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Image for Aleppo in 2016: a mass of flaming ruin

Aleppo in 2016: a mass of flaming ruin

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Translation by:

Llŷr Randles

Bachar-al- Assad has destroyed an entire country. He has violated all international law before achieving a bloody and costly victory that will only serve to let him contemplate the scene of a vast wasteland. 

 

He committed yet worse in offering his country to Iran and to Russia.

He has scattered his people to the four corners of the globe and those that weren’t able to flee are just cannon fodder at the mercy of the Russian bombs and of the guns and grenades of the Iranian IRGC. The association that Russia has with Iran seems functional in the sense that the two powers act like landlords in the region. Russia wants to impose itself firmly in Syria, not only with its USSR-esque (1) stance but to assure its presence ideologically and militarily in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean.

Iran has more dangerous intentions, since they are also theological, and the fall of Aleppo is the greatest success of the Iranian regime.  To succeed it has mobilised thousands of volunteers: Afghans, Pakistanis and its armed branch: Lebanese Hezbollah. All encompassed by the army of the Islamic Republic, the IRGC have long been under the command of the chief of the Quds Force Qassem Soleimani. This commander's aims, who has consolidated the “Shiite Arc” in leaving Iraq for Syria and providing arms and money to the Syrian regime, Hezbollah and Hamas, and whose speeches are infused with the eloquent hyperboles of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, are to open a front before finally annihilating the State of Israel.

This Iranian “Shiite Arc” hasn’t only spread its virus in Arabic countries, but also in Africa where the Iranian claws already have a solid grip. The Iranian regime is so thirsty for human blood that assassinating its own people doesn't suffice; it needs to globalise its slaughter. As for the fate of Bachar-al-Assad, should he have to give up his power, he needn't worry: he'll find certain refuge in Russia or Iran whilst the rest of the Middle East will remain devastated, the households and privacy of the Syrians violated.  The future of the region and of the world is uncertain. Alas!

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(1) “Colporteurs du komintern, l'URSS et les minorités au Moyen Orient” Taline Ter Minassion – political sciences press edition

Translated from Alep en 2016: un amas de ruines fumantes