Formerly geared for the Mosul region offensive, American troops are moving west in Iraq:
The US-led coalition's newest outpost in the fight against the Islamic State group is in a dusty corner of western Iraq near the border with Syria. Here, several hundred American Marines operate close to the battlefront, a key factor in the recent series of swift victories against the extremists.
The Americans directed Iraqi troops in their victory last week recapturing the nearby border town of Qaim, the militants' last urban holding. Now the Marines will lead the equally difficult task of clearing the extremists from their last redoubt: a large stretch of empty desert north of the Euphrates River adjoining the border with Syria.
And there are rumors of a US-Russian deal in Syria.
Russia has no interest in Assad and Iran controlling eastern Syria and would probably like a deal that avoids the cost and risk of contending with American-backed Syrians out there. Why risk their western bases by trying to restore full Syria when the Assad's could collapse with the additional casualties?
And America has no apparent interest in overthrowing Assad, especially since we failed to try this when the odds were higher during the Obama administration pre-ISIL. Yet abandoning the Syrian Kurds and Syrian Arabs who fought with us would have bad effects in Iraq, I think.
Russia could bank on Assad surviving against remnant rebels; and America could hope that a non-Assad Syria will be a seed to topple Assad or at least block a Tehran-to-Beirut highway.
So it seems like America and Russia have a basis for a deal. Would Iran go along and would Assad be satisfied with surviving in core Syria to the west?
And are American forces in western Iraq part of enforcing a de facto partition of Syria?
