Repelling the Aggression Campaign examines the complex motivations and interests of the varied local, regional and international parties involved in the renewed battles in Syria. The work also explores the humanitarian components motivating revolutionary factions to end Assad and Iranian occupation of lands and liberate more territory for the free Syrian people. The article is written, for L24 by guest author, Syrian journalist and political analyst Motaz Nasser.
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The Syrian revolution has endured a prolonged state of stagnation, but recent regional escalation around Syria may have propelled it forward. With Russia preoccupied and exhausted in Ukraine, Iran is now struggling to maintain its influence and national security. It faces what it describes as a silent betrayal by the Syrian regime, following years of costly support, paid in blood, and the resources of the Iranian people. Now, the Syrian regime distances itself, leaving Iran alone to face the consequences of its actions, both domestically and in the region.
This moment of conflict is one Syrians have awaited for a long time. If they let it slip by without taking advantage, it likely won’t return. Therefore, the current battle in northwest Syria is an event that has been in the making for years. The humanitarian conditions for Syrians, both inside and outside the country, are the most pressing reason for the conflict today, given that the conditions of external engagement and exhaustion for Iran and Russia are now in place.
The strategic goal of the battle was to regain control of the city of Aleppo, along with large parts of its countryside, and parts of the Idlib and Hama countryside. These areas were under the revolutionaries’ control but were lost during the Russian-Iranian offensive in 2019-2020.
The primary objective of retaking these regions is to return as many Syrian refugees as possible, especially those in Europe and Turkey, and to strengthen their stability in their own areas as population groups that resist Iranian and Russian projects. These communities would work alongside the local revolutionary authorities in northwest Syria to establish a model of governance based on freedom, justice, and economic development.
If achieved, this model would be an existential threat to Iran and Russia’s projects in the Middle East. It would also address various concerns for Turkey and European countries, which fear national security threats such as refugee influxes, the Syrian regime’s involvement in an assortment of evils.
Chief among them drug trafficking, and the export of terrorism – whether through Iranian militias, Syrian mercenaries recruited by Russia to fight in Ukraine, or extremist groups that exploit the lack of development, displacement, despair, and poverty in northwest Syria to recruit individuals for their terrorist agendas.
(Salman/L24)
Aleppo remains extremely significant to the Syrian regime politically, economically, and demographically. Loosing Aleppo has dealt a powerful psychological blow to the regime’s supporters while undermining the narrative of control and strength the regime constantly strives to maintain.
For Syrian revolutionaries, seizing control of a vital city like Aleppo represents a qualitative leap forward for the Syrian revolution, and the transition from a state of chaos and fragmentation to governance and statehood. This also addresses the plight of over two million civilians currently under the constant threat and severe abuses of the Syrian regime.
Aleppo’s liberation may yet encourage the return of a similar number of refugees from Europe and Turkey, along with those displaced within Syria. Marking an important step on the road to a political solution for the Syrian revolution, and ensuring a smooth transition of power from a criminal, ineffective authority to a new, egalitarian administration that values pluralism and opposes the projects of Iran and Russia.
Such a development would effectively end Syria’s status as a failed state as well as the risk of it collapsing into a fractured landscape ruled by armed groups with conflicting interests and ideologies, interested only in the exploitation of Syrian territory to threaten regional and global stability.
With the city freed, and the revolutionary forces having liberated all of Idlib, most of Aleppo province, and at the gates of Hama, what now remains is rehabilitating and rebuilding a society fractured by nearly 14 years of the sectarian strife of Iranian militias, the economic exploitation of the Assad regime and an infrastructure battered by Russian bombs – a task they can only hope to accomplish as a unified nation.
