Anyone who has ever studied the Vietnam War knows that military victories and political victories are two different things. The U.S. Army is aware of that lesson.



I was interested to see in an article in the new issue of “Military Review,” a publication of the U.S. Army, conclude that, “Russia appears to have won at least a partial victory in Syria, and done so with impressive efficiency, flexibility, and coordination between military and political action.”

Looking at Putin, the article states that “the Russian campaign might be judged a qualified success from the standpoint of the Kremlin’s own objective.”

As for the United States, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the authors (who are not Army employees—one is at the Center for Naval Analyses, and the other is at the Kennan Institute) conclude “it is certainly a defeat for those who opposed the Russian-led coalition.”

This obviously wasn't a military defeat. This was a political defeat.

The reason is because Russia's agenda in Syria was limited and clearly defined.

America's political agenda in Syria is open-ended and evolving.



Together, they lay out the Trump administration’s case for an extended military campaign in Syria “to defeat ISIS’s physical ‘caliphate’ and achieve the group’s permanent defeat” based on the 2001 Authorization for the U.S. of Military Force, the vaguely-worded authorization passed just days after the September 11th attacks that has formed the legal basis for the Global War on Terror.

Since ISIS didn't exist on 9/11 and is not part of al-Qaeda, this is a laughable justification for our invasion of Syria.



The release of the letters comes several weeks after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking at Stanford’s Hoover Institution back in mid-January, revealed a set of far-reaching objectives for the country, including efforts to diminish Iranian influence, help bring about a political transition, and create the conditions for the return of Syrian refugees.

The justification for our invasion of Syria has evolved past any possible legal grounds. "Efforts to diminish Iranian influence"? What does that even mean?

We have 20 military bases in Syria's Kurdistan region without a clear goal.

And then today they created a whole new justification.



The Pentagon’s top commander in the Middle East told Congress today that Iraq’s self-defense gives the United States a legal justification to intervene in next-door Syria.

We could use that bullsh*t statement to justify invading Iran too. Or Mexico.

Speaking of Iranian influence.



Even as the Trump administration shifts its focus to great powers such as China and Russia, the Pentagon is asking for a $2 billion increase in munitions for operations in Iraq and Syria in its fiscal year 2019 budget request to fight IS. The Pentagon also wants $290 million to allow Iraq to put in place scanners, 1,500 border guards and other equipment to secure the Qaim, Bukamal, and Fish Khabur border crossings, in part to prevent Iran from moving troops, tanks and guns at its leisure.

Isn't that up to Iraq to decide who crosses their borders?

maybe that's why Iraq is demanding a strict timeline for our withdraw from their nation.



That’s potentially going to be a problem though, because while the other nations are all making clear their presence is very temporary, the US has been very public from the start that this is a permanent deployment, and they don’t plan to ever leave.

Which brings us to At-Tanf in Syria. It's America-occupied Syria near the Iraq border, outside of the Kurdish region. Our only justification for this base is that it sits on the most direct land route between Tehran and Damascus.



Aссording to the Turkish newspaper Yeni Akit, the United States has deployed 600 troops in the international coalition’s base in At-Tanf in Syria, adjacent to the Iraqi border.

..“The situation when the United States is virtually occupying a 55-kilometer [34-mile] zone around At-Tanf on the Syrian-Jordanian border without the consent of the Syrian Government, is bewildering. This zone includes the infamous Rukban refugee camp, where militants from illegal armed groups are freely moving near the US Armed Forces,” he said.

We have occupied a large area of Syria, where we refuse to allow government forces to enter, and give safe harbor to armed rebel forces.

That sounds like an act of war to me.

"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all."

- John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821