Today (7/10/15) Syrian government and Russian forces launched a combined ground and air operation along the front-line between Latakia and Homs provinces.
As I've said before it is not my place to explain the tactics of those fighting them to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Hopefully that is something ISIL will only discover when it is already too late. However I am OK to discuss things in more general terms.
When the US-led operations in Syria began some 14 months ago ISIL were limited to roughly the north-east of Syria around the Euphrates River. Although there was some fighting in the north-western Aleppo province and in small pockets around the capital Damascus the Syrian government held the upper-hand keeping ISIL controlled in that area.
In fact a large part of the reason why ISIL attacked into Iraq was to capture money, weapons and other equipment to prevent them being wiped out by the Syrian government.
Therefore while the US wasn't prepared to work with the Syrian government directly it did have the option of using Syrian government forces as a sort of anvil that ISIL could be hammered against as it was being driven out of Iraq.
The mistake that US President Obama made was to confuse ISIL with an ally that could be used to put pressure on Iraq's neighbour Iran during the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. The fact that he decided to impose those sanctions on Iran in the first place was a complete schoolboy error on Obama's point but that's really an issue for another day.
As a result rather then working with the Iraqis to push ISIL back into Syria Obama tried to protect ISIL in Iraq in the hope of creating massive instability along Iraq's 1,500km (900 mile) border with Iran.
After more then a year of the US operations in Iraq ISIL have only been dislodged from around 25% of the territory they hold. I cannot think of a single operation to make this progress that was not blocked or disrupted by the US in some way
For example in February 2015 the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga were putting pressure on the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - to help them liberate Mosul which is ISIL's de facto capital in Iraq. The US responded to this by publicly releasing all the plans the Mosul operation.
With ISIL being told exactly what to expect by the US the ISF and the Peshmerga had to shelve the operation or face being cut to bits by a well prepared opponent.
In March 2015 the ISF launched an operation to liberate Tikrit from ISIL. The US - not the entire CJTFOIR coalition - not only refused to participate in this operation but actively briefed against it labelling it some sort of Iranian conspiracy to take to control of Iraq.
While this was going on the US has been demanding that Iraq sets up a regional National Guard force. This seems intended to maximise the divisions between Iraq's majority Shia-Arab population, the Sunni-Arab population centred around Anbar province and the Kurds in the north who are a mix of Shia, Sunnis, Christians and Yezidi.
These increased tensions prompted the ISF to launch a perhaps overly ambitious operation to liberate all of Anbar province before the Tikrit operation had been fully completed. On this occasion rather then giving the ISF the benefit of it's experience and working to defuse tensions the US encouraged the ISF to press ahead.
Now that operation has stalled the US is trying to dump all the blame on the Iraqis and use it as a further excuse why the ISF can't conduct any other anti-ISIL operations.
At the same time in Syria the US has been constantly refusing to work with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who have proved themselves to be a very effective anti-ISIL force.
Instead the US has been conducting it's "Train & Equip" program providing training and equipment including weapons to what it terms "Moderate Sunni-Arab Forces."
On it's own the US Train & Equip program has been a joke. Over the course of a year it has only managed to train around 150 fighters who have all either immediately been killed or defected.
However the US program has allowed Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar - ISIL's main backers - to run their own program which has trained, equipped and deployed a much larger number of fighters to Syria.
These fighters have joined up with existing Sunni-Arab groups such as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham) and Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF). Together these groups have formed the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF).
Despite all the foreign support JAF have shown absolutely no interest in fighting ISIL. In fact in places like Palmyra, Marea and the Yarmouk refugee camp close to Damascus JAF have openly collaborated with ISIL.
JAF's main aim has been to attack Syrian government forces in Aleppo, Idlib and Homs provinces with a view to over-running Latakia province where the roughly 75% of Syria's population that support the Syrian government live.
So after 14 and a half months of the US supposedly fighting ISIL the groups effective control of Syria has massively increased.
What Russia is aiming to do is - starting from the front-line at Latakia - push JAF and ISIL back into the positions there were all those months ago.
In short Russia is moving the conflict back to it's starting positions and giving Obama a do-over in the hope he won't make the same mistakes again.
However Obama will really need to pick up the pace because the Iraqis are now really frustrated with his nonsense. They've already started asking the Russia for it's support. If the US doesn't sort itself out there's only so long Russia can refuse that request and in the process bring to an end the US' relationship with Iraq.
As part of it's continuing operations in Syria Russia today also launched 26 Kalibr-Nk missiles on 11 targets in Syria from ships in the Caspian sea some 1,500km (900 miles) away. I have to say that I really see this as a non-issue.
Remarkably similar to the US Cruise missile the Kalibr-Nk is a very accurate missile system that can be guided by Radar, GPS or laser to deliver a large warhead to a target over great distances. Therefore if you are trying to destroy a training camp or weapons store in the desert - or even within a built-up area - this type of missile is the safest way to do it.
This is something US Bill Clinton did in Iraq in 1993 and again in 1998 in Afghanistan and Sudan in response the the Al Qaeda bombings of US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Following the September 11th 2001 (11/9/01) terror attacks the main criticism of Clinton's Afghan and Sudan strikes - Operation Infinite Reach - is that he didn't go far enough.
Following the September 11th attacks the US of course invaded Iraq in 2003. On the first day of that operation alone the US fired 544 Cruise missiles against targets in Iraq.
Therefore the fact that people are surprised that Russia has been using Cruise-type missiles only really highlights just how little effort CJTFOIR have been putting into defeating ISIL.
The Russian missiles were fired from the Caspian Sea because it's just easier for the ships to be re-supplied for their base in Astrakhan some 1000km (600 miles) away rather then sailing all the way across the Black Sea into the Mediterranean Sea.
Plus does anyone seriously think that US President Obama has the chops to tell Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan "No" should Erdogan close the Bosporus Strait or otherwise interfere with Russian shipping and effort to stop the strikes against ISIL.
Also in response to today's combined Syrian and Russian operations some people have expressed surprise at a new alliance forming between Russia, Syria and Iran. That's just ridiculous because Russia, Syria and Iran have been allies since the Iranian revolution in 1979. The relationship between Russia and Syria goes back even further.
In fact it is this alliance which is why the Neo-Conservatives in the big bad CIA started trying to overthrow the Syrian government in the first place. It is simply an extension of the 2003 invasion of Iraq which was intended to put a barrier in the form of Iraq between Iran and Syria.
That obviously failed so next the Neo-Cons tried overthrowing the Iranian government with the 2009 "Green Revolution." When that failed they simply moved on to trying to overthrow the Syrian government.
20:20 on 7/10/15 (UK date).
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