I did not see the low motivation of SAA.
On my defense, I warned of Turkey backstabbing with rebels since Oct, 8 2023 multiple multiple times.
It doesn’t matter what Turkey did. 30-50K capture cannot capture and hold a country the size of Syria against a force of 200K + Russian and Syrian airforce + Iranian backed groups + NDF. Simply impossible. The SDF had little expansion desires and were neutral at worst. The FSA was dead. So you had HTS + SNA to truly “battle”.
Russia can barely reinforce the Ukraine front with 150,000 troops and include normal rotations is really a pool of 500,000+ troops yet you expect Rebels to be able to capture and hold all of Syria?
Impossible.
The goal of rebels was merely to capture M5 highway. But the problems with Sunnis are they backstab each other routinely and defect like crazy. Why do you think Israel never lost a war against them? Someone always backstabbed or betrayed. That’s the problem with tribalism, there is no loyalty to country.
Arab nationalism died in the 70’s. It’s been replaced with tribalism and religious sect (secondary).
Now there is blame to be laid on Assad in that he violated the most sacred rule: take care of your army. He didn’t modernize, he didn’t rebuild, he didn’t re-arm. By the time they raised salaries by 50% it was too little too late. It’s hard for soldiers to stay motivated when they are starving. Starving soldiers leads to corruption in ranks and easier to sway by foreign powers especially when the war was supposedly to be “over”, but conditions stayed the same.
Look at Russia, the #1 paying salary in Russia public right now is a conscript soldier. If Putin was forcing these guys to fight by paying them breadcrumbs, this war would have ended along time ago.
Assad lost a Cold War basically, his “mini state” collapsed first. He bet on the wrong horse which was that Iran and Russia could keep Syria alive, they can’t, they can barely keep themselves alive right now.
Not wise to stand against the Western Empire with its tentacles of Zionism and Ottamanism unless you have a huge financial backer (like China) that can stomach the national building process or a coalition of rich countries (the Arab monarchs with unlimited pockets).
Anyway Given your history of predictions (Russia, Syria) please don’t make any predictions about Iran or else the “Shawnee curse” will continue Brother.