Syria was transformed into a battleground for nations from all over the world. It was where the United States and Russia faced off. On 20 December 2018, Washington decided to withdraw without compensation.
This date will be remembered in the history of the world as the most important since 26 December 1991 (dissolution of the USSR). For 27 years, the world was unipolar. The United States were then the world’s major economic and military power, and the sole masters of events.
Three years ago, overtaken by China, they lost their economic status. Next they lost to Russia their status as the primary conventional military power. They have now lost that of the first nuclear military power, faced with Russian hypersonic weapons.
President Trump and General Mattis have kept their promise to abandon US support for the jihadists, as well as the promise to withdraw their troops from combat zones in both Syria and Afghanistan. However, for Mattis, the end of the anti-Daesh Coalition uniting 73 nations around the United States prefigures the dissolution of NATO. As a soldier, he cannot accept the risk of being deprived of alliances. On the contrary, President Trump states that the fall of the United States does not allow them to wage war, whatever it might be. According to him, it is impossible for the USA to continue to command the allied forces, and urgent to stabilise the US economy.
President Trump’s decision was carefully thought out.
It followed a visit to Damascus by Russian Vice-President Youri Borissov, who is his country’s director of the military-industrial complex. To that purpose, he enjoys a special budget which escapes from any Western control and does not appear in the state’s official budget. It takes into account the conditions for reconstruction and the coming economic relations, only in roubles and from a special bank which does not recognise the dollar.
This decision also follows the journey to Damascus by an Arab head of state, Omar el-Bachir. The president of Sudan represented his counterparts from the United States, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. As soon as he had informed President Trump of his meeting with President Bachar el-Assad, the announcement of the US military withdrawal was made.
A plan for the reintegration of Kurdish combatants into the Syrian Arab Army was considered, with help of Iran. It will be implemented by an intervention of the main Iraqi Chiite militia.
At the same time, the deal of the century has not been announced, but it has already been started. Hamas no longer fights Israël, but is now financed by them, via Qatar. The Hashemite monarchy will have to accept ruling over the Palestinians at the risk of being overthrown by them. Within the next few years, the apartheid régime of Tel-Aviv will probably experience the same destiny as that of Pretoria.
The world is not evolving the way we thought – from a unipolar system to a multipolar system. Of course, there will still exist the side of the Eurasian Russo-Chinese Union, but there is no longer any West. Suddenly, every member state of NATO will retrieve its independence. It is probable that some of these states will take initiatives, certain that they know what they have to do. It is even possible that they will wage wars against one another.
Everything that we have learned about the world is finished. A new era is beginning.