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Kassioun Editorial 1264: Besiege Your Siege… Encircle the Ring
Our region as a whole is living in a state of anticipation over the possibility of a new American–“Israeli” war against Iran, because such a war would inevitably affect all the countries and peoples of the region, whatever its outcomes might be.
The indicators of recent days—including the positions expressed by the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia in particular, in addition to the stances of Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan, and the rising talk of “positive negotiations”—suggest that the likelihood of war has become less immediate and more complex, without ruling out the possibility of its occurrence.
What requires pondering and attempting to understand is not the day-to-day indicators of the war market, rising and falling, but rather the transformations underway in the region as a whole, and their relationship to major international transformations.
The clear trend regarding international balances is that the US, along with the West as a whole, is experiencing a continuous and accelerating decline – and the Epstein affair in this context is merely one indicator of internal decay and division.
This state of decline has begun to find expression in new regional realignments—not today, but starting 5-10 years ago, with increasing clarity: starting with the Chinese-brokered Saudi–Iranian settlement; a series of reconciliations between the Gulf states and Egypt on one side and Turkey on the other; and culminating in the rise of coordination at all levels among what can now be called the “quintuple alliance”, which includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, with China and Russia in the background.
The practical behavior of this alliance has begun to manifest itself tangibly on the ground—from Yemen to Sudan to Somalia and even to Syria. The shared general direction is working against American–“Israeli” sabotage that targets the five major regional states forming the alliance.
The shared threat is what drives these states toward closer and faster convergence, especially the threat posed by the global Zionist center, using the “Israeli” instrument, in alignment with the globalist current within the Western elite. In other words, it is the “New Middle East Project” that unites these states against it, because quite simply and clearly, they are all targeted by it—targeted with fragmentation, partition, and internal explosion, through the exploitation of ethnic, religious, and sectarian fault lines.
For a long time, the states adjacent to occupied Palestine have been called the “ring states”. The truth is that over more than half a century, these states have undergone a process of systematic sabotage and destruction that has exhausted them and pushed them to the brink of comprehensive collapse, including as unified geopolitical entities—through American and Zionist action, and in cooperation with the corrupt and repressive regimes that ruled them.
Looking at what we call the “quintuple alliance” states on the map makes it clear that a ring is forming and solidifying around the ring states, tangibly realizing the poetic foresight of “besiege your siege”. The new regional system is bound together by two clear existential tasks: first, international repositioning away from the declining West and closer to the rising major powers; and second, cutting off “Israel’s” extensions in the region in order to block the path to blowing up regional countries from within, through resolving various outstanding issues within the framework of consensual political solutions built on fraternity and cooperation among the peoples and states of the region.
In Syria, we must understand these transformations well, and understand at their core that a unified, stable, and prosperous future for Syria passes through one path for which there is no alternative:
First: Protecting national independence and ensuring sovereignty, and never relying on the Americans or their lies under any circumstances, nor trusting them regardless of the statements they issue.
Second: Benefiting from the new international and regional alliances and employing them in a way that serves the country, its unity, and the unity of its people.
Third: Defusing the triggers of division and explosion by resorting to comprehensive political solutions based on consensus among Syrians—all Syrians—away from the logic of domination and military coercion, and through an inclusive general national conference with full authorities.
Fourth: A radical transformation in the way the country’s economy is managed, away from the formulas of the IMF and the World Bank—that is, away from the way Bashar al-Assad ran the country—and toward a fundamentally different policy that serves the interests of 90% of Syrians living below the poverty line.
