Wounded Syria remains in the embrace of a butcher

The butcher Bashar Al-Assad has duly taken his seat at the Arab League, which has been vacant for the past twelve years. He delivered a sterile and empty speech at last month’s summit in Saudi Arabia, proclaiming his triumph over the free Syrian people.

News of his ongoing crimes against Syrians in the liberated areas and the bombs dropped by his aircraft has vanished from Arab satellite TV channels, just as information on the Syrian opposition has disappeared. Why would they anger the butcher with whom they have normalised relations, and who is regarded as the victor in the Syrian war? “Assad has triumphed over the opposition,” said Arab League Secretary General Ahmad Abu al-Gheit.

Even the countries that insisted on reconciliation and a safe return of the migrants — I will not say refugees — swallowed their words and forgot their conditions, rushing to the murderous regime just like those first in line to do so. Everyone is eager to claim their portion of the Syrian pie; all of them have contributed to its current state in one way or another.

It is absurd, indeed naive, for some analysts to insist that Saudi Arabia was adamant about the return of the Syrian regime to the League, and hosted the butcher at the Jeddah summit as a challenge to the US, which rejects the regime’s return to the international community and imposes the harshest sanctions on it, including those arising from the Caesar Act.

In truth, the US protects Assad’s brutal regime. Saudi Arabia would not have hosted the butcher Bashar, nor would Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman have dared to welcome him as a conqueror without explicit orders from Washington. This is the sort of role distribution at which the US and other colonialists excel.

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The butcher has killed his people with explosive barrels and phosphorus cluster bombs, and has now been rewarded. Over a million people have been killed during the Syrian revolution, and he has forcibly displaced more than half of the population. His jails are filled with thousands of people, where they are tortured and abused horrifically. Having destroyed cities, burnt everything in sight, razed buildings with their inhabitants still inside and ruined more than 70 per cent of the country’s infrastructure, he flung open Syria’s doors to Russian and Iranian invasions. The invaders continue to exterminate the remaining Syrian people.

In the ongoing tragedy playing out in Syria over the past twelve years, one scene took place at the UN Security Council last week. The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, accused the US of creating the Free Syrian Army in Raqqa province with elements of Daesh to use against the Syrian regime. He failed to provide substantial evidence for his accusation, and conveniently overlooked Russia’s use of Wagner company mercenaries to carry out its dirty work in Syria.

The Putin representative also neglected to mention Russia’s creation of the Fifth Corps militia to fight the Syrian opposition. Nor did he mention the activities of his ally and partner in the destruction and occupation of Syria, Iran, which sent Shia militias from Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight against Syrians, applying a scorched earth policy previously used in Chechnya. It is also worth noting that Russia must have entered Syria with Washington’s permission, otherwise, President Vladimir Putin would not have dared to set foot on Syrian soil.

Syria condemns Israel strike that left two soldiers wounded – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor]

When the Arab Spring revolutions started in 2011, they shook the Arab world to its core. Tyrannical leaders lost their footing. Some fell, like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen. Others awaited their fate anxiously, such as Syria’s Assad, who teetered on the brink, only to be rescued by Russia’s intervention. Assad chose the subjugation of Syria under Russian occupation and staying on as a puppet atop the ruins rather than following the fate of his former regional counterparts.

It was not just the Syrian despot who trembled. All the kings and princes in the Arab world shook with him, fearful that their people would also seek freedom, dignity and democracy and that their thrones would fall. Hastily, they allied themselves with the Zionist enemy, which was also disturbed by the Arab Spring. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu made no secret of his desire to keep the Assad regime at the helm in Syria. After all, Bashar’s father, Hafez Al-Assad, handed the Golan Heights to the Zionist enemy in 1967. Indeed, the elder Assad was a similar tyrant who committed genocidal crimes in Hama, terrifying, plundering, oppressing and crushing the rights of the Syrian majority. Treachery runs deep in Assad blood, and the junior despot maintains his usurped regime without ever firing a single shot towards Israel over all these long years. That is why his replacement has been vetoed.

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The UAE is at the centre of the counter-revolutionary movement, aided and abetted by Israel’s Mossad spy agency. It is from there that the Arab Spring has been transformed into bloody autumn in Syria, Libya and Yemen especially. The aim is to instil fear in anyone who contemplates staging a demonstration or even thinks about demanding freedom, democracy and dignity.

The pro-Israel US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE all stood against the Syrian revolution, the greatest of all Arab uprisings. The Syrian people made huge sacrifices, as everyone sought to crush them into the ground. From near and far, international hyenas tore at Syria’s wounded body, taking whatever they could and escaping with their spoils, leaving it awash in blood.

The Syrian Revolution has been forsaken by all those who previously identified themselves as “friends of Syria” but went on to seize their share of the spoils. The free people of Syria now put their trust in their Creator, having surrendered themselves to states that claimed to support them and provided them with money and weapons when they carried out their orders. These states have betrayed the people of Syria in favour of regional interests. This has been obvious in Daraa, Aleppo, Homs and Hama.

Syria has thus exposed the treachery and betrayal of close allies and kinfolk. However, the story is unfinished, and the end has yet to be written. Revolutions, like wars, have their ups and downs until the moment of decisive victory arrives. Let Bashar Al-Assad’s ongoing rule and the false celebrations not deceive you; the embers of the revolution still smoulder in the heart of every free Syrian waiting for them to be reignited. Tomorrow is near for those who wait, God willing. In the meantime, wounded Syria is in the embrace of a butcher.