JANICE KORTKAMP—As for its inventiveness and industry, Aleppo, or Halab as it’s called in Syria, has been the undisputed sovereign not just in Syria but the whole Middle East. From small factories owned and operated by families for generations to large scale modern industrial compounds, factories were producing everything from medicines to automobiles (cars are being manufactured again in Syria now). Aleppo’s manufacturing was famous for its quality and quantity of output. Thousands and thousands of factories there were responsible for the lion’s share of Syria’s GDP.
SYRIA & LEBANON
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MOA—Erdogan had planned to only occupy a 10 miles deep strip along the Syrian-Turkish border. Some 15,000 Turkish controlled ‘Syrian rebels’ stand ready for that. He would need some 50-100,000 troops to occupy all of east Syria northward of the Euphrates. It would be a hostile occupation among well armed Kurds who would oppose it and an Arab population that is not exactly friendly towards a neo-Ottoman Turkey. Erdogan knows this well.
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IN SYRIA THE ENTIRE NATION MOBILIZED, AND WON
33 minutes readANDRE VLTCHEK—The country of Syria is standing tall. It did not crumble like Libya or Iraq did. It never surrendered. It never even considered surrender as an option. It went through total agony, through fire and unimaginable pain, but in the end, it won. It almost won. And the victory will, most likely, be final in 2019.
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The Only Regime Change that Is Needed Is in Washington
14 minutes readPHILIP GIRALDI—On November 15th James Jeffrey was at it again, declaring that U.S. troops will not leave Syria before guaranteeing the “enduring defeated” of ISIS, but he perversely put the onus on Syria and Iran, saying that “We also think that you cannot have an enduring defeat of ISIS until you have fundamental change in the Syrian regime and fundamental change in Iran’s role in Syria, which contributed greatly to the rise of ISIS in the first place in 2013, 2014.”
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ELIJAH MAGNIER—In Lebanon, Hezbollah has gathered unique and mind-boggling war experience during the last five years of war against the extremist groups of al-Qaeda and ISIS, fighting alongside two classical armies on multiple fronts: the Syrian Army and the Russian superpower Army. The US now seems willing to increase pressure on the Lebanon to further cripple its economy. These sanctions will likely affect Lebanon more than Hezbollah itself.