The Syrian Arab Army has achieved quite a lot in fighting against the ISIS in Deir Ezzor, as vast territories near the city are liberated. Crossing the Euphrates, the Army also eliminated and destroyed a lot of terrorists and vehicles.
Meanwhile, an offensive towards Deir Ezzor has been carried out by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) aided by the International Coalition. The Kurds have captured a number of villages to the northeast of the city and are approaching the Euphrates.
In fact, the ‘de facto’ SDF stalled the siege of Raqqa and moved the troops to the south for this purpose. On September 15, Bloomberg (in an article) compared the current situation in Syria to the one at the end of WWII when the Soviet Army and Allied forces were pushing to Berlin to control as many territories as possible for the post-war division of Germany.

Indeed, despite the difference of the scales and the official statements that the US-led coalition only aims at fighting terrorism, Syria witnesses similar processes. The Raqqa offensive, however, proves another thing: Washington seeks clearing as much area as possible from the ISIS before it’s done by the government troops.
After the ISIS is defeated and the war ends, the areas of influence shall become one of the main factors at the negotiations on post-war Syria. Besides, a key part belongs to the media, as the first one to clear the country of the ISIS will have a possibility to increase their popularity. Thus, making use of propaganda in the US media, President Donald Trump may declare himself “a modern crusader” and improve his extremely low rating.

Long ago, the Syrian war transformed from an ordinary local conflict to a crisis influencing the political agenda all over the world. Europe is overcrowded with Syrian refugees, Israel fears Syria’s ally Iran and shells the SAR (Special Administrative Regions) territory, and Turkey is up to deter the formation of an autonomous Kurdish region by the Syrian-Turkish border and is building up its presence there. All these parties are attempting to affect the Syrian conflict.
But now, the main rivalry is between Syria’s legal government and Washington, which invaded the West Asian country seeking its own interests. Damascus is in the lead and the only thing the White House can do is to chase it, redeploying the Kurds from one location to another.

Boundless Ocean of Politics has received this article from Mehmet Ersoy of Inside Syria Media Centre.

Mehmet Ersoy

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das