Some good news in Syria

In the early days of the Russo-Ukraine War, I admired the reports of Yaroslav Trofimov, who has now turned his attention to Syria. Russia's air force and above all its Wagner mercenaries went to war there nine years ago, supporting Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad against the Islamist rebels who were trying to oust him. Now the ancient city of Aleppo has fallen to the rebels in a very few days -- "a tectonic shift" in the words of Andrew Tabler of the Institute for Near East Policy.

You'll have to read the article if you hope to sort out the players, but as always the spider at the center of the web is Iran, which has been seriously weakened as a result of Israel's war against Hezbollah. And Turkey, which since 2022 has played such a slippery role in the Russo-Ukraine War, is now on the side of the angels. I hope that link to the Wall Street Journal works for you. If not, you'll just have to look for a copy of Saturday's paper, because I don't understand it well enough to summarize it here.