Syria: Elections Are a Battle Won, But the War Goes OnTony Cartalucci The proxy war is admittedly lost but it would be a mistake to say the West has completely lost. Their goal was indeed, ideally, to overthrow the government of Syria. By failing to do so and in the process exposing their insidious methods, the West has lost immense credibility and momentum they will never recover. However, their secondary objective was destroying Syria and leaving it in a weakened, diminished state denying Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and most importantly, Russia a strong regional ally. This, for now, the West has absolutely succeeded in accomplishing. Reconstruction socioeconomic recovery will be as important if not more so for Syrians in the coming months and years, than defeating NATOs proxy forces on the battlefield. Bringing Syria back to or exceeding its economic and defensive posture before the war will be when Syrians can truly declare victory over the West. The goal of bleeding Syria if regime change failed, was documented by US policy makers in Brookings Institutions Middle East Memo #21 Assessing Options for Regime Change, which stated: Bleeding Syria is now the agenda which is the only reason they are still arming and training terrorists on Syrias borders, predominantly in NATO-member Turkey to the north of Syria, and in Jordan to the south. The West is also still, very intentionally, sabotaging reconciliation and reconstruction. This is the Wests real agenda on full display spiteful extraterritorial aggression recklessly destroying the lives of millions for the sake of maintaining global hegemony. Other nations like Thailand and Ukraine had better understand the true nature of Western special interests and the lengths they will go through to maintain dominion over this planet. Tony Cartaluccis articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at Land Destroyer Report, Alternative Thai News Network and LocalOrg. Read other contributed articles by Tony Cartalucci here. 