The struggles of the Syrian people, after nearly 14 years of continuous suffering, have achieved the first phase of victory, and complete victory is still a new wave of struggle away. The first wave, which began in March 2011, has ended. Now the new wave begins, laden with the experiences and lessons of the first wave. We still have a long way to go to complete the victory, and the Syrian people still have struggles that must be waged.
Today, a dark page in the history of Syria and the Syrian people has been turned; a page in which an entire people was squeezed into its narrow margin, suffering all kinds of torment, oppression, deprivation, pain, displacement, poverty, and detention centers, while the main page was occupied by tyranny, corruption, plundering, and encroachment on people’s rights and dignity.
Last Wednesday, November 27, during its press conference following its expansion with the addition of new forces, the Moscow Platform for the Syrian Opposition announced an initiative for a meeting between the opposition and the regime in the Russian capital, Moscow, similar to the “Moscow 1” and “Moscow 2” meetings that took place in 2015. At the time of issuing this call, the latest developments on the ground had not yet begun to appear, but they were nevertheless expected to some extent, and were one of the reasons for launching this initiative.
Even before Trump moves into the White House, the general features of the amendments that will be introduced to American strategy within the ongoing Western struggle against the birth of a new world, and to hold on to the crumbling hegemony and unipolarity, are gradually crystallizing.
The two long stages Syria has experienced since 2011 – that is, the stage of fighting and military attrition, following by the stage of economic attrition that continues until now – have laid the foundation for a situation that is simultaneously extremely dangerous and fragile. This has made preserving the unity of Syria and preventing turning the de facto partition into a permanent one, the top priority of patriotic action.
These days, the market is thriving with expectations regarding the directions that US policy will take in the upcoming Trump era, and implicitly expectations regarding what will happen in our region and in our country.
In 1960, before the US elections on November 6 of that year, Fidel Castro was asked which candidate he preferred, Nixon or Kennedy? He replied: “You cannot compare two shoes worn by the same person”.
Engels’s saying that “war is the iron lung of capitalism” is still applicable now, except with the development that capitalism as a whole has been become a rusty iron lung. Capitalism’s main project has become war, and its only salvation is war and the continuation of war.
Kassioun’s last editorial focused on the main dangers threatening Syria, and presented an initial vision of “how do we protect Syria?” What is certain this week is that threats are increasing, and their indicators and warnings are becoming clearer.
Every additional day of the ongoing battle proves what Kassioun has repeatedly confirmed, that it is not the battle of Gaza alone, nor even the battle of Palestine or Lebanon alone. Rather, it is a battle for the entire region, and part of a major global battle, in which the main hostile party is Washington. It also proves that the greater goal of the fire burning in Palestine and Lebanon is to ignite the entire region, starting from detonating its internal contradictions.
