https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42330551

Syria war: Putin’s Russian mission accomplished
13 December 2017
Steven Rosenberg
BBC News, Moscow

…..When Russia launched its military operation in Syria in 2015, the then US President Barack Obama predicted Moscow would get “stuck in a quagmire”.
His defence secretary, Ashton Carter, warned that Russia’s approach was “doomed to fail”.
Two years on, Russia appears to have proved the doomsayers wrong.
On a surprise trip to Syria this week, President Vladimir Putin told his troops they had fought “brilliantly” and could “return home victorious”. He ordered the withdrawal of a “significant part” of Russia’s military contingent.
So, mission accomplished for Moscow? It seems so.
The mission – at least as stated publicly by President Putin in September 2015 – was to fight “international terrorism”.
So-called Islamic State has, indeed, suffered defeat in Syria, although Western governments have criticised Moscow for also targeting the moderate Syrian opposition.
But Russia’s campaign had another aim – to keep a key ally, President Bashar al-Assad, in power. That goal has been achieved.
As Russian military support for Damascus changed the facts on the ground in Mr Assad’s favour, the prospect of regime change in Syria retreated. The US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia had been demanding the Syrian leader’s removal as a prerequisite for peace. They no longer do so…..
…..Crucially, the “quagmire” Washington predicted in Syria has not materialised.
Back in 2015 many Russians had feared that Syria could become a second Afghanistan: more than 10,000 Soviet soldiers were killed there in the 1980s in a decade-long military operation.

Russia has suffered casualties in Syria: officially 41 servicemen have been killed, while dozens more Russian private contractors are reported dead.
But with the Kremlin declaring victory and signalling a reduction in troop numbers, Syria no longer looks like becoming Mr Putin’s Afghanistan.
The Syrian People’s Congress, which Moscow had planned to host this month in Sochi, has been postponed until next year. Differences remain between the key players in the peace process.
Declaring victory in a war does not necessarily bring it to an end. Especially such a bitter and complex conflict as the Syrian war…..

Russia’s defeat in Syria is the same mistake imperialists make every time.
The mistake the imperialist countries made in Vietnam, repeated in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Syria, and continue to repeat in Palestine and Ukraine. It is the bitter lesson the British Empire learnt in Ireland.

An unjust peace is not peace.

In 1915,Patrick Pearse, put it very simply;

While they have left us our Fenian dead, Ireland unfree will never be at peace.

The Zionists with US backing thought that they had successfully subjugated the Palestinians in 1948, and again in 1967, and think that by committing the ultimate crime of genocide, that they have finally defeated the Palestinian people, but they are wrong.
In Ukraine, Zelensky currently under pressure from the US, may even surrender to Russa’s occupation of the Donbas, but the Ukrainians just like the Palestinians will keep resisting their occupier and oppressor, in a million different ways, forever.

“…..Rulers and Defenders of Realms had need to be wary if they would guard against such processes. Life springs from death; and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations. The Defenders of this Realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! — they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace!

Martin Luther King, put it even simpler:
“The arc of history may be long, but it bends towards justice.”

The history of imperialism is soaked in blood, but is also a history of inevitable failure.

The Chinese will learn this lesson in Taiwan. The Americans will learn this lesson in Venezuela.

I wonder if New Zealanders will learn this lesson before then, and renounce all our military and political support for imperialism.
Who knows? It might become a trend.

“..the Irish punch well above their weight when it comes to doing the right thing in the political world..” Well it aint so if they’re welcoming the goblin – did he have his trademark green t shirt on for this occaision in the Emerald Isle? I’d be quoting this Irish Green mp if I was addressing the pos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugailEn8U5o

Any NZ male Green mps capable of that? Still we have plenty of whaka this and whaka that in the House.

Again, bless the Irish, even you, bless anybody when they get things right, in this fraught political world that we live in. In my limited experience, the Irish punch well above their weight when it comes to doing the right thing in the political world with Clare Daly and Mick Wallace being two fine examples of this in recent times.

The “Syrians” who you champion , now forming the new government are committing atrocities on religious minorities, The Druze, and Alawites.
“LATAKIA, Syria – The young man’s heart was sliced from his chest and placed on his body. His name was No. 56 on a handwritten list of 60 dead that included his cousins, neighbors and at least six children from their coastal Syrian village.”
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/syrian-forces-massacred-1500-alawites-chain-command-led-damascus-2025-06-30/
You’re so blinded by your ideological convictions you’re in danger of becoming a fascist

We Irish don’t need the sanctimonious half praise of pseudononymous Putin cocksuckers.

“Remember Russia was invited to Syria by the elected govt of Basha Al Assad….” Stephen Lennon

Yeah right.

Bashar Al Assad the Syrian dynastic dictator who was handed the presidency of Syria by his Dad ran elections which his Bath party won by an eye watering 95%
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/28/no-surprises-as-syrias-assad-re-elected-for-4th-term

Funny that, the dictator of Egypt Hosni Mubarak won the the Egyptian electiona by almost the same amount. 94% just before he was unceremoniously overthrown by the Egyptian people..
And Ben Ali, the dictator of Tunisia also won the elections by 94% just before he was overthrown by the Tunisians.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2004/10/25/tunisian-leader-wins-sham-election

Imagine taking the word of a nasty little fascist like