How will the axis of the resistance respond to Washington? Riyadh and the US bases in Syria and Iraq
Written by Nasser Kandil,
Despite the contradictory goals of the US words about the military operation foreshadowed by the US President Donald Trump against Syria, the axis of the resistance behaves as the war is imminent; it puts all the assumptions on the table and tries to draw their opposite virtual scenarios. The decisive battles which it waged and won, the great sacrifices, and the strategic superiority which it achieved will be crucial, if Washington carries out its threats. So there is no place to discuss the nature of the decision, since it is decisive, firm, and clear; the confrontation till ensuring the victories.
Those who are concerned with assessments, hypotheses, and the political consequences follow up what is issued by Washington and the capitals of its allies in detail, while those who are involved in the field preparations act as if the war has started and planned how to make it shorter and limiter through deterrent messages that consume its first hours and puts Washington and its allies in front of difficult choices, supported by the confidence of the occurred confusion that is reflected in the contradictory US objectives; to paralyze Syria through a painful strike, to avoid the collision with Russia and Iran, and to link it with the use of the chemical weapons which the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has already investigated about its occurrence and for the first time in the field not through the social media.
The expansion of the participated allies in the preparation for the military operation relieves the axis of the resistance rather than bothers it or confuses it. It expands the options and makes their targeting a lawful legitimate reaction not merely revenge that is built on assumptions and intentions. Just for that there is a detailed follow-up about what is issued by the regional allies in order to know who they are in order to list them, after Saudi Arabia announced officially its joining to the US campaign. Now the talk is about the accession of the UAE, and perhaps Jordan and whether the US bases will be put in Qatar and Turkey under the disposal of the campaign of not?
Till now the legitimate objectives seem to be distributed between Riyadh which announced that it is a partner in the war and the US bases deployed in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan which apparently are not objectives which the major forces in the axis of the resistance will take over them. The missiles which are falling on Riyadh will increase as long as the US operation seems more serious, the Syrian National Resistance in the northeast of Syria will attack the US bases there with explosive devices, small rockets and maybe with the martyrdom or intrusive operations, while Al Tanf base and the US bases in Iraq seem to be threatened by the fire of the Iraqi resistance factions.
According to the axis of the resistance the goals may expand to include French economic interests in the north of Syria and British intelligence sites in the south of Syria, furthermore the Israeli movement will be under observation to know how Israel will behave on one hand, and to see whether the time is good to transfer the battle to the Israeli depth on the other hand.
Some experts link the seriousness of the US decision with the transition from the negotiating escalation into a real war with two conditions; the evacuation of the US bases in Syria and Iraq in order not to make the begging of the confrontation an early transferring of dozens of coffins of US soldiers and officers on the aircraft which is supposed to deliver more of them, and the reduction of the number of the allies.
Translated by Lina Shehadeh,