Do read it all. I'd like to comment just on this aspect of Syria:
At the end of 2017 many Iranians took to the streets to demand a withdrawal from Syria and using the billions saved to fix the crippled Iranian economy. It Iran withdraws from Syria Russia is too broke to pick up the slack and the Turks are only interested in the Kurds and don’t really care if the Assads stay or go. So the Syrian rebellion is not over yet and may not end in 2018 either.
I've been saying that Assad is winning; but that the multi-war is not over. Yet since the American-led campaign to defeat the ISIL caliphate in Syria without supporting a viable rebel force to replace that anti-Assad group, Assad could only lose the war with a major upset of the players.
One such event could be unrest in Iran that forces Iran to pull back their troops and money from Syria. Without that Iranian support that neither Russia nor Turkey will provide, Assad could still lose the war. How much more can Assad's supporters endure after seeming to finally be in sight of victory?
I've also wondered if Assad can win the peace given the fracturing of his state apparatus in the process of winning the war. Even Assad's supporters in peace might wonder about the price they paid to keep him in power.
UPDATE: Is that unrest in Iran growing enough to affect Iran's Syria expedition?
The December 2017, nationwide protests that surprised and rattled Iran's clerical dictatorship never quite subsided. Demonstrations occurred in January 2018, then again in April.
Since mid-May, publicly expressed anger in Iran's would-be global revolutionary state has intensified to the point that regime internal security units have fired on demonstrators.
Iran has problems. Iranians are increasingly blaming their mullah government for the problems.
