Escobar: The Syria Tragedy & The New Omni-War

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Until recently, a serious geopolitical working hypothesis was that West Asia and Ukraine were two vectors of the standard Hegemon modus operandi, which is to incite and unleash Forever Wars. Now both wars are united in an Omni-War.

A coalition of Straussian neo-cons in the US, hardcore revisionist Zionists in Tel Aviv and Ukrainian neo-nazi shades of grey is now betting on a Final Confrontation – with several overtones ranging from expanding lebensraum to provoking the Apocalypse.

What stands in their way is essentially two of the top BRICS: Russia and Iran.

China, self-protected by their collective lofty dream of “community of a shared future for mankind”, warily watches on the sidelines, as they know that at the end of the road, the true “existential” war by the Hegemon will be against them.

Meanwhile, Russia and Iran need to mobilize for Totalen Krieg. Because that’s what the enemy is launching.

Undermining BRICS and the INSTC

The total destabilisation of Syria, with heavy CIA-MI6 input, now proceeding in real time, is a carefully engineered gambit to undermine BRICS and beyond.

It proceeds in parallel to Pashinyan removing Armenia from the CSTO – based on a US promise to support Yerevan in a possible new clash with Baku; India being encouraged to ramp up a weapons race with Pakistan; and across-the-board intimidation of Iran.

So this is also a war to destabilize the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), of which the three major protagonists are BRICS members Russia, Iran and India.

As it stands, the INSTC is totally geopolitical risk-free. As a top BRICS corridor-in-the-making, it carries the potential to become even more effective than several of China’s cross-Heartland corridors of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The INSTC would be a key lifeline for a great deal of the global economy in case of a direct confrontation between the US/Israel combo and Iran – with the possible shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz leading to the collapse of a multi-quadrillion pile of financial derivatives, economically imploding the collective West.

Turkiye under Erdogan, as usual, is playing a double game. Rhetorically, Ankara stands by a genocide-free and sovereign Palestine. In practice, the Turkiye supports and funds a motley crew of Greater Idlibistan jihadis – trained by Ukrainian Neo-nazis in drone warfare and with weapons financed by Qatar – who have just marched on and conquered Aleppo, Hama, and possibly beyond.

If this army of mercenaries were real followers of Islam, they would be marching in defense of Palestine.

At the same time, the real picture inside the corridors of power in Tehran is extremely murky. There are factions favoring getting closer to the West, which clearly would have ramifications for the Axis of Resistance’s ability to fight Tel Aviv.

On Lebanon, Syria never wavered. History explains why: from the point of view of Damascus, Lebanon historically remains a governorate, so Damascus is responsible for the security of Beirut.

And that’s one of Tel Aviv’s key motives to propel the current Salafi-jihadi offensive on Syria – after smashing virtually every communication corridor between Syria and Lebanon. What Tel Aviv could not accomplish on the ground – a victory over Hezbollah in southern Lebanon – has been replaced by isolating Hezbollah from the Axis of Resistance.

When in Doubt, Re-Read Xenophon

Wars in West Asia are a complex mix of national, sectarian, tribal and religious vectors. In a sense, they are endless wars; controllable to an extent, but then back again.

The Russian strategy in Syria seemed to be very precise. As it was impossible to normalize a completely fragmented nation, Moscow opted to free the Syria that really matters – the capital, the most important cities, and the Eastern Mediterranean coast – from the Salafi-jihadi mobs.

The problem is that freezing the war in 2020, with direct implication by Russia, Iran and (reluctantly) Turkiye, did not solve the “moderate rebel” problem. Now they’re back – in full force, supported by a vast Rent-a-Jihadi mob, with NATOstan Intel behind them.

Some things never change.

2012. Jake Sullivan, then an aide to Hillary Clinton: “AQ [al-Qaeda*] is on our side in Syria.”

2021. James Jeffrey, special envoy to Syria under Trump (2018-2020): “HTS [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham*] is an asset to the US’s strategy in Idlib.”

There could not be better timing for the revival of the HTS “asset”. HTS if filling an enormous void; beware when that happens in West Asia. Russia is fully concentrated on Ukraine. Hezbollah suffered heavily from Tel Aviv’s bombings and serial killing. Tehran is fully concentrated on how to deal with Trump 2.0.

History always teaches us. Syria is now a West Asian Anabasis. Xenophon – a soldier and writer – tell us how, in the 4th century B.C., an “expedition” (“anabasis”, in Ancient Greek) of 10,000 Greek mercenaries were engaged by Cyrus the Younger against his brother Artaxerxes II, King of Persia, from Armenia to the Black Sea. The expedition miserably failed – and the painful return journey was endless.

2,400 years later, we see governments, armies and mercenaries still plunging into the endless West Asia wars – and extracting themselves now is even more insoluble.

Syria now is tired, attritted, with the SAA becoming complacent with the long freeze of the war since 2020. All that coupled with the vicious starvation siege unleashed by the US Caesar Act, and the impossibility to start rebuilding the nation with the help of at least 8 million citizens who fled the endless war.

Over these past 4 years, problems piled up. There were endless breaches of the Astana process and Israel bombed Syria almost daily with impunity.

China was basically immobile. Beijing simply did not invest in the rebuilding of Syria.

Perspective is sobering. Even Russia – which is a de facto Resistance icon in itself, even if not formally part of the West Asian Axis of Resistance – has taken nearly three years of hard slog in its fight with Ukraine.

Only a cohesive, consolidated Axis of Resistance – after getting rid of countless 5thcolumnists working inside – would have a chance against being picked off one by one by the same consolidated enemy, over and over again.

Sometimes it feels like the BRICS – particularly China – haven’t learned anything from Bandung in 1955, and how the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) was neutralized.

You can’t beat a pitiless hegemonic hydra with flower power.