Syria’s Post-mortem: Terror, Occupation, and Palestine, by Pepe Escobar

Thinking that order can be imposed in the Middle East is even more foolish than trying to herd cats. From Pepe Escobar at unz.com:

The NATO-Israeli cabal cheering on Damascus’s fall will get more than they bargained for. Power struggles and infighting among extremist militias and civil society, each backed by different regional and foreign actors who want a piece of the pie.

The short headline defining the abrupt, swift end of Syria as we knew it would be: Eretz Israel meets new-Ottomanism. The subtitle? A win-win for the west, and a lethal blow against the Axis of Resistance.

But to quote still pervasive American pop culture, perhaps the owls are not what they seem.

Let’s start with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s surrender. Qatari diplomats, off the record, maintain that Assad tried to negotiate a transfer of power with the armed opposition that had launched a major military offensive in the days prior, starting with Aleppo, then swiftly headed southward toward Hama, Homs, aiming for Damascus. That’s what was discussed in detail between Russia, Iran, and Turkiye behind closed doors in Doha this past weekend, during the last sigh of the moribund “Astana process” to demilitarize Syria

The transfer of power negotiation failed. Hence, Assad was offered asylum by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. That explains why both Iran and Russia instantly changed the terminology while still in Doha, and began to refer to the “legitimate opposition” in a bid to distinguish non-militant reformists from the armed extremists cutting a swathe across the state.

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