to Russia or Assad, we will be paying the price for this–with interest–for years. We’ve learned nothing from the last 30 years.
🔻 WS: It will be much worse this time.

#TheDemocratizationOfFirepower guarantees it.

And sooner than later, the vulnerabilities of mythical American military might are going to run up against that firepower in ways very few people in the imperial domain anticipate.
🔻 C4: Better have the possibility of quick evacuation than not having it. The situation is bad, we shouldnt fool ourselves. Tomorrow there is gonna be reunion in qatar, lets see what will happen there. But thing is 🇷🇺 could end up losing the bases, in part thanks to 🐒negotiation skill
🔻 WS: Non sequitur.

Maybe this is an evacuation of AD systems from Khmeimim … but I am aware of no confirmatory evidence to that effect. And I consider it an imprudent move at this juncture, particularly considering these units can be airlifted out.
🔻 C4: Well, i kinda understand your skepticism but if i were rus i would consider these options, just considering isnt bad. Situation for SAA/Assad is pretty bad.
🔻 WS: Why would you risk transporting your precious AD systems via potentially dangerous mountain highways to be evacuated by sea when you can evacuate via airlift?

The whole idea mystifies me
🔻 C5: This is not Khmeimim but Masyaf. And it is not evacuating from Syria(at least there is not enough evidence to back up such a claim) but moving closer towards the coastal areas.
[yeah, this was my impression. I linked one above yesterday of a redeployment near Hama that was threatened. The SHTF so fast…]
🔻 C6: because the command is there. maybe Armageddon arrived there and now he is moving to the port. hence the system travel with him.
[I hesitated to c&p this! Don’t get your hopes up too high. This is a period of retreat. The pirozhki has to cook in this theatre through a period of naked slavery, and separating the wheat from the tare]
🔻 C7: Does seem odd that the Russians would abandon their entire military presence in Syria. The naval port in particular is their only warm water port in the region. Maybe they know something we don’t
⭕🔻 Armchair Warlord: Reality Twitter QTing the Institute for the Study of War, 2022 (colorized)
🔻 WS: I just discovered the august ISW has blocked me. And after all we’ve been through together …

💠 @ejmalrai:
⭕ Ignorance is bliss.

The Syrian government’s abandonment (not yet but should) of al-Bukamal – Deir ezzour is a turning point for the Lebanese resistance in the eyes of ignorant analysts who believe that this is how Iran supplied Hezbollah with weapons.
⭕ Israel’s finance minister said he was “stealing 43,000 dunams of the West Bank”.

Oh! The Syrian war is more important to cover, and the Palestinians are concentrating and commenting even from Gaza on the advance of the pro-Turkish forces that will then liberate Palestine
🔻 C1: So, question is simple, and I asked others with no answer: is a counter offensive being prepared or is Syria done? Too many have suffered and the western backed degenerates will cause so much more suffering once in power, God forbid. Thanks mr @ejmalrai
🔻 EM: No counter offensive. Resistance is set in Homs north, Latakia-Tartus west and Damascus south.
[It should soon contract to Damascus. When the body is in shock, it withdraws blood supply from the extremities to the essential core, that must be preserved at any cost]
🔻 C1: Thank you for replying. We are living through demonic times and the regular people of Syria are suffering. Pitty so many had to die for nothing.
⭕ 🔻 Kevork Almassian: 🚨🇸🇾 RT Correspondent in Syria: The SAA & SDF [Kurds] have reached a joint defense agreement covering the regions of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa.
🔻 EM: The SDF doesn’t return what it takes under its control.
⭕ For those who were not around and didn’t follow the beginning of the war in #Syria until now, the situation today, while dire, is not as critical as 2015.

I’ll explain and compare in my next article.
🔻 C1: But at that time, the axis was not recovering from a bloody war with Israel. Circumstances are different, and this is not looking good.
🔻 EM: Nope. Axis moved in in 2013 when Al-Nusra was in Sahat al-Abbaseen inside Damascus.
🔻 C2: It’s over.

Iran struck a deal to save itself.
[Retweeted:
“Something fishy is going on behind the scene:

Iran’s state TV changes the wording “Takfiri terrorists” it used for anti-Assad groups to “armed opposition”, and states “they have not attacked the Shia in Aleppo”, to assure the Shias in Iran that they co-religionists are safe.”]
🔻 EM: Who says the “Takfiri” is correct? It is not over.

Nothing behind the scene. The attacking forces are not ISIS or al-Qaeda (not takfiri) even off they have foreign fighters among them. The terminology doesn’t indicate giving up on defending Homs and Damascus as long as the Syrian army is fighting.
🔻 C3: What Do You think will happen with Latakia and Tartus, Sir? Because that’s the most important question right now.
🔻 EM: Protected by its people.
🔻 C4: Is the Syrian army really fighting Elijah? It seems that they’re just withdrawing from province after province.

There has been some minor clashes, but that’s it.
🔻 EM: The army withdrew to fight in specific cities and locations that can be defended. We see. The next days and weeks will show the development we all are waiting for.
🔻 C5: Just a question Elijah do you believe what is happening on the battlefield in Syria.

Is the warning to Putin that victoria nuland mentioned while she was in Ukraine few months ago?

“There will be surprises for Putin and Russia on the battlefield”?
🔻 EM: That was Erdogan’s decision that the US and Israel were very happy to see if he will succeed. A cross meeting of interest without necessarily a coordinated attack by all these players.
⭕ The Syrian army is now taking the right steps.

Again, in military tactics it is normal for the army to withdraw from all positions that can be cut off from logistical supply and support, and to gather forces where it is possible to defend and attack as opportunities arise.

💠 @Intel Slava Z:
⭕ 🇷🇺🇸🇾S-400 and Tor-M2 air defense systems of the Russian army were spotted moving near the city of Masyaf on the border of Hama province and the mountain range of Tartus province.

A battery of Russian S-400 Triumph air defense systems was deployed in the area of ​​the city of Masyaf back in 2017 to cover the Khmeimim airbase from the mountain range.

Now, in connection with the capture of Hama , the proximity of the militants and the danger of their further advance towards the coast, it was decided to relocate the Russian air defense systems deployed here either to Khmeimim itself or to Tartus.  |media|

💠 @DDGeopolitics:
⭕ 🇮🇶🇸🇾 The Iraqi Embassy in Damascus calls on Iraqi citizens wishing to return to Iraq to contact the embassy.

💠 @Strategika51:
⭕ On Arab social networks, the majority of Internet users applaud the rebel advance in Syria, and a significant proportion believe that the capture of Damascus will make things easier in Palestine.

Arab public opinion is still as easy to manipulate as it was in the 1920s or 1950s.
⭕ The Syrian rebels and their plethora of supporters want McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, PizzaHut, lots of Apple IPhone 16s in top-of-the-range finishes, they want PayPal, they want halal OnlyFans, they want to live like trendy Saudis, watch Netflix and Disney, they also want their own exclusive, enjuvenated Islam, excluding the other as a vulgar apostate even if he enjoys popcorn and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). Women must be veiled in a Sharia-compliant veil in the colors of the Star-Spangled Banner and be addicted to Tik Tok.

The coastal Alawite minority will certainly be massacred or forced into exile.

In the end, there will be skyscrapers in Damascus.
[The Plan excludes any Arab, or non-chosenite. The ignorant salafi will be the last to get the memo. One benefit of the Moshiach is he will betray and violently end the salafi cult when they imminently outlive their usefulness]
⭕ Zionist bombardments targeting civilians in the famine-stricken north of the Gaza Strip.

The man who devoted himself to finding food and feeding thousands of Gazans free of charge in an extraordinary challenge against fate was killed in a Zionist bombardment that was specially dedicated to him.
⭕ US Special Forces ready for hostage rescue operation in Gaza (US Official)
⭕ Romania has never been a democracy, not even a pretend one. They should abolish the post of president and replace it with that of some Vlad they met on the streets of New York or Brooklyn.
⭕ Jordan closes a border post with Syria that has fallen into the hands of local rebels. Iraq closes the Boukamal crossing, which has fallen into the hands of Kurdish militias.
⭕ Zionist entity President Herzog called Elon Musk and asked him to help Israel free the hostages in Gaza.

This request for help involves the upcoming use of a revolutionary technology that has not yet been disclosed.

💠 @Middle East Spectator:
⭕ — ❗️🇸🇾/🇸🇾 NEW: The city of Daraa in southern Syria is now fully under rebel control
⭕ — ❗️🇸🇾/🇸🇾 NEW: Local Druze-led rebel factions take over the police headquarters in Suwayda, a major city in southern Syria, and most of the city seems to be under their control
[Wow. Quite shortly, Damascus, and the coastal provinces with the Russian bases, will be the last two distinct islands of landlocked Syria. What a blow from Empire. No wonder Zhirinovsky said we’d forget about 404. It weren’t about just Gaza.]

💠 🌎🛡GEOPOL360🕊🌍:
⭕ 🇸🇾🇹🇷 Erdogan comments on the situation in Syria: “The opposition’s target is Damascus. We appealed to Assad, but unfortunately, we received no response. Idlib, Hama, Homs, and of course Damascus: the opposition’s advance continues. We hope that this advance in Syria will continue without incident.”

💠 @DDGeopolitics:
⭕ 🇷🇺🇧🇾⚡️Lukashenko asked Putin to place “Oreshnik” on the territory of Belarus — Vesti
⭕ 🇷🇺🇧🇾 “Oreshnik” could be placed in Belarus in the second half of 2025 as its production increases, Putin said.

Before deployment, it will be necessary to determine the minimum range of these systems.

The shorter the range of the Oreshnik, the greater the power of the warhead, Putin noted.
[More testing opportunities should be provided by our usual suspects]
⭕ 🇧🇾🇷🇺The Oreshnik missile system in Belarus will be part of the Russian Armed Forces’ Strategic Missile Forces complex but the determination of targets will be up to Minsk, Putin said.
[This is now cruel trolling]

💠 @ejmalrai:
⭕ Syria is to be transformed into another #Libya, unstable and divided in many parts
⭕ Palestinian fanboys who shifted from supporting #Gaza to #Syria’s instability, do you realise that the timing of the Turkish proxies attack save @Netanyahu from his domestic and international crisis for his crimes and diverted the attention completely away from the Palestinian cause?
⭕ Israel is waiting (maybe not for very long and maybe not) for #Homs to fall in order to annex the south of #Syria and call it a “buffer zone to protect against jihadists”, the same thing it has been supporting for many years. @Netanyahu is not hiding his ambition that helps his image domestically by adding more stolen territories to the “greater Israel”.
⭕ Joulani on the CNN. It was interesting to see how he is promoted by the US.
⭕ Syria:
Syrian government forces are expected to:
1. Leave Al Bu Kamal, Deir-ezzour, Palmira and stop at al-Qaryateyn to protect Homs.
2. Leave Daraa and retract to the limits of Damascus rural area.

That will limit the defence of a larger area to a smaller area, secure Latakia, Tartous, Damascus and Homs.

Homs is almost empty of its inhabitants, allowing the defence forces to be less concerned about civilians when fighting against the pro-Turkish forces
⭕ Turkey’s Erdogan backs rebel offensive in Syria: Turkish security sources told Middle East Eye last week that Ankara had approved operation in the Aleppo countryside.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-erdogan-backs-rebel-offensive-syria

💠@imetatronink:
⭕🔻 Brian Berletic:

• Despite reported loss of Hama it should be remembered it and Homs have been traditional strongholds of US-backed extremists back to the 1980s;
• US-backed terrorists are advancing significantly slower as logistics are stretched out in a number of directions;
• Situation is still urgent, outcome impossible to predict until more information emerges regarding the disposition of troops on by sides;
• Again, before Russia’s intervention in 2015, nearly the whole country including parts of Damascus were overrun by US-backed terrorists;
• Many factors since 2015 have changed in Syria’s favor, the question remains how much has the US prepared these terrorists to compensate, and how overstretched are Russian/Iranian/Syrian forces following multiple escalations elsewhere since;

🔻 WS: There is a big difference between seizing territory and being able to retain it as your forces are increasingly diluted and more difficult to supply as lines of communication are stretched and limited stockpiles are depleted.

If Iraqi and Iranian forces converge on the battlefield from the east, and Russian air power remains potent, I can foresee a punishing siege of attrition developing among the US-backed forces.
🔻 Brian Berletic: Yes. It certainly isn’t possible to tell how this will turn out at the moment, one way or the other, it really does all depend on what is left of the Syrian Arab Army, Iranian support and what Russia is able to spare vs the real depth and staying Powe of these forces assembled by the US.
⭕ 🤔 Regarding developing events in Syria, the big question stirring in my mind is what will Moscow do if the US-backed proxy force takes aim at the Russian bases in Latakia and Tartus?

Those increasingly look to be the end game objectives of this operation.
🔻 C1: As of now I think they sit on their hands until January 20th. If things continue after then, I expect action from Russia’s side
🔻 WS: What exactly do you think will change on January 20th?

Sorry, but I reject the idea that ANYTHING of substance will change.

And I don’t believe the Russians think anything will change, either.
🔻 Lee Slusher: Cede territory, build stronger defenses on more favorable terrain, and make a better plan in time, perhaps in concert with other actors.
🔻 C3: Really good question.

I still don’t understand what happened in Syria?
The most logical explanation in my mind is that Turkey doublecrossed the BRICS nations and that it used the time to coordinate and plan this attack which has all the earmarks of Western backing with satellite information as well as drones being supplied by West.

One can never trust the Ottomans. Why people haven’t learned this from history is beyond me..
🔻 Brandon Weichert: You and I both know the Russians are not just going to take this lying down. And I am beginning to suspect that that is the actual hope of the Globalists. To lock Trump into a world war with Russia before he can even be sworn in.
🔻 C1: Russia’s Khmeimim base just 20 miles from advancing Syrian rebels
Dec 3, 2024
Recent developments in Syria suggest a potentially significant shift in the dynamics of the conflict as rebel forces push westward, drawing dangerously close to one of Russia’s most critical military installations.
[good point by the presstitutes at British Al Jazeera: If/when Homs is taken, not only are Lebanon/occupied Palestine besieged totally, and Russia’s bases become untenable, but Syria itself becomes landlocked… This is why the Empire sacrifices thousands of the Horde in the mad dash southwards…]
🔻 C5: No they aren’t. They never fell before and are too heavily defended and hostile to the opposition. Cutting them off won’t do much either, they were cut off before

The objective now is Homs, to force/enable an Israeli ground invasion towards Damascus. Which Israel just confirmed
🔻 WS: The IDF couldn’t even conduct a successful ground invasion to the Litani River against Hezbollah. The idea of an Israeli move against Damascus is, imo, a military impossibility. Their flanks would be fatally exposed along the entire corridor. Logistics would be a nightmare.
🔻 C5: I don’t Even think it matters if it succeeds, just that it takes attention away from the more pressing concerns to the north, not to mention the impact of Israel’s only real strength, it’s Air Force. An Invasion of any size would give them the excuse to go full Gaza on Damascus
[good points. Additionally the world’s attention remains diverted as Palestinians continue to be comfortably exterminated at leisure. And the momentum for Chaos is maintained, at all costs. To pause itself may be a Defeat at this point. So more atrocity and war upon more atrocity and bloodshed, unto the zionazi Rapture]
🔻 C6: I’d prefer to see non-nuclear (but multiple) Oreshnik.
🔻 WS: This makes no sense to me. What would the Russians possibly want to target in Syria with a hypersonic IRBM?
[Good point. It is not only not need, but may message the opposite: that they’re desperate..]
⭕ 🔻 Chebureki Man: So far no missile attacks on Russia since Putin chucked some hazelnuts at Ukraine.

That is some nutty deterrence.
🔻 WS: There were two distinct ATACMS strikes that came AFTER the Oreshnik strike. But those were then followed by counterstrikes against ATACMS launchers and US/French contingents within Ukraine — strikes which the Russians claimed to have eliminated 40 American and 9 French soldiers.
🔻 Chebureki Man: I missed seeing the reports, though haven’t had much time lately to keep up lately.

What were the targets?
🔻 WS: 5 ATACMS launched at an S-400 installation — 3 shot down; 1 S-400 radar unit damaged.

8 ATACMS launched at an airbase — 7 shot down, 1 caused negligible damage.

5 ATACMS launchers destroyed later that same day (11/25), along with two separate NATO installations.
🔻 C2: ^^^this. It wasn’t the Hazelnut turning that factory into Nutella, it was the loss of the means to counterstrike. Which is one more piece of evidence that this war is going to be won on the battlefield, not at the negotiating table.
🔻 Farmer Bruce: I like hearing about NATO losses *almost* as much as I do about IOF eliminations…
⭕ ‼️📜 The Missile Will Always Get Through

I try to always save “headroom” when it comes to lavishing praise upon and giving my highest recommendation to something I’ve just read.

But this week’s essay by Aurelien is a *MUST READ*.

#BigPictureStuff
🔻 C1: Does 🇺🇸 have any hypersonic missiles in development or close to any operational viability?
How would anyone know the answer to this question especially if such development is secretive?
🔻 WS: I’ve seen nothing I’d characterize as “objective evidence” of “operational viability”.

It’s really hard to keep military secrets these days.

And the fact remains the entire US arms-procurement model is that of a high-end fashion boutique with inherently constrained scalability.
🔻 C2: Ted Postol views the physics informs him that this missile does not have as much destructive power and that Putin was poorly misinformed, though Postol has a very high view of Putin’s capabilities

My own view is Russia would not make such a basic mistake
[I’ve not yet seen Postol’s latest. He could be misquoting or intentionally misrepresenting him. In prior interviews he didn’t say anything like this, nor was disrespectful of Russkies in the slightest. In fact, he had a healthy level of fear]
🔻 C1: I have said it before, and will so yet again: in my considered opinion, Ted Postol is an unreliable source.
[OK. Take a pass on his PoV on Postol and Helmer, LOL. It’s an alpha male thing] 
⭕ 🔻 Von Clownsewitz’s War College: And just like that, the narrative appears to be changing to DPRK troops being in Russia but not entering combat for lack of training. |media|
🔻 WS: We’ve entered the “Shut it down …” phase of the fractured fairy tale.
🔻 C2: They tried and gave it their best, and as customary in the West, they should get a participation trophy, one in the shape of a hazelnut tree.
🔻 C3: At least Fractured Fairy Tales had a full cast and a more believable story.
⭕ Retweet:
🔻 The Good Shepherd: It is pretty widely understood within defense circles that NATO air power would basically rape the Russian Air Force and air defenses.

This was assumed before 2022 and is even more probable now after russia’s subpar air performance in Ukraine.
🔻 WS: You’re a silly little boy with no understanding of these matters.
🔻 Lee Slusher: It’s pretty widely misunderstood within defense circles.

Also, there are only so many ports. It would be unwise to assume Russia doesn’t have them under constant surveillance and can’t destroy them with missile strikes in a matter of minutes. What then? NATO is stuck with what the continent has on hand. The weakest link becomes the only one. This would all happen very quickly.
🔻 C3: It would be a nightmare. Every troop concentration, logistics depot, command center, airfield – all tactical/strategic points of any value would be wide open to missile interdiction with impunity.
🔻 Lee Slusher: The ports on which we’d rely would be destroyed within an hour. Something else to consider.
🔻 The Good Shepherd: The argument is that if Russia destroys a small number of ports then the continent of Europe will be unable to be reinforced by North American Allies?

Is this your claim?
🔻 Lee Slusher: I don’t know how much actual experience you have in real-world operations. But if you think the loss of ports would be inconsequential in a Russia/NATO war, my guess is not much.

Regarding the air component, the US has never flown against such a sophisticated air defense network. No one has.

In addition, the most advanced EW complex ever built exists along Russia’s western periphery. Its sole purpose is a war against NATO. While we were chasing insurgents and building wells in the desert, Russia was building this.

What happens to our finicky, electronics-laden aircraft in this environment? What about our aerial munitions? We don’t know exactly because that particular match up hasn’t happened. But we have seen what Russian EW has done, for example, to GPS-guided munitions. The assumption that our air force would “rape” Russia is shoddy supposition and DC groupthink.

Russia has demonstrated its technical prowess many times over, most recently with the Oreshnik. They’ve spent decades building systems that exploit the asymmetries between our forces. Better EW, better air defenses, better hypersonics (and indirect fire weapons in general). They’ve fought a very limited campaign in Ukraine in part because they reserve their most capable systems for a potential war with the West.

If your argument rests on the consensus within US defense circles, I rest my case.
⭕ 🔻 Syrian Girl 🇸🇾: BREAKING🚨Israel says it will invade Syria if Homs falls. A last minute be a land grab near the border to overstretch the Syrian army and lead to the quickening of the fall.

⚡️The Hebrew page “Zeev Rubinstein” – Israeli political source:

“If Homs falls, Israel will enter Syria and establish a buffer zone.”
🔻 WS: I remain convinced little is as it seems in Syria. I can’t quite put my finger on it yet. But events, as reported, are not painting a coherent picture. I’m waiting for the “other shoe to drop” to clarify matters …

I increasingly suspect someone is getting “set up”, but that the someone in question has no sense of the fact that he’s the mark.

A few more days should bring some clarity.
🔻 C2: The most basic condition for further progress will have to be the incursion of the turkish military in Syria proper. So far turks have denied any involvement.
🔻 C3: What and who could be set up?
🔻 WS: The easiest mark is always whoever is most desperate to win a big pot on a good hand.

In my view, the Israelis are, by far, the most “desperate for a win” player at the table.
🔻 C4: appars Alistair Crooke in agreeance with your point of view in his latest in strategic culture…can’t link as x prohibits but as pepe says ‘you know where to find it
🔻 C5: They’re not abandoning major cities as a “clever ruse”
🔻 WS: The fact remains they ARE abandoning major cities — without a major fight — almost certainly because they have been ordered to do so.

If this is the case, then they must believe they are luring the “rebels” into a disadvantageous position.
[that would be the saving grace of this debacle. As much of Syria was already rubble and not allowed by Empire to rebuild – they emptied Idleb to shoot them up elsewhere. But a trick can also be turned on the trickster]