Huge victory for Russia: US gives up its regime change policy in Syria

Joy to the world: Mr. & Mrs. Assad join an Advent service at a Syrian Christian church in Damascus:

Less than three months into a Russian military intervention in Syria that he dismissed as an inevitable quagmire, President Obama has conceded that Washington's policy of regime change against Assad's Syria is no longer viable.

This isn't so much a victory for Assad - who still has a monumental task regaining the swathes of his country lost to ISIS and the rebels - as it is a triumph for the Kremlin, i.e. the personal leadership of Vladimir Putin, and a humiliating blow to the US neoconservative policy of removing unfriendly dictators under the pretext of democracy building. It is a great victory for the human race, which will now breathe easier from a humbled Washington that has finally been put in its place, at least in one corner of the world for perhaps a little while.

It is also a stunning recognition of how US, NATO, and allied Sunni Muslim air power has effectively been neutralized in the northwest Syrian battle space by a single weapon system: the S-400 surface-to-air missile (SAM), which, while it hasn't exactly created a no-fly zone, has effectively given the Kremlin a veto on any anti-Assad actions taken from the air by anybody.

Putin has avenged the shoot-down of a Russian jet a month ago by Turkey by turning the tables not only against Turkey but, in the process, the NATO alliance. Turkey's Erdogan may not have intended to draw the US and NATO into a confrontation with Russia in the skies over northwestern Syria, but he was hoping the Su-24 incident would cause enough sympathy for the Turkish position that both his and the Western air forces would intensify their operations in such a way as to constrict the Russian air campaign. In this respect, he has now been thwarted completely. The US has withdrawn its F-15s from Turkey which were clearly positioned there to counter Russian air dominance, and since Turkey itself doesn't dare fly its own jets even near the Syrian border, let alone across it, it's now left to watch Assad and Putin cut its proxies to pieces.

This is a great strategic victory that will long be fondly remembered should the Syrian conflict in fact wind down in the coming months per the new UN resolution for peace talks, which by glossing over the disagreements on Assad's future give the dictator tremendous bargaining power in an environment of slow but steady military gains against the rebels.

Assad can now enter the peace talks with the opposition next month with a starting position of offering no concessions short of the rebel's complete disarmament, because the rebels are still too divided to be able to claim any credible alternative to continued Assad and Alawite control of the central government. While Assad and his backers doubtless want more military victories and recapture of territory from the rebels to strengthen their negotiating leverage, the real question is, If the priority is to build a transitional unity government around the existing Syrian state, what credible choice is there other than to construct it on the battered but still resilient foundation of the Alawite minority regime?

Assad will doubtless insist that he himself personally leads the transition government as a figurehead, with the common understanding that he will step down at the end of the 18-month window decreed prior to the conduct of new elections. Though this would represent a catastrophic defeat for the rebel movement to remove him, it's essentially the position that even Obama has now capitulated to.

The Syrian military's Facebook page, which in its most recent post celebrates the seizure of areas in Aleppo and Latakia, also has a December 13 post showing the surrender and capture of rebels who were given amnesty. The regime of course hopes for as many such surrenders as possible: it will push these amnesty recipients as those best suited for roles in the transition government, hoping that other opposition will follow suit and likewise lay down their arms. If this creates real rifts in the already fractured opposition - between those who want a shot at political influence and those who see this as a ploy by the government to disarm the resistance - it could greatly strengthen Assad's position.

All in all, things aren't looking too shabby for Assad, Putin, or Iran. Even the neocon American Enterprise Institute has conceded that reports of Iran's drawdown in the face of heavy casualties in Syria are overblown.

And Donald Trump - possibly the best single barometer of US public opinion these days - has all but thrown in his lot with the Axis of Fatima.