Something to celebrate: The war is over in Syria, and America lost

Despite media obfuscation, last week’s meeting between Putin and Assad suggests a new order in the Middle East

PATRICK LAWRENCE
11.26.2017•6:00 AM

I kept hearing National Public Radio programs this week to the effect that liberals and “progressives,” not to mention those in the honorable “Resistance,” dreaded talking about politics over Thanksgiving dinner. Leave it to NPR, they took opinion surveys to make the point. One understands: Who wants to hear from Trump-supporting Uncle Harry about the fatal arrogance of liberal righteousness and how “Russiagate” now tips into vaudeville? It would be “stressful,” as one radio presenter put it.

Let us have some happy talk this weekend, NPR–style. I nominate Bashar al-Assad meets Vladimir Putin in Sochi, the Black Sea town the Russian leader favors. This is a sensible, down-to-earth alternative to politics, I would say.

The Syrian and Russian presidents spent last Monday talking by the seaside, as was widely reported. This was their first encounter since the fall of 2015, just after Russia, fed up with American support for jihadists in the service of another “regime change” operation, intervened to turn the war to Damascus’ advantage. The occasion this time is just as momentous. The war has entered it mop-up phase; it is time to structure a political solution. This was Putin’s explicit point.

Fold into this the telephone exchange Putin had Tuesday with President Trump. It was an hour long. A settlement in Syria was the primary but not the only topic, we are told. And note this connection: Putin’s report to the Trump White House on his talks with Assad came 10 days after the Russian and American presidents agreed in Vietnam to make a concerted effort to end the Syria tragedy.

There is a great deal of good in these events. There may be many readers incapable of seeing this, such has been the astounding wall of propaganda erected to obscure a plain view of the Syria crisis. Accommodations to reality are now not likely to be far off. The media are already making theirs, a point I will revisit.

* * *

The war in Syria indeed draws to an end, most obviously. There will be more mess, in all likelihood — wars almost always having frayed ends — but the outcome is clear. The Islamic State, along with the sectarian Salafists the U.S. financed and armed, are headed into history. Syria will remain intact — averting, if narrowly, failed-state status. The Putin-Assad meeting anticipated by a week another round of the peace talks Russia, Iran and Turkey have sponsored all year. In effect, the Russian leader has just shown Assad his chair at the mahogany table.

On Wednesday Moscow media quoted Putin as advising all sides, including Damascus, that they are in for compromise come next Tuesday. Simultaneously, Iran and Turkey agreed to support a Russian-sponsored “peace congress,” date unspecified, with very large ambitions. These include “a framework for the future structure of the state,” as Putin put it, “the adoption of a new constitution, and, on the basis of that, the holding of elections under United Nations supervision.” It remains for Assad’s adversaries, now fractured, to develop a unified position.

All positive. Significant as these developments are, however, there are larger implications to consider. They are numerous, for this shapes up as a potentially consequential moment in the Middle East story. They are not to be missed, much as our corporate media do their best to mask them.

Pulling Assad into the talks in Astana, the Kyrgyz capital where they are held, is an act of considerable confidence in Putin’s part. His object since the first bombing runs of Russian jets two years ago has been to draw a line under the rampant disorder that has enveloped Syria for seven years. Look at a map: Moscow could have no other sensible objective. In the process of pursuing this, Russia has emerged — suddenly, out of nowhere — as an influence in the Middle East that may soon supersede Washington, if it has not already.

Suddenly and not so suddenly. When Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed to sponsor the Astana talks a year ago next month — quickly declaring themselves guarantors of a settlement in Syria — they effectively outlined an alliance that seems about to replace Washington’s traditional strategic framework. That has long rested primarily on ties to Israel, the Saudis and the Gulf monarchies. But the Moscow–Tehran–Ankara triangle starts to make that look like yesterday.

Renewed alignments and realignments have proceeded apace for much of this year. King Salman spent four days summiting in Moscow a few months ago — a stunning signal of new thinking in Saudi Arabia since he took the throne not quite two years ago. Turkey and Russia, viciously at odds when the latter first entered the Syrian conflict on Damascus’ behalf, are now cooperating as allies. Note in this connection a senior Turkish minister’s suggestion last week that Turkey’s NATO membership has to be reconsidered. Where does this end, you have to ask?

Between Moscow and Tehran, it is the same story: Old, uneven ties are now consolidated, and a dense weave of agreements — diplomatic, political, economic, industrial, financial — elaborates as we speak. For what it is worth — and I cannot evaluate this — even Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, includes Putin in his loop since the outcome in Syria became evident some months ago.

The take-home here: Watch what transpires in Astana this coming week. For my money it is too soon to consider the Russian leader the new maestro among outside powers in the Middle East, but there are respected commentators who think this view is too cautious. The record so far is good: Russia is without question leading an effective multilateral effort to bring peace and an acceptable political settlement to a nation whose tragedy the U.S.–led “coalition” has long been intent on prolonging.

Another implication of the Assad-Putin meeting has to do with what are called regime changes in Washington, known in plain English as U.S.–sponsored coups. In my read, it has been Moscow’s intention for some years to put Washington on notice: The era of regime change is over. Any more of them will meet whatever resistance is necessary to block them.

Chronology helps here. Moscow’s first move in this direction followed the American-cultivated coup in Ukraine in February 2014. It was 18 months later that the first Russian bombs dropped on Islamic State militias and other anti–Damascus jihadists who enjoyed U.S. support. I rest my case on this succession of events. And I applaud Washington’s failures in both cases, of course. In Ukraine the U.S. got its coup, but got no further in its effort to draw up to Russia’s western borders. It is now stuck with an intractably corrupt regime in Kiev, an economy on life support from the International Monetary Fund, and responsibility for a lot of pointless suffering. In Syria the result speaks for itself — at least so far.

I read it as consequential that the theme of the Trump–Putin exchange earlier this week included crises such as Syria and Ukraine. Trump came to office opposed to Washington’s wars of adventure and its wasteful, disorder-inducing interventions. There are two suggestions here: One, Trump has not surrendered his belief that a neo-détente with Russia is in the interests of both nations. Two, he appears to be just as interested as he was when campaigning to counter the liberal-interventionist ethos still prevalent in Washington.

Now we have to watch. There are already abundant indications that Trump is engaged in the same war John Kerry fought with the Pentagon and the intelligence apparatus whenever he attempted settlements that involved Russia. Not coincidentally, these erupted in both Ukraine and Syria during Kerry’s time as Obama’s secretary of state. Kerry waged this fight unevenly and ultimately without apparent conviction, it must be said. As for Trump, he has at times caved, often cravenly and far more openly, to “my generals,” as he called them last spring. But he seems to reassert his expressed convictions whenever he is left to his own devices — as he was with Putin in Vietnam, and as he was on the telephone earlier this week. I read this positively.

* * *

I loved the New York Times coverage of Assad’s day at the beach with Putin, and then the Trump telephone call. Americans never lose in the news columns of the government-supervised Times. There are no defeats — only questions that, for some peculiar reason, Washington has stopped caring about. “Things are obviously complicated with Russia,” the Times quoted a State Department spokeswoman saying the other day. That seems to be where the truth began and ended in what was once the newspaper of record when it reported on Syria this week.

“The leaders of Iran, Turkey and Russia have taken an increasingly prominent role in diplomacy with Syria,” the paper reported Wednesday, “while the United States has put Mr. Assad’s fate on the back burner.” Translation: Three nations no longer willing to tolerate American subterfuge in Syria have pushed it aside and have taken charge of a peace process Washington has never shown serious interest in cultivating. As to back-burnering its regime-change operation, we will have to see.

What were Putin and Assad taking about after they embraced in Sochi? This is a good one.

“I think that hug is proof that Vladimir Putin bears a certain responsibility for trying to help out Syria,” the same State Department flak said, “for trying to get Bashar al-Assad … to put pressure on Bashar al-Assad so they don’t do something like that again.” The “something like that” refers to the use of chemical weapons. Nothing more to the Sochi summit. I see. I think I see. At least I think I think I see. It was all about a much-disputed, corruptly investigated episode several months ago. The photograph of two statesmen greeting one another proves it.

As to the Trump-Putin telephone call, that was merely “another signal that political change in Syria is less and less an international priority,” the Times reported. Say what? It does get tough to read the Times on occasion. Sometimes the paper’s commitment to obfuscation in behalf of the official versions of events overtakes even the simplest logic.

Scrape it away, readers. Washington has lost in Syria. This is what the Times was mumbling about after Assad and Putin met. U.S. alliances with some of the world’s most reactionary despots may become a thing of the past. Its regime-change habit has been effectively challenged.

How is this for happy talk? There are no certainties here. It is not clear whether the U.S. will desist on Syrian soil, even after the war is decisively over. It has, do not forget, rushed to build temporary (and illegal) bases in southern Syria of late. But this week’s news will do for now.

November 23, 2017

Russia is back in the Middle East. The Kremlin is methodically creating a systematic geopolitical challenge to the interests of the United States and its allies. Moscow’s behavior is driven by a quest for prestige and influence, and a search for markets of its arms and other goods—a classic great power pattern.

Oil is in the center of this quest, but it is not only issue. As oil prices are above $55/barrel and Saudi Arabia, the oil market maker, is facing its gravest political crisis since the 1920s when the monarchy was first established, Moscow’s production-limiting cooperation with Tehran and Riyadh puts Russia in the spotlight in the region. However, the Kremlin’s renewed activity in the Middle East is geopolitical, and goes beyond business. As in Soviet times, Moscow seeks to control governments, re-establish military bases, open maritime routes and expand exports. These great power ambitions suggest a broader shift in the regional balance, revealing a return to the nineteenth century strategic competition and raising serious questions about the future of American power.

Russia has defined itself as an ever-expanding empire since time immemorial. During its eight-hundred-year history, the state shrunk only three times: in the early seventeenth century during the “Time of Troubles,” which led to the Polish occupation of Moscow; after the Bolshevik coup of 1917; and lastly, with the disintegration of the USSR in 1991.

Following the collapse of the USSR, Russia abandoned most of its military deployments in the Middle East, though it maintained some weapons sales clients. Being an empire was just too expensive. Syria—with its naval “supply and repair” base in Tartus and the air base in Khmeimim—was the only country Moscow clung to.

With the rise in oil prices after the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, and especially after Moscow’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine and the Crimea (oil prices dropped later that year), Russia embarked on a methodical rebalancingin the Middle East. The aim is to challenge the United States and its partners.

Some analysts believe that Syria may be a bargaining chip for Ukraine and the U.S.-imposed sanctions. However, the diminishing American regional presence in the Mideast, and Russia’s willingness to fill the void, suggest broader ambitions.

Russian Middle East aspirations include several aspects important to its national security and global strategy:

- A bridgehead against jihadism. Radical Islam has proven to be attractive to some 2,500 Russian citizens, who have fought in Syria and Iraq, as well as to hundreds more from the former USSR who chose to join ISIS. Their “homecoming” is a real threat. Moscow is the second largest city in Europe in terms of its Muslim population, after Istanbul.

- A theater of strategic competition with the United States. The ruling elite—Putin and his entourage, the military and security services leadership, andRussian TV—are defined by the defeat in the Cold War. All are obsessed with America’s alleged attempts to undermine or even dismember Mother Russia.

- Oil price influence. It is in Russia’s interest to increase its influence on oil prices, especially as the resource is vital to Russia’s economy. This influence can come through cartel-like agreements or by fanning the flames of conflicts—such as in the case of Saudi Arabia versus Iran. Nothing explodes oil prices more than the specter of war or a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

- A market for weapons. The conflict in Syria showcased the Russian military-industrial complex’s capabilities, from Kalibr medium range cruise missiles to SU-35 fighter jets and S-400 missile defense systems. These are on sale to the highest bidder because, as a Moscow saying goes, “weapons sales make good allies.”

- Russia’s resolve to support its allies. The Syrian war demonstrated Moscow’s resolve to stick with allies despite deteriorating circumstances. They do business with the likes of Saddam or Assad, whereas Washington remains picky and conditional.

Regional Power Vacuum

The Obama administration believed that the best interest of the United States was withdrawing from “Bush’s wars.” Obama’s reaction to the Syrian crisis suggests that the Iran nuclear deal, and staying out of military conflicts, was more important than preventing the largest humanitarian catastrophe since World War II. The Trump administration’s first year has not presented coherent policies, either.

America’s response to Russian challenges in the Middle East hints at a regionalpower vacuum. The Europeans cannot fill it, and China is at least a decade away from being able. Therefore, by default and by intention, Russia is stepping in.

The United States is Always to Blame

Russia has woven a damning narrative of U.S. regional involvement in the Middle East, Europe, and the former Soviet Union, going back to Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Some Russian “experts,” with 20/20 hindsight, depict the Soviets as anti-jihadi; whereas the United States supported the mujahedeen, including the radicals.

Like conservative Arab leaders and the Israelis, Russia saw the United States under Obama as abandoning allies and opening the door to the Muslim Brotherhood, which breeds chaos in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and beyond. Moreover, the Russians ignored the systemic failure of the sclerotic, corrupt and brutal autocratic quasi-socialist regimes in Cairo, Baghdad, Tripoli, and Damascus, obsessing about real or imagined U.S. influence there.

Moscow’s Last Stand

So the Kremlin made a stand in Syria. This is Moscow’s faustian bargain: Assad, denounced by both Obama and Trump, remains in place for now; the Astana peace process is directed from Moscow and Teheran; and Russia’s military has accomplished its first successful power projection operation outside the Soviet borders since the debacle in Afghanistan decades ago.

Russia has restored its strained relationship with Turkey—Ankara is even buyingRussia’s S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems. Turkey is also proceeding with the Turkish Stream pipeline project despite Western sanctions. One might argue that Russo-Turkish interests collide in Syria and the Black Sea area, but Ankara’s anti-Americanism may prevail in the short to medium term.

Even staunch U.S. ally Israel warmed up to Moscow after Obama’s Iran deal. Bringing Iranian influence to the Golan, and emboldening Hezbollah at the Jewish state’s doorstep, pressed a Jerusalem-Moscow dialogue. The Putin-Netanyahu relationship remains strong, despite a massive Russian military deployment in Syria which threatens Israel’s air dominance over the Levant.

Putin also courted Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Egypt and Russia jointly supported GeneralKhalifa Haftar’s power aspirations in Libya, whereas the U.S. State Department still backs the powerless Tripoli government.

Finally, in Iran, Russia now enjoys the right to temporary air base landing and refueling in Hamadan, and the ability to fire missiles through Iranian airspace from the Caspian Sea into Syria. The decades-old cooperation between Tehran and Moscow against the United States, its Sunni Arab allies and Israel is going strong.

Conclusions: American Choices in the Middle East

The United States’ shale revolution coincides with American war fatigue and diminishing international involvement. President Donald J. Trump has denounced global democracy and nation-building ideological crusades, and apparently seeks Putin’s partnership. However, the Washington establishment (including the Republican Congressional leadership) disagree, viewing Russia as an implacable global adversary.

Whether America’s disengagement will end, we do not know. History teaches us that the United States is a global power and will be dragged into major future power competitions, including with Russia, China and Iran. But without articulating coherent, credible policy goals; without improving its key relations, it may losepost-Cold War U.S. regional predominance positions, including in the Middle East. Supporting the Saudis in Yemen, cooperating with Iraq against ISIS, and a new Israeli-Palestinian “peace plan” do not yet amount to a coherent regional strategy.

This lack of coherence will complicate support for U.S. allies in the Gulf and Israel, and will further undermine relations with key Arab ally Egypt. Ultimately, America’s global standing will suffer, as Russia with its languishing economy, which is only one-fourteenth of America’s, prevails over the U.S. superpower in a key global geostrategic theater.

Ariel Cohen, PhD, is Nonresident Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council and Director, Center for Energy, Natural Resources and Geopolitics at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. He is the author of six books and monographs, including Russian Imperialism: Development and Crisis, and over 1,000 articles. He regularly contributes to leading TV channels, including CNN, BBC, FOX, Bloomberg, and writes for The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Huffington Post, and other publications. Máté Mátyás, a Junior Fellow of the Hungarian American Coalition currently at the Center for Energy, Natural Resources and Geopolitics, contributed to the research.A

Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from a longer paper published by the Center for Global Policy.

Image: Reuters

(nationalinterest.org)

A church in the upscale neighborhood of Malibu, California has been told by officials to stop serving food to the homeless because they were attracting too many homeless people.

The United Methodist Church has been offering free meals twice a week to the homeless but said it was going to stop after Thanksgiving because they were luring too many homeless people into the neighborhood. City officials made the decision after speaking with organizers, suggesting they were attracting more homeless people into the city, the Los Angeles Times reported.

At a public hearing last week, Mayor Skylar Peak denied ordering the meals to end, but he also apologized for “miscommunication.” Peak said the city wanted to work with volunteers on a solution.

Keep Up With This Story And More By Subscribing Now

“I will stand by the fact that everyone up here is compassionate about everyone in the community,” Peak said.

Religious groups fed the homeless for the past 17 years, and the City of Malibu and private donors used thousands of dollars for social workers to find them housing and services. The United Methodist Church and Standing on Stone, a Christian group, had been hosting homeless dinners twice a week on Wednesdays and Thursdays for the past three years.

Malibu has a population of 13,000 and has roughly 180 homeless residents, but no shelter or housing for them. The city is 90 percent white.

A man pushes his belongings in a cart on a street, November 10, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. A church in Malibu, California has said they have been asked by officials to stop serving food to the homeless.GETTY IMAGES

Residents complained of homeless people staying by the beach and hanging out near schools. Many say this is because the Metro’s Expo Line opened in Santa Monica last year.

“A homeless person was taking a shower in the girl's locker room in middle school — that wasn’t real good,” Gary Peterson, a retired developer, and hotelier who quit the church’s board of trustees over the meal issue told the LA Times. “Providing dinner is a nice thing to do and a good thing, but it’s the location.”

At one of the final diners last week, 50 people from different parts of Southern California came to eat home-cooked meals of a various array of food.

“This is very sad for us; we’ve been enjoying these friends for more than three years,” Rev. Sandy Liddell, the Methodist church’s pastor, told the LA Times.

Currently, California has the highest rate of homelessness of any state in the U.S. There are 118,142 homeless people living in the state, with over 78,000 individuals without shelter, according to a 2016 annual homeless assessment report.


(newsweek)

Fears of a massive eruption of the Mount Agung volcano in Bali have led to local authorities ordering people to “immediately evacuate” from a 5-mile exclusion zone.

The evacuation orders on Sunday, Nov. 26, come after a second eruption in less than a week from the volcano. On Saturday evening, thick plumes of smoke reached 6,000m (19,600 feet), prompting airlines to issue a red warning that another more serious eruption is “forecast to be imminent.”

Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) issued a series of alerts on Twitter and Facebook describing a “dark gray column” of ash traveling southeast at a speed of 18 kph (11mph).

“Analysis of the spread of volcanic ash from [satellite images] shows that the distribution of ash leads eastward to the southeast to Lombok [island],” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, head of public relations at BNPB, said in a Facebook post, “The nature and direction of the distribution of volcanic ash depends on the direction of the wind.”

A motorist rides his motorbike during a shower of ash and rain from Mount Agung volcano during an eruption in Bebandem Village, Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia November 26, 2017.ANTARA FOTO/FIKRI YUSUF/ VIA REUTERS

Nugroho said people within the exclusion zone should evacuate in an “orderly” manner and that volunteers would be immediately available to distribute masks to the public.

Some airlines have already canceled flights out of Bali’s main airport due to fears volcanic ash will damage plane engines, while travelers with Virgin Australia, Qantas, KLM and Jetstar were advised to check with their carrier to see if their flight is affected.

Most Indonesians were able to return home at the end of September but around 25,000 people are still thought to be living in temporary shelters.

Traditional Middle East rivals Iran and Turkey have found themselves united of late by their mutual opposition to Kurdish independence in Iraq and common interest in ending the six-year war in Syria, among other leading issues in the region.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke Sunday by phone, expressing major concerns a day before voting opened in the northern Kurdish autonomous region of neighboring Iraq. Monday's referendum, in which the region's residents are largely expected to ask for full independence from Baghdad, has been met with widespread criticism from Iraq's central government, as well as from Iran and Turkey, which have battled insurgencies from their own local Kurdish populations and have taken countermeasures to quell potential instability the vote could bring.

"The two leaders noted that not canceling the referendum will bring with it chaos to the region and they also stressed the great importance which they attach to Iraq's territorial integrity,” Erdogan's office said in a statement, according to Reuters.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shakes hands with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani during an official welcoming ceremony at the presidential complex in Ankara on April 16, 2016. Turkey and Iran have long taken opposing positions across the majority-Arab Middle East, but recent developments have brought them closer.ADEM ALTAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Turkey had already begun conducting military exercises near its border with Iraq's majority-Kurd north and even said it launched an airstrike Saturday against militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who were preparing for an attack on Turkish troops from northern Iraq, Reuters reported. Erdogan threatened Monday to cut oil trade and send Turkish troops to invade the would-be Kurdish state, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. As polls closed, Turkey and Iraq conducted "large-scale" joint military drills as a show of force, according to the Associated Press.

Shortly after, local media reported that Iran, too, may join the bilateral exercises. Iran launched its own military maneuvers Sunday to mark the 1980 invasion of Iran by the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the subsequent eight-year war, according to Press TV, the English-language affiliate of the semi-official Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting outlet. The maneuvers have reportedly featured multiple airstrikes along Iraq's border with Iran.

Iran also closed its border with Iraq's Kurdish region Sunday and halted all flights there. While the intensity of Iran's domestic Kurdish insurgency has never reached the level of Turkey's, Iran also supports majority-Shiite Muslim Iraqi militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces, or Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi, whose influence and movement would likely be restricted as the result of an independent Kurdish state.

These fighters proved an effective force against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) after the jihadists took over about half the country in 2014, and they even fought alongside Kurdish forces also battling ISIS. The militias are deeply opposed, however, to an Iraq divided between Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi—an ally of both the U.S. and Iran—in Baghdad and Kurdish Regional Government President Masoud Barzani in Erbil, whose only steady international support has come from Israel, further offending local actors.

Turkish Army tanks maneuver during a military exercise near the Turkish-Iraqi border in Silopi, Turkey, on September 25. Turkey joined Iraq and potentially Iran as well in drills meant to represent a show of force to the nearby autonomous Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government.UMIT BEKTAS/REUTERS

These Iran-backed militias retain a presence in disputed areas such as Kirkuk, whose inclusion in Monday's referendum has made the move even more controversial. As tensions brewed in the days leading up to the referendum, Qais al-Khazali, head of the Popular Mobilization Forces unit Asaib Ahl al-Haq, spoke out against the possibility of a Kurdish state.

"The enemies of Imam Hussein raised the flag of the homosexuals in Erbil at the wishes of the Israelis," Khazali said Saturday, referencing the seventh-century Islamic figure highly revered by Shiite Muslims for his refusal to pledge allegiance to the Umayyad caliphate, which he considered unjust and illegitimate.

"We will be victorious over anyone who wants to hurt or divide Iraq," he added, in a speech excerpt provided to Newsweek by Ahmad Majidyar, director of the Middle East Institute's Iran Observed Project.

Majority-Shiite Muslim, Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces with Iraqi rapid response members fire a missile against Islamic State militant group (ISIS) on the outskirts of Shirqat, near Kirkuk, Iraq September 23, 2017. The two allied Iraqi forces remain committed to a unified nation, something that's caused tension between them and Iraq's Kurdish peshmerga units, which mostly seek independence.STRINGER/REUTERS

Iran and Turkey have also increasingly coordinated across the border in Syria, where they back opposing sides in a conflict that's killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions. Iran, along with Russia, is a supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey backs rebels trying to overthrow him since 2011. Opposition forces, with help from the U.S. and Gulf Arab states as well, made major gains early on in the war, but Assad and his allies have since regained much of what was lost.

A series of Syrian government victories and a rise in jihadist influence among rebel groups alienated international backers from the Syrian opposition and, as the Syrian military took Aleppo late last year, Turkey was forced to come to the table and make a deal with Russia and Iran. These negotiations, based in Astana, have since produced a framework for four de-escalation zones designed to provide refuge for civilians.

As Erdogan wrapped up a trip to Moscow to discuss Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced Monday that Turkey, Iran and Russia would work together to create a new de-escalation zone near the northern city of Afrin, which is under the control of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a mostly Kurdish alliance of Arabs and ethnic minorities planning their own push for greater autonomy. U.S. support for Kurds, especially in Syria, has angered Turkey, a NATO partner.

"We are now taking joint moves with Iran and Russia to establish a de-escalation zone in the area of the Syrian city of Afrin in the north of the country," Yildirim said, according to the state-run Tass Russian News Agency.

A map shows areas of control in Syria between August 30, 2017 and September 14, 2017. The Syrian military, backed by Russia and Iran, has retaken large swaths of territory once held by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and other insurgents, some of which received Turkish support.INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR/REUTERS

Iran and Turkey have united against a third foe, Saudi Arabia. Persian Gulf rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia have been engaged in a proxy war throughout the region for decades. Saudi Arabia cut off relations with Iran completely early last year after Iranian demonstrators outraged by Riyadh's execution of an influential Shiite Muslim cleric stormed the Saudi Arabian embassy in Iran. It was when Saudi Arabia severed ties with neighboring Qatar earlier this year, however, that Turkey stepped in.

Shortly after President Donald Trump returned from an anti-Iran rally in the oil-rich kingdom, Saudi Arabia and allies Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates announced in June a total boycott of Qatar over alleged ties to both Shiite Muslim groups tied to Iran and ultraconservative Sunni Muslim groups. Qatar denied the charges, leading Turkey and Iran to defy the Saudi-led blockade to deliver aid. Turkey also held military exercises on its only foreign military base, located in Qatar.

(newsweek)