AFTER ALEPPO: Raqqa Written Off for Now.

The president [Assad] and his allies have focused their campaign on the populous, fertile, west of his country and few people expect him to lavish limited military resources on quickly retaking the eastern deserts or Euphrates valley area from Islamic State.

The senior pro-Damascus official said that Assad had for now written off Raqqa, which has become the de facto Syrian capital of Islamic State, often referred to by the Arabic term Daesh, regarding the jihadist group as Washington’s problem to fix.

“The regime forgot about Raqqa a long time ago and made it the responsibility of the Americans. Let those alarmed by Daesh go and remove it,” the official said.

Allowing ISIS to fester in the Syrian desert gives Assad leverage over the West, the bad cop to his good cop.