In Syria, Looks Like We're Very Close to my SEP 2015 PLAN SALAMADER, Rev 1

If you are not too familiar with the almost 2-yr old PLAN SALAMANDER for Syria, JUN 2016's REV 1 is here, and the SEP 2015 original here.

This predates the Trump Era by over a year, so you can stow any lame attempt to play Boot on Carlson's show - that won't wash.

Here is the unvarnished truth that has been evident for a year prior to my coming up with PLAN SALAMANDER; the only way to successfully eliminate the Islamic State is to at a minimum coordinate with the Russian, and preferably plan with them. Also, unless you have a realistic plan for someone to take Assad's place without slaughtering the balance of non-Sunni Syrian Arabs & Kurds, than go sit in the corner and play with the other children on Earth 2.

In a solid interview by The Tampa Bay Times with CENTCOM Commander General Votel, USA - the truth is right there for anyone to see it.

What are your thoughts on working with the Russians?

The word we use is not cooperation, but it is deconfliction and that is principally what we are doing. I have characterized this interchange as being very professional military to military interchange and I think trust certainly has to be earned over time here. But I will tell you the deconfliction line that we have had in place and has become more robust over time, meaning that not only do our air components talk to each other but (Army Lt. Gen. Stephen) Townsend (in charge of the ground war against Islamic State) now has the ability to talk to his counterpart.

That is a mature approach.

Read the whole interview, and keep this in mind as the investment of Raqqa moves forward;

The battle for Raqqa is now on. How long will that take?

We are not going to make any time estimates on this. You just watched what took place in (Mosul), a city of 1.6 million, 1.7 million people. It took nine months. Raqqa is probably 300,000 to 400,000 people, but it's in an area that again has had a long time to prepare and the forces we are operating in Syria are different than the forces we are operating with in Iraq. We're not talking about the Iraqi army that has ministries to lead it. Now we are talking about a much more indigenous force made up largely of Syrian Arabs and Kurds — and Kurds are part of that indigenous force. They don't have all the trappings of a big army, so I think it is important for people to understand the context of what we are doing here. A large city, an indigenous force, a well-prepared enemy. And by the way, an enemy now that has suffered a significant defeat, so they are running out of space there. We would expect they are going to fight harder, and more aggressively than they are and a large part of that is going to be exploited again. So I think it is going to be a challenging fight and it will take months.