Sam Heller

Gosh, thanks I'd never thought of that.

1-Hi gents. Interesting back and forth. I think you're right to focus on Abu Dhabi here. It's investing in US Zone in N/E Syria too, and is engaged in SW as well. Everywhere except Turkey zone it seems. Abu Dhabi has been getting back in Syria business. @joshua_landis @hxhassan

2-Seems like this is Abu Dhabi trying for leverage throughout Syria to squeeze Turkey/Qatar/Iran, and could mean Abu Dhabi sees a growth opportunity to spread influence and tweak Turkey/Qatar/Iran in strategic Syria. But I don't see it yet as a "win," yet, for Assad.

Good points. Agreement or disagreement aside, this approach makes perfect sense for Abu Dhabi, which unlike others has been largely consistent on reversal of what it views as wrong policies taken in the past re Syria. Or even then. 1/2

I personally think that if a power's objective in Syria is merely to weaken Iran there, then actively strengthening (not just not-weakening) Damascus would be the only logical conclusion. It's a strange concept to me. Half-measures, the current policy, only make matters worse 2/2

(The concept of framing the goal as weakening Iran, while not challenging Assad but also not strengthening him). In this sense, the UAE approach (actively normalising ties with Assad with the determination to weaken his enemies & his allies' grip over SYR) is better than the US's

All good points @hxhassan, there’s undoubtedly a UAE-unique logic here.. but it also assumes #Assad would prefer to re-engage his enemies than sustain relationships with his never-bending allies, #Iran chief among them. I’m far from convinced #Assad will do such a 180.

Yes, the formula was tested before 2011. So it should begin by revisiting that period and see why it failed, or whether the new reality makes it less or more likely.

At literally every single point of this war, your opinion has been that the West has to accept and work with a dictator running death camps that uses nerve agents to murder children. You actually get paid to continually spout this offensive in humane garbage.

I’m sorry I really don’t understand how you are continually cited by people when your solution to Idlib was the forced displacement of millions of Syrians into Turkey. You literally went around the country asking why people weren’t getting prepped for ethnic cleansing.

Here is the original post about this by @EHSANI22 - @AbuJamajem Worth reading.https://twitter.com/EHSANI22/status/1060193577861595136 …

How can someone be this stupid. He’s not even stupid, he knows what he’s doing.

The result of "co-investing in Damascus", whatever that means, might be a larger number of partners that the Syrian government can play off against each other, but that doesn't mean that Syria will become less dependent in any way.