Kassioun Editorial 1174: A Historic Opportunity Exists… We Must Seize it!

Of course, this is not surprising, as it is organically linked to the fate of the conflict in our region, and implicitly to the fate of the entire regional system, which has become like a “dead person holding the reins of the living”. For decades, the regional system has reflected a specific situation in the international power balance, specifically through the system’s near complete bias towards the West. This has been so since Sadat said that “99% of the cards in the game are in America’s hands”, a situation that has changed radically over the past two decades, and in recent years, particularly since Ukraine 2022.

If we ponder the way in which the various regional powers in our region deal with the ongoing major international change, we can distinguish a spectrum of positions ranging from complete or near complete complicity with the Western/Zionist system, to “maneuvering” and trying to play between the old and the new, to clear and blatant confrontation with the West and the Zionist entity.

Within this spectrum of positions, and if we try to examine the effects of these positions from a purely pragmatic perspective (and it is not a coincidence that the practical pragmatic examination the same results as the first one), we will find that the forces whose political and popular influence are increasing, and which are able to achieve tangible progress at all levels, are precisely the powers that correctly understand the new international balance, and stand on the right side of history. That side is completely the opposite one to the American and the Zionist.

As for the forces that follow the method of maneuvering and playing, they see themselves restricted by their declared and undeclared financial, economic, and political ties with the West. Therefore, they suffer great difficulty in moving with the winds of history, and they lose successive major opportunities at the various levels, including opportunities for development and internal progress.

As for the complicit powers, their role is rapidly declining, and they are threatened by increasingly bigger crises, especially at the internal levels. We particularly point out the Abraham Accords countries, and the regimes involved in deals with the IMF and the World Bank, and therethrough with the West and its center in Washington.
This does not only apply to our region, but also to the entire world. Even major economic powers in the world – e.g., Europe – are increasingly suffering from their dependency on the US, and are paying heavy economic, social, and political prices as a result of clinging to the threads of the previous international system, which is clinically dead and awaits its final burial in the next few years and decades.

What prevents “accomplices” and “manipulators” from moving to benefit from the new international balance is based at least on two things: first, historical ties, especially economic and financial, with the West; and second, the absence of independent political will.

This lack of will is also the result of several factors and reasons that may vary from one country to another. Among those factors and reasons is cognitive ignorance of the nature of the ongoing global transformations, either by denying them completely, or by assuming that they are temporary and that the decline and crises that Washington is experiencing are something that will be resolved at some point in the future by returning to the old international order.

Aside from the regimes’ calculations, the concrete facts, especially during the last ten years, prove beyond doubt that every additional distance from the West, the Americans, and the Zionists is additional immunity for the peoples and countries that follow this path. Moreover, it is a golden historic opportunity to solve intractable problems at all levels – political, economic, and social.

Within these coordinates, the correct choice from the point of view of Syria’s national interest and the interest of the Syrian people is to politically and economically distance ourselves from the West, its institutions, and its formulas, and to move towards a comprehensive political solution on the basis of UNSC Resolution 2254 that reunifies Syria and the Syrian people. For this to happen there must be a unified political will capable of benefiting from the existing historical opportunity.

(النسخة العربية)