ISIS’s darkness in Palmyra will not conceal the light of the victory in Aleppo

Written by Nasser Kandil,

They focused on Aleppo, did not change their destination, despite the bitterness of the suffering in Palmyra, Syria, Russia, and the allies were aware of the message carried by the invasion of Palmyra at the hands of groups of ISIS that were brought from Mosul and Al Raqqa under the auspices of the international coalition led by Washington, within a theatrical agitating of the fronts of Al Bab and Al Raqqa against ISIS in order to make it negotiate and to barter its attack on Palmyra by stopping the attacks against it, which means the stopping of Mosul’s attack which summoned the presence of the US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to Iraq to ensure the strict applying of the understanding with ISIS and to give the orders to stop the raids on ISIS’s sites as well as to hamper the attack which is carried out by the Iraqi army on ISIS’s sites.

The Americans and the Turks know what is known by ISIS that the matter is a matter of time, then Palmyra will be recaptured by the Syrian army, and that the goal of the attack was not to change what is going on in Aleppo, because there is nothing can be granted to the groups which are collapsing there in order to re-have control on the situation, they know that the ceiling of what they are seeking for is a barter of Turkish and American proposals by turning the theoretical attack on Al Bab and Al Raqqa into an actual attack, under the title of reducing the pressure of ISIS on Palmyra in exchange of a Syrian acceptance of the negotiation on a formula that links the withdrawal of the militants from the remaining neighborhoods of the eastern Aleppo with preventing the entry of the Syrian army to them and to subject them to what was already foreshadowed by the UN Envoy Steffan De Mistura before the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al Mouallem had expelled him two weeks ago, this formula is called the self-management that is attributed to the local council of Aleppo which belongs to the armed groups led by Al Nusra front, and which its financial and service reference belongs to Turkey.

The formula of exchanging the armed presence with the civilian subordination to local councils is the formula at which the US Russian negotiations about Aleppo were disabled, however, it was foreshadowed by the armed groups to Idlib, so this reveals its implication within a project of the negative division, which means by extracting parts from the Syrian geography from the custody of the Syrian country in favor of a reference outside the scope of the country, instead of a political solution which its principles based on integrating the opposition with a unified government that handles all the Syrian territories under the logic of the sovereignty of the country. It is obvious that the US Turkish proposal received a deaf ear in Moscow and in Damascus, the decision of resolving Aleppo is continuing no matter if the cost is high, and that Palmyra will be liberated after the victory of Aleppo.

The opponents and the friends of Syria know that Aleppo is not the end of the war on Syria, but they know that what is granted by Aleppo to the opponent project of Syria if the dominance was full or partial is not granted by any other Syrian geography, just for that it was allocated to it all the reasons and the sources of power. In Aleppo there is the title of the virtual opposition which could be worked on the illusion of distinguishing it from the terrorism, and in it there is the civic complicated aspect of the wars of the regular armies, the population, and the opportunities of agitating of the humanitarian issues. It is a historic capital and a symbolic value due to its status as a second capital. Just for that the west, some Arabs, and Turkey have allocated to Aleppo what was not allocated to any other city. So when the fighting forces met face to face in Aleppo over the last year and there was an alternation on taking charge of the initiative there was an implicit agreement between the fighters that it is the round which will resolve the past rounds of war and will determine the fate of what will occur, the one who wins in Aleppo will win in the other areas and who will be defeated will be defeated in the other areas.

Aleppo’s victory is a light that brightens the harsh and the painful aspects of war in Syria; it foreshadows the approach of the moment of salvation, despite the bitterness and the pains of the loss of Palmyra. The one who was able to recapture Aleppo which was far from the Syrian dominance for five years within a month, will be able to recapture Palmyra even if it was far for a month within days and possibly hours. But the most important is that Syria which is sticking to its sovereignty is regaining the whole Aleppo which has the full sovereignty, so it deserves the blessing of victory and its army deserves a laurel.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,