I sill leave it to others to analyze what’s happening in Syria and the ramifications for the region and the rest of the world. I’ll link to good ones I run across later. But one thing does seem clear. The Russian government is on a losing streak and for good reason. Charlie Sykes offered this concise take: Let’s start with V. Putin’s crappy weekend, shall we? The fall of Vlad’s Syrian bitch extends a remarkable run of reverses for the Russian czar-manque. Phillips P. OBrien notes that since his invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s actions have “caused Sweden and Finland to join NATO and it looks like Russia [is going] to lose its base in Syria because it can’t keep enough forces in the area.” And since we’re toting up the butcher’s bill, Putin has managed to seize only “a relatively small part of Ukraine,” while Russia has “suffered more than 750k casualties and seen millions of young, educated people flee the country. Oh, and they squandered billions and billions of dollars and dislocated their economy.” Another commenter put this into context: Since invading Ukraine, Putin has lost: 1. Black Sea Fleet, and Sevastopol; 2. Kursk region; 3.Finland and Sweden ending neutrality, joining NATO; 4. Syria, navy port in Tartus; 5. Georgia in process of decoupling; 6. Romania drifting away. As he says, And yet, Vlad always has Donald, Tulsi, and Pete… On Meet The Press this morning, Trump was very weird when asked about whether he had spoken to Putin: This continues to be very weird.…