During the week ending on Sunday, September 10, 2017, TURKEY retreated from their days of aggressive sieges of CIZRE, SILOPI, DIYARBAKIR and NUSAYBIN, predominantly KURDISH, which TURKEY had converted into a suburban war zone area as TURKEY was on the defense as they were subject to an internal military “Coup D’État” that failed as gunfire and explosions erupted in which 265 people died, 161 of them civilians during July of 2016. As a result of the failed “Coup D’État”, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency, extended the period during which suspects can be detained without charge to 30 days, closed more than 1,000 private schools and closed more than 1,200 associations. A wide scale purge led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing AKP re-escalated this week as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan focused his attention on another purge of the Fethullah Gulen opposition movement supporters on the heals of celebrating the victory of the YES side in the referendum that was held on Sunday, April 16, 2017 whereby the majority of the TURKISH population voted in favour of TURKEY’s parliamentary system to be converted into a presidential system effectively consolidating power into one executive branch with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as its primary executor. Therefore, those opposing the vote say the proposed constitutional changes will give “Free Reign” to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has already been pushing the boundaries of his power as his governing AKP has been utilizing an increasingly authoritarian style since the failed “Coup D’État” attempt which led to an intense crackdown leading to the arrests of over 47,000 government critics, academics, journalists, military officials and civil servants. Nonetheless, TURKEY ignored all criticisms from foreign powers and went straight ahead this week with further crackdown measures as TURKISH President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed the U.S. over charges that a former TURKISH economy minister conspired to help IRAN evade U.S. sanctions while depicting the indictment as a political move against TURKEY. The indictment of EX-TURKISH minister Zafer Caglayan in a widening U.S. investigation into TURKISH businessman and TURKISH officials who allegedly helped IRAN evade sanctions has now heightened the already tense relations between TURKEY and the U.S. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the U.S. authorities to review the decision to indict Zafer Caglayan on the basis that the EX-TURKISH minister had not engaged in any wrong doing since TURKEY had not imposed sanctions on IRAN that is an important trade partner of TURKEY. Therefore, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he would take up the issue with U.S. officials when he attends the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month while Zafer Caglayan and other Turkish officials remain in at large from U.S. authorities. Meanwhile, amid rising GERMAN-TURKISH diplomatic tensions, TURKEY allowed seven GERMAN lawmakers to visit GERMAN servicemen deployed at TURKEY’s Konya NATO air base that for several months had been banned by TURKEY on the basis that the climate in bilateral relations with GERMANY was inappropriate. Moving on to IRAQ, IRAQI and ALLIED forces have pushed ISIS militants back from MOSUL, their last major stronghold in IRAQ, whereby IRAQI special forces first liberated the eastern half of MOSUL from ISIS in its entirety subsequent to ALLIANCE forces seizing complete control of most of western MOSUL from ISIS. It is important to note that IRAQI forces put pressure on ISIS to the point of ISIS relinquishing control of MOSUL as the world watched the scenes of jubilation as IRAQI forces liberated the OLD MOSUL City from ISIS. However, with 40,000 plus dead in the battle to take back OLD MOSUL City from ISIS, the scale of civilian casualties reveals a massacre with many bodies still buried under the rubble and the level of human suffering immense. However, ISIS is far from eradicated in IRAQ as several strongholds still remain such that the final battles to push ISIS out of these places will be more complicated than the previous straightforward fights in places such as FALLUJAH and TIKRIT. Today, ISIS still controls three towns consisting of TAL AFAR, west of MOSUL; HAWIJA, south of KIRKUK; and AL QAIM, west of ANBAR whereby each fight will have its own set of complicated political, military and foreign policy issues. In addition, many ISIS militias have taken to the hills and began to wage a classic rural guerrilla war, while some ISIS sleeper cells have also been activated at the border of Baghdad, the IRAQI capital. Thus, ISIS has now returned to the status of an insurgent or terrorist group as the Islamic State of IRAQ and SYRIA can no longer call itself a state as ISIS has lost all capacity to act as a state but rather ISIS now stands exposed as a GANGSTER sham.
On the heels of the IRAQI military victory in MOSUL, IRAQI forces have now broke through ISIS’s defences inside the northern city of TAL AFAR and reached the city centre that represents a major gain in the battle for ISIS’s last urban stronghold in IRAQ as IRAQI Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over ISIS in the northern city of TAL AFAR and the entire province of NINEVEH. However, it is important to note that ISIS is now planning a fresh wave of terror attacks against BRITAIN and other EUROPEAN countries in revenge for the crushing defeats ISIS suffered in IRAQ and SYRIA. It seems that ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is organising a number of sophisticated attacks against WESTERN targets to boost the morale of ISIS fighters after the series of devastating defeats ISIS suffered in places such as MOSUL, RAQQA and TAL AFAR. Therefore, in order to limit ISIS capabilities to mount future offensives, it is important for the SHIA-dominated government of IRAQI Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to reconcile the leaders of the SUNNI tribes, many of who supported ISIS because they did not believe they were properly represented in IRAQ while contemporaneously engaging with the KURDS who have played a key role in defeating ISIS. Moving on to SYRIA, a ceasefire across SYRIA appears to be broken after its brokers, RUSSIA, TURKEY and IRAN obtained approval of the plan from the UN Security Council overriding all previous failed peace proposals and finally ending the six-year conflict. Although these talks represented the most serious diplomatic efforts in months, U.S. President, Donald Trump’s authorization of the firing of 59 TOMAHAWK cruise missiles at the SYRIAN Armed Forces in response to what the U.S. believes was a chemical weapons attack that killed more than 100 people authorized by President Bashar al-Assad has derailed the entire peace process. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson could not agree on who was responsible for the chemical attacks. Although the 80 plus deaths from the chemical attacks have been widely blamed on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, RUSSIA has denied the SYRIAN regime carried out the chemical attacks. Therefore, the U.S. and RUSSIA agreed for the moment to disagree as the war raged on this week although TURKEY, IRAN and RUSSIA signed an agreement at the SYRIAN cease-fire talks in KAZAKHSTAN several weeks ago calling for the creation of four de-escalation zones in SYRIA that represent the latest attempt by all key players in the region to reduce the violence in SYRIA including the commitment by President Bashar al-Assad that the SYRIAN air force will halt flights over the designated areas in SYRIA. Unfortunately, the new cease-fire deal including the four de-escalation zones have been the subject of numerous violations from the outset as tensions seem to continue to erupt albeit Russia and the U.S. continuing to discuss the situation in round-the-clock mode anticipating that eventually the de-escalation zones will be fully under control. However, tensions seemed to de-escalate this week as the SYRIAN Army under the control of President Bashar al-Assad and allied LEBANESE militant group HEZBOLLAH fighters captured several ISIS positions on strategic hilltops along the SYRIAN-LEBANESE border. These captures on strategic hilltops along the SYRIAN-LEBANESE border come ahead of an anticipated LEBANESE offensive to clear the ISIS extremists from the LEBANESE side of the border which slowed down last week as ISIS asked the SYRIAN Army and its ally HEZBOLLAH to let ISIS withdraw from SYRIA’s border with LEBANON to the eastern province of DEIR AL-ZOR which the SYRIAN Army and HEZBOLLAH agreed to in principal. Therefore, after a weeklong campaign to oust ISIS from its territory on the LEBANON-SYRIA border, LEBANESE President Michel Aoun declared that LEBANON has been victorious over ISIS but angry IRAQI and U.S. officials pointed out that in fact, ISIS was bussed over the border to SYRIA to become someone else’s problem. That is, in ISIS’s first ever publicly acknowledged evacuation deal, rather than fight to the death in the pockets in the border mountains still under ISIS control, ISIS fighters agreed to a HEZBOLLAH-brokered evacuation plan which saw 300 ISIS fighters and their families bussed over the border back into SYRIA. In exchange for the safe passage of some 300 militants and their families to eastern SYRIA, ISIS agreed to reveal the locations where nine LEBANESE soldiers, captured by ISIS in 2014 and subsequently executed, were buried. However, harsh reactions to the deal came from several fronts who believe ISIS militants should have been killed on the battlefield rather than given safe transport to DEIR AL-ZOR as many Christian Lebanese critics of Hezbollah voiced suspicions that Hezbollah’s motives appear to have been to take away the Lebanese Army’s glory to what would have been the most successful and efficient military operation in more than two decades. On a positive note, U.S. backed fighters have surrounded the Syrian city of RAQQA as they try to oust the ISIS militants from their de facto capital in SYRIA whereby the ALLIANCE fighters consisting of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mainly KURDISH and ARAB coalition, have cut off all routes into and out of RAQQA. As a friendly reminder, nearly 200,000 people and 5,000 ISIS militants live in RAQQA such that the efforts to retake the SYRIAN city has now drawn dozens of U.S. military advisors deployed directly inside RAQQA city itself with U.S. Marines providing artillery support against ISIS from the surrounding countryside. It appears that these coordinated efforts are paying off as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have made yet another huge advance across the southern countryside of RAQQA liberating more than half of the RAQQA enclave including the OLD RAQQA City. Fighters of the U.S. backed, KURDISH led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continue to punch their way through ISIS lines in RAQQA city as KURDISH forces are literally shooting their way through the streets of RAQQA, concentrating fire on ISIS positions hidden in the urban ruin of RAQQA city while ISIS fights back hard. On a positive note, ISIS fighters have been pushed out from RAQQA’s OLD CITY after US backed forces took back the city in a series of lightning fast advances. SDF forces are on the edges of ISIS’s security quarter in RAQQA’s city centre where most of ISIS’s main bases are currently located and many ISIS fighters and civilians are currently holed up in the OLD RAQQA CITY. In addition, ISIS is surrounded on all sides as a U.S. led coalition is seeking to oust ISIS from RAQQA, while SYRIAN government forces, backed by the RUSSIAN air force and IRAN backed militias are also advancing on the RAQQA OLD CITY. Nonetheless, in a sheer effort of rage, ISIS commanders opted for a localised counter-attack in a bid to turn the tide against the SDF Forces by trying to infiltrate the EMIN neighbourhood after being sent on what appears to have been a suicidal mission. However, the ISIS forces were detected by entrenched SDF fighters who opened fire on the platoon, killing 11 ISIS members before the remaining ISIS forces were forced to withdraw in disarray. Meanwhile, heavy clashes continued around the western suburbs and the perimeter of the city centre where the SDF has been trying relentlessly to break through the ISIS front for weeks while heavy casualties have been sustained on both sides. So far, SDF has killed some 1,200 ISIS fighters since the battle first began while taking out of action approximately half of ISIS’s initial manpower with around 65% of the former ISIS RAQQA capital now under Kurdish control. On the other hand, ISIS claims to have killed over 1,000 SDF fighters and released a forty-minute propaganda video to back up their claim. In my opinion, TURKEY’s participation in the military battle against ISIS is a positive addition to the ALLIANCE albeit TURKEY’s negative stance against the PKK that in my opinion is currently unwarranted and deteriorating. However, with the majority governing AKP and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it appears that TURKEY’s future is heading for more war and bloodshed. Unfortunately, the governing AKP and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have chosen the path of war with the PKK as opposed to diplomacy via the KURDISH HDP political party which secured close to 11% during the last TURKISH elections. Therefore, in my opinion, the governing AKP and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will learn the hard way that nobody on the outside world looking in is stupid but rather everyone chooses to close their eyes and allow TURKEY to continue with its ethnic cleansing campaign of the KURDS in exchange for TURKEY signing a deal with the European Union (EU) to stem the flow of refugees arriving in GREECE. In exchange for reducing human trafficking and improving living conditions for 2.5 million refugees within its borders, TURKEY was supposed to receive Euro 3 billion in financial aid in return, the possibility of visa-free travel for its citizens, and a reopening of EU membership talks. In my opinion, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the governing AKP will learn the hard way that the failed “Coup D’État” exposes the deep discontent within the TURKISH military ranks as the governing AKP and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan persist with their quest to annihilate the HDP and the KURDS as the AKP is converting itself into a majority fascist regime with its house cleaning exercises whereby virtually all dissidents have been fired. In my opinion, the European parliament vote to halt TURKEY’s EU accession backed by a resolution condemning the TURKISH government’s disproportionate repressive measures after the failed “Coup D’État” in July was long overdue as TURKEY has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt, with its repressive measures over all opposition, that TURKEY does not share common values, morals, principals, ethics and views as the EU such that TURKEY does not fit into the EU mould. However, in my opinion, TURKEY still represents a major player on the European economic stage such that the EU will nonetheless have to negotiate deals with TURKEY as an independent NON-EU member country regarding the huge refugee crisis. In my opinion, in exchange for reducing human trafficking and improving living conditions for 2.5 million refugees within its borders, TURKEY should only receive Euro 1.5 billion, half of the initial proposed 3 billion, in financial aid along with visa-free travel for its citizens who do not pose any significant risks outside of TURKISH borders. Finally, the wide scale purge led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing AKP re-escalated this week as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan focused his attention on another purge of the Fethullah Gulen opposition movement supporters on the heals of celebrating the victory of the YES side in the referendum that was held on Sunday, April 16, 2017 whereby the majority of the TURKISH population voted in favour of TURKEY’s parliamentary system to be converted into a presidential system effectively consolidating power into one executive branch with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as its primary executor. Ironically, TURKEY ignored all criticisms from foreign powers and went straight ahead this week with further crackdown measures as TURKISH President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed the U.S. over charges that a former TURKISH economic minister conspired to help IRAN evade U.S. sanctions while depicting the indictment as a political move against TURKEY. In my opinion, the indictment is in essence pouring salt on the open wound as TURKEY is already angered by U.S. support for SYRIAN KURDISH YPG militia, whom TURKEY considers terrorists via associations with the KURDISH PKK militia, and complains of a lack of support from the U.S., TURKEY’s NATO ally, following last year’s failed “Coup D’État”. In regards to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling on the U.S. authorities to review the decision to indict Zafer Caglayan on the basis that the EX-TURKISH minister had not engaged in any wrong doing since TURKEY had not imposed sanctions on IRAN that is an important trade partner of TURKEY, it is my opinion that the U.S. would not have issued a formal indictment unless the EX-TURKISH minister sanctioned certain transactions in violation of the sanctions imposed by the U.S. That being said, nothing is ever black and white in these types of dealings involving IRAN such that the indictment still allows Zafer Caglayan to defend himself in a court of law such that if Zafer Caglayan has nothing to hide, it would be simpler to just show up in court and let the defense team fly. However, in my opinion, there was probably some sort of elaborate scheme set-up to satisfy the legal restrictions of the sanctions while in substance it should have been relatively clear that the sanctions would be violated. For instance, if TURKEY sold certain sanctioned products to a legitimate third party that then turned around and sold the sanctioned products to IRAN, the U.S. will probably argue that a reasonable person exercising due diligence should have known that the sanctioned products would be rerouted to IRAN. In my opinion, this situation illustrates the new geopolitical realities whereby deals and sub-deals are set-up to satisfy legalities while certain ensuing decisions are on the brink of morality on the basis that one should have known the consequences of one’s actions to the extent one cannot argue insanity. In regards to TURKEY allowing seven GERMAN lawmakers to visit GERMAN servicemen deployed at TURKEY’s Konya NATO air base that for several months had been banned by TURKEY, it is my opinion that the TURKISH justification is once again political wrangling of the elegant “money talks, shit walks” adage of geopolitics. That is, in my opinion, TURKEY’s formal response that GERMANY’s visit is a multilateral visit and not a bilateral visit because this visit comes from NATO such that TURKEY must oblige as a NATO member sounds a lot better than the underlying realities. In my opinion, the underlying realities of deep economic and cultural ties between GERMANY and TURKEY with millions of ethnic TURKS living in GERMANY, millions of GERMANS flocking to TURKEY’s beaches and historic cities and almost 7,000 German companies establishing operations in TURKEY such as giants like DEUTSCHE BANK, SIEMENS and VOLKSWAGEN to tiny importers of textiles and food that translates into trade between the two countries in excess of $ 36 billion per year really means what TURKEY did not want to say which is that with $ 36 billion of trade per year, TURKEY is forced to listen to the GERMANS whether or not TURKEY likes what they here. Moving on to IRAQ, the IRAQI offensives in MOSUL whereby IRAQI government forces put enough pressure on ISIS to finally force ISIS to relinquish control of MOSUL has shattered the ISIS dream for its self declared caliphate albeit the challenge now facing the IRAQI forces to make the victory over ISIS in MOSUL last. That is, after almost nine months of fierce fighting, the campaign to recapture MOSUL from ISIS has drawn to a bitter end but the struggle for IRAQ’s future is far from over as the fall of MOSUL exposes ethnic and sectarian fractures that have plagued IRAQ for over a decade. That is, the victory risks triggering new violence between ARABS and KURDS over disputed territories or between SUNNIS and SHIITES over claims to power fuelled by outside powers that have shaped IRAQ’s since the 2003 U.S. led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s SUNNI minority rule and brought the Iran backed SHIITE majority to power. In my opinion, it will be extremely difficult to eradicate ISIS completely from IRAQ as ISIS still controls three towns consisting of TAL AFAR, west of MOSUL; HAWIJA, south of KIRKUK; and AL QAIM, west of ANBAR whereby each fight will have its own set of complicated political, military and foreign policy issues. Therefore, in my opinion, the last three strongholds in IRAQ consisting of TAL AFAR, HAWIJA and AL QAIM will be the most brutal and savage wars yet fought in IRAQ as ISIS has laid the foundation for martyrdom. That is, ISIS has in essence sent the message to its remaining conclaves that their only choice is to fight until death at the hands of the ALLIANCE, as the only other option is to choose to be killed by ISIS itself. Therefore, in my opinion now that ISIS has entered the final realm of one of the most brutal civil wars in history, ISIS has in essence elevated its game to complete and utter Barbarian, Neanderthal, Self-Centered, Egotistical, Narcissistic, Masochistic, Sadistic, Idiosyncratic, Sociopathic and Psychopathic maniacs. In my opinion, taking out ISIS in TAL AFAR was less complicated that I had initially envisioned because SHIITE militias do not appear to have taken revenge on ethnic TURKS living in the town. That is, both SUNNI Muslim and SHIITE Muslim TURKS lived in TAL AFAR before ISIS took over while the SUNNI Muslim TURKS who remain are considered by many to have been supporters of ISIS but they were not directly attacked as part of the liberation of TAL AFAR. Therefore, the IRAQI military with 400,000 plus ground troops, predominantly transferred from MOSUL, managed to retake from ISIS the greater area referred to as TAL AFAR in a lightening fast military offensive. However, ISIS now seems like a terrorist organization gone completely irate with ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi now organising a number of sophisticated attacks against WESTERN targets to boost the morale of ISIS fighters after the series of devastating defeats ISIS suffered in places such as MOSUL, RAQQA and TAL AFAR. In my opinion, although ISIS has lost a lot of land in both IRAQ and SYRIA, this is not the end of ISIS as a terrorist organization. Furthermore, a new generation of ISIS terrorist groups could emerge in IRAQ if the country does not undertake radical political reforms to limit new ISIS recruits from entering the country. As a friendly reminder, there were an estimated 500 British jihadists fighters with ISIS at the height of ISIS’s influence in IRAQ and SYRIA but the majority of them have been killed by US-led ALLIANCE military campaigns to destroy ISIS. Therefore, IRAQ needs to closely monitor ISIS’s media campaigns as ISIS played the media card extremely well to recruit foreign fighters but also to demoralise the government forces in both IRAQ and SYRIA while they were never as strong as they led the world to believe. Furthermore, in my opinion, IRAQ will need political support to get the SUNNIS back into the government in IRAQ otherwise IRAQ will end up with a new set of extremists in IRAQ as if the SUNNIS are brought back into the IRAQI political system, that will be the end of ISIS while if the opposite happens, then IRAQ could see the emergence of a new terrorist groups having a similar agenda as ISIS. In my opinion, taking out ISIS in HAWIJA will be complicated because it is located in KIRKUK that is known as a disputed territory because IRAQI KURDS believe HAWIJA should be part of their nearby semi-autonomous region but IRAQI ARABS believe it is part of IRAQ. That is, if the SHIITE Muslim Arabs stay in HAWIJA after ISIS is expelled, this dilutes the KURDISH claims on the area. In addition, the SUNNI Muslim tribal leaders in this area are worried that if the IRAQI KURDISH military or the SHIITE Muslim militias take part in the battle against ISIS for HAWIJA, then the SUNNI Muslim tribes will be attacked as well as they are considered by many to be supporters of ISIS. In my opinion, taking out ISIS in AL QAIM will be complicated because AL QAIM is located on an international border, between IRAQ and SYRIA such that due to its strategic geographical location, AL QAIM is by far the most secure city held by ISIS. Thus, both SYRIA and IRAQ would have to coordinate a military campaign against ISIS in AL QAIM. However, with ISIS inevitably nearing its downfall in IRAQ, IRAQI security forces need to be prepared for a different kind of war against ISIS, shifting away from ground offensives to intelligence work and surgical airstrikes to counter an expected move by ISIS away from holding territory and back to a more terrorist role of a dispersed underground terror organization. In my opinion, ISIS is already laying the groundwork for a new terrorist strategy of hiding in remote areas, carrying out attacks in IRAQ and abroad and resorting to organized crime to bankroll future operations. Moving on to SYRIA, the SYRIAN government forces recapture of the entire former rebel stronghold of east ALEPPO in an offensive that left bodies in the streets and sparked global outrage managed to lead to a ceasefire across SYRIA that appears to now be broken after its brokers, RUSSIA, TURKEY and IRAN obtained approval from the UN Security Council. In my opinion, RUSSIA that invested much political time and energy in ending the fighting after bombing the opposition relentlessly for 15 months was the critical player in this ceasefire as RUSSIA managed to control the uncontrollable consisting of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, IRAN and SHIITE militias like Lebanon’s Hezbollah whereas TURKEY managed to control the Free Syrian Army (FSA) along with their affiliated rebel factions. Meanwhile, peace negotiations have stalled after TURKEY and ASSAD’s two main allies, RUSSIA and IRAN, initially backed these peace talks as guarantors of a fragile ceasefire. However, the allegations by Amnesty International that over thirteen thousand people were hanged at a SYRIAN prison in a secret crackdown on dissent by the current regime under the authority of President, Bashar al-Assad were excluded from the agenda for the fifth round of negotiations that concluded at the end of March. In my opinion, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's future should be off the agenda for now and the main focus of the talks should be governance, a new constitution and elections as the primary goal of these meetings should be to end the war in SYRIA and to implement a long-term sustainable solution for peace. In regards to the derailed peace talks, the derailment is obviously due to U.S. President, Donald Trump’s authorization of the firing of 59 TOMAHAWK cruise missiles at the SYRIAN Armed Forces in response to what the U.S. believes was a chemical weapons attack that killed more than 80 people authorized by President Bashar al-Assad. That being said, RUSSIA has now formally denied any involvement by the SYRIAN Armed Forces and RUSSIA in these chemical attacks and has gone so far as to accuse the SYRIAN rebels to be behind these chemical attacks on their own people. Therefore, the U.S. and RUSSIA agreed for the moment to disagree as the war raged on this week while officials from TURKEY that backs the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and IRAN and RUSSIA that backs the current regime under President Bashar al-Assad watched as the cease-fire agreement that establishes four de-escalation zones was violated once again. In my opinion, although the new cease-fire deal including the four de-escalation zones have been the subject of numerous violations from the outset as tensions seem to continue to erupt, I believe that RUSSIAN and U.S. round-the-clock discussions anticipating that eventually the de-escalation zones will be fully under control should be welcomed as a positive development in fully implementing the de-escalation zones. In my opinion, it is better for RUSSIA and the U.S. to try to work together to implement something in terms of de-escalation zones as opposed to sitting back and insuring that both parties achieve nothing. In regards to tensions de-escalating this week as the SYRIAN Army under the control of President Bashar al-Assad and allied LEBANESE militant group HEZBOLLAH fighters captured several ISIS positions on strategic hilltops along the SYRIAN-LEBANESE border, this strategic shift in focus by the SYRIAN Army on ISIS is key to overall peace in the region as the only issue that everybody in the region seem to agree upon is that ISIS needs to be contained to an underground organization without any significant control of land particularly along any major borders. Thus, to the extent the SYRIAN Army and HEZBOLLAH focus their efforts on ISIS as opposed to the Free Syrian Army (FSA), there is hope for peace in the region. In my opinion, allowing ISIS to retreat to DEIR AL-ZOR made sense as DEIR AL-ZOR province, which borders IRAQ to the east, is almost entirely under ISIS control such that it made sense to allow ISIS to concentrate itself in territories already under ISIS control to minimize ISIS reach around the remaining parts of the Middle East. Therefore, although I agree with the LEBANESE government decision this week whereby 300 ISIS fighters and their families were bussed over the border back into SYRIA, it is important to note that the IRAQI military and U.S. led coalition were furious as these 300 ISIS fighters have now become their problem once again. However, in my opinion, it is better to fight the ISIS devil in ISIS’s hell on earth of DEIR AL-ZOR than to allow the ISIS devil entrance into LEBANESE heaven to contaminate more territory like a plague turning more people mentally insane. Nonetheless, there continued to be outrage this week from several fronts who believe ISIS militants should have been killed on the battlefield rather than given safe transport to DEIR AL-ZOR as many Christian Lebanese critics of Hezbollah voiced suspicions that Hezbollah’s motives appear to have been to take away the Lebanese Army’s glory to what would have been the most successful and efficient military operation in more than two decades. In my opinion, Hezbollah’s decision could have very well been politically motivated underlining the complex relationship of rivalry and coordination that exists between the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah itself that is a powerful military force to be reckoned with but in my opinion, the decision still makes sense from a macro geopolitical perspective. In regards to U.S. backed fighters surrounding the Syrian city of RAQQA as they try to oust the ISIS militants from their de facto capital in SYRIA, capturing RAQQA would be a major achievement in the battle against ISIS and help bring an end to ISIS’s reign of terror trying to create a so-called Caliphate. In my opinion, ISIS has used RAQQA for over three years to stage deadly attacks on the Middle East and further overseas such that capturing RAQQA from ISIS would significantly reduce ISIS’s terrorist capabilities in the future. I believe that the coordinated efforts are paying off as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have made yet another huge advance across the southern countryside of RAQQA liberating approximately half of the RAQQA enclave. In my opinion, the current strategy whereby U.S. airpower drops a barrage of bombs to suppress ISIS movements behind and towards the front-lines within the city, while KURDISH forces on the ground let loose with a barrage of small arms fire to break up ISIS fighters at sight will be less effective moving forward as ISIS has now adopted guerrilla warfare tactics including the intentional usage of innocent civilians as human shields to avoid air strikes by ALLIANCE forces. In addition, the increasing ISIS usage of suicide car bombs, snipers, drones and tunnels to slow down SDF advances with the fight becoming a matter of life and death for both sides has inevitably reduced the pace of advancement by the SDF in RAQQA. Nonetheless, in a sheer effort of rage, ISIS commanders opted for a localised counter-attack in a bid to turn the tide against the SDF Forces by trying to infiltrate the EMIN neighbourhood after being sent on what appears to have been a suicidal mission. However, the ISIS forces were detected by entrenched SDF fighters who opened fire on the platoon, killing 11 ISIS members before the remaining ISIS forces were forced to withdraw in disarray which clearly illustrates that ISIS is now fighting in desperation mode as the SDF have managed to encircle ISIS on all sides so that ISIS now feels like a bull trapped in a cage unable to penetrate. Unfortunately, the human casualties on both sides depicts the viciousness of the clashes whereby the SDF have killed some 1,200 ISIS fighters since the battle first began while taking out of action approximately half of ISIS’s initial manpower while ISIS claims to have killed over 1,000 SDF fighters. In the end, the bloodshed and carnage to liberate RAQQA will carry the repugnant, vial and nasty stench of bodies strewn across miles of trench that generations to come will never forget. In summary, I refer to “World Peace Lennon Ivan Style – Part 263” as the belief that IRAQ and SYRIA victories are critical to ISIS decimation but SYRIAN ceasefire between ASSAD and FSA also key while SYRIAN negotiations must result in peace albeit new realities of geopolitical wrangling whereby deals and sub-deals are set-up to satisfy legalities while certain ensuing decisions are on the brink of morality on the basis that one should have known the consequences of one’s actions to the extent one cannot argue insanity albeit the new complexities that money talks while shit walks to determine what is deemed absurdities versus normalities.
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