News for today's 2018

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGV1A4-j4W1xwu7Fr-8oLxLXWALmwzJnOyAcCusqod6__Na_C7wz3PH6fgjBs3aPnYEUzVE7cf0NgP0GWSYe5Pn63mI5geOLVSGzXjR3iJrZ6B95-SQSDQm4RIonBoDKxlsWKqrM4cWucF/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGV1A4-j4W1xwu7Fr-8oLxLXWALmwzJnOyAcCusqod6__Na_C7wz3PH6fgjBs3aPnYEUzVE7cf0NgP0GWSYe5Pn63mI5geOLVSGzXjR3iJrZ6B95-SQSDQm4RIonBoDKxlsWKqrM4cWucF/s320/images.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">ASSAD PULLS AHEAD IN SYRIAN WAR. PUTIN, KHAMENEI ARE CO-VICTORS </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">Via DEBKAfile</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">PEACE TALKS IN MOSCOW</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div> <div class="MsoNormal">March 5 has been set as the date for peace talks to open in Moscow between the SYRIAN opposition and the Assad regime, debkafile reveals exclusively. Opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib is waiting to meet the Assad regime’s representative, possibly Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, in the RUSSIAN capital by the end of February to set up the talks. Bashar Assad has taken his resignation off the agenda and insists on reserving the option to run again for president in 2014. </div><div class="MsoNormal">REBEL MOVEMENT HAS REACHED ITS LIMIT</div> <div class="MsoNormal">He is backed in this by President Vladimir Putin. And even the SYRIAN opposition appears to have tacitly bowed to this precondition – an admission that the rebel movement has reached its limit and Assad’s genocidal, no-holds-barred tactics have paid off. With all their acclaimed victories, rebel forces know that their desperate bid to conquer Damascus was repulsed by the SYRIAN army’s superior fire power and heavy armor.  </div><div class="MsoNormal">Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring Background Information: </div> <div class="MsoNormal">See: ASSAD FIRM IN THE SADDLE (January 2013)</div><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/01/syria-assad-firm-in-saddle.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/01/syria-assad-firm-in-saddle.html</a> <div class="MsoNormal">SYRIAN REGIME LIKELY TO SURVIVE UPRAISE (June 2011)</div><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/06/syrian-regime-likely-to-survive-upraise.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/06/syrian-regime-likely-to-survive-upraise.html</a> <div class="MsoNormal">ASSAD FIRMLY IN CHARGE IN SYRIA (March 2012)</div><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/syria.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/syria.html</a> <div class="MsoNormal">They were thrown back from the heart of Aleppo, SYRIA’S largest city. And they failed to gain control of Assad’s chemical arsenal. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Ferocious fighting failed to bring the big SYRIAN Air Force bases into rebel hands. Now, most of the fighting opposition to the Assad regime is ready to negotiate terms for a ceasefire as the opening gambit for a political settlement. They face their enemy standing firm as the unvanquished ruler of SYRIA and commander-in-chief of its armed forces at the cost of Syria 80-100,000 Syrian lives and a ravaged country. In so doing, Assad has cemented the Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah alliance. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s’s sphere of influence now stretches from the PERSIAN GULF up to the MEDITERRANEAN – his reward for the billion dollars worth of aid per month he poured into buttressing Assad. His other ally, Hassan Nasrallah, whose Hizballah operatives fought shoulder to shoulder with SYRIAN troops, emerges as the strongman of LEBANON. </div>Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring Background Information: <div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/01/syrias-chemical-weapons-taken-off-us.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/01/syrias-chemical-weapons-taken-off-us.html</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/12/russian-forces-take-syrian-chemical.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/12/russian-forces-take-syrian-chemical.html</a></div> Comment by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring: <div class="MsoNormal">IRAN’S influence in SYRIA stretches far beyond the uprising. Thus is it can hardly be considered to be a new challenge for ISRAEL or the USA. As claimed numerous times on this blog,  ISRAEL would, on balance, prefer the Assad regime to continue; for it is a known quantity and any new regime could severely destabilize the effective balance-of-power between two uneasy neighbors’………… </div> <div class="MsoNormal">For in-depth analysis read: </div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/syria-feasts-and-rites-of-confusion.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/syria-feasts-and-rites-of-confusion.html</a>and</div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/syria-israel-iran-and-usa.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/syria-israel-iran-and-usa.html</a></div> <div class="MsoNormal">TURKEY GAMBLED HEAVILY ON BRINGING DOWN ASSAD IN ORDER TO BECOME A REGIONAL POWER PLAYER – AND MISSED Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad’s staunch backer in diplomacy, arms and moral support, congratulates himself for picking the winning side in SYRIA’S civil war and, moreover, frustrating US and NATO designs to remove the SYRIAN ruler from power. Those are the winners. </div> <div class="MsoNormal">Comment by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring: </div><div class="MsoNormal">Unlike in LIBYA, this time around RUSSIA and CHINA (See:<a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/china-and-syria.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/china-and-syria.html</a>)reiterated their stance and did not tolerate to be left out of the equation as was the case with the toppling of the LIBYAN regime and subsequent oil bonanza shared by FRANCE, the UK and the USA.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring Background Information: </div> <div class="MsoNormal">TRANS ARABIAN PIPELINE “TAPLINE”</div><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/12/syria-cause-and-effect.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/12/syria-cause-and-effect.html</a> Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring wrote in January 2012: GEO STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE OF IRAN’S NATURAL RESOURCES AND GAS PIPELINE DEAL BETWEEN IRAN SYRIA AND IRAQ and REACTIVATE SAUDI ARABIA’S AND USA ARAMCO TRANS ARABIAN OIL PIPELINE? <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/01/strait-of-hormuz-and-syria.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/01/strait-of-hormuz-and-syria.html</a> <div class="MsoNormal">Oil Price wrote February 2013: </div>IRAN-IRAQ: PIPELINE TO SYRIA UPS ANTE IN PROXY WAR WITH QATAR IRAQ’S agreement to allow IRAN to build a pipeline through its territory and on to SYRIA is in direct competition with QATAR’S similar designs for a SYRIA pipeline that would connect to TURKEY. This pipeline is another proxy in the SYRIAN conflict theater and Iran’s response to its loss of ground here. It is also a sign of IRAN’S growing foothold in IRAQ. QATAR will respond in kind. The IRAQI Cabinet green lighted IRAN’S $10 billion pipeline project, which will supply gas from the South Pars field (which is the largest in the world, and which, as mentioned above, it shares with QATAR) to SYRIA and beyond to other export markets. There is talk of extending the pipeline to LEBANON. The first part of the pipeline—some 225 kilometers—through IRAQ will reportedly be completed in June 2013. The pipeline will connect the southern IRANIAN port of Assolouyeh to IRAQ and then to SYRIA—for now. It will have a 110 million cubic meter/day capacity. The plan is to give IRAQ 20 million cubic meters/day of IRANIAN gas for its power plants, with 20-25 million cubic meters/day going to SYRIA. <div class="MsoNormal">And the losers are the UNITED STATES, the GULF EMIRATES and SAUDI ARABIA, ISRAEL and TURKEY. Barack Obama’s vision of a democratic, liberal “Arab Spring” has collapsed. Al Qaeda is a ubiquitous presence as transitional governments struggle to their feet – or not - in TUNISIA, LIBYA and EGYPT. ISRAEL finds a tighter than ever SYRIAN-Hizballah-IRANIAN noose closing around its borders as Tehran’s nuclear weapons program marches on. TURKEY gambled heavily on bringing about Assad’s overthrow as the key to its bid for regional power– and missed.</div>

SYRIA: ASSAD WINNING THE WAR?

ASSAD PULLS AHEAD IN SYRIAN WAR. PUTIN, KHAMENEI ARE CO-VICTORS Via DEBKA file PEACE TALKS IN MOSCOW March 5 has been set as the date for...

SYRIA: ASSAD WINNING THE WAR?

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