@CB

Great comment!

...But Assad understands something that Western analysts, journalists and politicians cannot seem to grasp. Syria’s allies in this war – Iran, Hezbollah, Iraq, Russia, China – have maintained only two hard red lines throughout the conflict:

The first is that Assad can only be removed from office in a national election, by a Syrian majority.

The second is that Syria must stay whole.

Regarding 'partitioning someone else's country to suit corporate interests' - endlessly appeasing bullies only emboldens them. That red line's already pretty darned far down the planned global hegemony path and if the victims allow themselves it be dragged any further down it, would any prospective chance of longer survival be worth it?

All of the aims of the Parasites That Be, from unlimited corporate pollution to their global War Against The World, end in the destruction of life on the planet.

Edited to add that it's good to see that powers such as Iran, Hezbollah, Iraq, Russia and China are fighting for the most basic concepts of democracy against the US Psychopaths That Be. Somebody has to.

And edited again to add a pertinent portion of the quote previously missed; should have at least finished that first cup of coffee before commenting...

I believe the 900 pound gorilla will grudgingly let Assad remain and the US will back off and force KSA to also back off. Qatar, UK and France are yelping poodles that can be kicked to the curb. If Assad insists on remaining it's game on again.

The US has been trying to push Russia to the wall, both military and economically ever since Putin pulled the country out of the trash can that the US had stuck it in. Much to their surprise, Putin has outsmarted them at every turn and this pisses them off to no end. I expect a calm and rational response when Putin is ready. The man doesn't do knee-jerk.

Here's the poop:

'A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s'
...
The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.
...

But, so far Assad has stated that a partitioned Syria is out of the question.

There will be no partition of Syria
29 Dec, 2016
East Aleppo is liberated, and regime-change has lost its luster. It's no surprise Syria’s foes are ready to promote the next big goal: partition. Like most Syrian conflict predictions, of which few have materialized, the ‘partition’ of Syria is not going to happen.

In February, when East Aleppo was still bulging with Western-trained, Al Qaeda-allied militants, Syrian President Bashar Assad was asked the question: “Do you think that you can regain control over all Syrian territory?”

Well, yes, said Assad: “This is a goal we are seeking to achieve without any hesitation. It makes no sense for us to say that we will give up any part.”

Western politicians were having none of that.

First up was US Secretary of State John Kerry who coyly informed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Obama administration may have a Plan B up its sleeve for Syria: “it may be too late to keep it as a whole Syria if we wait much longer.”

Next, James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Commander and head of the US European Command penned an article for Foreign Policy entitled "It’s time to seriously consider partitioning Syria" where he claimed: “Syria as a nation is increasingly a fiction.”

Then, CIA Director John Brennan joined the chorus: "There’s been so much blood spilled, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to get back to [a unified Syria] in my lifetime.”

But now the stinging defeat of Western-backed militants in East Aleppo has turned up the dial on the idea of breaking up Syria. Frantic neocons and liberal interventionists are piling in on the 'partition' punditry – with nary a backward glance to their five failed years of “Assad will fall” prognostications.

But Assad understands something that Western analysts, journalists and politicians cannot seem to grasp. Syria’s allies in this war – Iran, Hezbollah, Iraq, Russia, China – have maintained only two hard red lines throughout the conflict:

The first is that Assad can only be removed from office in a national election, by a Syrian majority.

The second is that Syria must stay whole.

@Alligator Ed

Obama excuses!
. . .
5) “This is somehow Bush’s fault”
6) “McCain would have been worse”
7) “Okay, so Obama sold out!”
8) “I’m so disappointed that Obama has changed”
No, Obama didn’t change, or get tricked, or sell out. He was this from the beginning. Some of us saw that. If YOU didn’t, then maybe YOU should stop making excuses, and just admit that YOU got duped.

 
And this is pure diamond, “the world as we find it” in 11 characters:

WW3 or WWE?

As they say in Germany, Chapeau! (= “Well done! I take my hat off to you”)

PNAC decreed in 2000 that Syria shall be on the replaceable list, along with Iraq, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and one other victim whose name I forgot. The first "domino" was to be the Graveyard of Empires, Afghanistan. We're still there in America's longest war, eclipsing Vietnam in cost and stupidity. Of course Afghanistan has some of the world's finest opium poppies and lots and lots of lithium (are you listening Elon Musk?) But it has no oil, which is there redemption, otherwise Afghani sand would definitely be glowing in the dark.

It took Uncle Sam two cracks to rid of us Saddam, that evil bastard who gassed Kurds (but of course giving Madeline Albright the perfect excuse to let 500,000 Iraqi children die--what a humanitarian!)

Our efficiency rating improved greatly by first creating and then arming ISIS to overthrow Gaddafi, that evil bastard. And now Libya is another wonderful, democratic state.

Somehow, the Neocons haven't shown the same enthusiasm for toppling Yemen and Somalia, though they are still throwing a few bombs around with also drone strikes.

Whoops, Assad wasn't going to take this lying down, so he enlisted his big brother Putin to shore up his assaulted nation [what is a nation anyway?] Contrary to Obama's stated proclamations that we were going to wipe out the "JV", he was arming them to help take down Assad. That makes sense, right? For added insurance on the desired outcome, Obama funded our "enemy" who destroyed the Twin Towers, al-Qaeda to assist ISIS in completing our dirty work.

Well, now the Trumposaurus has taken "dramatic" steps to mount a completely ineffectual raid on one Syrian airbase, which even a high-schooler would anticipate a big yelp from the Bear. WW3 or WWE? What's the Truth.

I fucking do.not.know.

This is why I pose my contrarian views here. Of course, I could be wrong--it's happened in the past. If so I will admit admit it while heading to my fall-out shelter. But observing the huge diversity of opinion in the media, MSM and alternative, this is becoming more confusing than ever. It is hard to tell a deflection from a truth, a truth from a trivia, "news" from a fairy tale.

The next month will tell the story. Has Trump been sucked in by the Deep State, is he listening to bad advice, is he playing a clever double game? I conclude with posting a tweet [should that word be capitalized?]

@Linda Wood
It eases the constant sense of isolation I feel when among those self-enforcing small talk.

I think you are as right as anybody writing about this can be, because we can't really know, but what you say is consistent with what we can see: Trump has responded in a way that shows he CAN respond with cruise missiles if he deems it necessary; but also, Trump has clearly shown that he has NOT decided to commit regime change in Syria.

I think what so many liberal supporters of regime change fail to see is that regime change by the U.S. means ISIS/AlQaeda chaos, endless war, corruption, slaughter, and failure to solve any problems for humanity. There are no democracies in our regime change history. There are no peaceful countries in our regime change history.

Putin knows this. You know this. But liberal Americans don't know this. They're blind to it because it interferes with their belief in Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Putin knows what war with terrorism is like in his own country, in Chechnya. I can only think he knows from experience what we bring when we commit regime change.

I think the media's depiction of Putin as supporting Assad because Syria is a client state or because Putin wants ports or military facilities in the region is ignoring what we bring with regime change: Hell, pure hell. This effort to eliminate Assad on our part is expansion of the Hell we have brought to Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen. We are not liberating anyone. We are not bringing capitalism or democracy or even the IMF. We are bringing Hell, and we are using Chechen "rebels," sadistic mass murderers, along with Al Qaeda and ISIS. Putin knows who these killers are and what they represent.

The PNAC, our "brain trust," clearly wants to bring this reign of terror to the entire resource extracting world. I think Putin knows this, even if liberal Americans can't see it after all we have done.