Red: Syrian Arab Army, Yellow: Kurdish held, Green: Jabat al-Nusra (et al), Grey: ISIS,
Patch: Contested
Patch: Contested
We can see this is a very much different picture than the BBC one from one year ago, in July of 2015 (below).
Let us look a little more into the subject of the Kurds, who have also gained a lot since last year. They've filled in wherever ISIS in the north has been rolled back. Problematically in terms of Syrian sovereignty, is the existence of US bases there.
What's been proposed of course is that the US and cohorts pushed ISIS precisely where they would later want to have a Kurdistan partition of Syria.
These US bases, along with their entire involvement from start to finish, are in violation of international law, and constitute a war crime. How this will be resolved has not become a considerable matter of debate within the expert community, as focus has generally been placed on the defeat of al-Nusra (et al) and ISIS.
Any Kurdistan inside of Syria is unacceptable to the Syrian state. Any Kurdistan inside of Turkey is unacceptable to the Turkish state. Different groups of Kurds, and Kurds under various leadership in history, have been played against both each other and the various states. They are a 'wild card' which the British intentionally inserted into post-Ottoman politics, 100 years ago, for the precise purposes which we see them playing today.
© BBC
Previously, before this conflict, Syria and Turkey had an agreement in which Turkey had the right to enter into Syria upwards of 50km in order to 'catch' retreating Kurdish paramilitaries, who would leave Turkey after a clash, to seek safe-haven in Syria.
Only an agreement between Turkey and Syria can see that the US is not able to get its Kurdistan.
Western left-wing audiences are cautioned that movements around the world are adept at creating an ideological impression of their aims which are secondary, irrelevant, or even incompletely expressed to certain targeted 1st world audiences, who are all too eager to project their unfulfilled political commitments onto anything which appears to wave the flag.
In reality, Kurds backed by the US are fighting against Turcomen backed by Turkey, but through an ideological lens this is painted in the west as Anarcho-feminists fighting against Misogynist Salafis (ISIS). These moral-ideological abstractions serve to obfuscate the actual dynamics on the ground. The reality is that the US is backing both.
Kurds are divided, and there are pro-Syrian Kurdish groups who are not seeking a separate state nor a federal Syria, but would rather enjoy a practical increase in their already existing sovereign status, without any changes to the Syrian constitution.
Note: The cut away in the bottom right of the Russian map refers to this:
Little MizRael / Using The Kurds as Their Way
A Talmudic Cabal,*
Sat at a table,
Using the Kurds as a way;
To reach Israel’s goal,
Of 'divide and control',
The Mideast-
“Then the world!”,
In a day.
But along came a large bear,
Overloading their underwear,
And the sit-rep’s now changed
For God works in mysterious ways.
;-p
R.C.
* Cr. L. Gulliver @
Best of the Web: War-crazy former CIA director who supports Killary wants to kill Russians and Iranians and threaten Assad
Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell, who supports Hillary Clinton and insists that Donald Trump is being manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that Russians and Iranians in...RC