By ZEKE MILLER AP White House Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will host Jordan's King Abdullah II at the White...

Global News Through a Greek Lens
Global News Through a Greek Lens
The overthrow of Assad opened Pandora’s Box for Syria and the wider West Asia region, signaling the expected escalation and regionalization of the war in Palestine and the beginning of a prolonged period of insecurity with extensions to the Eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus and the Horn of East Africa. As the Assads managed to stabilize such a religiously and ethnically heterogeneous Syria, their withdrawal from Syrian political life threatens to send the country back to the chaotic political instability of the pre-1970s. This would benefit the US and Israel in the short term, especially since they believe that a divided Syria will not be able to exert geopolitical influence on Palestine, the geopolitical heating point of the world.
The overthrow of Assad as a result of a secret Turkish-Israeli partnership with American support, Russian tolerance, and Iranian reluctant operational withdrawal has transformed Syria in the short term from a country into a space divided into individual units of influence based on population and geography. A common feature of these units is their mixed religious and ethnic character.
With the exception of the most unified unit in Syria in the northeast, where the leadership of the Kurdish population has separatist tendencies, in the rest of the country the Sunni majority coexists in a mixed pattern with the minority populations of Alevis and other Shiites, Christians, Druze, etc.
A product of the Turkish-Israeli partnership in post-Assad Syria is the division of the country into three main zones of influence: a) the Turkish zone in the north centered on Aleppo next to the Turkish-occupied Syrian province of Idlib, b) the American-Israeli zone in central-southern Syria along with the northeastern Kurdish region and c) the Alevis and Christians zone in the west where the militias of Assad and the Axis of Resistance are currently in a state of hypnosis. The critical meeting point of these zones is central Syria, where the north-south and east-west axis is at stake, with the province of Deir Ezzor being just as critical regionally as the tri-nation Syria-Iraq-Jordan and its wealth-producing sources for all the forces involved.
With the overthrow of Assad, Israel and the US strategically created a new front of conflict, attempting to move the main front of conflict north of the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon in order to cut off Hezbollah’s land supply route. They have so far succeeded, but have not secured it. By invading and occupying the Golan Heights, Israel is attempting to create a “neutral” zone to control the paths leading to Lebanon and water sources, as well as to supervise Damascus. The American-Israeli plans were based on the Turkish partnership, which, however, has an expiration date the day after the overthrow of Assad.
Applying the saying “the best defense is an offense,” Turkey overcame its insecurity in the Kurdish region, set aside its alliance with Iran, and decided to negotiate the Kurdish region from a position of offense rather than defense, i.e., exerting active influence in Aleppo and northern Syria. It is now seeking to increase its influence further south to Damascus in order to limit Kurdish ambitions. In the Israeli plan to Turkey not to move further south in Syria, Ankara projects its own policy to Tel Aviv: “do not support the Kurds because we will come further south, to Jerusalem”.
With Russia now limited to its bases in Syria, Iran is strengthening the southern Red Sea route to supply Hamas and Hezbollah until the political situation in Damascus is crystallized. Tehran is attempting, on the one hand, to negotiate with the Sunnis of Damascus, and on the other hand, it is ready to respond to the challenges of a Syrian civil war in relation to the Kurdish but also the religious minorities of the Shiite Alevis and Christians.
A key factor in the opened Syrian Pandora’s Box is the ever-increasing connection of the Palestinian and Kurdish issues as communicating vessels that will shape the geopolitical future of the region. At present, the two issues are inversely related: resolving one presupposes the non-resolution of the other. It will soon be seen whether those who celebrated the fall of Assad did so with a long-term strategy in mind or acted myopically enjoying a Pyrrhic victory.
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