The American envoy to Syria, James Jeffrey, last May 12, gave a speech to a group of attendees at the "Hudson Institute", which is located in the American capital, Washington. Then the American diplomat said, without paying much attention to him, that his mission in Syria is to turn Syria into a "quagmire." To the Russians. " In the same word, too, Jeffrey worked hard to remove all assumptions that talk about his country has entered a dead end in Syria as is the case in Afghanistan, but rather tried to confirm that the United States began reaping its success policy in Syria, and one of them is to transform Syria from " A resource for the Russians to put a burden on both Moscow and Tehran. "
Although the Americans insist up to this point that the goal of all their efforts in Syria - the latest of which is to put the "Caesar" law into effect - is that they want to secure the Syrian regime's acceptance of an unconditional cessation of the war, and then begin peaceful negotiations that bring the Syrians to the ballot boxes, it has become self-evident that It is the Russian position that still prevents Assad's "victory" from being as ash as Washington, which was pushed recently, to tighten economic cordon around the Assad regime's neck in an unprecedented way, as Washington insists on maintaining its united front with the European Union, which prevents the provision of any Funds for the reconstruction of Syria (estimated at approximately $ 250 billion) without a real commitment from Assad to implement "a comprehensive and real political transition that includes everyone, negotiated by the parties to the Syrian conflict on the basis of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254."
And because Moscow has become more certain that Assad, who lost three quarters of Syria, will not be more flexible in the near future with the international community, American policy may push Russia to abandon the Assad regime as an emergency option instead of continuing to plunge into a conflict in which the most brutal dictatorship in The Middle East is ready to take into account the interests of the Russian ally.
The former Syrian regime cameraman, known as “Caesar,” was unaware of the impact of his decision to flee from the regime’s areas and in his military collection 55,000 photographs documenting cases of torture and systematic killing that have afflicted thousands of Syrian detainees since the Syrian revolution erupted in 2011.
The photographer who managed to stand before the US Congress in 2014, after six years of publishing thousands of pictures showing some of the horrors of what is happening in the regime's prisons, became the first credit for imposing the most severe sanctions on this system, as the United States decided on June 17 / Last June, the "Caesar Law" was implemented, which included a series of economic sanctions targeting the economy of the Syrian regime and everyone who deals with it, where it was able in this law to bridge all the gaps that had been suffered from previous sanctions regimes, and helped over a decade in Assad to receive military support And financially from his Russian, Iranian, and Chinese allies, and thus mitigating the impact of European and American sanctions on him to a great extent. Rather, Caesar’s law now largely prevents the Syrian regime from using the Lebanese economy as a backyard to carry out its economic activities. Normalizing its relations with the Assad regime.
So, one month before the implementation of the “Caesar’s Law,” the Syrian regime began to take a blow after another. The first consequences of this law were not more poverty for the residents of its regions, where about 80% of its citizens face poverty after losing the Syrian pound two-thirds of its value since the beginning of the year, while About 9.3 million Syrians are suffering from food insecurity, conditions that led to renewed protests in vital Syrian cities such as Daraa and As-Suwayda.
With all of the above, the economic crisis of the regime is hardly inferred more important than the incident of the emergence of the dispute of the ruling family in Syria to the public, as the first "scapegoat" to solve the economic system crisis was the godfather of the financial empire of that family and his cousin Rami Makhlouf, where the system was found in Control of Makhlouf’s money is an opportunity to save the country’s deteriorating economy. Soon, a number of measures were taken against the pillar of the Syrian economy, which began with the seizure of some of its assets by the General Directorate of Customs, and then with the issuance of heavy fines. After his "Al-Bustan" association, which includes a 20,000-man paramilitary force under the "supervision of the palace," the regime also used pressure on Makhlouf outside the borders of Syria. In mid-April last, Egypt seized a shipment of hashish hidden in dairy products produced by the "Milkman" company. That Makhlouf owns, as the besieged billionaire found nothing but denying responsibility, but the issue of restricting his economic activities was exacerbated.
What is certain is that the incident of disagreement with Makhlouf is an attempt by the regime to respond to the Russian pressures seeking to push the regime to restore its economic forces. In a Russian study issued on April 17, 2020 by the Russian Council for International Affairs, it is stated that the issue of economic recovery in Syria is not possible at all, which undermines Russia’s desire to benefit from reconstruction projects, as the study speaks of, “Without the economic reconstruction and development of a political system based on a truly comprehensive approach and international approval, the new military reality cannot be sustainable, and this is especially important, because the next presidential election in 2021 is not far away. "For example, the Syrians who can travel to Beirut and get cash and goods found their money stuck in Lebanese banks with the collapse of the Lebanese pound to an unprecedented degree in recent months.
However, it cannot be overlooked by the fact that the movement against Makhlouf, who took a dramatic turn, is a form of the regime’s response to Russia’s request to recover money spent in support of Assad militarily, as seven department managers and technicians at Makhlouf’s company were arrested in cooperation with the Russian military police, as Moscow increased its dissatisfaction Of the Syrian economic problems and the spread of corruption, and in order to increase the pressure on Assad to implement its diplomatic plan in Syria, I asked him to bear some expenses, which led him to seek the help of Makhlouf's money, so when Makhlouf refused to pay, Moscow did not hesitate to publish videos showing the welfare of the people of Makhlouf. .
In late March 2020, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoyogo traveled to Syrian territory suddenly and without paying attention to the consequences of the coronary virus pandemic (Covid-19) that has spread in his country and the world at large, accompanied on his journey by that head of the Russian Intelligence Unit, Admiral Igor Kostyuko, while He covered his convoy until his arrival at the residence of the Syrian regime president in Damascus, Russian fighters and helicopters, and Shoigu spent a few hours discussing secret issues that apparently could not be discussed via telephone or video communication with Bashar Al-Assad.
After the end of the visit, what came out to the media was limited to scenes that showed the extent of Russian altruism by accelerating the Russian navy by providing medical assistance to counter the outbreak of the coronavirus in the lands of the regime, which did not go out of the framework of the Russian dealings based on strengthening the interests of the Kremlin in Syria through the multi-aid aid Considered the cornerstone of Russian influence in the region, Putin wanted to be seen as the first frontline in fighting coronavirus there, and the first to go to Syria to deal with the virus.
However, it did not take much time until the most important reasons were leaked about what Shyogo carried to Assad, as the visit came to push Assad towards implementing the agreements reached by Russian President Vladimir Putin with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the stronghold of the Syrian opposition Idlib (western Syria). He wanted Putin from Assad avoids any friction with the Turks on the Idlib highway "M4", as the axis of the agreement between the two sides was to establish a security corridor with a width of 12 km that provides a strategic path between the cities controlled by the Assad government in Aleppo and the port of Latakia on the Mediterranean, and the most important for For the Russians to ensure that this road remains open to Russian cars, as the only Russian naval base outside Russia is in Tartus, which is located in all departments of Idlib governorate, according to what is stipulated in the ceasefire agreement that entered into force last March 20, Moscow wants to secure its interests In the region, but she knows that while she made gains in favor of the regime, Bashar al-Assad seems unwilling to listen to Moscow's advice to make some concessions to his "enemies", that same stubbornness that prevents the implementation of what Russia wants. Creating an international alliance that pushes towards the reconstruction of Syria after the creation of a legitimate government recognized by the international community, at the present time Moscow is obliged to reduce its obligations towards the Syrian regime, and wants to reap the earliest harvest of its military assistance to the regime driven by more pressure due to the outbreak of the Corona epidemic Fatal, and because of the declining oil prices that have burdened the Russian economy, tied up with European Union sanctions, more than ever before.
Although the Kremlin realizes that Assad, who was born out of a security country that does not accommodate his political opponents, Moscow has tried over the past years to push Assad to make specific policy concessions aimed at winning the support of the United Nations for his candidacy in the elections in 2021, but it is now working more seriously after what has become all What I gained militarily is a candidate for the loss without reaching a political settlement. The double shock (the collapse of oil prices and the Corona epidemic) pushed Putin towards working more seriously to end his military adventures in Syria, and made him insist more that Assad show flexibility in negotiations on the opposition until a political settlement is reached End the conflict that has continued since 2011, not to mention the exacerbation of the consequences of Western and American sanctions on the Russian system, as the US Congress imposed sanctions on companies that build the "Nord Stream 2" pipeline, the main European energy project in the Kremlin, as well as Israel, Cyprus and Greece dealt a blow by announcing Building a gas pipeline to Europe that can undermine the profit of "Nord Stream", in addition to the consequences of the murder of Moscow's Iranian ally, General Qasim Soleimani, in Baghdad, which are reasons that doubled seriously from the free Russia’s intention to make changes in Syria after protecting Assad has become a burden that could drag Moscow towards the Afghan scenario.
In addition to the aforementioned obstacles to the reconstruction of Syria, the Iranian desire to not achieve stability in the region in the context of the battle with Washington has shifted from Moscow achieving what it needs. With a president like Assad listening to the Russians what they want and in the end implementing Iran’s demands, the balance is in favor of Tehran. It is now the only actor able to unify the military militia with the regular army structures, as Russia's efforts now to establish loyal militias in eastern Aleppo on the basis of the local defense forces or in Quneitra in order to send them to serve in Libya for the benefit of Khalifa Haftar as evidence that Moscow's influence on the system The Syrian military and security is not at the level of Iranian power, and on a more visible level, Iran's steadfast support for Assad limits Russia's influence on domestic politics.
Repeated speculation that Moscow wants to get rid of the existing Syrian regime or that it is engineering a coup in Damascus to replace Assad with another might seem somewhat imaginative, but what seems tangible and concrete is that Russian grumbling about Assad is increasing more and more, and is increasing speculation that Moscow Tired of the long war, it may become compelled if it fails to force Assad to make concessions that urgently guarantee the removal of international recognition of the Syrian leadership in preference to remove Assad and replace him with a new leadership.
In the recent period, the size of the Russian dispute with al-Assad appeared when Russian media launched an unprecedented attack on the Syrian regime, in which Bashar al-Assad was promoted as president who was caring for the corrupt, and matters reached the point of publishing a Russian research company in a poll stating that only 32% of the population residing in the subject areas For regime control, they intend to vote for Assad in the upcoming elections. The Russians realize that they now urgently need to translate the gains on the battlefield into a stable political solution, and the first step in doing so is to find those who finance reconstruction projects in Syria, to offset the cost of their military intervention by making the most of the agreements they signed with the Syrian regime, but that collides The insistence of European countries and the United States of America to anticipate any reconstruction financing process with a political transition in Syria that includes ending the conflict that erupted in 2011 without return, as mentioned above.
Although Moscow is not ready to accept a political transition in Syria along the lines stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 2254 for fear that the overthrow of Assad could lead to the chaotic collapse of the political system, the main dilemma is the regime's intransigence in the face of any change in its structure that satisfies the international community Any change in which the regime sees only an opportunity to weaken it, if not urgently, will be in the future, and the proof of that is that Assad undermined even the modest aspirations of the United Nations-led process to reform the Syrian constitution, which Russian officials initially described as an important step on a "long road" toward Peace, and in the UN-led talks in Geneva to introduce some political competition late last year, the regime delegation deliberately "sabotaged" the negotiations, promptly putting the negotiations in a dead end.
The former case brought the Russians back to the fifties, when the intransigence of the father Assad imposed a complication on the partnership between the two countries. The Europeans over Syria, so the Russians hastened to seize the opportunity that gives them an independent foreign policy, and as soon as 2015 arrived and Moscow decided to intervene militarily in Syria, the Kremlin saw Assad only as a tool that could be thrown in some circumstances. In Syria, whose main rival is Moscow, its main adversary states In the United States, Putin has put his military strength at the service of Damascus since the squadron of Russian aircraft was deployed to an air base near Latakia in September of that year, and that Russian move was recorded as Russia's first military deployment outside the former Soviet Union borders since its invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
In conclusion, although the US strategy is far from achieving its ultimate goal of changing the accounts of the Russians in Syria, and with the assurance that Assad and Russia still need each other, it is with the possibility that Assad might spoil Putin's plans bringing with her the possibility of Moscow abandoning the Syrian president, Especially since Assad insists on endangering Russian interests in the region, and the clear message now is that Assad must be careful not to antagonize the Russian ally if he wants to stay on top of power.