March 24, 2025
Nasser Kandil
- The discussion here does not revolve around the hypothesis found in Lebanon that achieving national sovereignty under the declared goals, including ending the occupation and Israeli aggression, can be accomplished through diplomacy and reliance on American pressure on “Israel”. The failure of this hypothesis is evident in how its proponents have shifted the discussion to the future of the resistance’s weapons, flipping the expected sequence of events. Instead of leveraging a successful diplomatic solution for respecting and imposing Resolution 1701, and enforcing a ceasefire on the occupation, thus engaging the resistance from a position of strength, they have mounted their failures. Some have chosen to evade reality, blaming the resistance and its arms for their own shortcomings. Yet they know full well that the Syrian example before them offers a stark lesson: stripping a country of all elements of power does not lead “Israel” to respect it’s sovereignty. The new Syrian government, which has achieved for “Israel” what was once a mere dream – cutting off the resistance’s supply lines through Syria, expelling both the resistance and Iran, and allowing the occupation to destroy Syria’s military capabilities, has surrendered even its agency to protest against Israeli expansionism and aggression. Despite Turkey and Qatar sponsoring this new government, Washington remains aligned with Tel Aviv, lifting sanctions only when it serves Israeli interests.
- The focus here is on the reality that there is but one war: the war between our regions resistance movements against the occupying entity. Every other war branches off this central conflict. Syria’s war for over a decade was part of it, and its outcome today proves the same point. Attempts to carve out neutral strategic zones, neither for “Israel” nor the resistance, are doomed to failure, as seen in both Syria and Lebanon. In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has withdrawn from the scene after his regime was the visible face of the war. The architects of that war exhausted the people and the army, systematically dismantling all sources of strength until none remained, leading to Assad’s exit without a fight. Turkey then attempted to create a so-called third zone, neither Israeli nor resistance-controlled, but the results are clear. This failure was not due to resistance obstruction, even though Assad had once been part of its front, but rather due to Israeli and American opposition. The same is now happening in Lebanon.
- Everything unfolding now revolves around the consequences of an ongoing war. This is why we witness structural tremors, eroding political stability and possibly security in Turkey. Turkey staked everything on its Syrian gamble: its economic bet depended on the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Syria and reconstruction funding, seeing this as a golden opportunity for Turkish companies. Its security wager relied on ending the status quo in northeastern Syria in favor of armed Kurdish groups, which has not materialised. Politically, it sought to anchor its neo-Ottoman ambitions on the success of the Syrian model, expecting Washington and Tel Aviv to respect Turkey’s regional role and facilitate its economic and political recovery. None of this happened. Instead, failure shattered the model, and the coastal massacres became a grim testament to this breakdown, leaving deep scars on Turkey’s social fabric, which mirrors Syria’s in its sectarian composition. Now, Turkey stands on a fault line, heading into the unknown.
- Within the occupying entity, Benjamin Netanyahu gambled on fabricating an illusion of victory in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria through relentless destruction, killings, and incursions to tighten his grip on political, security, and judicial power. He sought to resolve the internal struggle that predated the Al-Aqsa Flood, between “old Israel”, represented today by the Shin Bet chief, the attorney general, the Supreme Court, and families of captives, and “new Israel”, embodied by the Itamar Ben-Gvir-Bezalel Smotrich alliance. However, his illusion of victory is collapsing. The refusal of northern and southern settlers to return home, failures on Gaza and Lebanon’s ground fronts, and the Iron Dome’s inability to secure the home front all testify to this. Netanyahu’s inability to solidify his control has triggered an internal crisis, edging the entity toward civil war, as he and the Israeli president have themselves warned.
- Netanyahu fails because he fabricates victories in the real war to win another, only to find himself forced to continue the primary war in hopes of reshaping the internal one. Without an actual victory, all other triumphs remain illusions. Erdogan fails because he sought a secondary victory by avoiding engagement in the principal war, deluding himself into thinking he could claim a neutral space. Thus, both “Israel” and Turkey now face major crises. Syria failed because it tried to occupy a nonexistent third space in an intensely polarised war, only to find itself standing in a void.
Yet Yemen alone succeeds. From the outset, it identified the central war, chose its position, fought with a unified people and a military with a clear commitment, and bore the consequences and sacrifices. Today, who can deny that the region’s war is between two forces: Gaza’s resistance and the occupying entity? Behind them stand two global powers, Yemen behind Gaza, and the United States behind “Israel”. Despite the imbalance of power, the war has raged for a year and a half, and neither Gaza nor Yemen has fallen.
- So, ask yourselves plainly: Who is stronger regionally, Yemen or Turkey?
