Glenn Diesen
Glenn's Substack

The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 laid the foundation for the modern world order, which is based on a balance of power between sovereign equals to obstruct hegemonic ambitions. The Westphalian balance of power could reduce zero-sum rivalries by championing the principle of indivisible security, as enhancing adversaries' security would also improve one's security.

Since the end of the Cold War, the US has been promoting a revisionist world order based on US hegemony and sovereign inequality, which is legitimized under the banner of universal liberal values. The hegemonic world order aimed to transcend international anarchy, yet it was inevitably temporary and unstable as its durability depended on obstructing the rise of potential rivals and promoting a system of sovereign inequality. The era of hegemony is already over as the world transitioned to a multipolar balance of power, and there is a need to rediscover the principle of indivisible security.

China's Global Civilisational Initiative can contribute to restoring and improving a stable Westphalian world order based on a balance of power among sovereign equals. China's Global Civilizational Initiative, organized around the principle of "the diversity of civilizations", can be interpreted as a rejection of universalism and thus support for sovereign equality. By rejecting the right to represent the values of other people, the Global Civilizational Initiative reassures the world that an intrusive US hegemony will not be replaced by an intrusive Chinese hegemony. The Global Civilization Initiative complements China's economic and security initiatives around the world, which are also organized around the principle that stability requires a multipolar world order.

Katherine Watt
Bailiwick News

Also updated PDF compilations

Four questions and four responses

■ What are the most important things people need to know right now?

For more than 100 years, the US government, through the military, and specifically through the Public Health Service branch of the US military, in collaboration with private pharmaceutical companies and the UN-World Health Organization, has been intentionally and effectively poisoning the population in the US and worldwide, using products known as vaccines and immunizations (toxic mixtures of active ingredients listed on labels, adjuvants listed on labels, and undisclosed ingredients), and thereby hidden from public understanding.

The intentional poisoning program has been escalating decade by decade. It started smaller and less deadly than it is now.

Due to changes in US law, acts that are crimes in other legal contexts, such as poisoning, battery, torture and homicide, if carried out by vaccines (and many other drugs, devices and biological products) are legal. Perpetrators cannot be held liable under civil tort law and cannot be prosecuted under criminal law. This intentional poisoning is much more visible to the public because of the Covid-19 events since 2020, so there are more possibilities for stopping the programs.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Western democracy is just a process for legitimizing elite interests, and these same elites sometimes repeat the process until they get their desired result.

It was assessed late last month that “The Outcome Of Romania’s Presidential Election Could Spoil The US’ Potential Escalation Plans” if then-frontrunner Calin Georgescu, a populist conservative-nationalist that’s critical of NATO’s proxy war on Russian in Ukraine, had won the second round on 8 December. His first-round victory was annulled by the Constitutional Coup in a move that he condemned as a coup, however, on the pretext that his pre-election support on TikTok might have been due to foreign backing.

Nothing like this has ever happened before. Nobody alleges that the electoral process itself was fraudulent. The only claim is that classified evidence supposedly exists allegedly suggesting that the popularization of Georgescu’s content on TikTok might have been inorganic. When all was said and done, however, more voters still chose him over anyone else. This means that speculative degrees of separation between them and a foreign actor via social media was enough to annual the election.

This is a disturbing precedent that can easily be exploited by the West the next time that a populist conservative-nationalist with “politically incorrect” foreign policy views wins an election. At the time of writing, a redo hasn’t yet been scheduled, but it’s expected after the new pro-Western parliament convenes on 20 December. About that, their elections were held after the first presidential round, but no accusations of foul play followed. This is obviously due to the West receiving its desired result.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Ilham Aliyev is one of Eurasia’s most visionary leaders and Azerbaijan is playing an increasingly important role in the emerging Multipolar World Order.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reaffirmed his country’s alliance with Russia in the extended interview that he gave to Rossiya Segodnya chief Dmitry Kiselyov earlier this week that can be read in full here. It’s extremely detailed so the present piece will summarize the insight that he shared for convenience. Aliyev began by praising the Declaration on Allied Interaction between Azerbaijan and Russia that he agreed to with Putin on 22 February 2022 as an historic event in their relations.

He appreciated Putin’s state visit over the summer and noted how their trade is rising, Russian visits to Azerbaijan have been restored to their pre-COVID levels, and there are now twice as many flights as during the Soviet era. Aliyev hopes that there won’t be a hot war between NATO and Russia, which would be apocalyptic, and expressed optimism that Trump will make positive changes to US foreign policy. Azerbaijan can also help facilitate a détente between Russia and the US if both are interested.

Aliyev reminded Kiselyov about how Azerbaijan is independent of East and West, has the unique status of being allied with both Russia and NATO-member Turkiye, and previously hosted meetings between top Russian, US, and NATO military officials, which wasn’t by chance since it’s equally trusted by them. In response to being asked about reports that Azerbaijan will host a Turkish base, he said that such isn’t needed since their 2021 Declaration on Allied Relations already includes a mutual defense clause.

Strategic Culture Foundation Editorial
Strategic Culture Foundation

What the West can’t stand are leaders who prioritize national independence and sovereignty, the common interest, and social welfare.

If he were far right-wing, the West would happily work with him. That’s the best absorbent cotton test for determining whether or not a particular candidate is extreme right-wing. The West has always had a huge tolerance for right-wingers. From fanatic Islamists to neo-Nazis or Zionists, history is here to prove that.

The capitalist, imperialist, neo-liberal West has never had any problem working with fanatics of any kind, as can be seen in Syria today. What the West can’t stand, whoever they are, are leaders who don’t allow national independence and sovereignty, the common interest, and social welfare to be limited by private appropriation by the international economic and financial interests it protects.

The truth is that West has no problems working with Meloni in Italy, Milei in Argentina, the current South Korean president, or even the Saudi royal family. Even to name the ones who everyone assumes to be hard right-wingers. We must not forget that, nowadays, at the very heart of the Western political system, we have the most fanatic and extremist situationists, such as Von Der Leyen, Baerbock, Sholz, or Macron. They only differ from traditional far-right-wingers in two or three subjects like wokeísm, religiosity (not all of them), acceptance of Brussels’ central power, and their position towards war with Russia.

In Syria, for example, they have joined hands with groups formed from Al-Qaeda, linked to the Islamic Brotherhood, one theological school that also feeds Hamas, overthrowing a secular government that defends gender equality, but also national sovereignty, particularly in terms of ownership of strategic sectors, like energy. It won’t be long before the mainstream press is crying hard over the oppression of Syrian women. For starters, I saw no feminine presence in the press conferences that new Syrian leaders provided. The U.S. and Israel don’t seem to have had any problems dealing with conservative authoritarian Erdogan, as an operative in the upheaval, or with “moderate radicals” that came from known terrorist organizations. If someone can explain to me what is a “moderate radical”, be my guest. A semiotic upgrade made from the ancient paradox concept of “moderate rebels”.

RIA Novosti-Zen/РИА Новости-Дзен
RIA Novosti

The Pentagon has tested two new long-range missiles: The Pentagon has presented a serious argument

The US is increasing its long-range strike capabilities with precision-guided weapons. In December, the defense department reported on successful tests of two systems simultaneously—LRHW (Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon) and PrSM (Precision Strike Missile). Washington does not hide: the new products are designed to confront Russia in Europe and China in the Asia-Pacific region. About American missiles—in the material of RIA Novosti.

Dark Eagle—For many years, the U.S. Army has not had a "long arm" - a weapon capable of long-range strikes from the ground. The range of ATACMS operational-tactical missile systems is limited to 300 kilometers, while Russia's Iskander-M can hit 500 kilometers. China has similar systems. The Americans lag behind their likely adversaries in hypersonic weaponry as well. While Moscow and Beijing already have such systems in their arsenals, the U.S. has not gone beyond the testing stage.

Nevertheless, Washington is making progress. In December, the LRHW complex with a hypersonic warhead was tested at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The missile flew on the set course and hit the training target exactly at the estimated time. This was the first fully successful launch. Before that, LRHWs had been falling - either on takeoff, on the route, or on the final section of the trajectory past the target. Now it is likely that the LRHWs will be in service with combat troops.

The LRHW Dark Eagle long-range missile system consists of a mobile command post, a mobile launcher, and support vehicles. But the main thing is the AUR missile in a transport and launch container carrying the C-HGB warhead. It belongs to the class of hypersonic gliders. The launch vehicle accelerates it to operating speed, after which it begins an independent planned flight. According to Pentagon statements, the C-GHB is capable of reaching a speed of at least Mach 5. The estimated range is more than 2,775 kilometers.

Glenn Diesen
Glenn's Substack

Propaganda is a science of persuasion that commonly circumvents the rational considerations of the individual by instead appealing to the unconscious group psychology. The conscious mind tends to be rational, but human behaviour and actions are largely shaped by the unconscious, primordial instincts, and emotions. The rational individual has strong impulses to adapt to the group, thus propaganda aims to influence the irrational group psychology.

Propaganda as a Science—Sigmund Freud explored the irrationality of “group psychology” that overrides the rational and critical capacities of the individual. Freud recognised that “a group is extraordinarily credulous and open to influence, it has no critical faculty”.[1] Conformity to the ideas of the group is powerful exactly because it is unconscious. Freud defined group psychology as being: “concerned with the individual man as a member of a race, of a nation, of a caste, of a profession, of an institution, or as a component part of a crowd of people”, which form a collective group consciousness, social instinct, herd instinct or tribal mentality.[2]

The nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays, built on the work of his uncle to develop the foundational literature on political propaganda. Bernays aimed to manipulate the collective consciousness and identity of the group to control the hearts and minds of the masses without their awareness of being manipulated:

💬 “The group has mental characteristics distinct from those of the individual, and is motivated by impulses and emotions which cannot be explained on the basis of what we know of individual psychology. So the question naturally arose: If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?”.[3]

Fatima Haydar
Alahed News

Beirut – In a provocative act that underscores "Israel's" ongoing expansionist ambitions, Prof. Amos Azaria, an "Israeli" settler and lecturer at Ariel University, who once gained notoriety for reading a story to his son about a boy and his father claiming that “Lebanon belongs to ‘Israel,’” has now infiltrated Lebanese territory, breaching the ongoing ceasefire agreement.

The man, previously featured in a viral video narrating his ideology, has deep ties to the far-right movement “Uri Tzafon” ["Wake Up North"], which he leads. The group has also promoted a crowd-funded book, "Alon and Lebanon", which glorifies the "Israeli” entity's claim to Lebanese territories.

Azaria was recently photographed with his son near the southern Lebanese village of Maroun Al-Ras, a location known for its symbolic importance in resisting "Israeli" aggression. The photos, widely circulated among settler communities, serve as propaganda, celebrating this act as a symbolic step toward the so-called "Greater ‘Israel’" vision.

An Escalation of Expansionist Ambitions

Months ago, a video of Azaria gained traction online, showing him recounting to his son a tale of how “Lebanon is part of ‘Israel’”. Produced and promoted by the extremist “Uri Tzafon” movement, the video reflected an ideological push to prepare settler communities for the idea of expanding "Israel's" borders into Lebanon. Now, Azaria’s recent infiltration into Lebanese territory seems to be the next phase of this calculated campaign, tying propaganda to action.

The "Alon and Lebanon" book, authored by Azaria, glorifies this expansionist vision, framing Lebanon as an integral part of a future “Greater ‘Israel’”. This ideology is deeply rooted in "Israel's" far-right factions and has fueled acts of aggression in Syria and Lebanon alike.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

A view of a scene of an explosion in Moscow, Russia, 17 Dec.
ember 2024. According to a statement by the Investigative
Committee of Russia, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and
his assistant were killed in a blast outside of an apartment
building in Moscow. [EPA-EFE/YURI KOCHETKOV]

The SBU’s cowardly assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov won’t stop his agency’s work.

Reuters cited a source in Ukraine’s SBU on Tuesday to report that they were responsible for assassinating Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces (RChBZ). RT reminded their audience that he was instrumental in informing the world about the WMD threat posed by Ukraine. This includes its American-backed bioweapons experiments, dirty bomb plans, and the use of chemical weapons against Russian servicemen in the special operation zone.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova posted on Telegram that Kirillov “has been systematically exposing the crimes of the Anglo-Saxons for many years, with facts in hand: NATO provocations with chemical weapons in Syria, Britain's manipulations with prohibited chemical substances and provocations in Salisbury and Amesbury, the deadly activities of American biolabs in Ukraine and much more. He worked fearlessly. He did not hide behind people's backs.”

Her country is correspondingly expected to continue raising maximum global awareness of these issues. They’d somewhat faded out of the media limelight over the past year as attention shifted to the scenario of conventional Western escalations in Ukraine such as the decision to authorize Kiev to use the ATACMS for carrying out strikes deep inside of Russia and the possibility of deploying troops there under the cover of peacekeepers. All the while, however, Ukraine’s WMD threats never fully went away.

A lasting peace is therefore only possible if the solution includes mechanisms for dismantling this clandestine infrastructure and monitoring compliance afterwards. Trump would have to be on board for that to happen, but since some of his surrogates have talked about this issue before, it can’t be ruled out that he’d agree to this proposal if they convince him that the problem veritably exists. He also has an axe to grind with Hunter Biden, some of whose companies have been implicated in these schemes.

Dmitri Kovalevich
Al Mayadeen English

The battle for Ugledar, as well as the earlier battles for the cities of Bakhmut, Avdeevka, and Mariupol, show just the opposite of the claims by Zelensky and his political/military government, namely that for the AFU, buildings and even ruins are more important than human beings in uniform.

At the beginning of October, the development most discussed by the Ukraine government and its tightly controlled media was the defeat and withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) from the small city of Ugledar (called 'Vuhledar' in Ukraine) in the Donbas region. The chaotic and costly withdrawal (for Ukraine) is the result of Kiev's refusal to withdraw as the city was being encircled by Russian forces. This is not the first time this has happened.

Russian troops waited for evacuations of the remaining 116 civilians in Ugledar before entering and retaking the city on October 2. These were civilians who had been living in basements under shelling for the past two and a half years, refusing to be evacuated. The small city had a pre-war population of 14,000.

Ugledar is a former coal mining city some 50 km southwest of Donetsk city. Since being seized and occupied by far-right Ukrainian paramilitaries in 2014, it has been used by the AFU to regularly shell Donetsk city and neighboring cities and towns, causing countless civilian deaths, injuries, and property damage. Numerous towns and cities of the former Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk (which constitute the historic coal mining and steelmaking region of Donbas) were seized by the paramilitaries in 2014 and after, and have been used in this manner to terrorize the populations there. They resisted the illegal coup of 2014 in Kyiv. Today, Donetsk and Lugansk are constituent republics of the Russian Federation, following several referendum votes that have taken place there.

Jonathan Cook
jonathancook.substack.com

When westerners see 'enemy' governments fall, or civil wars erupt, they are led to think they are the geopolitical equivalent of a natural event. Nothing could be further from the truth

The long-harboured aspirations of the US, Turkey and Israel to topple the Syrian government, mainly through their rebranded al-Qaeda allies, succeeded at lightning speed.

Damascus fell days after Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces under Abu Mohammad al-Jolani surprised observers by breaking out of their small north-western enclave in Syria and seizing the country’s second city, Aleppo.

Bashar al-Assad’s government and his army, it turned out, were paper tigers. Or they were, once their chief allies – Russia, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon – had been forced onto the back foot. Preoccupied with troubles closer to home, they could no longer offer the military support Assad depended on.

Israel’s rampage across Lebanon and its military intimidation of Iran – as well as Nato’s increasing efforts to pin Russia down in Ukraine – unfroze the main battle lines in Syria, arrived at several years ago between Assad’s army, al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria and Kurdish forces in the north-east.

Maryam Qarehgozlou
PressTV

With the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, the Israeli regime has intensified its aggression on Syria, initiating an unlawful land appropriation beyond the occupied Golan Heights in what is seen as a component of the so-called “Greater Israel” project.

In a dramatic turn of events, militant groups overrun Damascus on Sunday, less than two weeks into their offensive that began in Aleppo, ending the two-decade reign of Bashar al-Assad.

Immediately after militants affiliated with Hayat Tahrir-al Sham swarmed Damascus, Israel launched a barrage of airstrikes across Syria, including in Damascus, Homs, Tartous, Latakia and Palmyra.

Israeli media called it “one of the biggest air attacks” in the regime's air force’s history, destroying up to 80 percent of Syria’s military capabilities.

On Wednesday, Israel’s military said it carried out about 480 strikes on military targets in Syria over the past 48 hours, including on 15 naval vessels, anti-aircraft batteries and weapons production sites in several cities, to prevent “strategic weapons stockpiles."

A day before, the Israeli military targeted three major Syrian airports in Qamishili, north of the country, Homs, the country’s third-largest city, and Mezzeh airport in the capital Damascus.

Yevgeny Umerenkov
Pravda-EN
Комсомольская правда
(Русский текст ниже)

NATO Secretary General Rutte suddenly started talking about the losses in Ukraine: He has ulterior motives for this

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte suddenly named the number of deaths in Ukraine since the beginning of the war – over 1 million people. Russia, he said, is "preparing for a long-term confrontation" with Ukraine and the West. And allowed: "What is happening in Ukraine can happen here." And in this regard, he urged not to spare money for defense. However, he immediately clarified that he did not see an immediate threat from Russia against any member of the alliance.

Just two months ago, Rutte stated that the alliance was not afraid of threats from the Russian side (which means that he still saw such threats) and would do everything to make sure that the Kiev regime would win. And a month ago, he claimed that Ukraine, thanks to American leadership, had already won, because Russia had not yet won.…

It is clear that everything is flowing, everything is changing, but why does the NATO Secretary General suddenly have such sadness about the losses of the conflicting parties, a premonition of the possibility of a repeat of tragic events "here", that is, in "real" Europe. Why would that be?

Walter Gelles

We’re wiping out the Palestinians.
We’re finishing the job.
We’re helping Netanyahu
murder, destroy, and rob.
We’ve flattened most of Gaza.
Soon it will all be gone.
It’s valuable beach-front property
where the Trump brand could live on.

José Goulão
Strategic Culture Foundation

© Amer Almohibany/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The fall of Damascus at the hands of al-Qaida and its various heteronyms represents a victory for Western and NATO strategy

A first warning to the reader. This is still a hot reading of what is happening in Syria, and hot readings are a risk, especially when they are done from the outside and under a flood of media nonsense that factually says the same thing, commonplaces, and then squeezes the imagination in a fight imbecile trapped in the fields of audacity, lies and, above all, ignorance.

For all this, readers will forgive me for some inaccuracies regarding the near future, because among the possible certainties there are many factual elements missing.

A first certainty: President Bashar Assad fell, essentially because he worsened the situation in recent times, since 2015, by not providing the national army with more and renewed means to resist the growth and reinforcement of military capacity, which were no secret, of the al -Qaida (renamed Hayat Tharir al-Sham – HTS – on the recommendation of Western foreign intervention forces, thus wishing to disguise its direct support for the terrorism of the organization founded by Bin Laden).

Furthermore, Bashar Assad and his military commands minimized a war situation that only decreased in intensity after 2017 and in a situation where 30% of the territory remained in the hands of armed groups serving foreign interests and with the objective of overthrowing the [government].

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

It appears as though the Kremlin signaled to those outlets within its “sphere of influence” to withhold publishing worst-case scenario forecasts for now while their country’s diplomats try to avert an even worse crisis.

Publicly financed Russian media’s reaction to Syria’s regime change is a lot different than most could have expected after they earlier warned that this could lead to an unprecedented terrorist crisis. Those concerns were warranted since Turkish-backed Harat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is designated as a terrorist group and was originally part of Al Qaeda.

Nevertheless, these outlets’ reactions have been surprisingly calm, thus suggesting a desire to play everything by ear for the sake of retaining Russian influence there.

RT published two very thought-provoking op-eds since the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) epic collapse and Assad’s cowardly flight from Damascus that are worth reviewing in this context. The first is by Murad Sadygzade, who’s President of the Middle East Studies Center and Visiting Lecturer at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and answers the question of “Why did Syria fall so fast and what happens next?” He began by drawing attention to foreign meddling but then dove into domestic details.

This approach is noteworthy since it had hitherto been very rare for publicly financed Russian media to talk about the Assad Government’s many shortcomings, but Sadygzade candidly addressed them:

Stephen J. Sniegoski
The Passionate Attachment
[Originally posted on this blog here: 08/15/12]

Stephen Lendman, Israel's Longstanding Middle East Plan
Oded Yinon, "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties" /
Israel Shahak, "The Zionist Plan for the Middle East"[*]

💬 If everything goes according to plan, the end result will be a Middle East composed of disunited states, or mini-states, involved in intractable, internecine conflict, which would make it impossible for them to confront Israeli power and to provide any challenge to Israel’s control of Palestine.

It is widely realized now that the fall of President Bashar Assad’s regime would leave Syria riven by bitter ethnic, religious, and ideological conflict that could splinter the country into smaller enclaves. Already there has been a demographic shift in this direction, as both Sunnis and Alawites flee the most dangerous parts of the county, seeking refuge within their own particular communities. Furthermore, it is widely believed in Syria that, as the entire country becomes too difficult to secure, the Assad regime will retreat to an Alawite redoubt in the northern coastal region as a fallback position.

Syrian Kurds, about ten percent of the country’s population, are also interested in gaining autonomy or joining with a larger Kurdistan. The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD)—linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has engaged in a separatist insurgency in Turkey’s Kurdish southeast region for nearly three decades—has gained control of key areas in northeast Syria. While Turkey has supported the Syrian opposition, it is terrified of a Kurdish autonomous zone in Syria, believing that it could provide a safe haven for staging attacks into Turkey. Moreover, Kurdish autonomy would encourage separatist sentiment within the Turkish Kurdish minority. Turkey has threatened to invade the border areas of Syria to counter such a development and Turkish armed forces with armor have been sent to Turkey’s border with the Syrian Kurdish region. A Turkish invasion would add further complexities to the fracturing of Syria.

Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

Syrian Immigration, Passport and
Customs offices in Damascus

All those tanker trucks crossing the border every day with the stolen oil. The records are in the Customs offices which is now bombed!

The United States Air Force has begun bombing Syria.

After the fall of the Syrian government, and the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Moscow, Russia earlier today, the United States has commenced bombing targets inside the defenseless country.

THIS is the true nature of the American government. Attacking a defenseless country which poses no threat to the United States, and has committed no act of war or hostility against us.

The United States government is a gangster government, filled with violent, tyrannical, garbage people.

This is just like the MAFIA GANGSTER movie "Goodfellas" after the Lufthansa Heist: "Tying-up loose ends."

In that movie the guys who pulled-off the Lufthansa Heist at JFK airport (which really happened in real life), were warned not to make any big purchases because the feds were watching for leads as to who robbed the $6 million from the airport. A couple guys went out and bought brand new Cadillacs, or fur coats for their wives. Those guys ended up getting whacked because they were warned not to make big purchases and once they did, it endangered everyone else who was in on the heist.

The bigshots in the U.S. know they've been stealing more than $30 MILLION a month in Syrian oil and divvying-up the money amongst themselves. The oil was shipped by tanker trucks into Turkeye, where it was slightly refined, re-labeled, and sold.

Now they're killing all the witnesses who could testify against them.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Post-Assad Syria is on the brink of all-out collapse that could turn it into the world’s largest hotbed of terrorism if this process isn’t soon averted.

The epic collapse of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) over the past ten days and Assad’s cowardly flight from Damascus early Sunday morning herald the dawn of a new Syria. The most immediate risk is that the entire country collapses just like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya before it. That could create a black hole of instability from which innumerable global terrorist threats could emerge. Here’s what has to happen to prevent post-Assad Syria from experiencing that dark future:

1. The Army & The Security Services Must Remain Intact

The three preceding cases of state collapse were characterized by the army and the security services dissolving shortly after their foreign-backed regime change plots succeeded. In Syria’s case, the SAA still exists as an institution even though it’s on the retreat to who knows where, perhaps to the Alawite-majority coast. It’s therefore imperative that it doesn’t fall apart and cooperates with the non-terrorist anti-government opposition (NTAGO) to ensure that everything doesn’t spiral out of control.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

If Putin hopes to reach a deal with Erdogan on Syria, then it’ll require keeping up the pretense (however unbelievable it is to objective observers) that Turkiye no longer backs terrorists, thus accounting for Lavrov’s diplomatic assessment of events there.

Lavrov’s interview with Tucker mostly saw him elaborate on Russia’s stance towards the proxy war with NATO in Ukraine, which built upon what he shared during his earlier and more concise interview with Newsweek in early October that was analyzed here at the time.

He was also importantly asked about the latest events in Syria, the assessment of which hasn’t received much international media attention, at least not yet. The present piece will therefore review and interpret what he said about that.

He began by describing the Astana process between his country, Iran, and Turkiye as being driven by the need to contain US-backed Kurdish separatist threats in Syria before expressing hope that he’ll meet with his counterparts over the weekend during the Doha Forum to discuss the latest developments.

Lavrov then said he’d also like to “discuss the need to come back to strict implementation of the deals on Idlib area, because Idlib de-escalation zone was the place from where the terrorists moved to take Aleppo.” According to him, Turkiye must continue separating Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the non-terrorist opposition, and he also wants the M5 highway between Damascus and Aleppo reopened after that group just captured its northern half over the past week.

Ivan Kesic
PressTV

Israeli-American casino mogul Miriam Adelson is back in the news. The fifth richest woman in the world has emerged as a kingmaker in American politics following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

The 79-year-old widow of Sheldon Adelson who was known for his empire of casinos and resort hotels across the United States, Miriam Adelson is the biggest donor to the Republican Party.

More importantly, she is a Zionist settler who was born and raised in the occupied Palestinian territories and has championed the cause of settler-colonialism through different means.

More recently, speaking at an annual conference organized by the Israeli daily Israel Hayom that she owns in the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds on Sunday, Adelson said Trump’s return to the White House “provides us (Israelis) with a tailwind.”

“Trump is the best president for Israel and the Jews, but he wants to engage with a united, energetic, rational, and successful people of Israel. He helps those who help themselves. He loves winners – and that's one reason why Israel is right to demand victory in this war. We deserve it. We need it,” she said.

According to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission in October this year, Adelson donated $100 million to a campaign committee supporting the candidacy of Trump. The money was distributed through four payments to her political action committee (PAC), Preserve America, with $25 million in July, August and September, and an additional $20 million at the end of September.

She thus became Trump's largest single donor, continuing a pattern of donations with her late husband during previous presidential campaigns of Republican candidates, including Trump.

Garsha Vazirian
Tehran Times

How the West uses terrorism and economic pressure to wreak havoc in the Arab country

Recent reports from Reuters have unveiled the covert strategies employed by the United States, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Saudi Arabia concerning Syria. Before the recent uptick in terrorist activities, these countries proposed lifting sanctions on Syria if President Bashar al-Assad distanced himself from Iran and the Axis of Resistance, according to Reuters. This offer, if true, is part of a broader strategy by these countries to undermine Syria and its allies.

The U.S. agenda against Iran and Syria—From the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011, the U.S. opposed Iran’s involvement in confronting terrorists in Syria. Washington's primary objective was to remove Assad, as his alliance with Iran posed a significant obstacle to their regional plans.

The U.S. and its allies supported various terrorist factions, hoping to destabilize Syria and alter the power dynamics in West Asia.

Operation Timber Sycamore, a clandestine CIA program backed by a coalition of Western and regional allies including Israel, the Persian Gulf monarchies, the U.K., France, Germany, and Turkey in 2012, funneled billions into arming terrorists in Syria.

This program bolstered one of history's most impactful insurgencies, primarily fueled Al Qaeda affiliates and foreign fighters, played a major role in the formation of ISIS, and intensified the conflict rather than resolving it. The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria is a direct result of this operation and similar undertakings.

However, the situation changed dramatically when Iran and Russia intervened, providing significant support to Syria in its battle against ISIS and other foreign-backed terrorist groups. This cooperation effectively disrupted U.S. and Israeli efforts to sow discord between Tehran and Moscow over Syria. Despite numerous attempts by the U.S. and its allies to fabricate a rift between Iran and Russia, the partnership on the Syrian battleground remained robust, frustrating American and Israeli strategies.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Yoon is hawkish on North Korea, is considering arming Ukraine against Russia, and went along with the US’ plans to organize a trilateral alliance between them and Japan, but all this might change if he’s replaced by the opposition after early elections, thus complicating the US’ “Pivot (back) to Asia”.

The world is trying to make sense of South Korea’s six-hour -long period of martial law that was imposed on Tuesday night until early Wednesday morning local time. It was the first time that the country experienced such since 1980. President Yoon Suk Yeol claimed that the opposition was conniving to overthrow him as part of an anti-state plot that he connected to North Korea. They control parliament, had tried to impeach him multiple times already, and were obstructing his legislative efforts.

This same opposition then raced to the National Assembly and voted to lift martial law. The military then stopped trying to storm the premises once that motion passed, and Yoon relented after he and his Cabinet complied with their demand. While it was still in effect, some on social media lent credence to his claims of an anti-state plot, while others speculated that the US had something to do with this even though a National Security Council spokesperson told Axios that they didn’t receive any advance notice.

There are now calls for his resignation and to even charge him with treason. His political career is likely over. Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon-hee, might also go down with him due to her numerous scandals that he refused to investigate. Readers can learn more about them here and here. In hindsight, it compellingly appears as though Yoon wanted to stage a self-coup on predictable national security pretexts connected to North Korea out of desperation to keep himself in power and his wife out of trouble. The implications of this hypothesis are many but what follows are the most immediate:

Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

U.S. Government COVID-19 After-Action Report - The "Conspiracy Theorists" were RIGHT; Everyone else was wrong

The US House of Representatives "COVID Committee" has released its Final Report (527 Pages) and it's now official: The "Conspiracy Theorists" were all right and everyone else was wrong.

The Official Report outlines what so many of us TRIED to tell all of you. But YOU thought YOU knew better. YOU thought you were oh-so-much-smarter than us. YOU mocked us, smeared us, vilified us as we employed common sense and you acted like emotional screaming-meemies . . . petrified of something that was no worse than a seasonal flu.

Then, when that phony mRNA "vaccine" came out, you rushed in-line to get yours. Once you did, YOU then demanded the rest of us be as foolish as you. When those of us who actually THINK, refused to take this gene-therapy masquerading as a "vaccine" YOU vilified us; said we should be rounded-up and quarantined.

Those of you who own companies and run corporations decided to act like tyrannical douchebags and arrogantly DEMANDED everyone get the phony vaccine or else be fired! When the vaccine made your employees sick, you chalked it up to "normal."

When the vaccine caused some of your employees to DIE, you denied their death had anything to do with what YOU demanded they take. When it came time to be accountable for what you did, you company owners and Boards of Directors ran from it like the cowards you actually are!

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The immense political pressure being placed upon the ruling party by the West is punishment for its pragmatic domestic and foreign policies.

The Georgian capital of Tbilisi has been beset by increasingly violent unrest as the foreign-backed opposition desperately seeks to overturn the outcome of fall’s parliamentary elections.

They were won by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which is comprised of conservative-nationalists who won’t sacrifice their country’s objective national interests by sanctioning Russia or allowing Western “NGOs” to meddle in their affairs. It then froze EU accession talks till 2028 after the EU refused to recognize the results.

No self-respecting government like Georgia’s would continue trying to join an organization that denies the democratic mandate that it just received. The intention is to wait until the EU undergoes domestic political transformation, ideally by 2028, through the expected rise of more conservative-nationalist forces in the future who’d then recognize the aforesaid results. If they’re not recognized by that time, then this policy might be extended unless a regime change happens beforehand.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The disaster in Aleppo was avoidable and is just as bad as it looks. The “politically inconvenient” truth is that Syria was caught by surprise, the SAA is on the backfoot, and the worst might be yet to come.

The Turkish-backed terrorists’/“rebels’” advance on Aleppo, which was analyzed here, came as a shock to most observers. There was almost half a decade of peace between the March 2020 ceasefire and now, yet practically nothing was done to prepare for this possibility. This was in spite of the front line remaining roughly two dozen kilometers away from Aleppo, which should have reminded Assad of how vulnerable his country’s second city is.

Here are the five reasons why Syria was caught by surprise:

1. Complacency & Corruption

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) rested on its laurels because it took the Russian-brokered ceasefire for granted, after which the country’s infamous corruption kicked in to degrade its capabilities. There’s no excuse for why even basic drones weren’t used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) to detect the buildup that preceded this advance. A large part of why the SAA didn’t do anything is likely because it assumed that its Russian and Iranian allies would shoulder these responsibilities for them.

Elena Panina (Елена Панина)
Pravda-EN/Елена Панина/Telegram

The worst-case scenario for the development of the situation in northern Syria, where multi-million Aleppo literally ended up in the hands of terrorists in just three days, requires...

The worst-case scenario for the development of the situation in northern Syria, where multi-million Aleppo literally ended up in the hands of terrorists in just three days, requires careful analysis. But even now we can draw the first conclusions - in the form of important lessons for our country.

● Lesson one: you can't leave unfinished business. The unfinished terrorist enclave in Idlib under the wing of Turkey, after several years of rearmament and preparation, has launched an offensive on the most important city in Syria . The result is obvious. This is the best proof that it is impossible to freeze the war in Ukraine without bringing it to a victorious end. Otherwise, the further scenario may be the same. The Ukrainian conflict must be finally resolved - including the reformatting of the security zone in Eurasia, with the obligatory consideration of Russia's interests.

● Lesson two: if you want something done well, do it yourself. You can't rely on allies and situational partners. Our Iranian allies turned out to be too busy with the situation around Lebanon and Palestine. And our situational partner Recep Erdogan actually stabbed us in the back - and, by the way, not for the first time. Obviously, without the go-ahead from Ankara, without its intelligence and other support, the terrorists' offensive on Aleppo would have been impossible. At the same time, Erdogan is not the worst option: the Turkish opposition is pro-American, and if it comes to power, it will be worse.

David Swanson
World BEYOND War

41,909 bodies counted, 10,000 missing, death count higher than 51,909

We generally accept that if you do a census and only count the people who answer their doors you miss some people, and that you can calculate an estimate that reliably gets closer to reality than the list of people who answer their doors. Of course it will get closer, the more information you can gather. But those insisting that people who do not answer their doors be treated as not existing are widely understood, not as principled fact checkers, but as having ulterior reasons for desiring undercounts.

DIRECT AND IDENTIFIED

The fact is not really disputed that in every war there are people who die without being identified at a morgue. They may die from direct war violence or from starvation or disease resulting from a war’s destruction of hospitals. They may be blown into little pieces, be buried under buildings, drown in the sea, or die hours after being born. There’s no certain way to know the exact proportion between identified and unidentified deaths in a given war. But even in a dense, relatively educated place and even with the growth of social media, a zone in which hospitals, media outlets, power plants, and — in fact — every type of building, have been reduced to rubble is unlikely to set the record for the lowest percentage of unidentified deaths — much less eliminate them altogether.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

NATO might be willing to test Putin’s patience by crossing yet another of Russia’s perceived red lines in spite of its updated nuclear doctrine and new Oreshniks.

The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine might be on the brink of an unprecedented escalation that could easily spiral out of control if Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is correct in claiming that NATO is planning a 100,000-strong military intervention in Ukraine under the guise of peacekeepers. The purpose is to freeze the conflict, presumably by having these troops function as tripwires for deterring a Russian attack that could spark World War III, and then rebuild Ukraine’s military-industrial complex (MIC).

SVR revealed that Poland will have control over Western Ukraine (like it did during the interwar period); Romania will be responsible for the Black Sea coast (which it seized during World War II via and ruled as the “Transnistria Governorate”); the UK will lord over Kiev and the north; while Germany will deploy its forces to the center and east of the country. The latter’s Rhinemetall will lead the efforts to rebuild Ukraine’s MIC by investing heavily, dispatching specialists, and providing high-performance equipment.

Another important detail is that “NATO is already deploying training centers in Ukraine, through which it is planned to drag at least a million mobilized Ukrainians”, while police functions will be carried out via Ukrainian nationalists that SVR likens to World War II-era Sonderkommando. The last part is intriguing since it raises the question of why 100,000 NATO troops/peacekeepers would be required. Only a fraction of that is needed for tripwire and training purposes so perhaps those numbers are inaccurate.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Smoke rises from clashes between Syrian rebels and Govern-
ment forces in the Aleppo countryside on Wednesday.

Everything will depend on whether the terrorists are stopped outside of Aleppo; the outcome of any possible battle for that city; and how desperate Assad becomes if he loses control over it and the terrorists advance on Damascus.

The terrorist-designated Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS), which is the rebranded form of the Al Qaeda-backed Al-Nusra, launched a surprise offensive in Aleppo this week. It’s already made a lot of progress due to the terrorists’ use of drones and other modern warfare tactics. These were reportedly taught to them by Ukraine according to reports in the run-up to the latest hostilities. Other reports included Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warning about a false-flag chemical weapons attack.

Syrian, Iranian, and Russian forces (including its aerospace ones) are currently trying to push back HTS’ advance. This intense fighting comes immediately after the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire deal, which that Iranian-backed Resistance group agreed to in spite of the late Nasrallah’s pledge not to do so without a ceasefire in Gaza first. It can therefore be interpreted as an Israeli victory despite Iran hailing this agreement and its ideologically aligned influencers spinning it as a Resistance victory.