Kassioun Editorial 1175: Go Ahead, Lay Your Siege, 2254 is Inevitable!

The worsening situation in Syria is not limited to the rapidly deteriorating conditions of all Syrians at all levels, and it does not stop at the decline in Syria’s weight and role at the regional level, but it also includes the decline in the weight of extremists from the Syrian sides and their ability to influence at both the internal and external levels. This decline reaches the point of humiliation. This is a natural result of linking the country, its people, and its fate to narrow interests based on a set of illusions and projects presented by the West, which are in reality nothing more than an illusion whose primary function is to prolong the crisis to the maximum possible extent and time.

The “step-for-step” project, and similar projects, including talk about “early recovery” and the “safe and neutral environment”, are all part of the same deal. Said deal is to waste time, with the aim of further weakening Syria and Syrians on all sides, leading to a state of overall disintegration and collapse.

What is new about the issue, especially over the past year, is that the margins within which extremists can play are getting narrower. The main factors behind this include the following:

First: Continuously making promises to different and contradictory sides, and not fulfilling them, objectively leads to reducing the margins of maneuver between the contradictory sides.

Second: It is becoming clear with time that Western promises from above and under the table are just promises without any guarantees. Moreover, they are promises conditional on a degree of concessions (to them, of course, and not to the Syrian people), that are irreversible, to the extent that whoever makes these concessions would lose any realistic justification to continue, even for the West itself.

Third: All the West’s plots and plans for Syria, including its sanctions and siege, have one goal, which is to deepen the crisis to the point of destroying the country, its people, and its political sides alike. The chronic weakness and apparent decline in the influence of all these sides is a concrete indicator of that.

Fourth: The general decline in the weight of the West, especially the American and the “Israeli”, in our region as a whole also applies to Syria itself, especially with the deepening of Western division and the deepening of internal problems in the West, which no two objective observers disagree are destined for further accumulation and complexity.

The final communique of the last Arab summit going back to emphasizing 2254, after it was absent from that of the previous summit, is not a coincidence. It simultaneously expresses the impasse of the horizons of the imaginary formulas outside the framework of 2254 put forth by the West on the one hand, and an expression of a development in the alignment of the most influential countries within the Arab world in a manner inconsistent with the “Arab NATO” and the “Abraham Accords” on the other.

As for the Syrian patriotic forces, regardless of their current formal alignment, what is certain is that they must deal with Western sanctions and siege as a constant factor that will continue for many years to come. Therefore, they must work with the mentality of: “go ahead, lay your siege” (a quote from a poem by Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, meaning go ahead besiege us, there will still be resistance). This is done by moving towards a real political solution on the basis of UNSC Resolution 2254, and in cooperation with international and regional powers that have an interest in stability in Syria, led by the Astana tripartite, China, and key Arab countries.

In the end, the only way out is to implement UNSC Resolution 2254. Moreover, indeed, all the forces that obstruct its implementation, whether openly or through under-the-table games, will reap one result, which is more retreat, weakness, and decline.

(النسخة العربية)