PRESIDENT Assad’s recent statement to the AFP news agency reflects the huge change in the internal Syrian situation thanks to the successful alliance between the Syrian people and army and Russia, formed after the latter clearly understood that if the Islamists are allowed to take power in Damascus, the Islamist hordes will be exported to the Caucasus in no time.
Syria has now driven the Islamists out of Aleppo and back into Turkey cutting their supply lines, while the army and the popular militias that support it are poised to march on Raqqa, the ISIS capital, backed by Russian airpower.
The imperialist powers far from welcoming this situation are in fact furious with the poisonous Hammond leading the pack! Their local allies are now being readied for a major action in the region. The Turkish government is already shelling the Kurdish YPG movement inside Syria, while Saudi jets and troops are being moved to Turkey for a major intervention into Syria, at the same time as the Saudis and their allies are planning a major military movement and provocation along the Iraqi border, close to Syria.
No wonder Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has rated the chances of a truce holding at 49%. Assad however told AFP that he had a time frame for taking back the whole country and that it was ‘dependent on two scenarios’.
He said: ‘Suppose that the problem is purely Syrian, i.e. that Syria is isolated from its surroundings, we can put an end to this problem in less than a year by moving on two fronts: fighting terrorism and political action.
‘The second scenario – which is the case now – taking the shape of continuing supplies to terrorists through Turkey, Jordan, and partly from Iraq – because Daesh (ISIS) exists in Iraq with Saudi, Turkish, and Qatari support – naturally means that the solution will take a long time and will incur a heavy price. So, it is difficult to give a precise answer about the timeframe.’
When asked: ‘Can’t you say precisely how many years you need to restore peace to Syria?’ he responded: ‘The question is: for how many years will Turkey and Saudi Arabia continue to support terrorism. That is the question. And when will the West put pressure on these countries to stop supporting terrorism.’
This indeed is the question, and the answer is that the Western imperialist powers will only halt their Saudi and Turkish allies and their own provocations when the working class in the US and the UK in particular rises up against them, creating a situation where there is a war taking place on two fronts, forcing them to withdraw from Syria.
Meanwhile, the puppet forces of imperialism are on the move. The Saudi media, earlier this week, stated that some 350,000 forces from the Persian Gulf Arab states and a number of other countries, including Egypt, Sudan and Pakistan, will take part in the Saudi-led military exercise dubbed ‘North Thunder’ in the area of Hafer al-Batin in the next few days.
Some 2,540 warplanes, 20,000 tanks and 460 helicopters are scheduled to participate in the exercise. The spokesman for Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Units has already warned Saudi Arabia against any ground aggression into the Arab country.
We will turn Iraq into a ‘graveyard’ for Saudi forces if they dare attack, Ahmad al-Assadi said on Saturday. The Saudi Arabian feudalists have always seen their role as that of redrawing the map of the Middle East, and are determined not to let the situation in Syria prevent it from carrying out this role.
The Saudi, Bahraini and Kuwaiti ruling clans are the special friends of the UK which has been arming them and seconding military and police officers to their forces for a number of years. Perhaps this is why the UK Foreign Secretary Hammond is sticking to the line that to beat IS you have to remove Assad first if all, and seems to be more enthusiastic to carry out this task than even the USA.
A major war in the Middle East will see the bankrupt Tories completely loot the NHS and the Welfare State to pay for it. British workers and their trade unions must demand the withdrawal of all UK forces from the Middle East, and if the Tories will not, take action to bring them down.