What the West Wants from Syria

Historically, Syria has been a target of the surrounding superpowers in the West and East. This is a result of its geopolitical and geographical location. The historical crossing point gained influence in the region five hundred years ago. There is strong evidence of its power to this day.

It isn’t necessary to examine historical details to learn about the current situation in the region, the political relations and conflicts of the past six decades, or the inhabitants since the beginning of the independence era. We discover that Syria, which was liberated from French colonialism in the mid-1940s, found itself sinking in two battles at the same time: that of building a nation, and that of confronting the rise of Israel. The Israeli conflict coincided with the period of Syrian independence, when Syrians regarded the Palestinian matter as a national matter. This was before it was a matter of helping and supporting a fraternal country. In the meantime Syria was a matter of life or death regarding the success of politicians. Moreover, Syria became a door for national leaders and for anyone eager to become involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian matter became fixed in both the Syrian conscience and political discourse. For this reason, strategic antagonism between Syria and West Israel was formed. Critical review of Syrian politics and relations with foreign forces from then until now confirms the truth: the disagreement between Damascus and the Western capitals is still is a prevalent feature for one simple reason. Western policy aims to create a leading country in the conflict.

There is no doubt that Western politics, especially American politics, concentrates on defending Israel. The Jewish influence encountered in Western society and the dominance of the Zionist Lobby in Western politics, especially in America, is motivated by the protection of Israel. Because of the Jewish political influence, Israel became a permanent fixture in American political speeches and an integral part of American strategy in the region. Similarly, the Palestinian matter is sacred in Syrian political literature. There is a clear disagreement between the strategies.

If the American president tried to partly disengage troops in the region, Israel did not require it. The fate of the plan was dismissal, as with other peaceful initiatives from the West. Other examples of this phenomenon include John Kennedy, who was killed, and Presidents Jimmy Carter and George Bush Senior, who were not chosen for a second term despite what they had contributed to this rise of Israel. This was because of their proposal of a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This was especially true in the case of Carter, the “godfather” of the Camp David declaration and the Egyptian-Israeli peace. We believe that President Barack Obama, who apparently shows faint interests in solving the problem, will encounter the same fate.

From our point of view, the issue of Syria and its political relationship with the West is its steady position on the Palestinian matter, as well as lack of military engagement in Israeli projects of settlements approved in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine. Syria favors the peaceful handling of conflict, to which Israel is opposed.

The West supports foreign opposition and the continued political attack of Damascus, targeting it from international podiums and urging fighters to overthrown its political regime. The failure of this tactic caused the West to adopt a different strategy of undermining the Syrian military, economy, and political sphere. America did this first by prolonging the crisis to cause further bloodshed, complicating the conflict by thwarting possibilities of unwelcome political solutions. The same occurred when Kofi Anan’s solution was rejected by the Western opposition. There followed an unprecedented campaign of questioning the Syrian government, since Syria agreed to it. All of that coincided with increased violence from armed groups. Evidently, the aim is to deny those proposing peaceful solutions entry into the political process. A U.N. representative was present to offer an alternative, non-aggressive solution to discover which parties in the crisis are with or against this plan. This includes the opening of a political path to creating internal, external, regional and international climates for solution, not escalation. But, it is obvious during the lecture on the positions of internal parties on the crisis that we are facing two contradictory parties: those in favor of a political solution, represented by Syria, Russia, China, and a few regional and international allies, and the Western opposition gambling on the fall of Syria because of oil attrition, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France, and America. The Western opposition is also betting on Syria’s downfall because, as with Libya, military intervention under an international umbrella seems a farfetched scenario because of data regarding Syrian internal strength.

In addition to the degree of stability of the Russian and Chinese viewpoints, which strategize to first secure national safety, and then prevent the region from becoming the world’s oil and gas tank and third to keep the nations’ spirit safe from the grips of America and its allies. It seems that Istanbul has recently been granted a visa to the European democratic club. Can Turkey attend two weddings at the same time in this tragic dance?