(Washington Post) Charles Krauthammer - On Wednesday, Qusayr fell to the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. Qusayr is a strategic town that connects Damascus with Assad's Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean, with its ports and Russian naval base. It's a major strategic shift. Assad's forces can now advance on rebel-dominated areas in central and northern Syria, including Aleppo. This is a huge victory not just for Tehran but also for Moscow, which sustains Assad in power and prizes its warm-water port at Tartus, Russia's only military base outside of the former Soviet Union. The losers? NATO-member Turkey, the major supporter of the rebels; Jordan, America's closest Arab ally, now drowning in half a million Syrian refugees; and America's Gulf allies, principal weapons suppliers to the rebels.
2013-06-07 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive