Saved this article the other day. It featured quotations from Tony Badran a claimed “Syria expert at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies” Headlined: "Why Russia, Assad, and Iran combined don't stand a chance against just 2,000 US troops in Syria"
- Two thousand or so US forces remain in control of Syria’s rich eastern oil fields.
- Iran, Syria’s government, and Russia openly oppose the US presence, but there’s not much they can do about it.
- An expert explains why it would be a losing battle to take on the US.
“I think the cruise-missile attack in April showed, and the ongoing Israeli incursions show, the Russian position and their systems are quite vulnerable,” said Badran, referring to the US’s April 2017 strike on a Syrian airfield.
Let's refer back to today's earlier post where the April 2017 strikes on the Syrian airfield were discussed : Russian Diplomat Calls on the US to Unconditionally Abandon Plans to Attack Damascus And it was reported that Russia had brought in some new equipment. Noticing that Tony Badran is glossing over the fact that many, many missiles missed their target last year.
Russia has just a few dozen jets in Syria, mostly suited for ground-attack roles with some air-supremacy fighters. The US has several large bases in the area from which it can launch a variety of strike and fighter aircraft, including the world’s greatest fighter jet, the F-22.Iran has a large inventory of rockets in and around Syria, according to Badran, but an Iranian rocket attack on US forces would be met by a much larger US retaliation.“It’s vulnerable,” Badran said of Iran’s military presence in Syria. “It’s exposed to direct US fire, just like it’s exposed to direct Israeli fire.”If Iran fired a single missile at US forces, “then the bases and depot and crew will be destroyed after that,” said Badran, who added that Iranian forces in Syria had poor supply lines that would make them ill-suited to fight the US, which has airpower and regional assets to move in virtually limitless supplies.
“Everybody poses this question as though the US is Luxembourg,” Badran said, comparing the US, which has the most powerful military in the world, to Luxembourg, which has a few hundred troops and only some diplomatic or economic leverage to play with while conducting foreign policy.For now, the US has announced its intentions to stay in Syria and sit on the oil fields as a way of denying the government the funds to reconstruct the country.
That is exactly what the US has/is doing:Link
Erection of a new military base for U.S. militaries and Washington’s partners is underway in Syrian Deir Ez-Zor governorate.The site is unlikely to be chosen accidentally, since the province is extremely rich in oil. The base is being built to the east from Mejadin city near the al-Omar, the largest oil field in Syria.To be reminded is that the U.S. has set up 25 military facilities in northwest Syria.