The latest reports out
of Syria on the successes of Iran, Hezbollah and the Syrian regime in
their push to regain control of the country, with Russian backing, are
creating the false impression that the opposition's time is up.
The truth, however, is
that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is fighting for his life in
Syria, far afield from his home in the Dahiya neighborhood of south
Beirut. As the Syrian regime goes, so goes Nasrallah. If Syrian
President Bashar Assad loses, Nasrallah and the remnants of his
organization, exhausted from the fighting, will be targeted by the
powers in Lebanon. In an act of desperation, Nasrallah is enlisting
children, while evacuating his wounded and dead from the Syrian front.
Shiites, along with
Nasrallah's rivals, are wondering how much longer he can continue
fighting in Syria at the behest of the Iranians. This question is also
being asked about the small Alawite minority in Syria (and about other
small minorities as well), fighting for its survival while sacrificing
its best sons and officers. It appears that resilience and the ability
to endure hardships will be the basic determining factors inside Syria.
The Islamists in Syria
are armed, primarily with patience. They are cognizant of these
considerations and explain their manifest to all those who feel that
Assad's fall is "a journey from the known to the unknown." The Islamist
leadership has a clear doctrine.
The leader of the rebel
group Soqour Al Sham Brigades, Hassan Aboud, recently gave an
interview. Heavily armed and dressed in khaki fatigues, Aboud spoke with
chilling tranquility, declaring that his first order of business was
against Iran (until its ultimate expulsion from Syria) and the
destruction of Hezbollah, "who will return from the battlefield to
Lebanon, where they came from, dead." The bearded sheikh isn't impressed
by the regime's recent gains. His demeanor exudes patience and a
confidence that Islam (the Sunni version) will prevail.
Aboud's agenda is the
foundation of an Islamic caliphate, with its center in Greater Syria.
According to Aboud, the artificial states created by the West in the
Middle East, within the framework of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, have
disintegrated, ushering in the current return of the great Islamic
state. Iraq, in Aboud's view, will be part of the future Islamic Syria,
after the Shiites there are defeated. Along with the Iranians, the
Russians will also be driven out of Syria and its ports.
Aboud's declarations
point to the alienation between the other Islamist movements fighting in
Syria, as well as between the secular elements in the Free Syrian Army.
Indeed, Aboud rejects the participation of former Syrian military
commanders, those who have defected, in the country's future leadership
and denies them any piece of the future government pie -- because they
are "outsiders."
He does not conceal his
Islamist agenda, which stipulates that Syria is only the beginning. The
destruction of Israel, the enemy of the Islamic nation, is the next
objective. After this the Islamic mission will focus on the rest of the
world.
It is now easier to
understand why the Syrian opposition is divided over sitting down at the
negotiating table for any future talks with the regime over the
country's fate, and why the superpowers are concerned about supporting
it. It appears the sides will continue to fight over who will lead the
country in the future, all the while laying waste to that very country.
From an Israeli and global
perspective, Assad is bad and the Islamist revolutionaries are no
better, and it doesn't truly make a difference who survives. What is
strange about the current situation, in which the artificially created
Arab states are crumbling, is that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
wants to grant the terrorist Hamas movement the ability to create yet
another Islamist state, which is predicated on the stated goal of
destroying Israel.
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