I have had the honor of knowing two exceptional men, both of whom passed away with undying love for their birthplace Damascus. They were my mentor Dr. Yusuf Ibish, a former professor, and the great Arab poet Nizar Qabbani.
For those interested in Arabic literature throughout the world, Qabbani’s poems about his beloved city need no introduction. As for Dr. Yusuf, his emotional attachment to the great city could be felt by those fortunate enough to be close to him.
Once as we were chatting, Dr. Yusuf remarked: “You need to know, Eyad, that no location in the world was more qualified to host a city other than Damascus; that is why it is the oldest city in the world”. He went on: “It was built in the heart of a large fertile oasis, Ghouta, watered by two rivers. In the east of Ghouta, there is the huge expanse of the Syrian desert which in the distant past provided the city with a defensive shield and an escape route, thus protecting it from attacks.
“As for the north and south, Damascus straddled one of the greatest north-south axis routes of the ancient world; linking Egypt and Arabia including the ‘Incense Route’ to Asia Minor and Europe via Aleppo, which later became one of the major stops on the ‘Silk Route’ from Central Asia and the Far East.”
Today, perhaps for the first time since the Timurid (Tamerlane) invasion in 1400/1401 A.D., the great city is under a grave demographic threat, which looks increasingly like being a part of a regional-international strategy.
The painful sufferings endured by the population of the besieged towns of Wadi Barada (Barada Valley) are actually the result of a well-thought policy. These towns have been intentionally deprived of food and subjected to sniper fire by the Assad regime’s armed forces, domestic and regional militias as well as foreign powers that support them. This episode repeats the uprooting of the inhabitants of the city of Homs to maintain control of the territories linking Damascus to the regime’s Alawi stronghold in coastal northwest Syria.
Lying in the west of Damascus, the Wadi Barada towns were until recently among Syria’s most beautiful summer resorts but are now paying a heavy price for their geographical location. They are an obstacle to the final touches of ‘partition map’ of the war-torn country. In fact, the ‘partition map’ is also being drawn up in northeast Syria, ostensibly with international blessings.
In the case of Wadi Barada, Iran’s IRGC has been keen to implement a plan of population exchange, whereby the local Sunnis would be evicted from their towns, including Az-Zabadani, Madaya, Bloudan and Buqqin, and moved to north. There, they would be settled in the two Shiite enclaves of Nubbul and Az-Zahraa (Aleppo Province) and Al-Fou’a and Kfarya, and perhaps the Shiite minority of Ma’arret Masrin (Idlib province). The Shiites of the two enclaves would then be resettled in Wadi Barada, effectively linking Damascus with Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon.
Both areas — Wadi Barada and the northern Shiite enclaves — have been surrounded and threatened for some time, but the situation in the Wadi’s town is particularly worse because no food and supplies are allowed in. The two enclaves, on the other hand can get what they need through air drops from Syrian and Russian air craft that control Syria’s skies.
Politically, the Syrian regime’s strategy has always been to hold on to the whole country. However, if such an objective becomes unachievable, it has a ‘Plan B’ — controlling ‘Useful Syria’, that is the fertile heavily-populated western part extending from Aleppo in the north to the Hawran plain in the south, while leaving the vast and semi-desert regions to those who may desire them.
At the moment, secessionist Kurdish militias are actually fighting to establish a Kurdish ‘entity’ extending from the fragile borders between northern Iraq and northeast Syria, westwards to the Afrin ‘enclave’ bordering Turkey’s Hatay Province. Tactically, secessionist Kurds see no interest in fighting a Syrian regime that is not fighting them. In fact, the opposite is true as the Assad regime (because of its own as well as Iran’s sectarian motives) finds itself fighting the common enemy, Turkey.
Thus, in a clear case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the Assad regime, its local henchmen and agents have been cooperating with the Kurds because not only are the latter threatening Turkey’s government, but also its territorial integrity.
The emergence of Daesh on the scene has certainly changed international considerations, if not unmasked true intentions. The West’s declared priorities that the “Syrian regime has lost its legitimacy and has to go,” have been transformed to fully espouse the regime’s side of the story of “confronting terror,” which means “Sunni terror.” With such transformation complete, even Turkey’s membership of NATO has been forgotten. First, it was let down by Washington on the Kurdish issue when the White House made defending the little town of Ayn Al-Arab (Kobani) a decisive issue, while leaving Aleppo helpless and starving under the bombardment of Assad’s forces and militias.
Second, it was let down again when Washington confirmed its full political and military support to Iraq’s Iranian-backed government, and that after persistently refusing to create “safe havens” and “no fly zones” in northern Syria citing military risks and high costs.
Third, Turkey was again let down by Washington as well as its fellow NATO member states with a cold response to threats by Russia in the aftermath of the Russian fighter jet incident. Thus, the overall picture is clear. Reports by organizations such as the Syrian Network of Human Rights, which in 2015 documented in detail cases of planned migration and demographic change in areas controlled by Kurdish militias after evicting the local Arab population to the countryside of Al-Hassakah and Al-Raqqah Provinces.
Moreover, there are well-documented reports of what has taken place in the city of Homs and its environs following the uprooting and driving out of the local Sunnis.
Last but not the least, there have been several cease-fires in besieged greater Damascus neighborhoods and suburbs after blackmailing the civilian population with food and medicine supplies and continuous shelling.
