Al-Assad after the war

Written by Nasser Kandil,

While the war was at its peak and some were deluded by the ability to overthrow the Syrian President or to put the opportunities of overthrowing him among the possibilities from position of neutrality it was not possible to call to consider the concepts and the visions represented by the President Bashar Al-Assad and which form his own vision for the main issues which he was distinguished at them, whether about the camp of his opponents or inside the camp of allies, moreover, the successive recognition of every follower is that the war on Syria is no longer an international issue or a regional force that has what is enough to keep it igniting for the same goals, and that the way became open in front of the recovery of the Syrian state and the status of the President Al-Assad in the heart of new Syria became resolved. Therefore knowing the future requires from the friend, the opponent, and the neutral researcher to return to what is proposed and adopted by this president who will return victorious after a war which is considered by many people a third world war or the war of the century or the war of the birth of new global system and new Middle East, as long as a crucial player in the events will be this victorious president. The intention here is the vision of the President Al-Assad about Syria and the region, these two arenas which the imagination of serious formulation about them is difficult apart from checking the vision of Al-Assad and examining carefully its appropriateness to absorb the complicated and the tangled facts on one hand or their ability to adapt with the variables which oppose them on the other hand.

Any researcher or serious politician will be surprised when he returns to read two specific texts, one is related to the vision of the President Al-Assad of how Syria will get out of war, the relation of the war with the political solution and his program for Syria after the war, it is the content of what was stated in his speech in the beginning of 2013, and the other is related to his vision of the region and the form of the regional system which he aspires to, putting the capacities of Syria and its relations to promote it, it is the project of the region of the five seas which he talked about in the year 2009.

In the first text, the reader will discover upon reading that the text of 2013 which launched by the President as an initiative for the political solution depends on three pillars which were not noticeable even in the approaches of the closest allies to Syria and the most powerful and the following-up of the political initiatives namely Russia and Iran. All the proposals have a mechanism that based on in order to employ the balances of the political and military forces to develop the international and regional consensus that would lead to political dialogue, and which will be culminated with a unified government that will halt the war among its components and put a plan for new constitution and elections. All the proposals at that period considered that the terrorism and its combating a mission of the unified government because it is the widest war which is revolving between the supporters of the opposition and the Syrian army, while the initiative of the President Al-Assad based on giving the priority to the war on terrorism and making reconciliations and temporal settlements in every region according to its own conditions with the armed groups, towards a relative resolving with the terrorism that paves the way for the international and regional consensus and for a political dialogue with political figures that do not have real forces in the field, this is a necessity for a settlement behind which the international and the regional players will hide to justify the exit from a war which they were behind it to overthrow Syria. What is remarkable is the magnitude of the minute details which mentioned by the President in his initiative and its accordance with the what is going on today whether in the form of calm areas or what will happen tomorrow when the time of reconciliations, the pre- elections government and the post –elections government comes, and how to form a new constitution and holding elections.

In the second text which is actually the first in timing, the President Al-Assad launched a unique call for his own theory entitled forming a system of economic-security cooperation between the countries of the area of the five seas; the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Gulf despite the political differences to ensure the stability, and the legitimate interest of the major countries as a guarantee for a smooth flow of the energy resources and to ensure raising the level of the economic integration between the participants, but most importantly it fills the strategic vacancy which stems from the defeat of the US project which based on wars and which failed to impose the hegemony, as well as to prevent the fall in traps of chaos and terrorism and confronting the threats of the civil war , strife, and the projects of division. This was mentioned in the vision of the President Al-Assad two years before the Arab Spring and what has followed it of the emergence of the threats which he warned of and called to anticipate them with a regional system of transversal- political alliances headed by Moocow and Washington.  According to the proposal of the President Al-Assad this system contains Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Algeria that are able to cooperate with the European Union and with BRICS group and which can ensure the stability of the wide, sensitive, and dangerous geographic area. It is not hidden that Turkey and Saudi Arabia were the main teams which were tempted by the project of the US-Israeli chaos to overthrow Syria, so they positioned on the banks of the war against it. Now according to what we hear and see they move quickly contrary to their policies during the past six years. Turkey which aspired to rule the Islamic world with new Ottoman and Sultanate has become satisfied with the prevention of a Kurdish entity on its borders, now it is reaping the fruit of its deeds and the curse is pursuing it. Saudi Arabia which wanted to establish an Arab system under its leadership by getting rid of the Syria President, now it is mortgaging its assets politically, economically, and militarily to get rid of Qatar and to get out of the war on Yemen with least losses, after they ignored together the value of geography and demography and played the Russian roulette game which affected them badly despite all the claims of capacity, planning, and considerations.

The coming years will have sufficient opportunities to scrutinize the political formula which will be adopted for the end of the war on Syria and the essence of the new regional system. Many will discover the size of the conformity with the early vision of the Syrian President and the size of the intellectual and the strategic depth which is represented by this President.  Perhaps this explains some of the secrets of the victory of Syria and its steadfastness.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,