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Generational Dynamics World View
*** 18-Dec-16 World View -- Syria and Russia see 'the light at the end of the tunnel' after Aleppo victory

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Syria's Bashar al-Assad calls Aleppo's 'liberation' a historic event
  • Syria and Russia suffer a big military setback in Palmyra
  • Syria's civil war shows similarities to America's Vietnam war

****
**** Syria's Bashar al-Assad calls Aleppo's 'liberation' a historic event
****


[Image: g161217b.jpg]
Russia holds a concert on 5-May to celebrate the recapture of Palmyra from ISIS. Note that Vladimir Putin is on the wide-screen tv on the left side of the stage (AFP)

A year ago, al-Assad himself said that his army was close to being
defeated. Since then, three more armies -- from Russia, Iran and
Lebanon's Hezbollah -- have rushed to his aid, and al-Assad is
claiming a "history in the making" victory:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"[The liberation of Aleppo was] history in the making
> and worthy of more than the word congratulations.
>
> History is being written in these moments. Every Syrian citizen is
> taking part in the writing. It started not today, but years ago
> when the crisis and the war on Syria began."
>
> I think that after the liberation of Aleppo we’ll talk about the
> situation as ... before the liberation of Aleppo and after the
> liberation of Aleppo."<END QUOTE>
[/indent]

An analyst, Alexander Khrolenko, quoted by Russian state media
agrees. He says that the city's liberation has had a ripple
effect across the country. The victory has weakened radical groups
located in the province of Idlib:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Until recently, the militants controlled key oil
> fields and communications channels with Turkey in the Euphrates
> valley. Aleppo's liberation has undermined the economic base of
> terrorist groups and the supply routes to Raqqa, the capital of
> Daesh's caliphate. Now the Syrian Arab Army could focus on two
> regions, Idlib and Raqqa."<END QUOTE>
[/indent]

In the title of this article I referred to "the light at the end of
the tunnel," because that phrase was used by Presidents Lyndon Johnson
and Richard Nixon in making claims about victory in the Vietnam War
that sound very similar to those of al-Assad and Khrolenko. Al Masdar News (Damascus) and International Business Times and Sputnik News (Moscow)

Related Articles

****
**** Syria and Russia suffer a big military setback in Palmyra
****


If it takes four armies to capture one city, Aleppo, in a period of
many months, it's delusional to believe that the rest of the country
is going to fall quickly.

Al-Assad and Russia's president Vladimir Putin received a taste of
what they're in for this week when the so-called Islamic State (IS or
ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) recaptured the city of Palmyra from Syrian and
Russian forces last weekend. Not only that, but ISIS entered the big
Russian-Syrian T-4 air base outside the town, carrying off substantial
quantities of Russian armaments including assault rifles,
ground-to-ground missiles, anti-tank missiles, and anti-air rockets.

Russia's troops, backed by massive airstrikes, had captured Palmyra in
March of this year. Putin had declared the recapture a major victory
in the war and a major turning point (which is what he's saying now
about Aleppo).

Putin even held a triumphal, widely televised concert in Palmyra's
Roman ruins on May 5, with the orchestra conducted by the
internationally distinguished maestro Valery Gergiev. So ISIS's
success in Palmyra is a major fiasco for Russia and a major
humiliation.

According to reports, the way it happened is that Palmyra was
originally recaptured from ISIS by Russia's special forces (Spetsnaz).
Afterwards, the special forces were withdrawn from Palmyra and sent to
Aleppo, where they are involved in the war there. According to Igor
Konashenkov of the Russian defence ministry, ISIS immediately sent
about 5,000 jihadists from Raqqa to Palmyra to achieve its victory.

Undoubtedly, once Aleppo is captured, Syria and Russia will turn back
to Palmyra and recapture it again from ISIS. But will that leave
Aleppo vulnerable? And if it took four armies to capture Aleppo,
while losing Palmyra, how can they hope to recapture the entire
regions of Syria that are under control of the Free Syrian army,
al-Nusra, and ISIS, and keep captured areas under control?

When American forces scored victories in the Vietnam war, presidents
Johnson and Nixon talked about the "light at the end of tunnel," but
the North Vietnamese forces did not stop fighting, which is what
al-Assad and Putin expect ISIS to do after the capture of Aleppo.
Guardian (London) and Debka

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****
**** Syria's civil war shows similarities to America's Vietnam war
****


In 1953, French forces under the command of Gen. Henri Navarre were
fighting Ho Chi Minh's communist forces in Vietnam. Navarre said,
"Now we can see [success in Vietnam] clearly, like light at the end of
a tunnel." The French forces were decisively defeated at Dien Bien
Phu in May 1954.

In June 1966 President Lyndon Johnson said "I urge you to remember
that Americans often grow impatient when they cannot see light at the
end of the tunnel - when policies do not overnight usher in a new
order. But politics is not magic. And when some of our fellow citizens
despair of the tedium and time necessary to bring change - as, for
example, in Vietnam today - they are forgetting our own history."

The phrase "light at the end of the tunnel" was repeated frequently in
the 1960s in reference to the Vietnam war, both by government
officials and by antiwar activists mocking government officials. The
Tet Offensive in 1968 turned public opinion negative towards the war,
though it did not end until several years later.

This week, Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are talking about a
"history in the making" victory. It's not exactly the same
phrase as "light at the end of the tunnel," but it has the
same flavor.

Let's make three comparisons between America in the 1960s and
Syria today:
  • America was in a generational Awakening era. America's
    previous generational crisis war was World War II, which had ended
    explosively with the firebombing of Dresden and the nuking of Japan.
    These acts were so shocking that they ended the war shortly
    after.

  • America tried to repeat its WW II by bombing strategic targets in
    North Vietnam, but with little success. The rules of war are
    different in generational Awakening eras than they are in Crisis eras.
    Survivors with memories of the last crisis war are not so easily
    shocked.

  • In fact, America was hampered by its own lack of will to fight,
    something that almost all historians agree with today. Whereas
    America could use a nuclear weapon to end WW II, domestic and
    international political pressure forced America to use bombs carefully
    and sparingly, to prevent civilian casualties, and to take various
    humanitarian breaks, especially at Christmas.

Now let's look at what's happening in Syria today:
  • Syria is in a generational Awakening era. Syria's previous
    generational crisis war was the Syrian civil war that climaxed in
    February 1982 with the destruction, by Bashar's father Hafez al-Assad,
    of the town of Hama. There had been a massive uprising of the 400,000
    mostly Sunni citizens of Hama against Syria's president Hafez
    al-Assad. He turned the town to rubble and killing or displacing
    hundreds of thousands. Hama stands as a defining moment in the Middle
    East. It is regarded as perhaps the single deadliest act by any Arab
    government against its own people in the modern Middle East. It was a
    shocking act that ended the war.

  • Al-Assad is trying to repeat his father's 1982 success by
    repeating in Aleppo the same acts that his father committed in Hama.
    But the rules of war are different in generational Awakening eras than
    they are in Crisis eras. Nobody is shocked by what al-Assad is doing,
    only sickened and disgusted.

  • In fact, Syria and Russia are hampered by enormous international
    pressure to protect civilians and provide humanitarian aid. Just as
    America could have won the Vietnam war by dropping a nuclear bomb on
    Hanoi, al-Assad and Putin could probably win the war in Syria by
    dropping nuclear weapons on Aleppo, Idlib and Raqqa, but they're being
    held back by international pressure to prevent civilian casualties and
    to provide humanitarian aid.

Presidents John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were all
delusional about the war in Vietnam. Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir
Putin are even more delusional about the war in Syria. The Syrian
civil war will be an even worse disaster than the Vietnam war.
History.com and Global Security

Related Articles


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Aleppo, Palmyra,
Russia, Vladimir Putin, Alexander Khrolenko, Igor Konashenkov,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Vietnam, Gen. Henri Navarre, Ho Chi Minh, Dien Bien Phu, Tet Offensive,
Hama, Idlib, Raqqa

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RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by radind - 05-14-2016, 03:21 PM
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RE: Generational Dynamics World View - by radind - 08-11-2016, 08:59 PM
18-Dec-16 World View -- Syria and Russia see 'the light at the end of the tunnel' - by John J. Xenakis - 12-17-2016, 10:40 PM
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