US Enters Syrian Conflict: Iran Is In A Race Against Time
19 January 2018By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
A Syria army of 30,000 soldiers is being built east of Euphrates, bordering
southern Turkey and northern Iraq. Half of the army consists of Syrian Kurds,
while the other half is of locals from the Arab region and other regions.
The United States is the head of this new project and the new player that has
finally decided to get involved in the Syrian war through supporting local
opposition groups and working in the field, in order to impose its view of
what a political solution could be in Syria.
Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper was the first to notice the accelerating field
changes and described them as a project for the birth of a new Syria.
Indeed, this is an important development established on a strong power, but it
won't be a state in the legal sense. Dividing states and building a new state
is a complex and dangerous political, legal and military process. Not to
forget that there almost is an international consensus to reject such project,
which was the issue of Iraq's Kurds and their dream of forming their own state
in a region fully controlled by them.
The project to build a region in Syrian eastern Euphrates is less than a
state, yet more than a protectorate.
In his recent testimony before the Congress, acting Assistant US Secretary of
State for Near East Affairs, David Satterfield said the project would
constitute a new model in Syria. Satterfield stated that the project appears
to be with many ambitious goals involving the efforts of diplomats,
intelligence officers and military commanders.
This time, US surprised everyone by showing that it could come up with new
ideas, build a project from scratch and maintain it secrecy. Under the
pretenses of fighting ISIS in eastern and southern Syria, US will gradually
increased its forces and experts to around 5,000, more than half of which were
in the eastern Syrian Euphrates. It was in charge of gathering and training a
large force of 30,000 Syrians whose first victory was defeating ISIS in Raqqa.
The first opposing reaction to US' idea did not come from Damascus regime or
Iran, as was expected, but from Turkey that announced it would not remain
silent about this and that it would go into war with armed Syrian Kurds.
Ankara considers Syrian Kurds as an extension of the "terrorist and
separatist" Turkish Kurds.
Everyone is waiting Turkish ground forces' first battle in Afrin in the next
few days.
Turkey's suspicious position toward any Kurdish armed force on its border is
justified and understandable, but its reluctance to confront Iran in Syria
created a vacuum prompting the creation of an alternative force for this task.
Countries involved in the conflict recognized Turkey's weak point and
succeeded in benefiting from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's pragmatic
policies, who seemed ready to cooperate and compromise with any party that
would support its conflict with the Kurds.
This is what the Iranians did, and then Russians, so Ankara rushed to them in
exchange of ending their support for the Kurds. US officials may feel that
they need to send the same message to Ankara. However, there is a more
important US message to the Iranian regime that Syria would be Iran's Vietnam.
The new Syrian power might be the best option for a reasonable peace in Syria,
not Sochi's peace that was planned by the Russians and Iranians, in order to
impose a solution by force. Iran wants a peace that allows it to occupy Syria
and impose its influence on Lebanon and Iraq which eventually could provide it
with a high negotiating power in its regional issues and its relations with
the West.
Iran is in a race against time. It attempts to control areas Russia had
already agreed to leave under the civilian opposition's control. A member of
the opposition delegation, Yasser al-Farhan spoke about the agreement and how
Iran violated it.
"Maps were clearly drawn showing that the regime will not enter these areas,
and that it would be managed by local councils with no heavy weapons, while
the light weapons will remain with security and civilian defense forces to
serve the local population," said Farhan.
Farhan added: "The agreement states that Iranian militias can't enter, neither
can the regime forces, rather, a limited group of Russian forces would only be
allowed as monitoring forces at three checkpoints to ensure the implementation
of the agreement. Behind the line dividing the two sides, Turkish troops would
be deployed."
As we see, Iranian militias did not respect the agreement, Russia did not
force them to respect it, nor did the Turkish forces intervene.
This Iranian activity proves that Sochi talks can't be trusted, which makes
the existence of a parallel force a necessity in light of the regional race
for the control of Syria.
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is the former general manager of Al-Arabiya
television. He is also the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, and the
leading Arabic weekly magazine Al-Majalla. He is also a senior columnist in
the daily newspapers Al-Madina and Al-Bilad.
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EsinIslam.Com
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