The tragedy of Syria and the new Omni-War
Pepe Escobar - December 7, 2024
Until recently, a serious geopolitical working hypothesis was that West Asia and Ukraine were two vectors of the Hegemon's standard modus operandi, which is to incite and unleash eternal wars.
Now, the two wars are united in an Omni-War.
A coalition of Straussian neoconservatives in the US, radical revisionist Zionists in Tel Aviv and Ukrainian neo-Nazis in shades of gray is now betting on a Final Confrontation - with several connotations ranging from the expansion of the lebensraum to the provocation of the Apocalypse.
What is in its way are essentially two of the main BRICS: Russia and Iran.
China, self-protected by its collective and grandiose dream of "community of a shared future for humanity", observes with caution, because it knows that, at the end of the road, the true "existential" war of Hegemon will be against it.
Meanwhile, Russia and Iran need to mobilize for the Totalen Krieg [total war - translator's note].Because that's what the enemy is throwing.
Undermining the BRICS and the INSTC
The total destabilization of Syria, with great participation of the CIA-MI6, which is now taking place in real time, is a carefully planned move to undermine the BRICS and other countries.
This occurs in parallel with Pashinyan's removal of Armenia from CSTO – based on a U.S. promise to support Yerevan in a possible new confrontation with Baku; with India being encouraged to accelerate an arms race with Pakistan; and widespread intimidation from Iran.
Therefore, this is also a war to destabilize the North-South International Transport Corridor (INSTC), of which the three main protagonists are the members of the BRICS, Russia, Iran and India.
As it is, the INSTC is totally free of geopolitical risks. Because it is one of the main BRICS corridors under construction, it has the potential to become even more effective than several of the corridors between the homelands of China's Belt and Route Initiative (BRI).
The INSTC would be the main salvation for much of the global economy in the event of a direct confrontation between the US/Israel and Iran combo - with the possible closure of the Strait of Hormuz leading to the collapse of a pile of several quadrillion financial derivatives, economically imploding the collective West.
Sultan Erdogan's Turkey, as usual, is playing a double game. Rhetorically, Ankara defends a sovereign Palestine free of genocide. In practice, MIT - Turkish intelligence - supports and finances a heterogeneous team of jihadists from Greater Idlibistan - trained by Ukrainian neo-Nazis in drone warfare and with weapons financed by Qatar - who have just marched and conquered Aleppo, Hama and possibly much more.
If this army of mercenaries were a true follower of Islam, they would be marching on Jerusalem, in defense of Palestine.
At the same time, the real picture inside the corridors of power in Tehran is extremely obscure. There are factions - which favor rapprochement with the West - that favor the disposal of the careful structuring of General Soleimani's Axis of Resistance to fight Tel Aviv. And serious doubts remain about which of these factions may have facilitated the work of Israeli intelligence in the serial murder of Hezbollah's leadership.
In contrast to Iran, in relation to Lebanon, Syria never faltered. History explains the reason: from Damascus' point of view, Lebanon historically remains a province, so Damascus is responsible for the security of Beirut.
And this is one of Tel Aviv's main reasons for boosting the current Salafist-jihadist offensive against Syria, after destroying practically all the communication corridors between Syria and Lebanon. What Tel Aviv failed to accomplish on the field - a victory over Hezbollah in southern Lebanon - was replaced by Hezbollah's isolation from the Axis of Resistance.
If in doubt, reread Xenophon
Wars in West Asia are a complex mixture of national, sectarian, tribal and religious vectors. In a way, they are endless wars, controllable to a certain extent, but then they repeat themselves.
The Russian strategy in Syria seemed to be very accurate. As it was impossible to normalize a completely fragmented nation, Moscow chose to free the Syria that really matters - the capital, the most important cities and the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean - from the Salafist-jihadist mobs.
The problem is that the freezing of the war in 2020, with the direct involvement of Russia, Iran and (reluctantly) Turkey, did not solve the problem of "moderate rebels". Now they are back - with full force, supported by a vast crowd of Rent-a-Jihadi, with the support of information from NATO/Israel/Turkey.
Some things never change.
2012. Jake Sullivan, Hillary Clinton's advisor at the time: "AQ [al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria".
2021. James Jeffrey, special envoy to Syria under Trump's command (2018-2020): "The HTS [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham] is an asset to the US strategy in Idlib."
There could be no better time for the rebirth of the "active" HTS. The HTS is filling a huge void; be careful when this happens in Western Asia. Russia is totally concentrated in Ukraine. Hezbollah suffered a lot from the bombings and serial murders of Tel Aviv. Tehran is fully focused on how to deal with Trump 2.0.
History always teaches us. Syria is now an Anabasis of West Asia. Xenophon - a soldier and writer - tells us how, in the 4th century BC, an "expedition" ("anabasis", in ancient Greek) of 10,000 Greek mercenaries was hired by Cyrus the Younger, against his brother Artaxerxes II, king of Persia, from Armenia to the Black Sea. The expedition failed miserably, and the painful journey back was endless.
2,400 years later, we see governments, armies and mercenaries still diving into the endless wars of West Asia - and extracting themselves now is even more insoluble.
Syria is now tired, worn out, with the SAA becoming complacent with the long freeze of the war since 2020. All this added to the cruel siege of hunger unleashed by the US Caesar Law and the impossibility of starting to rebuild the nation with the help of at least 8 million citizens who fled the endless war.
During these last four years, the problems have accumulated. Moscow allowed endless violations of the Astana process by Turkey, in addition to allowing Israel to bomb Syria almost daily with impunity.
China was basically immobile. Beijing simply did not invest in the reconstruction of Syria.
The prospect is worrying. Even Russia - which is a de facto icon of the Resistance, even if it is not formally part of the West Asian Resistance Axis - has taken almost three years of hard work and has not yet reached the Dnieper, which is right on its own border.
Only a cohesive and consolidated Axis of Resistance - after getting rid of countless columnists who work inside - would have a chance of not being eliminated one by one by the same consolidated enemy, repeatedly.
Sometimes it seems that the BRICS - especially China - learned nothing from Bandung, in 1955, and how the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) was neutralized.
You can't defeat a merciless hegemonic hydra with the power of flowers.
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