Like most Democrats, I reacted to the stunning 2016 election of Donald Trump with a combination of confusion and dread. After all, Hillary Clinton was the favorite and, to Democrats like me, a Trump victory seemed to portend certain economic disaster, nuclear war, and pretty much the end of America as we knew it.
But now nearly two years into his administration, Trump has presided over a “winning streak” that includes a booming economy and stock market, an unemployment level at a nearly 50-year low, two Supreme Court appointments, no new foreign wars or domestic terrorist attacks emanating from abroad, a significant degree of progress on trade relations with Canada and Mexico, a “needed reset” on the China relationship, and the prospect of peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Perhaps it is time that even his opponents reconsider Trump. Does Trump have a strategy that we can describe? Is Trump a return of Richard Nixon, of Ronald Reagan, or of something else entirely? After several months of watching the news without gaining any answers, I finally canceled my cable subscription and sought out other sources. I found some insights in unexpected places.
Trump’s presidency marks a return to realpolitik and great power politics.
Snip.
A third insight was from the unlikeliest place: the critically acclaimed animated show, “Rick and Morty.” During Trump’s campaign, his supporters frequently talked about how funny the candidate was. This humor was lost on most of my left-leaning peers. But “Rick and Morty” showed me what I have may been missing. Here is a popular TV show about a mad scientist Rick, an amoral, sociopathic man who considers himself the smartest man in the universe and tells dirty jokes in front of his grandson Morty. The slapstick, low-brow, and nihilistic insults and dirty humor of “Rick and Morty” — much like Trump — resemble some of the comedic greats from the decades prior to the 1990s: “The Honeymooners,” “Benny Hill,” “Abbott and Costello,” “The Three Stooges,” and “I Love Lucy.” These comedic devices can be traced back hundreds of years to Asian and European theater, which used slapstick, puns, insults, and innuendo.
Compare that oeuvre to the 1990s-2000s, during which comedy was more satirical, knowing, self-referential, meta, and smug. This idea is far from perfect, but examples of satire that use slapstick as well include “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report,” “South Park,” “Team America: World Police”, and Sacha Baron Cohen’s parodies. American society today seems to be witnessing a return of what columnist Noah Smith calls “goofy” humor and a decline of “knowingly sarcastic” humor. Even The New Yorker complained that the 2018 Emmys were too smug and later described Trump’s rallies unfavorably as a “vaudeville routine.” Perhaps our shift toward a reversion in history also means we are seeing a cultural reversion as well. Smugness has become politically tone deaf.
Snip.
The Trump Doctrine takes previous policy assumptions and turns them on their head. Trump’s “America First” approach is a reversion to the idea of realpolitik and great power competition. It is better suited to a moment in which American power is much less dominant. The president takes each state-to-state relationship on its own terms. That’s why he’s often antagonistic with allies and friendly with threatening dictators. The consequences of insulting friendly countries, such as Canada, might be hurt feelings in exchange for better trade terms, while souring relations with an antagonistic one, such as North Korea, could result in serious security threats. He pursues the optimal outcome in a utilitarian sense rather than follow previous rules about diplomatic etiquette. Trump keeps his enemies even closer than his friends, while previous presidents did the opposite. Niccolo Machiavelli might have been familiar with these tactics.
Trump’s diplomatic method can be reduced to the four “B’s”: bullying, bargaining, burden-sharing, and bragging. He starts an interaction by bullying the subject — usually on Twitter, seeks a chance to sit down with the target to bargain as hard as possible toward what Trump may see as a more reciprocal relationship of burden-sharing, and then finally brags about whatever the results are. Trump treats all relationships as transactional, deploying tit-for-tat tactics toward achieving his goal of “reciprocity.” His message is that he wants to make America great again but does not spend much time lecturing or moralizing to foreigners. Finally, his use of insults, jokes, and slapstick, physical humor creates an image of honesty and authenticity with his supporters. Overall, these techniques and worldviews are becoming increasingly common around the world, including with the leaders of countries as diverse as Turkey, the Philippines, Russia, Israel, Mexico — and potentially Brazil.
Trump described his realpolitik-with-no-sacred-cows approach during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September: “America’s policy of principled realism means we will not be held hostage to old dogmas, discredited ideologies, and so-called experts who have been proven wrong over the years, time and time again. This is true not only in matters of peace, but in matters of prosperity.”
Overall, Trump’s approach represents a reversion to a style of statecraft that flips previous approaches. Technocracy, meritocracy, and bureaucratic approaches are giving way to establishing top-level personal rapport, trust, and loyalty. Free trade ideology is giving way to trade as a means to enrichment. Building institutions gives way to questioning the utility of each institution. Moral diplomacy gives way to talking to anyone who will bargain. Careful speeches give way to saying anything that gets results. Saving sacred cows gives way to killing them or threatening to do so. Open markets give way to using U.S. markets, military, and migration as bargaining chips. Every relationship is subject to maximum leverage of what is possible.
West is nothing if not independent. He doesn’t need the approval of the Democratic establishment or the usual suspects among the liberal Hollywood elite. He is untethered from the traditional liberal gatekeepers in the same way Trump was untethered from the Republican establishment as a presidential candidate. There is a reason that the Democrats and their allies in the media insult, marginalize, ridicule and try to “Uncle Tom” West. It is obvious they are afraid of him and the discussion he might start.
“Beto O’Rourke Raised Record Breaking $38 Million in 3Q.” And he’s still losing. Just imagine if Democrats had used that money to protect endangered incumbent senators instead…
O’Rourke’s “extraordinary political success” is illusionary. His national popularity is contingent on aesthetics and mass of coverage. It is merely that Beto looks and acts like the type of guy producers at most cable news networks and talk shows think—or more precisely, wish—a senator would look and act like. Unlike, say, Cruz (nearly two years older than Beto), who is always blathering about the Constitution or whatnot.
It’s not as if O’Rourke is a special talent by any measure. His speeches and talking points are just as vacuous and predictable as those of any other middling politician. His positions on guns and abortion—and a multitude of other issues—are in lockstep with his party, not the state. O’Rourke has never offered any substantively impressive policy ideas. He’s not led on any notable issues in the House. He’s remarkably unremarkable.
The son of a onetime Republican county judge and a longtime furniture store owner, the Democratic congressman from El Paso married into the family of one of his hometown’s most prominent developers and has assembled real estate investments worth millions.
Congress is rife with rich people, but O’Rourke had a 2015 net worth of about $9 million, ranking 51st out of 435 House members, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. That’s more than double the $3.8 million worth of his Republican opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz, who ranked 41st of 100 senators.
Think Progress alum thinly disguised as a journalist does 50 Shades of Beto. Ick.
The hits keep coming:
The lies flow easily from 'Beto':
Beto O'Rourke's Mother, Who He Says Is A 'Lifelong Republican,' Donated To Obama, Voted In 15 Of 17 Democratic Primaries https://t.co/I5QC9SEjlF
The Russian government kills journalists, among others. I do not recall the Washington Post protesting on this basis the Obama administration’s “reset” of relations with Putin’s government or Obama’s promise to be more “flexible” with Russia after his reelection. Nor, as far as I remember, did the Post cite Russia’s murderous ways as a reason not to farm out to Putin enforcement of the “red line” against the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Cuba’s treatment of journalists and others has been atrocious. Yet, the mainstream media supported the Obama administration when it radically reset U.S. relations with Cuba without insisting on any change in the regime’s treatment of dissidents.
What are the differences between Russia/Cuba and Saudi Arabia? I see two. First, Russia and Cuba are adversaries of America. Saudi Arabia is an ally.
For the sane, this difference would, if anything, cut in favor of the Saudis. For the left, it cuts against them.
Second, the Trump administration has very visibly allied itself with Saudi Arabia as a means of countering Iran and achieving other American objectives in the Middle East. Thus, the Khashoggi slaying provides the mainstream media with the opportunity to do what it does best — hammer President Trump.
In my view, the Khashoggi slaying should not cause America substantially to alter its foreign policy. Our relatively close relationship with Saudi Arabia is predicated, as it should be, on mutual interests and mutual adversaries. Either the geo-political predicate justifies the relationship or it doesn’t.
1. Vilification (Alt-right, racist…) 2. Guilt by association ("Did the *Koch brothers* fund this?") 3. Misrepresentation ("So basically, you think trans ppl should just *die*…") 4. Reduction to privilege anxiety ("White fragility!") https://t.co/tOPJGl0zWp
Florida man does it again. Not only is he a registered sex offender who hired a federal informant for a mad-bombing spree aimed at target stores, he did it all for…making money off shorting the stock?
The outcome of the investment of the Hajin pocket seemed perfectly clear: As in Raqqa and Mosul, U.S. backed forced would slowly but surely reduce the pocket in grinding urban warfare until all of its Islamic State defenders were dead or captured.
War has a way of throwing wrenches into the gears of things that seem perfectly clear.
Every black rifle below represents an Islamic State counterattack:
At least some of those positions the Islamic State took seem to have been retaken, but the situation right now is unclear and fluid.
Jerry Pournelle used to say “In war, everything is very simple, but simple things are very difficult.” The Islamic State may be all-but-dead as a territory-holding entity, but it’s not dead dead yet..
Iran has issued a number of threats on Friday following official charges made by leaders in Tehran that Saudi Arabia and the UAE funded a terrorist attack on a military parade in a southwest district last Saturday which killed 25 people, including members of the elite Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).
Iranian military officials declared “red lines” against the two Gulf countries, threatening war, while in a separate statement a senior cleric said US regional bases will not be safe if “America does anything wrong”.
“If America does anything wrong, their bases around Iran would not remain secure,” Ayatollah Mohammadali Movahedi Kermani was quoted as saying by Mizan news agency while leading Friday prayers in Tehran.
And simultaneously the Fars news agency quoted Brigadier General Hossein Salami, deputy head of the IRGC, as saying in reference to the Saudis and Emirates: “If you cross our red lines, we will surely cross yours. You know the storm the Iranian nation can create.”
I would just like to point out to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran that, historically, attacking American military installations has not been a source of continued happiness for the attackers.
Many economics experts believe that Iran is entrenched in a financial death spiral. Officials within the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) claim that the gravity of economic crisis in Iran is overstated. Furthermore, Islamist regime-sponsored lobby factions in the United States (US), such as the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), argue that fiscal predicaments that the country is facing are consequences of malign US policies toward the Iranian regime, including the enforcement of crippling economic sanctions. The truth is, precarious economic circumstances in Iran have been primarily – if not exclusively – triggered by a plethora of iniquitous economic policies adopted by the regime…
The conversion rate of Iranian Rial (IRR) to foreign currencies is one of the most important tools by which the country’s economic well-being can be gauged. IRR has lost its value by nearly 70% since April 2018, a month before US President Donald J. Trump reimposed sanctions on the Iranian regime over its rogue nuclear activities.
Continued protests in Iran include a truckers strike. “Hundreds of gas stations and many factories throughout the country are closed as gas and materials for production have no longer been transported by the truckers.”
There are multiple problems reporting on the ongoing war against the Islamic State. First, the mainstream media hates reporting on any success that might give credit to President Donald Trump. Second, related to the first, none of the national media even seem to have reporters “in theater” where the Syrian Democratic Forces are slowly crushing the life out of the remnants of the Islamic State, and even the international press seems to have curtailed their coverage in the last few months. Third, everything seems to have three or four different names (Baghuz vs. al-Baghuz vs. al-Baghuz Fawqani, etc.), depending on the Arabic transliteration method used. Fourth, the war has reached the stage of “SDF has taken [village you’ve never heard of] from the Islamic State, has met stiff resistance in [another village you’ve never heard of], while also moving into [still a third village you’ve never heard of].”
As of now, the SDF has taken al-Baghuz Fawqani, has met stiff resistance in Marashidah, and moved into the town of Sosah. Those lie (respectively) south-to-north in the Haijin pocket along the Euphrates just north of the Syrian-Iraqi border, in Deir ez-Zor province.
Here’s an SDF video on the investment of Sosah, AKA Sousse, which shows footage of the SDF combat bulldozers that have evidently played a key roll in the fight.
More video showing the liberation of Al-Shajla, a small village between Baghuz and Sosah:
The general plan seems to be to roll up the pocket south-to north supported by coalition artillery and air support.
Earlier combat footage:
Expect more grinding combat in tiny villages you never heard of as the last Islamic State pocket in Syria is slowly, methodically destroyed.
I usually catalog these over on my other blog, but given the subject matter I’ll do the initial cataloging here. Both are books I’m interested in the subject matter, but I was also interested in picking up both to fight efforts to “deplatform” the respective authors.
Fawstin, Bosch. My Mohammed Cartoons Vol. 1. Oink Comics, 2018. First edition trade paperback original, a Fine copy, signed by Fawstin on the cover. Mohammed cartoons by the winner of the Draw Mohammed Contest in Garland. Evidently I got one of the last copies.
Spencer, Robert. The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS. Bombardier Books, 2018. Presumed first edition hardback (no additional printings listed), a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket.
A top commander for the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) was reportedly killed in a French military operation in northern Mali over the weekend.
The French military announced today that its forces carried out airstrikes and a ground operation yesterday in Mali’s northern Menaka region. The airstrikes reportedly killed Mohamed Ag Almouner, identified as a top commander for ISGS, as well as one of his bodyguards. In a move of transparency, the French also took responsibility for killing two civilians and wounding two others and expressed their “regret and condolences to the families and loved ones of the two victims.”
In May of this year, the US military identified an ISGS commander known as “Tinka Ag Almouner” as being involved in the deadly Oct. 2017 ambush in Tongo Tongo, Niger, in which four American Special Forces soldiers were killed. That Almouner was reported killed in the ensuing firefight during the ambush, however, FDD’s Long War Journal cannot independently verify the identity of the French target.
France has taken part in several operations against the jihadist group in the Menaka region, however, Almouner would be one of the highest level ISGS commanders reported killed by the French.
France’s statement did not disclose a specific location, but local sources reported the operation took place near Infoukaretane. That locality, which is south of the town of Menaka, has seen several clashes between pro-government forces and ISGS and is at the center of operations against the jihadist group and its supporters.
Two pro-Malian Tuareg militias, the Imghad and Allies Self Defense Movement (GATIA) and the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MSA), have launched numerous military operations against ISGS in the Menaka region since February. According to the militias, dozens of ISGS members have been killed or detained, including another high-ranking jihadist commander identified as Djibo Hamma.
You may remember cartoonist Bosch Fawstin, the winner of the Everybody Draw Mohammed Contest in Garland that two Islamic State jihadis tried to attack at the cost of their lives.
— USA!USA!USA!.357 (@SonofLiberty357) May 11, 2015
Well, it seems that Twitter has suspended his account. I’ve written him to see if they gave any reason but I haven’t heard back yet. Some suggested it might be his participation in the (now cancelled) Dutch Draw Muhammed contest:
Twitter and Instagram both BANNED Bosch for his participation in the (now-cancelled) Draw Muhammad contest that was to be held in Dutch Parliament later this year. FACEBOOK appears to be suspending him back-to-back-to-back for posting screenshots of the death threats he's gotten
After months of preparation, and while the world’s attention (such little of it that can still be focused on Syria) focused on Idlib in NW Syria, Syria Democratic Forces finally launched their much anticipated final push against the Islamic State’s Hajin pocket in SE Syria.
The final phase of the assault to capture the remaining Islamic State-held territory in eastern Syria has begun, according to the U.S.-led Coalition and Syrian Democratic Forces, its main partner on the ground in Deir Ezzor.
“The last phase of Operation Roundup kicks off soon with the Syrian Democratic Forces leading the way in the Lower Euphrates River Valley to destroy the final remnants of ISIS,” Colonel Sean Ryan, spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve, told The Defense Post on Monday, September 10.
“The Iraqi Security Forces have supported the SDF’s maneuver by establishing blocking positions along the southeast portion of the Iraqi-Syrian border and conducting precision strikes against ISIS targets.”
An SDF source told The Defense Post that an official announcement was imminent.
Earlier, AFP reported that the Coalition-backed Syrian Democratic Forces launched a fierce assault against the pocket of territory held by ISIS around Hajin in eastern Deir Ezzor province, citing an SDF commander.
An SDF commander said the assault, relying heavily on artillery and U.S.-led Coalition air strikes, had killed at least 15 ISIS fighters.
“Our forces today began attacking the last bastions of Daesh in Hajin, with intense artillery and air support,” said the SDF commander.
he US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured 27 positions around the villages of al-Baghuz Fawqani and al-Kasrah, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, during the last 48 hours, the SDF’s media center reported on September 12.
According to the media center, US-backed forces killed 41 ISIS fighters and destroyed several artillery pieces and bulldozers. Furthermore, US-led coalition warplanes conducted 10 airstrikes on positions of the terrorist group in al-Baghuz Fawqani and al-Kasrah.
#Hajin#Syria: Fight to Retake Last ISIS Territory Begins: One senior SDF official estimates the battle will last two to three months https://t.co/18FRGITTIy
Hopefully this will be the final push to eliminate the last Islamic State-held Syrian territory east of the Euphrates, though there have been previous operations that looked to do exactly that. The biggest difference is that the SDF has now cleared the big remaining Islamic State pocket along the Iraq/Syria border. That means that all their forces in theater (as well as coalition aircraft and Iraqi artillery) can concentrate on eliminating the Hajin pocket. Despite all that concentrated firepower, expect urban warfare to be as grinding and bloody as it was in Raqqa and Mosul, albeit it in a much smaller area…
Themes for today’s LinkSwarm: Jihad, rape and China. Not necessarily in that order…
So let me see if I have this story straight: New Mexico jihadis, one related to a New York City imam who might have been involved in 9/11, murdered three children, abused and starved 11 other children while teaching them to be school shooters, and the judge let them out on bail?
A New Mexico state judge ruled Monday that five alleged Muslim extremists accused of training children to conduct school shootings do not have to remain in jail while they await trial for child abuse.
Judge Sarah Backus released the five defendants, Siraj Wahhaj, Hujrah Wahhaj, Subhannah Wahhaj, Jany Leveille, and Lucas Morten, on a $20,000 “signature bond,” according to the Albuquerque Journal. That means that the defendants will not have to pay money unless they violate the conditions of their release
It’s a good thing there’s not a huge foreign nation immediately to the south with a porous border they can flee to…
If China really had a savings rate of 46%, the economy would look quite different. There would be very little debt in the system; the banks would have a very low loans to deposits ratio and low leverage, like banks in nineteenth century Britain. Consumer debt would be almost non-existent, while the Chinese market would have an enormous variety of saving and investment schemes, to take care of all the accumulated wealth. New company formation would be very high, but “venture capital” would be very scarce, because new companies would be capitalized from the savings of the founders’ relatives and friends. Overall, China might well have a rapid growth rate, but it would be a very contented, stable economy.
A recent Financial Times examination of China’s economy illustrates the problem; it shows consumer debt almost doubling as a share of GDP, from roughly 20% to 40% in the last five years and tells pathetic stories of young, highly educated Chinese who max out their credit cards, desperately hoping to boost their earnings sufficiently to pay that debt back. But Chinese elite youths brought up in a society with a 46% savings rate would have neither the desire nor the need for heavy credit card usage. First, they would have been brought up in families with a fanatical devotion to deferring consumption, so would regard the over-indebted Western Millennial lifestyle with undiluted horror. Second, because of their families’ savings habits, such elite youths would be beneficiaries of very substantial trust funds from their relatives, and so would have no need of credit cards.
If the savings rate is fiction, then so are all China’s economic statistics. GDP is at least one third lower than claimed, to account for the missing savings, and growth rates over the last decades correspondingly lower, On the other hand, China’s foreign debt is all too real, and most of the domestic debt also appears to be solid, so China’ s gross debt, already alarmingly high at 299% of GDP according to the Institute for International Finance, is in reality about 450% of true GDP, substantially higher than that of any other country. With such a level of debt, China is not about to overtake the West, it is in imminent danger of collapse. Indeed, it is at first sight something of a mystery why it has not collapsed already under the weight of its excesses.
Also: “China Buckles, Sends Trade Delegation to Washington to Seek End of Trade War.” Maybe, just maybe, President Donald Trump knows a thing or two about negotiating strategy…
“Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own.” That quote comes from an American bicycling across several foreign countries, including one where Islamic State followers killed him, his wife, and two fellow-travelers thanks to their “different perspectives.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Google has released a report on the paid ads they’ve run on political campaigns. It’s not completely useless, but then you drill down to congressional district, it only shows you total spending, not how much was spent by each campaign, much less links to the relevant ads.
A theme that keeps recurring in histories of the worst abusers is that they were trained in seminaries that were run by homosexual men and saturated with gay-liberationist subculture. Reading accounts of students at one notorious California seminary making a Friday-night ritual of cruising gay bars, it becomes hard not to wonder if gay culture itself has not been an important enabler of priestly abuse.
Ace of Spades is surprised to find Disney holding firm on it’s firing of James “I Make Pedophile Jokes” Gunn. Also, in the course of slamming (perhaps a littler too strenuously) Trump-skeptical establishment conservatives on their hypocrisy on the issue (RE: Roseanne), he does nicely articulate the logic of taking’s the Guardians of the Galaxy director’s scalp, even if Gunn was only joking:
I will not be subject to one of your rules and yet permit you to be free of your own rule. If it’s your rule, you shall suffer under it just the same as me.
We do not (yet) have a formal caste system in America, despite the obvious longing from the left and the NeverTrump rump to establish over-castes and under-castes.
And it’s MUH #SacredPrinciple that we shall not have a tiered system of citizenship that the leftwing establishment as well as the “right”-leaning establishment so clearly crave.
And I’ll sacrifice anyone to make sure that they do not put me in their designated under-caste.
Trump may be both more relentless and obnoxious than his predecessors, but cries of “Fake News!” from the Oval Office are old hat. Presidents always blame the messenger. Even Barack Obama, the object of so much media fawning, groused about distorted coverage.
This time, though, we are taking it personally. Striking at the bait Trump dangles. Joining the war he’s declared. Allowing him to goad us into abandoning the fundamental principles of our profession.
Donald Trump is not responsible for the eroding trust in the media. He lacks the credibility to pull that off. The damage to our standing is self-inflicted.
The independent press was built on a foundation of objectivity. Through a tradition of conscientious commitment to telling all sides of a story we convinced our readers, listeners, viewers that we were the source of fair and balanced coverage. We were equal opportunity scourges of scoundrels on both sides of the political aisle.
Now, too many of us are following the websites, cable networks and blogosphere into point-of-view journalism that presents the news with equal parts fact and opinion. We’ve infused our reports with commentary and call it context.
Journalists once kept their personal views personal, lest anyone challenge the motives behind their reporting. Now reporters post their opinions on Facebook and Twitter. They sob in newsrooms over the results of an election. News meetings and editorial boards are often indistinguishable.
Respected journalists openly question whether remaining objective in the Donald Trump era is a sell-out rather than a virtue. Some have joined the resistance movement, blending journalism with activism.
No one in our profession can say with a straight face that we cover Donald Trump the same way we have past presidents. We are not only giving him more scrutiny — rightly so — but we are making more mistakes in our haste to discredit him. Our accuracy ratings have fallen as we turn to poorly vetted anonymous sources and repeat every rumor that fits the narrative that Trump is a disaster.
Yes, Trump is an extraordinary case. Chaos is the hallmark of his governing style. His personal conduct falls well short of presidential. But his administration has had successes, and the press is not as eager to cover those as it is his failures.
Journalism seems to have turned a corner in search of some higher purpose beyond simply digging out the truth, presenting it to our readers and letting them decide what to do with it.
Nothing about Donald Trump justifies tossing aside the standards that have allowed journalists to remain the trusted eyes and ears of the people.
MoviePass is getting ready to bite the moose. I can imagine a way you could make this thing work out: Make deals with large theater chains, exclude the first week of all movies, and the first few weeks for blockbusters, and make a deal to buy tickets at a steep discount to put butts in seats so theater owners can make more money off concessions. All things that MoviePass evidently never attempted…
The great plastic gun panic…of 1986. I think we can all remember how the widespread availability of the Glock resulted in the downfall of America…
The Syrian regime’s army and its allies have taken full control of the Yarmouk Basin in southwestern Syria after routing Daesh, the Hezbollah group’s Al Manar TV said on Tuesday.
The basin borders Israel and Jordan and had been the last embattled pocket of the southwest after a sustained advance by President Bashar Al Assad’s forces into the longtime rebel stronghold.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah has fought alongside Al Assad’s forces as he has turned the tide of the civil war against rebels and militants with the help of Russian air power since 2015.
The regime’s army seized Daesh’s main redoubt in the town of Shajara on Monday, which left just a few villages in the hands of an Daesh-affiliated faction, the Khalid Ibn Al Walid army, that had controlled the Yarmouk Basin.
