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Amidst crowded battlefields, Syria’s welfare is lost

Feb 17,2018 - Last updated at Feb 17,2018

There are at least seven discernible war fronts in Syria all occurring at the same time, but on different arenas. Of course, the warring parties are at each other's throats and they all say they are fighting terrorists!

Syria is now a theatre for Russian, the US, Iranian, Kurdish, Turkish, Hizbollah and Daesh armed forces, and certainly for the diverse rebel groups, whose true identities have become fuzzy and unrecognisable. This is not to mention the official Syrian army raging air and ground operations with a declared objective to "finish off" terrorists, whoever they are. On top of all these war fronts are, of course, the recurrent Israeli air strikes, like the one that occurred last week.

Against such a backdrop, it is going to take a miracle to end the ongoing armed conflicts in Syria, as each side in fighting has its own vested agenda and geopolitical objectives. Meanwhile, innocent Syrians are being slaughtered in the thousands by all sorts of weapons, including chemical bombs.

One wonders if the Syrian leadership had ever thought that the civil war would mushroom to seven fighting fronts and turn Syria into a home base to various powers, including Russia, Iran, Hizbollah and the US. One also wonders if all the fighting is really about the liberation of Syria to restore security, stability, democracy and the rule of law in the war-torn country or there is something else going on behind the scene.

As each fighting force is conveniently calling its respective enemies "terrorists," it is prostituting this very word in the process and rendering it pointless, while killing and maiming innocent Syrian people on a periodic basis. The word "terrorists" has lost its real meaning in the Syrian quagmire and has become an expedient slogan to kill off "the other side".

Of course, we all know by now that Moscow had secured itself certain strategic objectives in Syria on the top of which is obtaining long-term naval and aerial bases in Tartus and Hmeimim respectively for no less than seventy five years, over and above securing an economic interest in the huge gas fields along the Syrian Mediterranean shoreline. Plus, of course, having a Mediterranean state on its side.

The US's vested interests in Syria are becoming clearer by the day after the deployment of US armed forces in the Raqqa region, where most of the Syrian oil reserves can be found. It, too, wants a permanent military base in Syria presumably to checkmate Russia.

Iran and Hizbollah have a common interest in keeping Damascus under the grip of the so-called Shiite arch arguably championed by Tehran, while Turkey is clearly allergic to anything Kurdish along its southern borders for fear it could be linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party. 

The Kurds of Syria, seeing that the geopolitical situation all around them has become a free-for-all field day, also want to stake a claim of their own.

The Syrian people are, thus, left amongst all the warring factions with their national interests plunging in the quagmire.

From the looks of things, the Syrian conflicts are projected to stay hot for decades since no side has the interest nor the welfare of the Syrian people at heart.

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