The situation in the Middle East has taken a dramatic turn for the worse over the past week, with the “surprise” incursion by Radical Izzlamist F***bags from the northern Syrian province of Idlib. The city of Aleppo, once a stronghold of the Assad government in Syria, that held out against everything ISIS could throw at it, back during the dark days of the 2011-2019 Syrian Civil War, fell practically without a fight. Based on reports from Russian sources, it seems as though the Syrian National Army garrison holding down Aleppo, basically turned their coats and switched allegiances.

More bad news for the Syrian government followed very quickly after that. The RIFs took the city of Hama, again practically without a fight. The Syrian high command tried to spin things by saying that they had withdrawn the army units stationed in Hama, to the high ground around the city, with the goal of preserving their fighting power.

Now, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces are coming for the next strategically important city, Homs, which is 50Km or so south of Hama, and only about 200Km from the capital of Damascus.

The loss of Homs, if it occurs, will put the jihadist forces in sight of Damascus itself, and that will take Syria right back to the horrors of the early days of the conflict in 2011-2015, before the Russians intervened at Assad’s request and provided air support and Wagner PMC Orky Stormboyz to push ISIS back.

There is even evidence now that the RIFs are milling around Palmyra – a city that the Syrian National Army and the Wagner stormboyz fought for and liberated TWICE, at immense cost in blood.

Worse still, the province of Dara in the south – where, as far as I am aware, the original uprising against Assad started – now appears to be in full rebellion as well. The Assad government – or regime, if you prefer to call it that – appears to be in the gravest crisis it has faced in over a decade.

Things are moving so fast, in fact, that by the time you read this, everything you read above will be out of date. There are already reports of uprisings in cities a few kilometres south of Damascus against Assad, and reports of advance units of jihadist fighters entering Damascus itself, right now.

Before I continue, I want to make it very clear that I am not an expert on Syria – not even slightly. My knowledge of the situation there is limited, and I am relying on much smarter and better educated minds than my own, to draw conclusions from the very confusing mass of data we are seeing at this moment.

Based on that data, I think it is fair to say, given the speed with which the RIFs have achieved these victories, that the situation for the Assad government is critical. Everything over the next few days depends on whether the Syrian army actually puts up any kind of fight.

The situation therefore begs a number of important questions:

Who Is Involved?

Trying to make any sense of the Syrian conflict is like trying to untangle the Gordian Knot. The problem is that Syria is a strategic and geopolitical crossroads, sitting as it does at the intersection between three continents – Europe, Asia, and Africa. As such, the land of Syria has been fought over for virtually the entirety of recorded human history, just like the land of Israel, and for pretty much exactly the same reasons.

That is why I call the situation “the Syrian goat-screw”, or “the five-sided Syrian fustercluck”, because trying to figure out who is whom, and what each party’s motives are, is immensely complicated.

Of course, we have Syria itself, which has been dominated for decades by the Assad family. The Assad government – or regime, call it what you want – is essentially a secular Ba’athist autocracy, ruling over a complex web of religious, tribal, and ethnic identities. In Syria, there are the shattered remnants of the Assyrian Christian, Yazidi, Nestorian, and Sabean communities; there are Sunni Moose Limbs; there are Kurds; there are Druze, Turkmens, Circassians, and all manner of other characters. Those complex ethnic tensions make Syria a very confusing place indeed.

To Syria’s northwest is, of course, Turkey, ruled over by that treacherous double-dealing snake, Reccep Tayyip Erdogan. The man fancies himself as the new Ottoman Sultan, and wants to remake Turkey into a conservative Izzlamick nation that recalls the glory days of the Sultanate. (Based on my visits to his country over the past 7 years or so, I have to say, he is not doing a particularly good job of it.) His primary concerns are the position and power of Turkey in the region – and his strong desire to keep the Kurds down and repressed. Turkey also has a strong interest in counterbalancing Iranian and Arab influence in the region, so it occupies a significant chunk of northern Syria for those express purposes.

To Syria’s east lie Iraq, and, MUCH more importantly, Iran – the regional superpower that is finally getting back on its feet after many years of economic and political stagnation. Iran is the leading Shi’ite power in the world – really, it is the centre of Shi’a Izzlam, which is, for the purposes of this discussion, an even more ridiculous and crazy version of the Izzlamick heresy than the standard Sunni version. As idiotic as their brand of an already idiotic death-cult is, though, the Iranian (that is, PERSIAN) culture is ancient and in fact extremely sophisticated, and Westerners underestimate this at their own peril.

Iran’s interests lie in preserving the stability of the region for trade and commerce, especially with China and Russia, which have invested heavily in the Middle East. The North-South Trade Corridor, which will pass through Iran and take goods straight from the Indian Ocean to the heart of Russia, is of extreme importance to Iran, as are the investments under the Chinese Belt-and-Road Initiative. Both are essential to preserving and building upon Iran’s prosperity.

Iran also wants to make sure its allies – not proxies, ALLIES – in Syria and Lebanon are able to function and survive. Those allies are some of its strongest bulwarks against American meddling in the region.

Speaking of Amerikhastan, of course the FUSA is heavily involved. The Americans have carved out an enclave in Syria’s east, under the pretence of “protecting” the Syrian Kurds whom they sponsor there. In reality, all they are actually doing, is siphoning off Syrian oil for their own purposes.

Israel has to meddle in these affairs as well. The Izzies occupy the Golan Heights of southwestern Syria (I was there in 2014, and I know how important they are to Israel, and why), specifically to ensure that they have the high ground, to prevent future Syrian invasions of their country – because that is precisely how Syria invaded Israel during previous wars. Under its current government, controlled largely by ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox forces, Israel has a strong and expressed desire to take over much of southern Syria, as it expands into “Greater Israel”.

The major remaining power is, of course, Russia, which intervened in Syria specifically at President Bashar al-Assad’s express request for aid. The Russians maintain a naval base – really, a refuelling station, according to Alexander Mercouris, who knows these things far better than I do – at Tartus on the Mediterranean’s shores, and the much larger and strategically highly significant Khmeimim Airbase for the Russian Aerospace Forces. The Russian involvement is restricted primarily to providing air support, PMC forces (though that is now very limited), and training to the Syrian National Army.

You see what I mean when I say it is a five-sided fustercluck? There are AT LEAST five major regional powers involved in this goat-screw, and ALL of them have overlapping interests. It is literally impossible to divide the conflict into Red vs Blue of any kind. If you don’t believe me, just look at the live map of the region from one of the better mapping projects – there are at least five different factions at play.

Who Are the RIFs?

There are many different factions involved in the fighting. The HTS forces are, as far as I can tell, basically the latest incarnation of al-Qaeda, which has gone through a number of different transformations and manifestations over the years. One of those was ISIS, which the Syrian Army destroyed, with the support and help of the Russian Aerospace Forces – under, at one time, the command of no less than one Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of all Russian forces in the Special Military Operation in Ukraine, before he was disgraced by the stain of association with the Prigozhin Putsch.

HTS is but one of a very bad bunch. Those guys have tried to become “kinder, gentler jihadis”, remaking their image by embracing “diversity”. The fact that they are now getting favourable coverage from the Clown News Network, and other Western whore-media networks, should tell you just how disgusting and evil the presstitutes have become.

(And yet, when I call for flaying those whorenalists alive, rolling them in salt, and then firing them and depriving them of ANY health benefits whatsoever, somehow I am the crazy one…)

Beyond HTS, there are other RIF groups involved – sponsored by the CIA, the Defence Department, the Mossad, and numerous other Western-oriented intelligence agencies. Syria is one of those weird situations where various Derp State factions have pitted their own proxy forces against each other – there were incidents during the Syrian Civil War, in which CIA-backed RIFs, fought against, killed, and were killed by, Pentaloon-sponsored RIFs.

Yeah, Syria is a weird place.

The Kurds, backed by the FUSA, are involved, too – they seem to sense an historic opportunity to secure their own territory, which matters to them immensely, as they are spread out across, I think, at least four different countries. (Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.)

Even the Druze, who historically tend to fight for the state in which they live, rather than their religion, have taken up arms against Assad’s government.

All that is BEFORE we get to Turkey’s involvement in sponsoring, enabling, and helping the HTS groups and other jihadists. The Turks have not yet admitted their involvement directly – but, as we shall see shortly, Erdogan has made quite clear that he wants the overthrow of the Assad government, and its replacement with a regime that he can control.

What is Erdogan’s Game?

Of the various sides involved, Turkey is perhaps the most perfidious and the least trustworthy – though, given what the ‘Murkins and the Izzies are like, they have stiff competition for “Biggest Liars in the World”.

Turkey is a participant in what is called the “Astana Format” – an ongoing series of dialogues sponsored primarily by Turkey, Iran, and Russia, that originated in Astana, Kazakhstan, in 2017. Those talks resulted in an essentially “frozen conflict” by 2020, wherein the Turks controlled the north, the American-backed Kurds (and American forces, including Navy SEALs and special forces) controlled the oil-rich northeast, and the Syrian army controlled most of the rest.

That frozen state was, in retrospect, an unstable and unsustainable peace. As with Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, it has become blindingly obvious by now that “freezing” conflicts in place, really does not resolve ANYTHING, and only leads to more bloody and terrible consequences later.

Turkey, under Erdogan, has very clearly broken that format by overtly and covertly supporting the actions of the jihadists now flooding south, by giving them safe harbour in Idlib province, and financing their arming and training. Erdogan is very obviously using them as proxies to advance his own aims in the region.

And what, exactly, does Erdogan want?

Consider the following map, taken from Larry Johnson’s most excellent SONAR21 site:

That diagram shows what oil pipelines might look like, if future projects concerning the construction of oil and gas infrastructure across the Middle East actually get going. Syria is a key transit point for the big gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey, which will then send gas shipments to Europe. Syria is also the key point for the oil pipeline from Iran, through Iraq, to Turkey.

As ever, control over resources determines geopolitical power. And the more control Turkey has over those resources, the more leverage it has over both Europe AND the Eurasian powers.

By controlling Syria, Erdogan controls and sets the transit fees for oil and gas going to Europe, which is objectively worth BILLIONS in hard currency to the Turkish economy – AND controls the distribution of Qatari gas, Iranian oil, and eventually Russian gas (with Turkstream plus the new gas hub being built in Turkey itself), to Europe.

That makes Turkey an economic powerhouse with a foot right on Europe’s throat.

From Erdogan’s perspective, the game is one of cold and rational calculation for short-term benefit, that gives him a stranglehold over Europe’s resource supplies – now that Europe has made the unbelievably STOOPID step of cutting itself off from cheap direct flows of Russian oil and gas.

Now, there WILL be a price to pay for Turkey in the long run. Russia, China, and Iran all recognise that Erdogan is a totally untrustworthy snake, who cannot be trusted to keep his word. For now, they have to swallow that fact – particularly Russia, which finds Erdogan detestable, though they will not say so out loud in official circles – because Turkey controls the Dardanelles and all access to the Black Sea via the Montreaux Convention.

The Russians, especially, NEED to keep the Turks onside, because they are keeping NATO warships out of the Black Sea, at a time when Russia is directly at war with NATO itself.

But that situation will not last forever.

Eventually, the Russians WILL win the 404 War. They WILL control the entire northern shore of the Black Sea – the whole region will essentially become one big Russian lake. They will also be in a position to determine whether Turkey will become a full-fledged BRICS member or not.

And at that point, they will have more leverage over Erdogan, than he will have over them.

This “multi-vector approach” of Erdogan’s – which is just a polite way of saying, “playing all sides against each other and lying one’s ass off” – is not sustainable in the long term. Eventually, Turkey is going to have to choose a side – NATOstan, or Eurasia.

And the Eurasian powers have long memories. They are not going to forget Turkey’s consistent and persistent betrayals.

There is also the domestic aspect to consider. Turkey’s economy is large and powerful, but it is not particularly healthy. Inflation still ravages the country, and its insistence on going along with American SANKSHUNS against Russia, has prevented its banks from accepting and processing MIR card payments for the hundreds of thousands of Russian tourists who visit the place every year.

Erdogan is not actually particularly popular within Turkey itself, by the way. He suffered a significant defeat in the local elections earlier this year, where his ruling party lost control over key cities, particularly Istanbul. The Turkish people are enraged by his ongoing support for Israel – despite his often angry rhetoric against Netanyahu and the Izzies – which is why he needs some sort of distraction to gin up support and show himself off as a great regional leader.

What Happened to the Syrian Army?

The other major question here is: what the hell happened to the Syrian Army that once heroically resisted the tremendous pressure against the country, and fought back valiantly to retake much of its territory from all of its enemies?

This is a very difficult question to answer. Thus far, the Syrian Army has totally failed to offer any kind of resistance, instead retreating and fleeing, or even simply surrendering and turning against the government in Damascus.

Assad has to be wondering whom he can trust, among his generals. I suspect he can probably count on the fingers of one hand the generals and colonels that are actually competent, capable, and wiling to fight.

This is a very weird situation. Assad is known as “the Lion of Damascus” by his people, and among the Russians, who (up until now) greatly admired him for his courage, and his refusal to flee Syria, even when the jihadist nutbags were barely a few kilometres away from the Presidential palace in Damascus, once upon a time.

The short answer to the failures of the Syrian Army seems to lie in rampant corruption.

The Western SANKSHUNS!!!! against Syria have broken its economy. Syria is not nearly as resilient against MUH SANKSHUNS!!!! as countries like Iran or, especially, Russia – it was never a rich country to begin with, and is now far poorer after the terrible damage done by those sanctions.

Corruption now appears to be rampant and endemic – a way of life, almost, among Syrians. And that extends especially to the army.

We must also not forget the fact that, as Grandpa Grumpuss pointed out recently,we are talking about ARABS here. Let us be blunt about it: they are nearly USELESS in war. There is a REASON why the Israelis have consistently beaten every Arab nation that has ever invaded their country in the last 80 years – it is because those armies were full of ARABS.

(This is also why, whenever the Israelis encounter an actually serious enemy, that is fighting for its very existence, and is united in its ideology and identity, they fail. They are very like the Americans in this respect – which is unsurprising, when you realise how much the Israelis depend on American doctrines and equipment for their fighting capabilities.)

And, as I have pointed out repeatedly, Arabs do not really have the ability to think in terms of “nation”. Their loyalties extend to family, tribe, and clan – not NATION. The very concept is a bit alien to them. As such, you cannot count on them to stand and fight.

Nonetheless, the catastrophe appears to be real.

The Syrian Army can talk all it wants about “preserving its forces” and falling back to avoid encirclement and serious combat. The fact is, they are running from the jihadists, who appear to be moving through virtually unopposed – and are capturing large caches of weapons and supplies in the process.

If the Syrian Army does not stand and fight at some point within the next few days – and, more importantly, WIN – there is a very serious danger that it will simply collapse outright from failing morale and lack of confidence in it, on the part of its supporters in Iran and Russia.

The latter two powers are doing what they can to help. Russia is pounding the jihadists with air strikes – the pictures and videos of jihadists being turned into red goo are extremely graphic, (and, if I’m honest, rather satisfying). They are also supplying drones and highly experienced drone operators to help the Syrians deal with the realities of modern drone warfare.

Iran is sending some of its most capable and experienced commanders to assist. Shi’ite militias are pouring in from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere in the region.

But, ultimately, the Syrian Army has to do the actual fighting. For instance, they have lost Palmyra for a third time – and the Russians are not going to help them get it back this time.

It is important to highlight that Russian popular opinion is both confused and furious about the collapse of the Syrian army. The Russians feel – correctly – that they expended considerable blood and treasure to prop up Assad’s government during the Syrian Civil War. They are enraged by videos and pictures of jihadist nutbags wandering around freely in Palmyra – a city that their own people paid for in blood to liberate, twice. Those pictures bring back terrible memories of what the Russians themselves suffered through during the Chechen Wars in the Caucasus – particularly when daemons in human form, like Shamil Basayev, attacked and took over Russian towns, and committed horrendous atrocities against the inhabitants, like the Budyonnovsk Hospital Crisis and the Beslan Massacre.

Russians feel like the entire affair was all for nothing. The Russian leadership has taken a substantial, though far from severe, blow to its prestige.

Why Now?

That is actually pretty straightforward to answer.

Project Ukraine is not simply failing. It has FAILED. The God-Emperor is on his way in, and he has made it clear that he will not continue the unconditional support for the Banderites that his cognitively-impaired (and illegitimate) predecessor was willing to provide.

The total failure of the neoclown project to turn Ukraine into a battering ram against Russia, thereby splitting it apart and breaking up the world’s largest country into a series of American “protectorates” that can be raped for their resources, means the neoclowns need a new target.

That target is Syria.

Taking out Assad “solves” quite a few problems for both the neoclowns and Erdogan. For the neoclowns, it eliminates the Russian airbase in Khmeimim – thereby removing the major obstacle to American power projection in the region. It also locks out the Russians from their sole Mediterranean warm-water resupply point, thereby boxing in the Russian Black Sea Fleet a bit.

Further, it removes the main obstacle stopping the Israelis from attacking Iran – which means the Americans can eventually go to war with Iran directly.

That has been the wet dream of the unreconstructed Trotskyite Jews who make up the bulk of the neoclown crazies, for DECADES. Going to war with Iran is not merely stupid, it is quite literally INSANE, because neither Russia nor China will permit Iran to be destroyed – but neoclowns are not known for their understanding of higher-order thinking.

For Turkey, taking out Syria solves quite a few of Erdogan’s problems. He obviously does not want the Kurds to establish their own homeland, thereby threatening the stability and integrity of the Turkish southeast. Always keep in mind that, from the Turkish perspective, the Kurds are a bunch of Communist Izzlamist crazies. (Seriously. The PKK was originally a Communist organisation.)

Taking out Syria – or at least, getting rid of Assad, and turning Syria into a Turkish-dominated protectorate – also helps Turkey counter Iran’s regional power, and consolidates Erdogan’s grip over energy supplies in the region, as I wrote before.

It also serves American interests by potentially destabilising the Russian government – or so the Ameribros would like to believe, because they know next to nothing about Russia and the Russian government. In reality, The Putin and his siloviki will suffer a bitter blow, but they will absorb it, and they will roll forward, as they always do.

Conclusion – A World on Fire

Well, if you were confused about the whole Syrian goat-screw before reading this, my guess is that you are even more confused now. And that is because the whole situation is colossally difficult. There is NO good solution involved.

The true tragedy here is that ordinary people, across two continents, will suffer terribly.

The Syrian people are in the middle of a Great Power struggle. They will flee Syria in their millions, again. Many of them will find their way to Turkey, again. Erdogan will use those as a battering ram against the European Union, AGAIN. He will threaten to release the hordes into Europe, if the Euroweenies do not do what he tells them, AGAIN.

And, being utterly spineless cucks, the Euroweenies will simply agree to let millions of Syrian refugees flood into their countries, AGAIN.

That means we can look forward to yet more stabbings, beheadings, jihadi attacks, and Izzlamist madness, across all of once-civilised Europe.

YET AGAIN.

Europe is doomed. It has allowed a power-hungry jumped-up Turk to take total control over its energy supplies, and has cut off its major source of reliable and cheap energy through Russia. It has subordinated its economic and political interests to that of the FUSA, which will not hesitate to bend all of Europe over a barrel and sodomise it for every last ounce of value it can extract – because, to the American Derp State, Europe is simply a resource to use and abuse as it sees fit.

Eventually, all of this will reach a serious breaking point. If the Syrian Army does not stand, fight, and win, Syria will fall, and that means an unmitigated disaster for the entire Eurasian landmass.

Russia, China, and Iran will eventually adjust to the realities of Turkic dominance of the Near East – they may not like it, but they can deal with it. Israel will be able to act with impunity in what used to be southern Syria – and, by the way, will be able to secure its oil supplies through Turkey, which will in turn enable it to pursue its current policy of ethnic cleansing in both Gaza and the West Bank.

But Europe is doomed. And so is Syria – unless the Syrian Arab Army pulls its finger out and starts fighting, and WINNING.

Things might turn around in the near future, sure. It all depends on how the next few days turn out. But do not be surprised if we all wake up on Monday to find Assad has been overthrown – possibly killed in the most humiliating and perverted fashion possible, as Gaddafi was before him – and the neoclowns in Amerikhastan are all celebrating that fact.

The world is burning around us. There is not the least point in putting any hope in the God-Emperor’s ascension to the Cherry Blossom Throne to fix it, because he has surrounded himself, yet again, with neoclowns and Iran hawks.

By then, Brandon’s devious plan to tie up the Trump Administration in endless wars in the Middle East, will likely have succeeded.

That is a last, deeply immoral, Parthian shot to the man who, by rights, should have defeated Brandon back in 2020, and DID defeat him, by proxy, in 2024.