Russia, Iran Rack Up Gains In "Fiercest Syrian Fighting Yet" | Zero Hedge
Last week, we said the following about the next stage of Syria’s civil war: “In case it wasn’t clear enough what was set to happen soon after the Russian air force had spent a few days softening up anti-regime positions on the ground, allow us to spell it out: with the opposition on the run thanks to days of aerial bombardment, Iran will now send in the Hezbollah/Shiite militia/Quds clean up crew, who will personally ensure that whoever is left in the wake of the Su-34 strikes is swiftly eliminated at close range.
As we went on to explain, the Russians are providing air cover for what amounts to an Iranian ground invasion in support of the Assad regime.
Losing the country to the West would be a decisively bad turn of events for Tehran, which needs Syria in order to maintain the regional balance of power and preserve supply routes to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Of course the Iranians have been on the ground in Syria for years, but as we’ve explained on a number of occasions, Tehran needed to remain somewhat cautious about the optics, given the nuclear negotiations. Now that those negotiations have been largely concluded and, more importantly, now that Iran has the Russian superpower stamp of approval, all pretense that this isn’t effectively a ground incursion has been abandoned. Case in point, here’s Reuters with the latest:
Cont....
No comments:
Post a Comment