Cartalucci assesses how the Empire's "Plan B" (Plan A was regime change) which he refers to as "safe zones" is currently working to balkanize Syria, and finds that it has diminishing chances of success in the long term.
...with Syrian forces on the east bank of the Euphrates, the Syrian government maintains an even greater presence within and along the edges of this tenuous “safe zone.”
Today – just as US policymakers had planned the US and its proxies would do in 2012 – Syrian forces can at any time during this current conflict or after it – expand incrementally into America’s “safe-zone.” The crossing of the Euphrates and the increasingly exhausted political legs the United States stands on regarding its military aggression in Syria, combined with Russia’s direct military intervention upon Damascus’ request – have severely complicated this “safe zone” policy.
It is no longer a matter of “Assad” being “foolish enough to challenge these zones,” they are being challenged, regularly, and by Syrian forces backed by Russian airpower, which is in turn backed by a nuclear deterrence preventing the sort of escalation against Damascus US policymakers envisioned before the Russian intervention.
