Authored by Pepe Escobar,
Tehran and Moscow harbor no illusions – and are getting ready accordingly. The struggle on BRICS is simply getting began.
Syria as we knew it’s being eviscerated in actual time – in geographic, cultural, financial and army phrases – by an appalling confluence of mercenary Hire-a-Jihadi mobs and psychopathological genocidals praying on the altar of Eretz Israel.
All of that’s totally supported by rabid NATOstan hyenas – masters of narrative management – and totally intertwined with the eradication of Palestine.
Throughout the avowedly dejected World Majority, there’s a sense that the momentarily exhausted Axis of Resistance might want to go turbo-Sisyphus to rearrange, resupply and recalibrate the protection of Palestine.
Predictably, there’s not a peep throughout the NATOstan sphere about Tel Aviv’s feral, indiscriminate bombing and snatching of sovereign Syrian territory. That represents a obtrusive illustration of the “rules-based worldwide order” in motion.
Collective West Assume Tankland is in rapture. Chatham Home preaches a Syrian rebuilding on this “watershed second” led by the U.S., EU, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, able to “forging a consensus round Syria” that “might function the inspiration for a brand new regional order.”
The rabidly anti-BRICS Middle for a New American Safety (CNAS) calls for “expelling Russia’s army presence” from Syria and “to shut the nation as an avenue for Iran’s energy projection.”
The Axis of Resistance is being mourned throughout the spectrum. Not so quick. The deeper that means of the “ceasefire” between Israel and Hezbollah is that the psycho-pathologicals, for all sensible functions, had been defeated, even when they wreaked horrendous havoc on southern Lebanon and Beirut’s suburbs.
Altering the narrative – and the main focus – to the Higher Idlibistan offensive allowed an avowedly large tactical victory not just for Eretz Israel goons however for the assembled NATOstan/Turkiye combo. But the actual nitty-gritty begins now, even because the partition of Syria is already in impact.
The Hire-a-Jihadi mob, in principle below the management of the aspiring Caliph of Al-Sham, the Saudi al-Jolani, actual identify Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sha’a, eventually could flip towards the Eretz Israel mission, contemplating they entertain cozy relations with Hamas in Gaza.
At the very least for the second, every thing is swell for the Oded Yinon and/or Bernard Lewis plan to subdue West Asia by way of time-tested Divide and Rule. This harks again not solely to Sykes-Picot in 1917, however even earlier, to 1906, when British PM Henry Campbell-Bannerman asserted that,
“There are individuals [Arabs] who management spacious territories teeming with manifest and hidden sources. They dominate the intersections of world routes. Their lands had been the cradles of human civilizations and religions.”
So if these “individuals” united, they’d then “take the destiny of the world into its fingers and would separate Europe from the remainder of the world.”
Ergo, the need of “a international physique” [later constituted as Israel] to be “planted within the coronary heart of this nation to stop the convergence of its wings in such a means that it might exhaust its powers in unending wars. It might additionally function a springboard for the West to realize its coveted objects.”
Pirates of the Levant
The Eretz Israel hallucination doesn’t precisely mingle with Sultan Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman dream, though they coincide within the broader urge to redraw the map of the Japanese Mediterranean and West Asia.
As for the Exceptionalists, they’ll barely consider their luck. In a swoop, they simply devoured up the important thing strategic node of a now buried thought: Arabism, or anti-imperialism within the Levant.
Ever since Barack Obama, within the early 2010s, declared struggle on Syria below orders from Tel Aviv, the Empire of Chaos had thrown every thing and the kitchen sink at Damascus for at the very least 13 years: the longest and most costly regime change marketing campaign in U.S. historical past, full with poisonous, forced-starvation sanctions – till immediately the large prize fell on their lap.
The prize entails – in principle – smashing an ally of three prime BRICS, Russia, Iran and China, with the added bonus of turning it right into a geoeconomic black gap whereas doctoring the narrative to promote “the top of the dictator” to the World Majority because the precondition for the rise of a brand new Dubai.
We nonetheless don’t know the way rump Syria will appear to be – and even for a way lengthy it will likely be ruled by a bunch of neoliberal Salafi-jihadis with trimmed beards and low-cost new off-the-rack fits.
The actual fact is the Hegemon is already controlling at the very least a 3rd of Syrian territory for at the very least a decade – and can proceed to steal Syrian oil and wheat with absolute impunity: Pirates of the Levant in full regalia.
Taking part in the position of sidekick, the UK’s MI6 will proceed to excel in offering P.R. ops, across-the-board lobbying and gun-running alternatives for the gullible motley crew of mercenary Salafi-jihadis.
On the subject of Tel Aviv, they’re destroying Eretz Israel’s largest remaining Arab army opposition; stealing/annexing land continuous; and dreaming of whole domination, aerial and naval, in case Russia loses its bases in Tartus and Hmeimim (that’s a significant “if”). To not point out they considerably not directly management the brand new Caliph, who has meekly requested them to please, don’t conquer an excessive amount of Syrian land.
The partition will proceed alongside three different main vectors.
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Hegemon-controlled land and army bases – which is likely to be used to assault Iraq. Overlook a few faux sovereign Syria recovering their oil fields.
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Turkiye-annexed land which can inevitably result in the total absorption of Aleppo (already proclaimed by the Sultan on the file).
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Damascus run by an ISIS offshoot immediately manipulated by Turkish intel.
All the above may lead, already within the first quarter of 2025, to a form of Salafi-Jihadi Zionization association with only one goal: to ease sanctions from the U.S. and the EU.
As for al-Jolani, actual identify Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sha’a, for all his woke rebranding, he was Al-Zarkawi’s lieutenant and Emir of Nineveh in the course of the al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, later reconverted as ISIS) rampage in Mesopotamia. There’s no means Baghdad can have political relations with a Salafi-jihadi who’s on Iraq’s most needed record.
An extra headache is the EU’s circumstances for normalizing Syria, as spelled out by the unelected batshit loopy Estonian accountable for its international coverage (and representing almost 500 million European residents): Brussels will solely carry sanctions if there aren’t any Russian bases and “Russian affect” left within the Caliphate of al-Sham.
In the meantime, the Empire of Chaos will proceed its plunder – along side Israel. The Syrian oil stolen by the People is bought by the Kurds to Israel in Erbil with an enormous low cost. In any case, this oil is “free” – as in stolen. At the very least 40% of Israel’s oil comes from the Erbil racket.
And it will get worse.
Israel has annexed the Al-Wahda dam within the basin of the Yarmouk river, near town of Al-Qusayr within the Dara’a governorate, and close to the Jordanian border. This dam gives at the very least 30% of Syria’s water and 40% of Jordan’s water.
Every little thing is so predictable: what the NATOstan/Israel combo actually needs is an amputated, disaggregated, susceptible Syria.
Empire of Chaos goes Full Anarchy
But the entire poisonous equation is much from over. Aspiring Caliph Jolani could also be tempted to permit Russia to maintain its bases – and to move their weapons techniques in a foreign country intact. He’s in shut contact with Moscow, and HTS is de facto defending Russian belongings.
In parallel, Hezbollah signaled it’s keen to “cooperate” with HTS, which by the best way can be defending the Iranian embassy in Damascus.
There isn’t a proof in any way that the Higher Idlibistan invasion was a Trojan Horse agreed on the negotiating desk by the – useless – “Astana course of” even earlier than the fateful Doha assembly on Saturday, January 7.
What is definite is that the evaluation in Moscow and Beijing privileges the Lengthy Huge Image. The Chinese language for now are extraordinarily circumspect on the file about the entire Syrian drama, other than declaring themselves “able to play a constructive position”. Beijing and Moscow see Syria as a short lived setback on BRICS inflicted by an Empire on Desperation Row, together with its equally determined Eretz Israel ally and a Sultan biting greater than he can chew.
The lame duck Biden combo is completely clueless on the emergence of a – doable – Israeli-Turkish hegemonic vector in a key node of West Asia. The one factor that issues for Straussian neo-cons and their Tel Aviv psycho-apocalyptic buddies, relating to the disintegration of Syria, is the window of alternative forward for Israel to assault Iran.
The Occasions of Israel is in rapture: whereas beforehand the “IAF wouldn’t fly immediately over Damascus when finishing up strikes on Iran-linked targets within the capital, it now can.”
The important thing to unlock the entire riddle could lie, as soon as once more, with Jolani. Every little thing in West Asia is all the time in perpetual flux. Just a few days after the autumn of Damascus, Sultan Erdogan in addition to NATO have refused to assist Jolani towards the Israeli onslaught in Syria.
Speak concerning the aspiring Caliphate’s “sovereignty”.
So the place Jolani might flip to in a quest for doable allies? And who can he depend on to impose some order in completely disaggregated Syria – together with air energy to combat ISIS pockets throughout the desert?
Enter Tehran and Moscow. Ergo, the again channels on overdrive. They’d not bat an eye fixed relating to “cooperating” with the toddler Caliphate – so long as their nationwide pursuits should not threatened.
The Empire of Chaos will stay unmatched when it comes to narrative management, P.R. stunts, monopolizing social media spheres and continuous psy struggle. All hybrid fronts. However that’s about it.
The Empire was miserably defeated in each Afghanistan and Iraq. And continues to be humiliated by the Houthis within the Pink Sea. Washington has lower than zero benefit over Russia on the army sphere – besides on digital warfare (EW), at the very least on the West Asian theatre, and ISR (Russia is catching up), which immediately interprets into inflicting increasingly more terror.
As for Iran, it’s removed from weaker now than earlier than the autumn of Damascus. That’s imperial narrative spin, inbuilt within the self-pleasing Exceptionalist mechanism. Ayatollah Khamenei, a high-quality strategist, doesn’t waste his phrases. Tehran will finally develop another provide chain to Hezbollah and the West Financial institution.
Apart from, observe the cash. The Iranian Overseas Ministry has already famous that “the brand new Syrian authorities will tackle all of Syria’s monetary obligations to Iran.” That’s some huge cash – that Jolani doesn’t have.
Michael Hudson is adamant: “Anarchy is what the U.S. plan is.” This being West Asia, the place backstabbing is an artwork, there will likely be blowback. Tehran and Moscow harbor no illusions – and are getting ready accordingly. The struggle on BRICS is simply getting began.
