HOW SYRIA CAN WIN ITS WAR WITH AMERICA

Assad points to where the war is heading.

by Colin Liddell

It's happened. Trump has done the unforgivable and gone to war with Syria. There seems to be a lot of anger and sheer disappointment in the Alt-Right about this. But the Alt-Right is nothing if not "dialectical," i.e. able to step back, appreciate the multifaceted ironies of the situation, and look at the bigger picture, and the bigger picture here would be the chance this incident opens up to inflict a defeat not on Trump or America—although that might also be involved—but on the whole mythic apparatus of American interventionism and thus globalism.

The first irony that stands out is that Trump/ America/ the Cult of Interventionism is using this action to "look strong," when in fact it was the act of a weakling and coward.

The most important aspect of this attack was that the US not only did not deploy a single boot on the ground, but did not even use a single manned aircraft over enemy territory. This is literally the same level of heroism as some fat nerd in his basement playing "Call of Duty." From this it is clear what America's weakness is, and, this being no secret, it is therefore obvious how America can be defeated and even humiliated.

The military equivalent of ringing someone's doorbell and running away (except ringing the doorbell is cheaper).

What the Syrians and their allies have to do is simply to get America to go beyond its big, fat comfort zone of drones, cruise missiles, and expendable proxies, and get it to start fighting a real war—in short to call the Paper Tiger's bluff.

Behind Trump's bluster, the optics of tough-looking generals with desiccated features and gimlet eyes, the impressive firework display ($60 million for a bit of burnt tarmac), and the big military-industrial complex rubbing its hands with glee, are a bunch of little cry-baby bitches who will start going weak at the knees and whimpering like drowning kittens when the body bags start trickling in.

Let's add a little historical perspective by looking at earlier American defeats: Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan (aka "The Bush Wars").

In both these cases America was less of a "cucked" and "pozzed" nation than its has since become. It was also fighting with much stronger motivation. In the first case it was battling against the spread of the psychopathic condition known as Communism, in the second it was fighting against the people it erroneously thought were responsible for a massive terrorist attack on its home territory. Yet, in both cases it got worn down to the point where its superior hardware was powerless to prevent a collapse of morale. The Vietcong outlasted and Iraq, despite collapsing like a house of cards, is now firmly in the same camp as Syria.

This was part of the appeal of Trump, that he appeared to understand the lesson here, i.e. that you are only strong by staying within the bounds of your strength, as an elephant is strong by staying on the land, a whale at sea, etc.

He won the election to a large degree by calling out the neocon stupidities of all his opponents, including Hillary. The American people, who had absorbed the lessons of its past defeats in as face-saving a way as possible, sucked up this Trumpian take on strength-out-of-weakness in the face of the biggest demonization and gaslighting campaign ever and pushed him into the White House.

This magical connection with the US voter is what Trump's attack on Syria threatens to destroy. But tragic as that would be, it could also lead to an ultimate good by creating the conditions of a major globalist defeat, but only if the Syrians and their many allies—Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, Russia, and China—play their cards right.

America's past defeats—Vietnam and the Bush Wars—were not only fought for ostensibly strong reasons ("muh freedums" and "muh national security") but were also simple wars, where the frankly moronic American public clearly understood who the "bad guy" was. And even then they lost—and, much worse than that, lost interest.

Imagine then how boots on the ground would work in Syria, where the "designated bad guy," Bashar al-Assad would do such a lousy job of being obviously evil. I mean, how can we spin him saving Christians and not throwing gays off tall buildings as totally evil? Also—and the American public is really not ready for this—you would need flow charts to explain who was in bed with who in this extremely complex war.

But why talk about getting boots on the ground, when there are already boots on the ground. Yes, the US actually has a small, discrete army presence in Syria already.

Talent scout, McCain.

After sending John McCain and other Neocon nincompoops to audition a number of rebel groups who turned out to be ISIS or near versions of ISIS, the US finally found a group it could get behind, namely the leftist-leaning Kurdish militia forces that had asserted their independence in the North of the country.

Not only were they not flesh-eating Salafists, but they were even more advanced on the question of "gender equality in the warplace" than America, with a well-publicized troop of comely Amazons in military fatigues. These progressive people are the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which is now taking the war to ISIS and actually on the verge of conquering the Caliphate's capital at Raqqah.

This rise of the SDF has been backed not only by American arms and money, but by a high degree of monitoring and tutelage that has required a considerable number of US special forces, trainers, advisers, and artillerymen to be present. These US troops, numbering around a thousand, are obviously under orders to send as few body bags as possible back, and so far they have been doing a good job because interested parties—the Turks, the Russians, and, yes, even the Syrians—have been working behind the scenes to keep things that way.

But it could be argued that these US military personnel are the biggest threat to President Assad because they bolster an "acceptable alternative" to his regime. Through the rocky years of the Syrian Civil War, ISIS and the Al Qaeda clones that make up the bulk of the rebellion were Assad's main strength, as getting rid of Assad meant putting hard-line Muslim fanatics in charge—a reasonably hard sell to Middle America.

But the Kurds are different. Caught in a time lag of Cold War "ideological derivatives" they are driven by a variety of left-wing guerrilla ideologies (hence the comely Amazons). If this "acceptable" foundation can be broadened to include less extreme Sunni Arabs and other groups, like Druze and Christians, then you have the makings of a suitable alternative to Assad, meaning that America has a real reason finally to push for Assad's ouster.

Kurdish Amazonian waifus

It now appears this has been the US strategy for some time, and the SDF has proved itself, especially in the recent Battle at Tabqa, fought around the giant dam on the Euphrates River to the West of the ISIS capital of Raqqah.

For Syria, Russia, and Turkey to tolerate the rise of the SDF, therefore, is a major strategic error, but it is one they can turn to their advantage, because it gives then the opportunity of drawing the Americans deeper into the Syrian war on their own terms, not those of the Americans.

As I said above, these US forces are under strict orders not to send back body bags, if they can help it, but this has only been possible because the Syrians and Turks have allowed the Kurds a truce, and the Russians have backed up this arrangement. This has allowed the SDF to reap the glory of taking the war to ISIS and build up their brand as a possible Assad replacement government.

The Syrian government and their backers, as well as the Turks who are deeply worried by the growing role being played by the Kurds south of their border, are no doubt reconsidering their attitude to the US-backed SDF. Quite probably the Syrians and Turks have already come to the decision that the SDF is the main threat to each of their interests, but have only held back acting on that because of deference to America and Russia, who, until a couple of days ago, seemed to have their own arrangement that was founded on the belief that Trump and Putin were working together on Syria.

That arrangement included destroying ISIS, working with Assad, and accommodating Kurdish and other interests through some kind of federal solution similar to the one in Iraq, but also trying to keep the Turks happy. But Trump's attack and Secretary of State Tillerson's comments about removing Assad, show that is no longer the game being played.

Tillerson: oil man turned diplomat.

Syria, Russia, and Turkey can now choose to go along with the new US agenda, which is to keep growing the SDF brand, with occasional bombings of Assad forces to keep things moving in the US direction, or to start running interference on American plans. As the SDF is key to US plans, that would involve breaking the truces with the SDF and creating a much more unmanageable situation that would ensure the deaths of at least some of the US personnel in Syria.

Once this happens, Trump would be forced to either pull out and let the SDF swing on its own or send in more personnel to back it up. If he were taunted with being a bigger "cuck" than Obama, he could be guaranteed to send in more troops. As the numbers involved would hardly be decisive, this could then be countered by sending in more Iranians and Russians, and allowing support to flow to ISIS once again. Such a situation would lead to a death toll on American troops and the ending of the long-distance "computer game" warfare they prefer to fight.

If that happens, then domestically, pressure would grow on Trump from two sides. The Left, which is now temporally supporting him, would start to see him as an "evil warmonger," while also using the war as a convenient stick to beat him with for other discontents, while the Dissident Right, who were instrumental in getting his message out, would see him as a traitor, a cuck for Israel, and the biggest disappointment ever. As for Normal Americans, they would just see him as a blustering President, fighting an increasingly dangerous and confused war.

Combined with the other schisms and contradictions that surround his presidency, this creates an increasingly weak position, from which his only option would be a humiliating retreat. Then, once that happened, the SDF could be crushed or cowed between the Syrians and the Turks, and the assault on ISIS resumed, allowing Assad to regain more or less full control of Syria.

A more likely outcome than that, however, is that doubts continue to linger over the alleged gas attack, and so Trump's dramatic bombing of Syria remains an isolated one-off, useful mainly for killing off the "Russians hacked the election" narrative. And that while America continues to make long-range noises about Assad going, he enjoys increased support from the Russians and the Iranians that ensures that he stays.

As for the SDF, they get the message that US support can only reach so far, and stop allowing themselves be used as an anti-Assad stooge, and instead work towards an agreement that the real stakeholders in the region, Turkey, Russia, and Iran can sign off on.