Syria: A Russian messenger missile

by Général Amin Hoteit

After several months of aggressions against Syria and several billions invested, the balance sheet of Western campaigns is positive from a media point of view, but mediocre from a military angle. Worse! The Chinese, Russian and Iranian determination to guarantee Syria’s safety and the observance of International Law would generate such war costs as to sink the economies of those allowing themselves to be drawn in. Those who claim that their country’s direct military involvement in the region would amount to a simple “intervention,” are either foolhardy or driven by an irrational agenda.

It is now certain that the so-called “Syrian crisis”, which from the beginning struck us as being a world war against Syria [1], has become a universal problem dividing the world into two camps: the Western camp which planned, sponsored and directed the aggression carried out by Arab and regional mercenaries, at least until now [2]; and the opposing camp which coalesced on the strength of its own strategic goals.

The latter represents an international group which believes that the achievement of Western objectives in Syria would signify the fall of the entire region under the influence of a neo-colonialist domination that would snuff out any velleity for freedom and independence. Clearly, therefore, the conflict is pitting an aggressor at the service of the USA against a defender, articulated around a coordinated distribution of roles for each member of its strategic organization, according to their capacity and efficiency to ward off the aggression.

I. The more time passes, the more the terms of this confrontation are becoming evident. After a little over fifteen months, they can be summarized as follows:

1. The defense capacities of the defenders are superior to the attack capacities of the aggressors. In fact, considering the potential on both sides, the possibility for the aggressors to reach their aims in Syria and to remodel the region according to the interests of the USA and Zionism has completely faded. Consequently, it sounds ridiculous and full of situational irony to hear the aggressors repeating over and over again, “The Syrian President must go”, “He must hand over power to a civil transitional government”, “A peaceful transition of power is needed”, since they behave as if they were victorious when in reality they have been defeated. Their aggression has reaped nothing but their own crimes, which have cost the lives of innocent Syrians. Unless, of course, they consider criminality as a victory?

2. The aggressors’ system is disintegrating and collapsing while the cohesion of the defenders’ system is rapidly gaining solidity as each of its members estimate that the Syrian question is of direct concern to them. This explains the increasingly strong stand they have been taking against all foreign attack or intervention in Syria, under any pretext intended to justify the use force, notably by the adoption of a resolution within the framework of Chapter VII. The USA might be at the point of grasping these facts, especially since Russia’s last stand on the matter. Only the “desert oil barons” remain blind to the evidence, refusing to understand. This is why, under the Secretary General (unfortunately named “Al-Arabi”) of the oil Arab League, allegedly concerned by the “Arab cause”, they persist in demanding that the “Syrian question” be subjected to the famous Chapter VII. But, in this case, their calls will not be heard through the definitely sealed doors of the Security Council.

3. Furthermore, it is important to note that each of these two camps assembles and exhibits its forces with the aim of hastening the decisive hour and fixing an outcome which will be favorable to themselves.
Actually, as we wrote above [3], the camp of the aggressors organized military maneuvers on a large scale in Jordan dubbed “Eager Lion”, after having recruited all the forces which could play a role in its future military intervention in Syria. It generously showered the so-called “Syrian opposition” with weapons of all sorts and technologies to provide the mercenary terrorists working for them will all the means to commit their crimes. It tasked the international observers with collecting information likely to legitimize an imminent military intervention. It decided to gag the Syrian media in order to create favorable conditions for its military campaign, thereby suggesting it is approaching, with or without a mandate from the Security Council. To top it all, Israeli maneuvers have been set in motion to allegedly transmit the message of an attack against the Hezbollah strongholds.
 After resisting and absorbing the shocks since the beginning of the aggression, and after allowing Syria the time to accomplish its reforms, the camp of the defenders is also intent on assembling and displaying its forces to strengthen its defenses and confirm its gains. Thus, after the success of the Syrian legislative elections, the camp of the defenders adopted the firm and irreversible decision to combat terrorism relentlessly, which was followed by the “surprise test” of the Russian intercontinental ballistic missile [4], which spread confusion in the camp of the adversaries where the gravity of this new military message was well understood. It clearly signifies that the political decisions, enunciated by Moscow inside and outside of the Security Council, are founded on real military power, readily deployable in the case of aggression. A plan of common military maneuvers involving several member countries in the defenders’ camp was quickly envisaged. The scheme of strangling the Syrian media [5] was thwarted before it even got off the ground through a series of measures adapted to the circumstances and capable of protecting Syria’s right to make her voice heard.
II. In such conditions, the real issue at stake is the future of the global crisis, revealed by the so-called Syrian crisis: is the world on the eve of a global military confrontation, or are these shows of force only meant to serve as bargaining chips in future negotiations? Now, when it comes to war, it is logically impossible to start an attack before making sure of two elements: the first concerns the possibility of accomplishing the expected feat while pushing the adversary towards collapse or some sort of demoralization or confusion; the second concerns the capacity of transforming a military victory into a political success permitting to consolidate, conserve and exploit this victory. In some cases, a third element is to be taken into account in terms of the potential losses that the attacker can withstand as a result of the confrontation. If we apply these immutable rules to the camp of the aggressors, the following observations can be made:
1. In the domain of conventional war, the essential military forces in the NATO camp have been through two disappointing decades which have drained their economy to the point that they cannot envisage a new war, while the opposing camp boasts defensive capacities which would be hard to defeat. This leads us to discard the eventuality of a military intervention, whether justified or not by a Security Council resolution.
2. In the domain of the ongoing guerilla and terrorist campaigns, fueled and directed by the camp of the aggressors who are craving for the violence to escalate and spread throughout the entire Syrian territory, especially to major cities such as Damascus and Aleppo, the media hype and the aggressors’ possibilities fall short of the necessary threshold to achieve their goals. On the other hand, it is now clear that the next stage of the fight against terrorism will be different from the previous ones. Since the formation of the new government by free parliamentary elections, it will no longer be possible to impose red lines on the Syrian Armed Forces and prevent them from doing what they need to do. It will no longer be possible for the media and the politicians in the aggressors’ camp, who are behind the massacres, to continue their fraudulent campaigns accusing the Syrian State of crimes which they have committed themselves. It will no longer be acceptable that the international observer mission should serve to intensify criminal campaigns, a mission which is now questionable due to its voluntary or involuntary failure to report the truth.
3. For the rest, we need only recall that Israel is unable to set up a defensive device to protect its domestic front. Israel is burning with impatience to attack Iran, in addition to all the threats it continually spurts out against Iran’s nuclear program. This simple reminder suffices to understand that the camp of the aggressors is not in a position to confront the foreseeable reaction to its aggression.
III. Consequently, we can deduct that the military war against Syria is rather unlikely and that the terrorist war will not permit the aggressors to achieve their aims. On the contrary, it will generate losses that will wear them down, even if this should take some time. At this stage, we can return to the question asked above: why such an assembly of forces?
In our opinion, the answer lies in the fact that the aggressors’ camp, being aware of its failure, knows that the only way out will be a negotiated and peaceful solution. It also knows, however, that those who sit down at the negotiating table will only receive a share proportional to their gains on the ground and to the cards they hold in their hands. This explains why the aggressors’ camp seeks to assemble as much as possible to render its defeat more tolerable, now that its victory in Syria has entered the realm of fiction and that Russia sent off an invitation to negotiate via a code which can be deciphered by anyone who is familiar with the protocol: a missile which has lifted doubts, dispelled delusions and opened the way to peace. Thus, President Bashar Al-Assad will have offered his father the strategic balance for which he had always striven and of which he had always dreamed, in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of his death.

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