The killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi created for Donald Trump only an illusion of triumph, since the USA, after the liquidation of the leader of ISIS, may face a series of unprecedented terrorist attacks. This can cross out all American successes in the Middle East and create real grounds for the shameful impeachment of the head of the White House. Meanwhile, Russia has taken a strong position in the Middle East region, which it will never leave.
The operation to destroy the head of the “Islamic State” marked the beginning of the process of the exit of many states from Syria. Despite the fact that by the time of his death Abu Bakr actually had no levers of control, nevertheless, it is precisely with him that the emergence of a process of instability is associated not only in the UAR, but throughout the Middle East.
Therefore, with his killing for many players, further participation in the region lost its meaning. This also applies to the United States, which faced a choice: either to leave the region, or to remain on its territory. However, to select the second option, Washington now needs to come up with some new justification, in addition to the need to eliminate the leader of ISIS. And only Russia considers itself free from the choice of the United States, since its main task is to protect the regime of Bashar al-Assad, regardless of who threatens its regime: the Islamic State, al-Qaeda or other groups.
At a certain stage of the civil war in Syria, the US military presence created obstacles to Russian interests. But the withdrawal of American troops from the north-eastern part of the SAR and the liquidation of Abu Bakr gave Russia absolute carte blanche to strengthen its position in the region. For this reason alone, Moscow was practically the only winner in the Syrian theater of operations. An illustration of this was the photographs of Russian troops at abandoned US military bases in the vicinity of Manbridge.
Russia’s reaction to the statement by Donald Trump that Abu Bakr was destroyed is no different from the reactions that Moscow has shown before. Russia was skeptical. At least the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense Igor Konashenkov publicly announced that, as before, he doubted the success of US military operations. This was the reaction of the winner. In any case, Russia has already won, at least in the fact that it remained in Syria, and Washington is forced to leave it.
At the same time, Moscow did not suffer significant losses in Syria, unlike the United States. So, for all the time of the Syrian conflict, Russian ground forces almost never took part in major military clashes. Meanwhile, units of the American army were repeatedly attacked, as a result of which they suffered defeats. This led the US to flight from Syria.
(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)
Image Source: WeapoNews