With Iran's deployment of hundreds of troops to Syria, the ground war has officially entered a new stage. Despite two weeks of Russian aerial bombardment, the Syrian government forces can't make much headway against the better armed and organized rebel groups, who have been resupplied with large numbers of the US-made anti-tank "TOW" missiles that were already instrumental earlier this year in anti-Assad rebel advances.
These fresh Iranians are most likely full battalions of the elite Revolutionary Guards/Quds Force, whose high-ranking officers have already played key advisory roles in Assad's forces and have been dying lately at an alarming rate, notably General Hamedani last week.
Of course, many suspect the Quds Force hasn't been in Syria in a merely advisory role since last spring...it's just that now, Iran has crossed the final threshold to being a full-fledged, open belligerent on the field.
Given the performance of Assad's depleted regular army even with Russian air support - apparently they still rely heavily on tanks and armored vehicles that are easy prey for American TOWs - it's likely that the Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah coalition is now acquiring, at last, the capability to conduct a genuine counterinsurgency campaign.
At the same time, Iranian MPs are in Damascus to discuss their proposed peace plan for Syria which, without doubt, has as its baseline the continuity of Assad's regime in the dictator's Shia Alawite stronghold and its surrounding pacified sectors...the Russo-Iranian military operation will determine just how big this battered yet reclaimed Baath party-state is.
No comments:
Post a Comment