Syria is the balance of power & Iraq is the balance of unity

Written by Nasser Kandil,

There was a prevailed saying that linked the power of the Arabs with the unity of Egypt and Syria and their weakness in their separation throughout almost a century, this saying has proved its trueness in all the standards of the historical and the contemporary approach, but the one who has formulated this equation did not pay attention that the unity of Egypt and Syria has been always preceded by the unity of Syria and Iraq that led to such an equation, as  the case in the Umayyad and Abbasid eras and in the war of Salah Aidin Al-Yabuobi toward Palestine. When Egypt and Syria have been unified in October War   in 1973 without this solid Syrian Iraqi base, the war has lost its opportunity in achieving its goals once the position of Egypt has changed. And for a period of time there was a political equation that talked about S-S, the intention here is Syria and Saudi Arabia and their meeting as a condition to compensate the absence of Egypt. It was proven that what was produced by this equation at the absence of solid Iraqi Syrian base was mere a truce between two Arab lines, a line that mortgages the fate of Palestine with negotiation, and a line that sees its future with the resistance, however at the moment of choice, the two lines collided and the gains which seemed that they are the gains of S-S has been fallen in Lebanon and elsewhere.

To the extent that the Syrian Iraqi relationship seems a firm insurance policy to the Arab situation, it seems that the West had big interests in its vandalizing and ensuring the weakness of its pivots during more than a half of a century. Repeatedly it was indulgent toward the birth of Egyptian Syrian cooperation or Syrian Saudi cooperation, but the Syrian Iraqi cooperation and integration has remained among the taboos for which national slogans have been formed to justify them.  So for a long time the Syrian Iraqi conflict was a substitute for the most important conflicts and a background for the absurdist conflicts, as replacing the priority of the Arab-Israeli conflict with evoking the Iraqi-Iranian one. At the present time, the Arab situations try to make a reformation that perceives the consequences of the wars of a half of a century ago, after the mightiest wars have ravaged all the Arab countries under the slogan of change and revolution, and before the war becomes the war of terrorism, chaos, and division. Syria and Iraq seem to be closer and coherent in fate than any time ago, where the geographical neighborhood increases

Israel which is the first involved in all the elements and the sources of power in the region does not seem absent for observing and following-up the Syrian Iraqi relationship, but the US and the Turkish sensors seem to be ready for intervening in necessary to prevent every Syrian Iraqi rapprochement and to disable it , and if it is needed to put ISIS in the bordered area and managing the war depending on it to keep the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers a weak flank area, and thus to be subject to present and the future tamper., by presenting issues that prevent their linkage. Therefore will not be Turkish withdrawal from Ba’shiqah if it is related with a Turkish withdrawal from the Syrian territories, and there will not be US support to liberate Al Mosul if it is related with having control over the Iraqi borders with Syria.

This time the understanding and the integration between Syria and Iraq seems the necessary prescription for recovery, not mere an additional way for further strength and recovery. The salvation of the two countries from the risk of terrorism does not seem possible without a direct cooperation between their two armies, and having control over the borders before some of the Syrian geography turns to be a temporary shelter for returning back to Iraq and vice versa. While the powerful Syria against the Israeli threat as a criterion for the winning of Syria in the outcome of its last war depends on the geographic linkage with its strategic depth in Iran, and through this linkage it can maintain the position of Syria as a pivotal base for the forces of the resistance. while the economic steadfastness of Iraq as a main salvation from the state of regression which it experienced since the US blockade and then the occupation seems related with the integration with Syria and its access to the oil port across it to the Mediterranean Sea, this integration will be stronger and ever stronger if it is an Iraqi Iranian Syrian integration, as it seems that the standard of the Iraqi exit from the US political auspices  depends on the Iraqi daring to converge Syria and to meet it.

As much as it seems that the recovery of Syria and the Arab situation from the weakness will be through recapturing the sources of force which stand against the Israeli challenges, it seems that the recovery of Iraq and the Arabs from the division and the strife will be by democratic consensus formulas that end the risk of strife and division through surpassing the sectarian tensions which either they ignite from Iraq and thus ignite in all the region, or they cool down in Iraq and thus cool down in all the region, as well as through an Arab Kurdish understanding where there is no place for the Israeli in drawing his hidden lines, on the contrary this understanding will reassure the Kurds for their legitimate aspirations, and provide innovative solutions for the chronic issues of the conflict, in exchange of the reassurance to the unity of Iraq and the cohesion of the sources of its force. Therefore the Iraqi accordance becomes a recipe for reassurance against the sectarian, national and ethnic tensions feared by any Arab country, because they threaten of its inflammation or fragmentation.

The power of the Arabs is by the power of Syria, and the unity of their countries is by the unity of Iraq. The strong Syria with unified Iraq is Arab recipe for the power and the unity, where Egypt and the Gulf will have an important place in that map. This is the unity and the strength of the Levant, the stable starting point for every unity and for every power.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh