Crucial moments in Al Ghouta’s battles

Written by Nasser Kandil,

There are four stories that summarize the scene in the eastern Ghouta of the Syrian capital. First, the accelerated progress of the Syrian army in the areas which all have equal military and strategic importance, after the division of Al Ghouta into three parts under siege and the liberation of the rest parts of it. Second, the collapse of the armed groups after dismantling them in every area, they exchange the detainees with the exit of their wounded, and their civil councils announce the search for the evacuation of the civilians. Third, the threats issued by the International Security Council for the unilateral military action quoted by the representatives of France and America. One is depending on the assumption of the use of the chemical weapons, and the second is depending on the failure of the Security Council in adopting one month truce without preconditions. Fourth, the urgent US call for a meeting of Jordanian-US- Russian Joint Committee of de-escalation zone which sponsor the calm in the south of Syria after the raids of the Syrian army on Al Nusra fronts’ sites in the south-west of Syria.

It is clear that the Western and Arab efforts to encourage the armed groups whether by speeches or diplomatic pressures to urge them to stand still more, have lost their influence in the light of the military change on the ground, moreover, the information of the west leaders and their allies clarifies the magnitude of the military and political dramatic collapses unless a great thing occurs and changes the course of events. It is obvious as well that Russia’s steadfastness behind Syria and its allies in the military option has not been affected by the American and the French threats neither in this session of the Security Council nor in what preceded it. The scenarios which have been circulated have become under the practical test, or the matter has been resolved in favor of Syria, Russia, and their allies, in addition to the implications on the balances which surpass Ghouta and maybe Syria, after the show of the mutual force between Moscow and Washington reached to its peak after the speech of the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The urgent session for which Washington called the Joint Committee seems to be the final one to stop the Syrian progress in  parallel with a ground scenario that is considered by Moscow and Damascus the last French-American attempt, entitled  the usage of the chemical weapons by the armed groups to justify the western military intervention in the light of a Russian- Syrian decision that includes all the allies to repel any western military action under this pretext, whether as the way of bombing Shuairat Airbase a year ago, or a similar circulated scenario of attacking dozens of the Syrian military and strategic goals by ballistic missiles. Putin in his recent speech warned that this will summon harsh Russian response.

The difficult questions are facing the US decision at these crucial hours, between the recognition of Russia’s control over the region and the regression of every action that is included in the American and French threats and thus the recognition of Syria’s rolling victories from Ghouta towards northward and southward, or the involvement in a risk that may start with a limited action as Washington and Paris said, but it can turn into uncontrolled confrontation and may transcend the ongoing conflict in Syria and the region,  and thus it becomes  an international confrontation. It is clear that the American call for Amman’s meeting does not aim only at searching for solutions that face-saving, but also to see the Russian reaction in case of any limited military action and the seeking to promote it as Washington tried to do after the events of Khan Sheikhoun, and the blow of Al Shuairat Airbase, or as happened in the reign of the former President Barack Obama when the US fleets came to the Mediterranean for war after fabricating the chemical file in Al Ghouta in 2013, but all the American options are seen with Russian warning of consequences and repercussions.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,