Syria strikes, unavoidable measure to escape international humiliation

Stuck in a self-created bottleneck, the US carried out a number of attacks on the Syrian territory on Saturday, to escape the burden and embarrassing consequences of a conspicuous retreat from its former stances and admittance of failed policies toward the Middle Eastern state. As acknowledged by the US officials, this invasion was launched as extreme care was taken in a way to refrain from creating any friction with Russia and is highly unlikely to have any significant impact on the situation in Syria on the ground.

Yesterday, the US, along with France and the UK, invaded the Syrian territory carrying out missile attacks and air strikes on the country to free itself and its allies from an international humiliation regarding the issue of Syria and in the face of its eastern rival.

Following the strikes, US Defense Secretary James Mattis said the military operations in Syria were over and that the joint strikes have been a “one-time shot”. In addition, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Francis Dunford announced that a few hours prior to the attacks, the targets had been identified to “deconflict the [Syrian] airspace” and avoid any skirmish with Russian forces.

The general international atmosphere and developments within the past few days clearly explain the invaders’ motivation for attacking Syria. Carrying out the strikes were inevitable for these Western states. Commenting on the raid, British Prime Minister Theresa May said the US, UK and France had no other practicable alternative but to attack Syria.

Efforts by Donald Trump to masquerade the US as a determined, proactive and pragmatic country and make the world believe the same thing explain a lot about the inevitability of these incursions into the Syrian territory.

Russia’s resolute response to the US president’s provocative remarks and Twitter messages in reaction to US warmongering, pushed Trump into a state of hesitation and passivity and even caused him to be ridiculed by Russian officials and many of the international observers and media. This came as the leaders of France and the UK seriously sought to convince their societies to arrive at a national consensus to intimidate Russia by demonstrating their power to the European state.

In other words, Trump who, in complete defiance of the rules of international policymaking as well as principles of negotiation, diplomacy and bargaining, could see only one option on the table, had to acquiesce to selecting it due to the intense pressure he was under.

He even failed to pay attention to the teachings of strategic realism such as leaving some room for backing down on formerly maintained rigid stances.

Some analysts maintain that following the US and certain Western states accepting surrender to Russia in Ukraine’s 2014 crisis, conceding another defeat to Moscow, this time in Syria, will become a huge embarrassment for the West in the face of the world’s largest nation and its ever-growing power. This caused London and Paris to, on some occasions, overtake Washington in feeling the urgency to attack Syria and confront Russia.

On the other hand, the pledge given by Trump to Saudi leaders and the Zionists to intensify pressure on the Axis of Resistance compelled him, despite his personal propensity to expand cooperation with Russia and forge friendly ties with Moscow, to play out a preplanned scenario.

The incident, as stated by Russian officials, will lead to serious consequences, although the strikes on Syria were quick, very brief and failed to have a great impact on the developments on the ground in the Middle Eastern state and the trend of the consecutive defeats conceded by the terrorists in the country.

The most important reason causing the US and its allies to carry out Saturday’s military operations in Syria was clearly to stop the trend of Syria’s success in cleansing the country from terrorist and anti-syria groups and postponing the ultimate victory of Damascus and Bashar al-assad’s allies. The condition in the past few days, however, made this option, i.e. attacking Syria, a must for the West.

To reciprocate these attacks, Russia will most probably double its efforts to cooperate with the Syrian army and government to do completely away with terrorist groups sponsored by the coalition consisting some Arab and western states as well as Israel and then, will practically and internationally give an appropriate response to its rivals and deal with them.