Iran is in the face of confrontation: Al-Assad and Putin are reaping the positive outcome

Written by Nasser Kandil,
Since the Russian-Syrian-Iranian alliance was translated in the positioning of the Russian forces in Syria in 2015 and the start of the path of supporting the Syrian army to liberate the lands controlled by the terrorist groups starting from Aleppo, Badia, Deir Al Zour, Ghouta, Daraa, and ending in Idlib, it seems for everyone that the Russian-Syrian-Iranian coordination is present in every step. The Iranian escalation against the American presence in the region as a response to the assassination of the two leaders Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis along with considering Iraq as the most important political and military arena have been accompanied by a clear Russian movement on the Syrian and Libyan paths to resolve the inclusion of Turkey to a complete coalition with Russia. This movement is based on the projects of transferring gas to Europe and what it meant economically to Turkey in the light of the open conflict where Washington is sponsoring the Israeli oil pipeline and the inclusion of Greece and Cyprus to it, and the conflict on the position of Egypt between these two projects in the light of a Lebanese-Israeli conflict on demarcating the borders of gas fields and a prominent Syrian-Israeli conflict in addition to an Italian alliance with Turkey and Russia. Therefore, the cease-fire has been announced in Libya where each of the Russians and the Turks have relationships with the two parties of the conflict, Ankara is paying the bill of its role in Libya by preparing to leave Syria.
The American withdrawal from Iraq has become an inevitable fact according to the Russian-Turkish reading, this means the withdrawal from Syria too whether this requires an escalation or not by the resistance forces. Therefore, the understanding on the recognition of the central role of the Syrian state and its control on all the Syrian land is no longer a subject that bears maneuvering or postponing. On the basis of this Turkish recognition a high-level official meeting has been hold publically for the first time between Syria and Turkey represented by the head of the Syrian National Security Council, Major General Ali Mamlouk and the head of Turkish intelligence the General Haqan Fidan and under Russian sponsorship, the center of the meeting was the future of Idlib, and the Syrian demand of a Turkish withdrawal from all the Syrian territories within temporal timetable under coordination between Damascus, Ankara, and Moscow in a way that dispels all the fear of establishing cantons that have ethnic and national factions and represent a Syrian-Turkish threat as the Kurdish separatist project.
On the Israeli bank which represents the most important part of the American concerns. The approval of demand of the Syrian President of the unconditional release of the detainee Sidqi Al-Maqt and his return to his hometown in the occupied Golan under clear Russian pressures was only a sense by the occupation entity and its leaders that the issue of Golan will be opened soon after the departure of the Turkish and American troops and after the decisions of annexations affected by Al-Maqt’s return to Golan have become nothing but ink on paper, because the time of the Israeli choice between opening the issue of Golan politically with Moscow and confronting the threat of a resistance that could turn into a war is no longer far, after the bet on demanding from the Americans what is impossible and after they reached to the dilemma of the inevitable withdrawal due to their obedience to the Israeli advices of escalation in order to reach to negotiating paths.
The Iranians along with the resistance forces master the game of exchanging outcomes with Russia since their alliance with Syria. It seems clear that the Russian-Iranian understanding which achieved a cumulative success in containing Turkey is succeeding in doing the same thing according to the Iranian-Russian alliance with many countries at different proportions. The unified strong Syria has the main priority in the objectives of this strategic alliance.
Translated by Lina Shehadeh,