Russia’s direct military intervention in Syria changed the dynamics of war since its outburst in 2011.

The stage was laid out for a counter-attack against terrorist organizations. It means that the Russian role supporting the effort of the Syrian army in its war against ISIL and Al-Qaeda is preparation for a wide attack against those terrorists. Syrian Army was the main force that prevented these terrorist groups from occupying the whole of Syria's territory. Russian air force joined the fight directly side by side with the Syrian Army upon official request by the Syrian authorities, in accordance with international law. Moscow officials believe that the resolution of the Syrian crisis in the long run lies in a dialogue between government and opposition, while preserving and protecting state organizations.

 

Russia — Syria Relationship

 

The former-USSR and now Russia were downright historical allies of Damascus’ secular government. Both parties  were content with their strong military, social, and economic ties. It is extremely important, that the progressive forces must abandon the false political agenda force-fed to the public by the pro-imperialist media. The biased media are continuously falsifying information against the Syrian government. This misinformation certainly wouldn’t help anyone to get a right position towards understanding of the real social and political nature of the different forces involved in the Syrian war. According to the Western news sources, the Syrian government is responsible for every single death. There is no mention of the social base supporting the local government, or the Syrian soldiers killed while fighting sectarian armed groups, including ISIL and Al-Qaeda. In Moscow, Russian authorities hosted meetings for Syrian opposition groups demanding political reforms, while denouncing any foreign intervention and violent or armed action. Most of them were secular opposition.

US policy that created ISIL

 

A new approach was adopted by the US, France, UK, and their allies in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The United States and its NATO allies continuously sent armaments and funding  to terrorist sectarian groups in Takfiri  since the outburst of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Thus ISIL and Al-Qaeda, in addition to the so-called “armed opposition,” quickly gained control in the region.

This image made from video taken on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015 from a helmet camera, shows U.S. and Iraqi special forces freeing hostages from a prison controlled by Islamic State militants in the town of Huwija
© Kurdistan Regional Security Council via AP
Iraq's Future Uncertain with Bigoted US Support

Recklessly, Obama administration's exerted efforts to end Assad’s regime, just as was done with Qaddafi in Libya, payed no attention to the so-called “rebels” and their political affiliation. The end result is an uncontrollable monster. And as ISIL and Al-Qaeda gained more power and control over the lands, the CIA flooded shipments of armaments from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar that reinforced “armed groups” continuously. John Kerry and the Republicans in Congress in August of 2013 asked for airstrikes against sites belonging to the National Syrian Army, and not ISIL or “armed opposition.” As ISIL unexpectedly defeated the Iraqi army and seized Mosul, the third biggest city in Iraq, in June 2014, Obama was in a state of panic and immediately sent thousands of US troops back to Iraq to protect US assets there. Then the US declared airstrikes to sites taken over by ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

 

On September 10, 2014, Obama launched “a new military campaign against ISIL.” However, Washington emphasized that the US will continue to work to take down Assad in Syria. When the US President made a speech about the “endless war” against ISIL in Iraq and Syria, Obama refrained from telling the truth about the situation in the Middle East. He resented acknowledging how his administration’s strategy is to be held responsible for emergence of ISIL and other extremist organizations in three secular states in the Arab world. This strategy to “change” the regimes in these countries is exactly what George W. Bush did in Iraq. The policy of Obama’s administration in Syria and Libya, in 2011, is as reckless and shortsighted as that of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in Afghanistan in 1980s. The CIA and Pentagon then heavily supported the “Mujahedeen” fighters, like Osama Bin Laden, in an underground war against the socialist regime that controlled Afghanistan. The anti-communist guerrillas, supported by the US, became Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

 

These interventions of the US allowed ISIL a politically open track in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, as well as  it proved that Obama’s late efforts against ISIL are an utter failure, given that the declared goal was to limit and defeat the terrorist group. ISIL only became stronger, and it's power was enforced by the addition of tens of thousands of new fighters in Syria in the past 12 months. Still armaments and funds kept flooding in.

 

Obama promised “no boots on the ground” in Syria. Right-wing and military oriented Congressmen are in the same boat with him. Public opinion in the US will not allow for a wide involvement of US troops in another Middle Eastern war. However, from a military point of view, ISIL and Al-Qaeda would never be defeated by airstrikes. It is an on-ground issue to defeat the terrorist organization. 

 

When Russian President Putin made a speech at the UN General Assembly on September 28, he alluded that the US is to blame for the current deterioration witnessed in the Middle East by its invasion and collapse of Iraq in 2003; the same happened with military destruction of the secular government in Libya in 2012, and causing a civil war in Syria. Then, Putin asked for an international coalition to destroy ISIL, and placed an emphasis on the necessity to support the legal government in Syria in the battle against ISIL, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

 

 

Obama administration immediately rejected the proposed solution judging it as collaboration with the Syrian regime. It is no doubt a sign of arrogance by the empire who once declared that Syrian regime “must fall.” It is Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton who once affirmed “Assad must go,” now they could not humiliate themselves and their “superpower” any more than by joining an alliance against the regime they once declared “futureless” in Syria.