When 64-year-old Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and 65-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Sept. 17 on a buffer zone in Syria along the Turkish border, something seemed amiss. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he would not rest until every last terrorist and rebel were out of Syria, contradicting Erdogan and Putin’s buffer zone. Putin’s worked overtime since Sept. 30, 2015 with the Syrian army to get rid of terror and rebel groups, fueling complaints from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Funding-and-arming rebel groups starting March 15, 2011 during the height of the Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia committed itself to regime change in Damascus. Turkey and the U.S. joined the seven-year-old Saudi proxy war in Syria, killing 360,000 civilians, displacing 12 million more to neighboring countries and Europe, creating the worst refugee crisis since WW II.
Former President Barack Obama wholeheartedly backed the Saudi proxy war to topple al-Assad for six years, often blaming Syria for the carnage and refugee crisis. But when Putin decided to join the fight, he said al-Assad had every right as a sovereign nation to defend his country against the Saudi-Turkey-U..S.-funded proxy war. Backed by the late Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), Obama diverted millions of taxpayer dollars to fund various rebel groups, some with direct ties with al-Qaeada, Bin Laden’s old terror group responsible for Sept. 11. When Trump took office Jan. 20, 2017, he decided, as he promised in the 2016 campaign, to stop funding the Saudi proxy war against al-Assad. Trump had the clarity to see Obama’s failed Syrian policy, realizing that the U.S. had to change direction to protect U.S. national security.
Speaking at the U.N. today, Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said the Syria would never accept a permanent buffer zone to protect terrorists and rebels along the Turkish border. Moualem said all foreign troops, rebels and terrorists “will be dealt with accordingly,” meaning that the Damascus regime would take action against all rebels and terrorists. “They must withdraw immediately and without an conditions,” Moualem told the U.N. General Assembly. When Putin made the deal with Erdogan for a buffer zone, terrorists and rebel groups jumped-for-joy thinking that they were given a permanent safe haven. Erodgan tried to stop what looked like a certain bloodbath, with Syrian, Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah read to attack rebels and terrorists. Moualem made clear that al-Assad does not accept the Turkish-Russian buffer zone as permanent.
In case Erdogan and Putin misunderstood al-Assad’s gesture to give terrorists and rebels a chance to leave Syria, Moualem set the record straight. “Fighting this sacred battle until we purge all Syrian territories of terrorists and “any illegal foreign presence,” referring to Saudi-backed rebel groups. With the United States with 2,000 advisers and France 1,000 troops, Russian and Syria warned all foreign troops to get out of Syria. Moualem asked Syrian refugees to return to Syria, despite the fact that many have made temporary homes in Turkey and Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to take some million Syrian refugees in Germany, has left her all but politically dead. With a weak grand coalition in the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, Merkel created divisions in the European Union and drove the U.K. out of the EU June 23, 2017 in the so-called Brexit vote.
Germany’s right wing backlash through the Alternative for Germany [AfD] Party, has splintered Merkel’s Christian Democrats Party. Merkel’s pro-Syrian refugee policies backfired in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, all threatening to leave the EU if required to take Mideast refugees. Moualem blamed Western powers, including the U.S., of stoking fears of refugees returning to Syria. “We have called upon the international community and humanitarian organizations to facilitate these returns,” said Moualem, knowing that the EU and U.S. back attempts to remove al-Assad from power. “They are politicizing what should be a purely humanitarian issue,” knowing Western powers still hope to get al-Assad out of Damascus. EU, U.N. and U.S. officials insist there can be no cessation of hostilities in Syria until al-Assad agrees to rewrite the Syrian constitution, making concessions to rebels.
EU, U.N. and U.S. officials know that with Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah backing, al-Assad has the upper hand to rid Syria of terrorists and rebels. U.N. Special Peace Envoy 73-year-old Staffan de Mistura still thinks the Saudi High Negotiation Commission can influence al-Assad to get out of Demascus. De Mistura has wasted four years placating Saudi’s High Negotiation Commission that they can get al-Assad to leave Damascus. Putin hasn’t committed the Russian military to preserving Syria to allow rebels and terrorist to have a safe haven in Syria. While Putin accepts a temporary safe haven to stop a civilian massacre, he doesn’t accept a lasting buffer zone. Unless terrorists and rebels start to leave the safe haven in Idlib province, you can count on Russia, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah to be back on the attack. No one believes that al-Assad agreed to cede Syrian territory to rebels and terrorists.
