Unpacking a series of surprising moves by the big players in Syria.
Unexpectedly, Russia’s Vladimir Putin announced early this week that the bulk of his armed forces would withdraw from Syria. Putin says Russia attained its objective in this intervention. What were its aims? They were three, and each has been substantially met.To bolster the government of Bashar al-Assad.Last summer, the Assad government had been deeply weakened. The morale of its forces was low, evidence of which was the grave difficulty in attracting new recruits. In desperation, Assad turned to Iran and Russia, both of which cooked up the …read more
Source: AlterNet
