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The Chemical Again
On Sunday morning, the world woke up to a new propaganda campaign on the use of chemical weapons, after the problem of Al-Gouta was nearing an end, after restoration of large areas back to the authority of the Syrian state. At the time the negotiations were continuing on completing the process to include the city of Duma under an agreement Sponsored by the Russian party.
The charge of using chemical weapons since the beginning of the crisis was one of the Western-American tools to exert more pressure in the Syrian field in order to obtain new gains. These campaigns ended up with local military strikes, which were a kind of show off rather than a serious military action, or at least without rising up to the level of a media campaign. That means they have a different function other than its aggressive military nature, which is condemned in all cases. This function is primarily a political one, and a blackmail tool aimed primarily at targeting the political process and trying to prevent its progress.
Regardless of the seriousness of the possibility of aggression and its direct military function, after the brazen threats made by the US president, this new campaign is most likely a response to the qualitative development that took place in the context of the Syrian crisis, by ending the armed presence in the Gouta of Damascus, and that's why they are trying to prevent this achievement from turning into a push that forwards the political process ahead.
After Ankra Trilateral Meeting (which comprised Russia, Irania, and Turkey) in which reaffirmations were made concerning the priority of the political solution and efforts to activate the Constitutional Committee, which was one of the outcomes of the Syrian Dialogue Conference in Sochi. This means that the US role in the Syrian crisis is going to continue declining and passing a new dilemma in northern Syria, stuck between two equally evil alternatives related to the US strategy of perpetuating the conflict.
Given the contradictory positions and statements of the US administration during the past month fluctuating between keeping or withdrawing US forces from Syria, it can be said that the current chemical media campaign and the threat of military strikes are due party to the sharp divisions in the US administration, and a form of exporting the crisis abroad.
In any case, whether or not the forces of war in the US administration would carry out their threats, what is constant, by virtue of the new international balance, is that Washington is moving towards further retrgression and retreat.
As we have repeatedly affirmed, we reaffirm today that the response to the US arrogance, US hypocrisy, and US occupation in many Syrian regions, and all other forms of foreign presence, lies in accelerating the political solution to the Syrian crisis, in accordance with UNSC Resolution 2254, expediting the formation of the Constitutional Committee, and resuming the Geneva negotiations. Otherwise, the continuity of the crisis would create the atmosphere for the continuation of the US aggression and provide USA with pretexts to embark on new acts of aggression.
Kassioun Editorial, Issue No 857, Apr. 9, 2018
