When the Ministers of Defense meet

Written by Nasser Kandil,

There were analyses in the Western and in the Arab media means after holding a meeting of the Ministers of Defense of Russia, Syrian, and Iran in Tehran that consider the function of the meeting is more probable to be distributed into two assumptions, first the meeting is for discussing the disputes that raged over the last two months since the announcement of the truce in Syria, its  center is Iranian protest on the Russians behaviors  through the exclusive possession of the negotiation with the Americans and imposing the results without consulting the allies, within this protest there is the Iranian seek to exert pressure on the Russians to get out of the equation of ceasing –fire  and to return to the battlefield, the second assumption is based on that Russia wants to make Syria and Iran understand the magnitude of the Russians commitment, that stops at the limits of preventing the overthrowing of the regime in Syria but does not affect supporting the choice of the military resolving which the Syrian President has talked about, and that Moscow is committed to the political solution, the Kurds, a federal formula for them, and a formula of new constitution for Syria, and maybe the security of Israel and the limits of its free movements in the Syrian airspace, when it wants  to make Iran and Hezbollah know implicitly that turning their presence in Syria into a source of danger  against the security of Israel is a red line.

Not all what was stated in the analyses come from the imagination or the desires which those who stand behind these analyses hope that they turn into facts; there is a basis for these assumptions that allows their promotion and their infiltration to some of the elite popular segments of the resistance forces, thus there must be a separation between three things, First the parties of the Iranian Syrian Russian alliance did not talk anymore neither about the match of the interests, nor the calendar which rules the vision of each one of them according to what the matters must go on in the war in Syria, but they are committed to deal with the discrepancies in the interests and the visions under the ceiling of the mutual need for cohesion and cooperation, so the interest is in strengthen the situation in Syria and raising the strength in it, as they are committed to adopt the dialogue and the disclosure to reach to settlements for the issues of the dispute or to stop their effects or forming a mechanism for coexisting with them. The second is that through managing the disputes, discrepancies, exchanging the complaints, are these three allies doing that at the level of the ministers of defense in a public meeting, or is there in the structure of the rule in the three countries such a meeting that can bring solutions for the disputes or answering the questions which is needed by an ally from another ally, and are the supposed discrepancies technical issues that are related to the action of the armed group of the three countries, or is the presence of the technical notices resulting originally from what the analyses described such as the discrepancies  of interests where the answer and the decision belong to the decision-makers only. The third matter is what can the ministries of defense do when they meet and when can the meeting be trinary not bilateral alternatively, and when can it be public and why?

The analysts and the promoters of the analyses know that the magnitude of the discrepancies  does not affect the stable conviction of the parties of the trinary alliance, and that the strong Washington is their problem, as well as the strong Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, and that their success till now is through weakening this square and confronting the branched formations of Al-Qaeda organization which constitute the common army of the quartet, this has ensured for each one of them the opportunities of feeling comfortable and to behave as they are behaving now, because the perseverance of this equation is a common interest that is based on the example of the connecting pipes between each one of the opposite allies and inside each one of them, where every strength in favor of the trinary alliance is a weakness for the quartet alliance and vice versa,  as every strength  for each one of the two allies is a strength for the whole alliance, therefore there is no falling in the traps of the side settlements and deals, no priority of the tactic understandings with the strategic opponents to the strategic allies, because the weakness of the alliance is a strength to its opponents and a successive strength against its parties as well as a retreat of any gains of any tactical understanding that it got by one of them.

The allies have practiced the evaluation and the consultation about all the engagement issues in the war on Syria from the day of the storm of Sukhoi and its consequences which changed the course of war, and how it could be better from the point of views of some people without the armistice or with it, but the owners of those analyses know that such of evaluation and consultation has been made at the level of visits made by Dr. Ali. Velayati  the Advisor on the international affairs to the Supreme Leader and the Commander of Iran Al Sayyed Ali Al-Khamenei to Damascus, as the visit of the Commander of Al Quds force the General Qassem Soleimani through a demand  from Al Sayyed Al Khamenei to Moscow and Damascus,  where there were techniques for search the Ministers of Defense and the chiefs of staff participated, and where there was a diplomacy the Foreign Ministers and their deputies participated, the end was through the meetings of the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, as the unannounced visits of the  two Russian presidential delegations to Tehran and Damascus, and the two Syrian presidential delegations to Tehran and Moscow, as a an outcome of all that consultation which did not deny the differences, the common vision of the next phase has been settled, this vision was expressed by  the Iranians through their saying Aleppo is a red line, as the Russian said we will not allow Turkey to overthrow Aleppo, and as the Syrian President said Aleppo will be the graveyard of the hopes of the bloodthirsty Erdogan.

The Ministers of the Defense are meeting after the visions are developed and the decision is taken either by an understanding on comprehensive ceasing –fire that they make its arrangements, or through expecting a great external war which they will put plans for its confrontation and they will share its burdens. In both cases the meeting will be public to show the seriousness of the decision, or after taking a decision of comprehensive qualitative attack as purifying Aleppo and its countryside, where the ministers and their assistants meet, share the burdens, and determine the responsibilities and the types of participating for each one of them, thus the meeting will be public in order to tell the outside we are coming together, take this well into consideration, we have agreed and we will come together so do not commit mistakes.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,