Hey America, said Russia...Here is Damascus

America officially retreated through the Geneva agreement and is no longer going to launch its war on the Mediterranean; on the east coast of that warm water, which used to tickle the Russian dreams, so as to reshape a new military balance, after a political balance that has become a de facto in the UN Security Council. 

The Syrian crisis drove out the “Russian bear” obviously in the Middle East, as it has driven out the same bear during the war of South Ossetia - Georgia in August 2008 in Central Asia. Damascus according to Moscow is not only a political regime, but rather a strategic relationship stretching back decades of time - 3 successive regimes in Syria and 5 similar ones in Russia since the Soviet Union until Vladimir Putin’s era. 

Russia’s united policy regarding Syria is being controlled by western practices in Central Asia that tried to isolate those countries via enclosing them with Atlantic countries on their borders, as well as the American missile shield that threatened the Russian vital area and led it to defend one of the most prominent and the last strategic location on the Mediterranean coast east, after the occupied Palestine and Turkey, as a second degree. 

The defense that was manifested in the hardness of the Russian position and was relying on the steadfastness of the Syrian leadership, the people, and the army, produced an American submission in Geneva, although the capitals of the West sought to make the issue look like a surrender defeating the axis of Moscow - Damascus - Iran, but the Syrian State does not need a chemical balance with the Israeli enemy. The Syrian political analyst and strategic expert Hassan Hassan via a phone call with Al-Manar website stressed that the most thing that frightens the Israeli entity is the deterrent missile and not the chemical weapon. Hassan clarified this matter through the maneuvers carried out by the Zionist enemy internally, as it feared the rockets of Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, and not the chemical weapons; “instead of using an internationally forbidden weapon, this weapon has been replaced with heavy rockets and the entire occupied territories were being shelled by them”. 

Hassan pointed out that the first signal of the settlement did not come from the Russian side or from the Syrian government, but came from the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the top of the escalation, when he said from London that Syria can avoid a “strike” if it abandoned its chemical weapons. Had America been confident enough that it is the strongest or is able to resolve the matters in its favor, this would not have happened. 

Here, Russia played a role politically and diplomatically described by the Syrian expert as the most creative one; when Lavrov said that his country will not be part in any war. Hassan explained that Lavrov enticed the Americans, raised the level of escalation, and made Syria one party, and the United States and all those who are rotating in its orbit another party. However, he left for himself the possibility of playing the role of a director that can interfere and solve the clash. 

There are those who say that Russia and the west has something in between and that it should sit at the table of dialogue to solve it, after Moscow has considered that the West betrayed the delegation of the Security Council where Russia was present in Libya, and worked to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and to kill him later. Here, the official statements came and called for not pursuing the same policy in Syria; for there are Russian interests that must be taken into account by everyone. 

Hence, did Russia enter into an axis that was in need for its help and is supporting it, while Washington calls it an evil axis “Iran - Syria – Hezbollah”?  Or, it entered into the axis that raised its rank in the world and in the Middle East in particular?? These are two liable not contradictory raised questions, and the answers to them are open and their precursors start from Syria. 

According to the expert Hassan, Russia’s interference was a strategic creativity, for it has managed to invest the strength points of this axis and/or to give it additional factors of strength, and at the same time, it was deriving from it additional factors for its strength. He stressed that this (diplomatic, political and military) integration has mixed all the securities and has changed all the accounts that were taken in the region and the world. 

It is a Russian integration with the leaders of the region and in favor of its people, unlike the United States’ dependency-oriented relationships with some countries; in the first case there is a strategic relationship based on solid foundations since decades of times, while in the second case there is an oil Treaty rejected by the Arab masses while their feet have trampled the American flag for long.