By Roya Pour Bagher
“The reality is, we have common enemies and we can play a major role in regional security,” said Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the head of Syria’s HTS regime and self-proclaimed president, to a Jewish publication in Damascus recently about the future of the Arab country’s relationship with the Israeli regime.
The so-called ‘common enemies’ appear to be none other than the resistance axis. This became evident when HTS regime officials arrested two high-ranking officials of the Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad following the US-imposed ban on Palestinian groups, as well as the fatal attacks by HTS forces along the Lebanese border.
During a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, Jolani further suggested a potential shift away from Syria’s historical stance against normalization with Israel.
The shift was explicitly confirmed on December 6, 2024, when an HTS regime commander said in an interview that they are open to befriending Israel and that their sole enemies are the former Syrian President Assad, Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It raises the question: Is Syria now a truly free state or merely a marionette carefully and cunningly shaped by Washington?
Syria has long been the epicenter of geopolitical conflict in West Asia. Western powers have consistently portrayed it as a nation struggling for “freedom,” even as they orchestrated its destabilization to advance their own dirty regional strategic ambitions.
For the West, a broken Syria – or the fall of democratically-elected Assad’s government – has always meant three things: cutting off arms supplies to Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements (thereby weakening the resistance axis), plundering Syria’s oil and gas resources, and enabling the Zionist regime’s settler-colonial project.
Syria’s geopolitical importance cannot be underestimated, and its political alignment has shaped regional power dynamics for decades.
Aware of Syria’s strategic role as well as strength in resisting Western meddling and imperialistic goals, the US and its allies funded and trained hostile “opposition” groups, presenting themselves as defenders of freedom – their go-to slogan for pursuing imperialist agendas in the Arab country and beyond.
According to former US ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford, the United States spent at least $12 billion on military and civilian efforts in Syria from 2014 to 2017 alone.
This funding supported military operations and politicized humanitarian aid, which was provided exclusively to “opposition”-controlled areas. In other words, at least $12 billion, on top of previous spending, was splurged to bring about regime change in the country.
Importantly, the US and its allies did not just fund militant groups that carried out terrorist attacks in the country; they also imposed sanctions that devastated Syria’s economy, directly affecting the lives of ordinary and innocent civilians.
A UN report reveals that the economic crisis brought about by Western sanctions was one of the key drivers of poverty in Syria, pushing 82 percent of the population into extreme hardship.
Syria has served as a crucial conduit for arms supplies and logistical support for resistance movements in the region. A fallen Syria means the support for Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance groups has been affected, thereby limiting their resistance to the Zionist expansion.
The Israeli regime is widely known for pursuing its agenda in an unstable and fragmented Syria. Right after the fall of Assad’s government, the world witnessed the regime’s illegal occupation of 400 square kilometers of Syrian territory, while the international community remained largely passive.
No action was seen on the part of Jolani or his regime to challenge or resist this unlawful seizure of Syrian land, nor did he act when Israel bombed Syrian military sites that might have bolstered HTS’s military capabilities in the future.
Meanwhile, advocates of regime change and supporters of HTS claimed that a “free Syria” would lead to a “free Palestine.” Yet, the reality has turned out to be the exact opposite, and now the silence from these very proponents is so profound, it is almost palpable.
And while the proponents of regime change and supporters of HTS claimed that a ‘free Syria’ would mean a ‘free Palestine,’ the reality has turned out to be the exact opposite, and now the silence of these proponents is so deafening that it is almost palpable.
As American political analyst Jeffrey D. Sachs warned at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum recently, the war in Syria did not come from Bashar al-Assad; it “came from Washington.”
He went on to explain Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to make West Asia in “Israel’s image,” indicating the need to overthrow every country that opposes the regime’s illegal occupation and expansion in line with its “Greater Israel” project.
The operation Sachs referred to was named “Timber Sycamore,” which trained dreaded Takfiri terrorists, including HTS, to overthrow Assad, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties and destruction of the country’s infrastructure.
Whether through military, economic, or diplomatic channels, Western powers have relentlessly shaped Syria’s trajectory to advance their own interests at the expense of regional peace and stability.
And all the mentioned dots, and many more, connect to draw one reality: Syria has always been a chess piece played by Western powers and their Arab allies to consolidate their regional control.
Roya Pour Bagher is a Tehran-based writer.
(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.
