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.
At the end of the day, they are scared of getting nuked. Their grand strategy, from Russia to China to Iran, is essentially boiling the frog. They want to slowly turn up the heat so the frog inside the pot doesn't know it's being boiled alive until it's too late. The reason is that if the frog were to know it's being boiled alive, the frog (ie the US) will quickly escalate to nukes and begin nuking their capital cities. They want to quietly and slowly move, hoping that while they make small and incremental gains, the US will not escalate that fast before falling apart due to internal contradictions as a settler-colony hollowed by austerity. I don't blame them for pursuing anti-imperialism (or counter-hegemony if you don't think their motives are pure) in this way. Just going "What is a few hundreds of millions of people dead compared to the defeat of Western imperialism? Just don't be scared of nukes bruh lmao." is deranged armchairism.
But perhaps we're seeing the flaws and limitations of the slowly boiling the frog strategy. If you think about it, if the US had a crystal ball that could predict the future, and the crystal ball guarantees that no country will nuke the US even if the US uses nukes on them, then the US basically won. They don't even have to rely on dollar hegemony anymore since they could pretty much transition to a new mode of production away from capitalism to we'll-nuke-you-if-you-don't-give-us-your-shit-ism. M-C-M' becomes C-
-C'.
People have said much about Mao. And I know you're well aware of what Mao thought about the prospect of China getting nuked. People have also commented about why the PRC had it in them to send the PVA into the DPRK. A big part of it was that Mao was willing to risk the prospect of China getting nuked by the US for the sake of anti-imperialism (plus a whole bunch of geopolitical reasons, but it doesn't detract from the broader point). When Truman was threatening that China would be nuked if the PVA crossed the Yalu river, Mao made the correct prediction that if the US wanted to nuke China, they would've done so already, so the fact that they didn't get nuked meant that they weren't going to do shit. And so, Mao called their bluff and the PVA crossed the Yalu river.
We can all praise Mao for being a big-brained commie reincarnation of Liu Bang who can predict how his opponents will act, but at the end of the day, Mao was willing to gamble and risk China getting nuked. It's not like the US was somehow incapable of nuking China. And not only that, China didn't even have nukes until a decade after the Korean War, so there was no MAD. If China got nuked, China got nuked end of story. And Mao was still brave enough to gamble.
Dare to struggle, dare to win. And part of that dare involves risking it all. From what I've seen, the only group today that has that daring, that courage, that guts is Ansarallah and possibly the DPRK. No other country, party, or org has that amount of daring. If every single country, party, and org, even ones not necessarily counter-hegemonic like Turkey and India, had the daring of Mao or Ansarallah, Western imperialism would probably be defeated in less than 3 decades. Of course, part of the defeat of Western imperialism includes the possibility of the US starting a nuclear exchange which triggers MAD and leads to the complete extermination of humanity where not a trance of Western imperialism or any other signs of human life survives. But if everyone had that daring, there will be no Western imperialism by 2050, whether it's through MAD, the replacement of Western imperialism with other forms of imperialism, or the triumph of the international proletariat and socialism.
However, are people willing to spend the next 25+ years with the knowledge that there's a 30% chance the US will just begin a nuclear exchange and end humanity? If not, then they better be emotionally prepared for more disappointments and missed opportunities from Russia, China, and Iran being too passive.
I am more than happy to once again make the argument. Socialists should not give Chinese nuclear fearmongering.
Why? Because nuclear fear mongering is as you say a mere hypothetical. The giant elephant in the room is climate change. If we don't fight now, we may as well not bother. The future is 100% certain. Billions will migrate and die, mass economic collapse and large uninhabitable regions.
Yes it turns out that 30 years timeframe is the only time frame we got left. Its over otherwise. CPC coping that they'll just communism their way out of this into the future is like billionaires and their New Zealand bunkers quite honestly.
Regardless, even if climate change is dismissed I believe it is the highest form of hypocrisy for Chinese interests to fearmonger about US nukes while they simultaneously were willing to work against the DPRK's nuclear program.
Once again Chinese state media gives you the most straight foward position of the party without fail. DPRK bad, DPRK against Chinese nuclear non-proliferation!
Please remember very carefully both China and Russia initially sanctioned DPRK after their successful test in 2016.
We had Chinese "experts" explaining to us how Kim’s nuke stand threatens Northeast Asia
I'm sorry, if damn China doesn't want they also demonstrated the absolute cowardice in stopping others directly and indirectly.
From the beginning our criticism of China is the lack of Chinese action serves as a barrier that diminishes global south initiative. Vijay Prashad said this in one of the first time I realized China's inaction can indeed be harmful*.
BTW absolutely funny literaly just this dual purpose ban/"excuse" against the US not even 12 months later but to protect Chinese national interests! China was pathetic here they can and will protect their interests, a Israel sanction/trade embargo was possible even if symbolic.
We don't need to give China the benefit of doubt anymore, they meet with US officials and shake hands, they literally already made deals in Saudi Arabia. They literaly told the Houthis to "think of the world trade consequences please!".
IMO socialists should absolutely not tolerate Chinese fearmongering about nukes given their absolute lack of desire to fight the US through any other means. Their absolute lack of solidarity for Palestine(beyond optics and "diplomacy") and most importantly their very own hypocritical stance towards the DPRK nuclear program.
I'm not sure what the point of your comment since you praise DPRK's courgage but also repeat Chinese nuclear fear mongering so please excuse me for that. Either way IMO as I said socialists need to move away completely from Chinese excuses.
I could say the exact same about your comment lmao. You just used my comment to soapbox about why you think modern China sucks. If you don't like China, it's very obvious that both Russia and Iran are also timid because of nukes. Are you going to blame "Chinese nuclear fearmongering" for that as well? Iran and Ansarallah both don't have nukes, but it's very clear one of them is a lot braver than the another. Ansarallah is already going after US aircraft carriers while Iran has not done so despite being more than technologically capable.
Russia and China, you literaly ignored the point of my comment. BOTH OF THEM SANCTIONED DPRK AFTER THEIR NUCLEAR TEST.
Chinese nuclear fearmongering is a shitty argument, "I'm scared of US nukes" and then deny others the right to use these weapons to fight the US, its shitty common sense status quo. Why should they deny others this right? Let the DPRK communists get nuked if it means the US also gets it its at least a win win. Yes Russia and China were hypocritical. Nuclear non-proliferation only benefits the west majority nuclear powers.
IMO Russia's adhesion to this western consensus was the only way for them to remain relevant.
Also don't pretend you don't know the Ukraine situation since 2014. They literaly ignored it because their shitty oligarchs were busy making money in the west. Russia couldn't fight earlier because of NATO nukes? Nonsense he went after Crimea after all. If that is one reason, its like the 5th or 10th reason not the first.
Iran got their own contradiction to worry about, they set their red lines, talk about great retribution and then fall short. They talk about how they'll bring great destruction to Israel and then pretend their weapons actualy can't do anything? If the idea was intimidation they failed on that strategy. Pressing both buttons now is just sad.
Yeah I agree with this? Indeed I mentioned, how is China's nuclear fear relevant when they told the Houthis to chill out?
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: