the West forgot Assad's insurance: the Ruskies...

The Russians had to make sure that Syria would not fall to ISIS, that had been "artificially" (purposefully) created by the Saudis and the USA. The Russians had a 74 year lease on the Syrian Tartus port in the Mediterranean sea, that they renewed in 2016. It was observed that the fleet of Russian ships left Tartus, when President Trump wanted to bomb Syria, then returned there after. 

The western press has been fed continuous bullshit about Assad "gassing his own people" and how we had to basically help Sunni religious terrorists and extremists (which we called "moderate rebels") to take Assad out — just so the pipelines projects could go ahead. The White helmets organisation (paid for by the West) was part of this "anti-Assad information" proven to be bullshit many times over. These WH are now leaving Syria...

The point was the disturbance created by ISIS became a major headache for the West — though it provided an excellent entry point (an excuse) for the West, "to go and fight ISIS" in Syria and Iraq, while taking over the joints. Sunni extremists were basically given carte blanche to overtake Syria, but then full of their own success, armed from the USA through the "moderate rebels channels" and supported by the Sunnis in Iraq — a country presently under the control of the chiites aligned with Iran — ISIS tried to become "a country", a Caliphate. ISIS also became anti-west, possibly to prove their Wahhabi religious credentials, with horror executions gleefully posted on various channels, including Youtube, that this provided a "moral dilemma" for the West. 

Meanwhile, the Obama administration was happy to let Assad having to fight ISIS and the other "moderate rebels", so that the West fighting ISIS was a bit weak and often misaligned as to hit the Assad's military positions that actually were fighting ISIS (this was a soon-hushed scandal of an "operation" by the Australian airforce, possibly "given the wrong coordinates by the US").

Enter the Russians. They knew exactly what was going on. Assad was going to be defeated, even without "US troops" on the ground (though there were US troops and are some still) in Syria. Tartus would be taken over by the West and the Saudis, millions of non-Sunni Syrians would be either exiled or killed by the "rebels fighting for pipeline freedom"... The steal would have been complete after 74 years of intrigue from the West against Syria.

The Russians were quite surgical in the destruction of ISIS —using their airforce to great success, though they had to take Palmyra twice. Assad's armies moral were propped up and they have managed to retake most of the country from rebels, except in small areas that are "under US control" where the US are protecting remnants of ISIS — and in the Kurdish area, which is a headache for the US, Syria and Turkey. 

Of course the USA gave themselves the credit for "defeating" ISIS... as one should...

Hopefully, this is the end of this pipeline war-game, but the hawks in the US political circles (GOP and democrats) are thinking of other ways to destroy Syria. One of this way is to sanction Iran, a country that also helped in the defeat of ISIS. 

Meanwhile the presence of Israel — like a boil on this arsy region of the Middle East — is always threatening to break out...