What is Currently Taking Place in the Syrian Crisis?

Answer:

The notorious road of truces is unfinished according to America, whereas ongoing events have pushed it to re-examine it to modify it, in what it calls “ceasefire” to give way for more intensive bombing to influence the factions and the people, to surrender and accept the new meeting between the regime and the opposition, on the basis of the amended truce agreement, which America is preparing during this break! This is because Obama wants to end his term with a sort of solution to the Syria issue, or at least to bring together the regime and the opposition in a meeting that rates his term with success, even if it is small, following the steps of the Democratic president before him, Clinton, regarding the Palestinian cause. Although Clinton did not achieve what he wanted, yet Obama did not take heed, and believes that he can succeed where his predecessors failed! Nevertheless, he is not aware that his failure exceeds that of his predecessors! To shed clarity on the matter, there needs to be a review of the following issues:

1. America sought to impose the truce seriously, when Russia and the (Syrian) regime imposed a full blockade on Aleppo, after they managed to control main parts of Alcastelo Road through the Russian and the regime’s intensive bombing; where the air raids continued intensively. Al-Jazeera correspondent reported on 07/07/2016, “The number of air raids by Russian aircrafts and aircrafts of the regime on Aleppo exceeded a hundred raids…” This enabled the regime to gain control over the road after the withdrawal of the opposition. “Al-Jazeera correspondent reported, citing the Syrian military sources that Syrian military opposition fighters have withdrawn from their positions that they had controlled in the vicinity of Alcastelo Road in northern Aleppo for military reasons…” (Al-Jazeera, 10/07/2016). Then intensive air raids followed, which led the Syrian regime’s forces backed by Russia, Iran, and the militia, and its followers, to impose the siege on Aleppo, on 26/07/2016, the Syrian regime forces tightened the siege on the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo after seizing control of the Alcastelo complex in north of the city on Tuesday…” (Al-Jazeera, Wednesday, 27/07/2016)… In this atmosphere, and during a meeting of the US Secretary of State with the Russian Foreign Minister in Vientiane, the capital of Laos on 26/7/2016, Kerry promised the journalists that he will be in a position to tell them (i.e. the journalists) of positive steps to change the status of the war in Syria, in the beginning of August 2016. After he was reassured of the regime’s advances in Alcastelo Road backed by Russia and Iran and then the siege of Aleppo, Kerry wanted to approve the truce when this blockade takes place.

2. But that did not happen due to the seriousness of military operations waged by the revolutionaries in south of Aleppo, during which they were able to lift the siege of its harshest stronghold in the south of Aleppo and the military colleges. This was after the revolutionaries have managed to take the neighborhood of Ramouseh south of Aleppo, and opened the way to it, i.e. breaking the siege. The siege breaking operations of Aleppo served as a severe blow to the American plans, which sees that striking the Syrian revolution should be by focusing on its strongest and hottest strongholds in Aleppo. America and Russia were enraged as a result, Russia describing the revolutionaries’ operations, via Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as “brazen acts,” and this shows that Russia and America thought that they had aborted the revolution in Syria, and brought to an end.

3. In order to ensure the success of the American plans, which remains focused on Aleppo, it had to re-impose a blockade on it. America worked on two axes to re-impose the siege on Aleppo:

First: Turkish army entering into northern Syria, starting with the area of Jarablos, this was announced by Turkey as the “the shield of the Euphrates,” operations and calling the revolutionaries “loyal to Turkey” from the south of Aleppo to fight ISIS, i.e. through weakening of the real battle fronts in Aleppo and creating new fronts of internal fighting, and to drive away as many as possible of the revolutionaries from the battlefront in Aleppo!

Secondly: to mobilize more of Iran’s thousands of followers and send them to the south of Aleppo, and declarations of its party in Lebanon to send the “elite troops” to the south of Aleppo, as well as An-Nujaba’ Iraqi movement, at the same time, Russia has carried out a significant intensification of air raids on Ramouseh area…

With these two axes, America enabled the regime and its allies to re-impose the blockade on the Aleppo, and put the eastern neighborhoods on the US conspiring table under headings such as “striking the terrorists” and “humanitarian aid to civilians in Aleppo”. The time was appropriate for America to declare its agreement with Russia and the imposition of “cessation to hostilities”, which took place at a meeting of the foreign ministers of both America and Russia in Geneva, which lasted for more than ten hours. During the meeting the US Secretary of State Kerry was in contact with the security departments, especially the Pentagon in Washington to ensure that the Russian demand for the implementation of the Russian-American joint and public operations and against groups that do not abide by a cease-fire.

4. America and Russia announced that 12/09/2016 is the date of “cessation of hostilities” in Syria after they were reassured that the regime’s army and allies of Iran and Russia have re-imposed a new siege over Aleppo… This date was also the start of the evening of the first day of the blessed Eid ul Adha, so as to exploit the notion of “Eid” to improve the chances of acceptance of a cease-fire in Syria.

5. America was serious about the output of this agreement and its implementation. US Secretary of State Kerry considered that the Russian-American agreement ‘may be the last chance we have to save a united Syria…’ (Al-Jazeera, live broadcast of Kerry’s speech, 12/9/2016), because it achieves its goals of imposing the cessation of hostilities as a prelude to the development of the Syrian issue in the Geneva negotiations… On the other hand, this plan will achieve, by coinciding with the American elections, political gains to the Democratic Party, these gains are the reasons for America’s rush to achieve success for the Obama administration in Syria at the end of his term. At the same time Russia was cheering the near launch of a wave of joint and public military operations with America, which is an old Russian demand which it sees as the basis for continuing to serve the objectives of America in Syria, in anticipation to the unknown of the next US administration policy, following the Obama administration.

6. But things have gone contrary to what America wants, two things came up which were not in America’s calculations, namely:

First: Despite all the crimes created by the United States in Syria directly through its coalition or through its alliances, Russia, Iran and its militias in Iraq and Lebanon and their followers, and although the truce agreement was held during the suffocating siege, particularly in Aleppo, what made America and alliances and henchmen think that the people of Syria will agree to the truce. However, the opposite happened… there were demonstrations coming out under the blockade, the prevention of food aid, and even bombardment, drove out demonstrations denouncing the truce agreement, this encouraged a number of factions to declare that they are not concerned with this agreement, even when they didn’t act and were waiting! And other factions opposed America’s plans according to the agreement by steering joint strikes with Russia against groups that they call “terrorist”, and there were other factions which opposed the agreement completely… Not only that, but the pressing movements of people have stopped the pro-American agent factions from showing their position in favor of the plan and forced them to conceal their positions; what made America aware that its agreement in this rejecting reality is not as feasible as it hoped.

But what enraged America the most, during its attempt to apply that truce was the blatant rejection of some of the opposition parties to meet members of US Special Forces in northern Syria, after Erdogan declared the start of the third phase of the “shield of the Euphrates,” with the participation of American troops, the American troops were introduced to northern Syria… But it was surprised of the outright rejection by the opposition, not only what is designated as extremist opposition, but also by what it calls the moderate opposition, they refused to fight alongside US Special Forces and the refusal was accompanied by calls branding the US forces “crusaders”. The media reported the event on 16/9/2016: (video footage circulated by activists and journalists’ accounts on Twitter showing what appears to be soldiers from the US Special Forces leaving the town Ar-Ra’i, in Aleppo, after coming under insults of the fighters believed to be from the Free Syrian Army. This video comes at a time when the newspaper Wall Street Journal cited US officials saying that President Barack Obama agreed to send about forty of the special operations forces into Syria to work with the Turkish forces in northern Syria… and the footage in the town of Ar-Ra’I shows fighters shouting slogans hostile to America at a time when a convoy of trucks transporting US troops… In the video, a man is heard saying, “The Americans have no place among us… they want to launch a crusade war to occupy Syria”…” (Al Bawaba Website, 16/9/2016) and the same was reported by the Daily Telegraph Newspaper (16/9/2016).

This was the first thing to make America see that they need a truce break (cease-fire)! To increase the bombings in retaliation to the people of Syria, who stood up and are still so, in the face of America’s crimes and its plans. America thinks by increasing the shelling it will subjugate them, but it will be disappointed, Allah willing.

Second, the truce agreement was not only a militarily solution but it was also a political solution, Obama was looking forward to the end of his term with a solution in Syria to preserve America’s influence, and for it to become his legacy, and help the Democratic candidate in the elections… It was mentioned in the news that the agreement is made of five documents: two of them regarding the cessation of hostilities and food aid, and these were released… The United States refused to disclose the other three documents because they seem to relate to the political solution, and they are likely to reveal the American deception to the moderate opposition, that it stands with them. It will not be surprising to find in it that the tyrant Bashar will remain as head of the interim government until elections and beyond!

Therefore, America does not want them to be revealed until it ends from the military and relief operations. America was in an agreement with Russia on this matter, things went at first quietly, and it seems that America forgot that Europe, which was sidelined by America on the ongoing events in Syria, will not spare any efforts to cause mischief in any available opportunity, even though it was known that Europe has no active role in the Syrian crisis, but it can embarrass the United States… and that’s what happened! Europe has tried to exploit this point: France has demanded loudly America to disclose the terms of the agreement to its allies, the French Foreign Minister demanded that America to inform its allies on the details of the agreement with Russia regarding the cease-fire in Syria… “French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Thursday 15 September that France wants to see the text of the cease-fire agreement in Syria reached by the United States and Russia so unequivocal mistake happens with respect to the target on the ground…” (Arabic DW site, 15/09/2016).

It seems that the Europeans had deliberately embarrassed the United States and Russia together, by pointing that the agreement contains dangerous items! Even Russia was affected and tried to escape! It asked for an emergency session in the Security Council to provide a UN cover to the US – Russian agreement, “Zakharova – Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson – explained the goal of the Moscow from this important requirement, noting that the agreement consists of “several documents, have been adopted, and agreed upon during the negotiation process… and that the Russian side at the beginning of negotiations, and during them, and after reaching a final agreement, already called for, and even urged the American side to publish these documents, and the need to do so; so that these agreements do not become the subject of speculation “…” (Arabic 21, 16/9/2016).

But the Security Council emergency session on the night of 16/09/2016 was canceled insistence of the United States not to reveal terms of the agreement, and of course because of the Russia can not reveal it alone because it operates in Syria with the consent of America!

This second issue made America, in order to avoid the embarrassment, content with the little from the booty! It decided to redraft the truce agreement, so that Obama is sufficed by a truce that will lead to a solution, even a meeting between the regime and the opposition and then the new agreement will not include of embarrassing documents!

7. In light of these two matters, which faced America, it decided to take a “break for truce” for more intensive bombardment operations to influence the factions and the people to accept the new meeting between the regime and the opposition, according to the truce agreement prepared by the United States during that break! In order to justify the cessation of the truce for a period of time as mentioned, and remove the suspicion that America is behind the cessation of the truce and the intense bombing which it arranged with Russia and the regime, the United States has taken the following actions:

a. It told Russia “that it is difficult to separate between the moderate opposition and the “terrorists” in Syria…” (Al-Hadath Channel, 19/09/2016).

b. It made the regime declare an end of the truce and start bombing, backed by Russia… as it was circulated by different media outlets: “The Syrian regime forces on Monday announced the end of the truce, which lasted seven days which was brokered by America and Russia without reference to any possibility of renewal…” (Al-Jazeera, 19/9/2016)

c. It staged a dispute with Russia, and each party accused the other of being behind the failure of the truce: “The US State Department said in light of these flagrant violations of the ceasefire and peace agreements stipulated by the recent agreement with Russia, the United States would re-evaluate all future relations with Russia in the Syrian affairs…” (Al Jazeera.net, 20/9/2016). Russia and the United States exchange accusations for days about impeding the implementation of the agreement, Moscow sees that Washington had not fulfilled its obligations to the truce, especially in the determination the location of the existence of the opposition factions and elements of Fath Ash-Sham Front, while Washington has threatened to stop the militarily coordination with Russia in the absence of the introduction of aid to the besieged areas…” (Gulf Online, 24/09/2016) End.

d. America initiated a disagreement between the Pentagon and State department, and that the Pentagon objected to the terms of the truce, as if the truce was held in a day and night without knowledge the Pentagon! Note that the negotiations were taking place under their hearing and eyesight, even if they were objecting, they would have objected before, and not after the end of the truce, while this truce was imposed on 12/09/2016, and has been extended on 14/9/2016 with the consent of the Pentagon! “… After the announcement of the agreement to extend the truce in Syria for 48 new hours, an Al-Arabiya reporter in Washington reported that the Pentagon has welcomed this extension on Wednesday evening… The foreign ministers of Russia and America announced on Wednesday, to extend the cease-fire in Syria 48 hours despite the violations that have occurred since Monday night, the first day of the validity of that truce…” (Al-Arabiya, 15/09/2016).