Withdrawal from Hell and What Follows!

Months ago, if someone would have dared talk about an imminent US withdrawal from hell, in the context of a series of US retreats, those who change their positions on a daily basis and have dependent and defeated mentality would have raised hell against this “someone”. However, now after Biden announced the plan and decision of unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan, under the pretext of “saving lives”, it is assumed that the matter has become something about which there can be no dispute. We should also not forget that he left his Afghan allies high and dry, even though he was issuing one promise after another to defend US’ allies since the beginning of his election campaign, and in a constant criticism of the Trump administration for failing the US’ allies, in the context of its regressive program.

Syria and the withdrawal

What affects us directly, as Syrians, from the US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, is that it came as a renewed practical confirmation of the continuation of the US retreat and regressive policy. This means that the balance is still tilted in favor of the regressive forces within the American elite, one of the acts of which Syrians clearly saw when former president Trump suddenly announced withdrawal from Syria in 2019, leaving it to “others to find a solution to these forever wars”, as he said at the time, and the balance of powers within the administration at the time resulted in a partial withdrawal and then a redeployment. In other words, the international balance and the balance of powers within the American elite, as two main factors in determining the direction of the development of the international situation and determining US behavior, tend more and more towards withdrawing from our region generally, despite the state of changing tides and conflict surrounding this process. This means with regards to Syria that betting on a sustainable US existence and building strategies based on this, is a form of political naivety, not to mention the immoral American role all the way.

US victory

All the “victories” recorded by the US in recent decades, do not confirm America’s strength and moral superiority as much as they confirm the fragility and insignificance of the structures it targets, from the Taliban to Somalia to the former regime in Baghdad, to the war against ISIS. Anyone scrutinizing the results of US intervention will always find that investment is made in existing crises, and replacing a problem with another, without solving the original problem, and the proof is that the US did not reach its declared goal in any of these wars.

American pragmatism, which skillfully uses the tactics of the fifth generation of wars, has invested in these fragile easily-penetrable structures that are mired in crises, where the dependent economies that are drained by internal and external plundering, and the oppressive elites that are shunned by their people, and traditional structures and religious and sectarian forces (of civilizational lapses), which life is breathed into it in a thousand ways. Meaning that the US invests in the weakness of others, and does not rely on its military, media, and financial superiority only. Throughout history, where the minimum elements of confrontation were available, the US failed to achieve its goals, and whenever there was serious resistance, it was defeated.

Wherever the US has gone, there were complex crises that erupted. The US occupation, in the context of crisis management tactics, was accelerating the explosion of all contradictions at once, to prevent the crystallization of any serious societal forces, making the relevant society with all its structures in a state of exhaustion, accepting whatever is imposed upon in. When the US was forced to withdraw, there was a bank of crises that operated with self-impulse force, where these crises intertwined with and boosted each other. If intervention and occupation is the completion of the destruction that was established by the policies of the model of the dependent state, regimes and opposition, the sudden withdrawal has always transferred chaos from a state of false control by the US, to a state of complete chaos.

(Beware) what comes after US withdrawal!

The American presence entails major strategic risks, but a sudden withdrawal within the special Syrian condition also entails risks. Just as the start of the withdrawal from the Afghan hellfire was immediately followed by a remarkable increase in the influence of the Taliban movement, the Siamese twin of al-Qaeda, the tactics of Washington in its forced withdrawal from any spot in the world, indicate that the problem is not completely over, but rather, as experience confirms, “social engineering” is doing its job, where the defeated direct occupation gets transformed into chaos. Based on this conclusion, within the specificity of the Syrian case, the role of geopolitics, and within the ongoing US-Russian conflict over the Turkish position in the network of international relations, and the opportunism and ambitions of the Turkish elite in this context, the US trade-offs with Turkey get on the agenda regardless of whether or not Washington will succeed in achieving that.

Therefore, blocking any US-Turkish deal has become a task of the utmost importance, especially since a deal between the two sides had taken place previously with regards to Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad, especially since it has become clear that Washington turned its presence on Syrian soil, in part, into a blackmailing and bargaining tool, and a carrot-and-stick game with Turkey, in the context of the existing state of turmoil in the relations between the two countries for years. Just as the US intervention was the beginning of a problem, a sudden withdrawal (albeit an objectively forced withdrawal) would also be required to create a new problem if Syrians do not take the initiative to fill the resulting void.

The path to the explosion must be cut off

Hence, the only realistic action is to immediately enter into a serious dialogue between the Autonomous Administration and the regime, in which a wide spectrum of independent patriotic forces participates, and to reach an agreement that guarantees the protection of northeastern Syria and blocks the way for the US and Turkey to invest in the internal contradictions among Syrians.

On this basis, some sort of a settlement and temporary agreement, away from blackmail and the logic of superiority, and the mentality of going back to pre-2011 by regime, or preconditions by the Autonomous Administration, has become a more urgent task than ever before, in light of a series of possible US withdrawals. This would be until UNSC Resolution 2254 is implemented, and a new political structure is reached through a process of radical and comprehensive patriotic-democratic change that secures the opportunity for free development based on social justice, democracy, and pluralism for the Syrian people, based on which the final form of the Autonomous Administration experience and all the associated structures will be determined.

النسخة العربية