Turki Mustafa, Baladi News
In the latest chapter of the Syrian war, Moscow and Washington announced a ceasefire agreement in the Syrian south concurrently with a meeting between the American president Trump and its Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G20 summit held in Hamburg, Germany.
The Articles of The Russian- American Agreement:
- The withdrawal of regime forces, their allied militias along with the Islamic factions from the contact lines on all axes and the deployment of internal security forces affiliated to Assad on those lines.
- The deployment of Russian military police in the regions included in the ceasefire in al-Qunaitera, Daraa and al-Suwayda'a in order to observe the application of the ceasefire and the implementation of the truce.
- The armed revolutionary factions included in the agreement are responsible for protecting the private and public facilities and guaranteeing the exit of those unwilling to be involved in the agreement.
- The withdrawal of all pro-regime armed militias of none Syrian nationalities.
- Preparing the infrastructure for the return of the Syrian refugees from Jordan along with conducting elections for local councils with vast powers along with getting humanitarian aid into the regions that abide by the ceasefire.
The agreement also includes administrating the region between Moscow and Washington in a cooperative way that reflects their political and military agreement in Syria.
A Russian involvement before entitlements beyond the agreement:
Assad's regime that has always bragged of being a resistant regime against Israel has allowed Iran to control the southern borders after it called for the help of the regime of Mullahs. Iran seized the opportunity by pushing its tools to southern Syria as it's a strategical chance for it to control the borders with Israel in order to blackmail the active states. And then came the Russian-American agreement that involved Russia in a clash with Iran on the one hand and included an American approval of Russia's partnership in the most critical part of the Syrian arena on the other hand. This is to deepen the Russian-Iranian raft which will prove how able are the Russians to control the southern scene that is teeming with the Shiite militias and highlight their international status by achieving their part of the agreement.
On the other hand, Iran is mobilizing its militias in preparation for an a rebellion in the Syrian south that will destroy the sought-after Russian dream in an international and sustainable partnership with Washington and will be an introduction for the entry of files further than Syria that are related to the Russian national security like the file of Ukraine or the crisis of the missiles deployed on the outskirts of the Russian union and this will push the kremlin to prove its ability to apply the agreement in southern Syrian regardless of the clashes with the Iranians.
The Iranian Predicament:
The Iranian regime used to follow two strategies regarding the situation in Syria, the first is the "Soft Containment" strategy through which Iran seeks to enter in a direct conversation with the active parties while focusing on keeping Assad out of the equation in any political compromise that is to result in a peaceful solution as he is the ally that gave them the right to occupy Syria and after that the Iranian regime starts to contain the American-Russian agreement through maneuvers and negotiations hoping to stay inside the active circle. In case the first strategy failed, the Mullahs regime will resort to a totally different strategy which is calling for combating the "greatest devil" i.e. America by ordering their mercenaries like Hezbollah, Iraqi, and Afghani Shiite militias in order to fight a long-term grinding war and costly in blood and money even if it will result in their defeat in Syria as they will seek to expand the circle of conflict and destabilize the de-escalation regions and that's why Iran has involved more than 35,000 soldiers in the Syrian desert to secure their supply roads connecting Tehran with the Mediterranean.
Both of the aforementioned strategies can face certain obstacles like the Russians who are trying to prove their ability to execute the agreement, the free army factions that foiled the Iranian attempts to advance over the years of the revolution not to mention that Israel needs only the American approval to punish Iran and is militias.
The agreement violates Astana understandings:
The Syrian file was one of the most important files on the desk of president Trump who started his presidency by a suggestion to establish safe zones in Syria and that's when Russia rushed to present the initiative of establishing the de-escalation zones to cut the road before the US, but the American administration along with France and England expressed their reservation on the Russian project even before final map of the suggested regions of de-escalation was clear. Russia sent its minister of foreign affairs to understand the American viewpoint regarding their project and they discussed the obstacles in the way of Astana, on top of which came Bashar al-Assad who became a burden on the international community for having a history full of crimes along with the increasing military existence of Iran and its extremist Shiite militias in Syria.
And so Trump's administration has decided to get rid of "ISIS and Iran" at the same time which put the Russian diplomacy in a trouble before its allies Assad and Iran. The American participation in sponsoring the de-escalation agreement in southern Syria came to prevent the Russian monopoly on the Syrian file and that's why the Russians will never be able to overpass the American administration as it has many political and military pressure cards, on top of which comes supplying the revolutionary factions with sophisticated weapons that are able to expel the Iranian militias and topple Assad on the military level along with putting an end to the Russian airstrikes and activate the resolutions of the security council which are related to war crimes and then mobilize an Arab-international alliance to impose safe zones by military force.
Conclusion:
The pace of events in the Syrian arena is accelerating after the Russian-American agreement in the Syrian south which was preceded by declaring a ceasefire truce following the meeting of Hamburg between Trump and Putin last Friday along with the repercussions of the difference in the views of Russia and Iran regarding a number of complicated files, on top of which comes expelling the Shiite militias from the Syrian south according to clear political agreements that aim at drawing the features of control and influence and distributing the shares while preserving the ceasefire as a safe environment is crucial for completing those operations quietly.
The big question is how can the Syrian revolution follow up in the path of freedom before this regional and international complexity in the furnace of devastation that destroyed most of the Syrian regions, not to forget thousands of inmates and martyrs in Assad's prisons and more than eight million displaced people, including a large group of Syrian national elites.