Image is of Assad and his family.
After less than two weeks of retreating with few shots fired and little resistance, the SAA has retreated into, well, a state of non-existence. This thereby ends a conflict that has been simmering for over a decade. With the end of this conflict, another begins: the carving up of what used to be Syria between Israel and Turkey, with perhaps the odd Syrian faction getting a rump state here and there. Both Israel and Turkey have begun military operations, with Israel working on expanding their territory in Syria and bombing military bases to ensure as little resistance as possible.
Israeli success in Syria is interesting to contrast against their failures in Gaza and Lebanon. A short time ago, Israel failed to make significant territorial progress in Lebanon due to Hezbollah's resistance despite the heavy hits they had recently taken, and was forced into a ceasefire with little to show for the manpower and equipment lost and the settlers displaced. The war with Lebanon was fast, but still slow enough to allow a degree of analysis and prediction. In contrast, the sheer speed of Syria's collapse has made analysis near-impossible beyond obvious statements like "this is bad" and "Assad is fucking up"; by the time a major Syrian city had fallen, you barely had time to digest the implications before the next one was under threat.
There is still too much that we don't know about the potential responses (and non-responses) of other countries in the region - Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Russia, for example. I think that this week and the next will see a lot of statements made by various parties and an elucidation of how the conflict will progress. The only thing that seems clear is that we are in the next stage of the conflict, and perhaps have been, in retrospect, since Nasrallah's assassination. This stage has been and will be far more chaotic as the damage to Israel compounds and they are willing to take greater and greater risks to stay in power. It will also involve Israel causing destruction all throughout the region, rather than mostly localizing it in Gaza and southern Lebanon. Successful gambles like with Syria may or may not outweigh the unsuccessful ones like with Lebanon. This is a similar road to the one apartheid South Africa took, but there are also too many differences to say if the destination will be the same.
What is certain is that Assad's time in power can be summarized as a failure, both to be an effective leader and to create positive economic conditions. His policies were actively harmful to internal stability for no real payoff and by the end, all goodwill had been fully depleted. By the end, the SAA did not fight back; not because of some wunderwaffen on the side of HST, but because there was nothing to fight for, and internal cohesion rapidly disintegrated.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
So now that the Assad government is gone do we all become Rojava guys? Is it time to send anarkiddies some flowers to let the tankies into the Abdullah Ocalan stan community?
On a serious note I've been peering though some portuguese language Rojava twitter accounts and they seem very scared of HTS, they're not buying into the reformed jihadist idea at all and seem to be expecting the rebel government to strike the kurds at the behest of turkey, also they've been reporting abuses of minorities in rebel territory.
Makes sense for Kurds to be scared. Erdoğan wants to wipe them out. Other powers in the region will not come to their aid. America is their only lifeline and USA is busy helping their 51st state materially and ideologically. Trump will not help the Kurds. Very scary time in history for them.
I wonder how USA mainstream media will spin it when "Woke ISIS" begins doing genocide. What talking heads are going to come on air to defend two simultaneous genocides by two American allies?
You simply will not hear about it
You know the answer, biblical prophesy.
It now becomes clear why that watermelon seller talked out of both sides of his mouth about "supporting Palestine" while still delivering oil and other goods to the Israeli war machine. He was probably promised that he would get to do his own Gaza to the Kurds.
For a while, I have thought that if Assad and the Kurds were not able to come to an understanding and truly unite, that it would quite possibly mean the downfall of both. It seems we might be on that path now. I fear, now that the US military has done its job by preventing this from happening by keeping the SDF under their thumb, they will withdraw back to the security of their Barzani allies in Iraq and let Turkey do what it wants in Syrian Kurdistan.
“Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should ever again the Black and ~~Red~~ whatever color best represents Baathism unite!" - US state department
Yeah Turkish proxies are already invading rojava. And the US clearly prefers HTS to be their stooges. Supporting a Kurdish polity on the border with NATOs second largest power could be a valuable thorn in the side of the west
solemnly unpacking my rojava propaganda from my younger radlib phase while pretending I expected this the whole time
They got what they fought so hard for, US success.
The SDF and HTS/Turkey are deeply antagonistic towards each other, and the SDF was largely cooperating with Assad on the ground, while also recieving US air support.
The realities of this conflict are far more complex than you're suggesting.
If they hadn't been occupying Syrian oilfields to the benefit of the US and Israel and instead actually cooperating with the Assad government, we might not have seen this situation in the first place. They chose to side with the imperialist camp in a vain attempt to create an ethno-state and now their project will likely be crushed along with the rest of Syria. Of course there are complexities, but the reality is that they ultimately were playing on the side of the US in destabilizing the region and now that destabilization has fully come to form.
They were cooperating with the Assad government in a variety of areas, including in the joint operation of oil fields. And their goal is very much not to create an ethno state.
Obviously we can and should be critical of their cooperation with the US, but they were ultimately relying on a larger balance of powers which no longer exists.
Turkey, the second largest NATO power has been violating Syrian sovereignty for years, ethnically cleansing the Kurdish population from the north west (something they were also cooperating with Assad to try and stave off, mind you, because their goal is not to be an independent state).
At this point, if Rojava wants to take US money and weapons, and be continual thorn in the side of Turkey, then I say let them.
Seriously. Also, people on Hexbear love to ignore that the revolution in Rojava literally happened as the result of Assad's government abandoning the whole region, leaving a pathetic smattering of police and military to exert a little control but providing no infrastructural support whatsoever.
Kurds: Continue to exist, understand the U.S. uses them opportunistically at best and will (and did) turn them over to Turkey on a whim, but have no capacity to oppose the U.S. occupation of oil resources.
Hexbear: COMPRADORS!!!!!
My (limited) understanding is the SDF was relying on a balance between opposing forces, and now that balance is toppled. Seems like they have no allies and no strategic value to anyone currently. Turkey or HTS or someone else will probably just crush them at the first convenient opportunity.
That is the adult position sure, but the cooler position is stanning an Arab fascist movement that made an eye doctor the president because it fell into the sectarian track. All Papa Assad had to do to secure his regime for 100 years was simply picking a loyal Kurd to be his successor. Instead he chose the family.
If they stop being aligned with the west, yes