Trump Is on a Collision Course With Iran

See also The Syrian Nightmare: No End in Sight; to wit:

At present, all of the warring parties are racing to seize as much land as possible. In some respects, that's a positive development because it suggests that everyone thinks the war may be coming to an end so they're positioning their armies in a way that best favors their territorial claims. But resolving the territorial issues won't alone bring peace. There are deeper issues that can't be resolved by merely granting greater autonomy to the Kurds, or allowing the Turks to maintain a "safe zone" in the northwest, or letting local (mainly Sunni) councils settle their own affairs in cities like Raqqa. For example, neither Putin nor Assad will ever agree to a deal in which Washington establishes a base in the east where it harbors and deploys jihadists back into Syria-proper to wreak havoc, terrorize the public, and threaten the central government. That's not going to happen. So while Putin may be flexible about Syria's borders or greater regional autonomy, he's not going to give ground on the fundamental issues of national security or terrorism. Those are non negotiable.

And this one: The United States is at war with Syria; to wit:

It's quite obvious, in fact, that the United States regime is deliberately making targets of its military personnel, in the hopes of provoking a response from Syrian or allied armed forces that will kill some Americans, and be used to gin up popular support for the exactly the kind of major military attack on Syria and/or Russia and/or Iran that the American people would otherwise reject with disgust. Anyone who professes concern for "our troops" should be screaming to stop that.

It's also quite clear now, that the War on ISIS is a sham, that ISIS was always just a pretext to get the American military directly involved in attacking the Syrian army and destroying the coherence of the Syrian state. If the U.S. wanted to defeat ISIS, it could do so easily by coordinating their actions with, and not against, the forces who have been most effectively fighting it: the Syrian Arab Army, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah.