About a week ago, Trump presented a “new proposal” containing 20 points to end the war on Gaza. Arab states accepted it before Netanyahu introduced amendments thereto. Hamas responded with a shrewd diplomatic reply that neither rejected nor accepted it, leaving the door open for negotiations and a possible agreement.
The last Kassioun editorial, titled “He Who Perseveres Wins... He Who Gives Up Will Be Defeated”, addressed the recent talk of a forthcoming “security agreement” with “Israel”. This talk intensified over the past week, coinciding with the UN General Assembly meetings, part of which were attended by the Syrian president. Multiple media sources, mostly Western and mostly “Israeli” in their orientation, confirmed that the agreement would be signed in New York or Washington, would include major concessions from the Syrian side, and that a Trump-sponsored meeting would be held between the “Israeli” occupation’s prime minister and the transitional Syrian president on the 29th of this month.
Official and journalistic sources, both Syrian and non-Syrian, are talking about the possibility of a US-sponsored “security agreement” with the “Israeli” entity soon. The discussions include various details about the nature of the supposed agreement. Regardless of the veracity of the rumors, what these discussions all have in common is that they all involve Syrian concessions and concessions to the occupier in exchange for “some sort of” security or non-security “guarantees”, as well as talk of lifting US sanctions, which have yet to be lifted despite all the hype surrounding their eventual lifting.
During the last week, two significant events have taken center stage for our entire region, in terms of their weight and impact on the various equations governing the conflict, including those that directly affect us in Syria.
In Tianjin, China, representatives from half the world gathered, and the leaders of the Eurasian countries, who today constitute the true center of the world and contribute at least a third of the global gross domestic product, stood on one platform. This summit could have been like its predecessors, but through the military parade that followed the summit, China presented itself as a military umbrella for the summit and its outcomes. It revealed a sophisticated military structure funded with a budget equivalent to a quarter of the US military budget, and made the US army appear as if it belonged to a previous era. This parade was further enhanced by the presence of both the Russian and North Korean presidents alongside the Chinese president in a rare and unprecedented moment, resembling the announcement of a tripartite alliance.
The media landscape is filled with news, statements, and analyses about US efforts to broker an agreement between the “Israeli” entity and the current Syrian government. Hebrew media, along with some Arab and international media outlets revolving in the same orbit, are striving to portray the matter as if an agreement has indeed been reached, with only a few “minor details” remaining, e.g., fate of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
The well-known objective law continues to operate: War is the iron lung through which capitalism breathes, and the deeper its crises become, the more it expands the scope of war. In today’s world, after the Western center lost the vast majority of real production processes and retains the dollar financial center and dominance of international institutions due to the inertia of the past, war has become its sole and most important tool. The entirety of the Western center has become an iron lung of war, with nothing left to offer the planet but wars, destruction, and sanctions.
On Friday, June 13, 2025, and with blatant American complicity, “Israel” launched an unprecedented, large-scale aggression against Iran, despite ongoing negotiations on the Iranian nuclear file. Numerous countries around the world and in our region condemned this aggression, most notably the clear and justified condemnations issued by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, along with condemnations from all Arab countries.
Since Assad fled – nearly six months ago – we have, through Kassioun, repeatedly said:
US sanctions will not be lifted anytime soon, and let’s work to relaunch the Syrian economy, whether the sanctions are lifted or not, while continuing to demand lifting them.
Over the past week, media reports, mostly in the West, have discussed the possibility of Syrian normalization with “Israel”. This discussion has taken place within several contexts, including Trump’s visit to the Gulf states and the link between lifting US sanctions on Syria and normalization with the Zionist entity.
