Bashar Al Assad Got It Right: Syria Belongs to Those Who Defend It

A caricature by Palestinian artist Hani Abbas that reads "The country belongs to those who defend it..". Taken from the artist's Facebook page.

A caricature by Palestinian artist Hani Abbas that reads, “The country belongs to those who defend it..” Taken from the artist's Facebook page.

Every speech Bashar Al Assad gives proves over and again that he's become merely a spokesperson of a country where he holds the honorary post of president without having any real executive authority to actually rule it. People from far and wide know that the Syrian political decision making is in the hands of Iran and Russia. The two countries have loyally supported the Syrian regime to guarantee international interests through remote occupation — regardless of what happens to Syria as a result.

Russia earned the Syrian decision making power after vetoing every suggested UN resolution that could result in ousting the regime, or even holding it accountable for the crimes it has been committing against its people. As if this was not enough, Russia even joined the regime in punishing the Syrian people by vetoing the resolution on providing food aid to the besieged areas.

Iran owned the military power gradually, from the beginning of the Syrian revolution, by injecting the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, military experts and professional snipers into Syria. Iran also mobilized its two controlled wings, the Lebanese (Hezbullah) and the Iraqi (Abu al-Fadhal al-Abbas militia) to move into Syria and fight battles along side the Syrian army at first, and later on to take over the operations command in an attempt to exclude the Syrian army while ridiculing it; evident in the recurrent conflicts and disputes among them.

Bashar Al Assad's latest speech, in which he said “Syria is not for those who hold its passport or reside in it, Syria is for those who defend it“, sparked outrage among Syrian rebels who have spent the past four years fighting the regime and its thugs to free their country from a human rights and international conventions violating regime; a regime that used internationally banned weapons and starvation to subjugate rebelling areas.

Perhaps this statement was not said, or written in the speech, by coincidence or by mistake, but was in fact enforced by the decision makers as a preliminary step to legalize their non-direct rule, and turn it to a direct one in the future. Assad's words mean that anybody fighting under the big headline of defending the country will have the right to call the shots in Syria. From the regime's point of view, the Iranians, the Iraqis and the Lebanese fighting alongside the regime are defending Syria and its national sovereignty against the terrorist threat and the scheme to divide the region.

But maybe Assad forgot that Islamic factions such as Nusra Front and ISIS and others also claim to be defending the land of Levant. Those factions too have Chechens, Afghans and Gulf nationals fighting for them. Would Assad then give those too the right to rule Syria? Will he still say the country belongs to them since they are defending it? Or does this new rule only apply to his allies?

Many alignments could be found in Bashar Al Assad's speech and Hassan Nasrallah's, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, which he gave last month. The most important of which was that Hezbollah will not retreat from Syria and that the Party made a decision to stay there. This alignment is so evident that the Syrian official state media rarely mentions any “victory” of the Syrian army without the subsequent sentence of “backed by the Lebanese resistance (AKA Hezbollah)”. It is as if Hezbollah is now spread all over Syrian territories, and under lame excuses, the first of which was to protect the Shiite holly shrines, which nobody assaulted to begin with.

In the Zabadani battle, Hezbollah led the attack and the regime's air force and artillery destroyed the city and showered it by hundreds of random barrel bombs. The rebel brigades responded by attacking the villages in which Hezbollah barricaded in Northern Syria to force the Party to retreat and ease the pressure on Zabadani. Hezbollah, backed by Iran, immediately moved to the negotiations table with the Ahrar al-Sham brigade (an Islamic brigade fighting in Syria, composed of Syrian fighters only). Ahrar al-Sham was authorized by all brigades to head the negotiations which happened with out any presence of the regime, as if this matter is none of its concerns or one that it has no saying in. These negotiations were unsuccessful, and Ahrar al-Sham resumed the attack and escalation. They justified this by claiming that the Iranian negotiators suggested granting safe exit to trapped people in Zabadani in exchange of easing the attack of the Northern pro-regime villages. Ahrar al-Sham saw in this suggestion an Iranian move to change the Syrian demographics by emptying Zabadani from its original people who have lived there for thousands of years in order to house immigrant fighters from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah who have moved with their families to Syria in an attempt to settle there after four years of war.

It is worth mentioning that this was not the first time that Iran led negotiations and made such suggestions. The Homs 2014 negotiations, entered into with the trapped people of Homs who were besieged there for two and half years, during which they suffered immensely from starvation, so much so they had to eat grass and drink from the rain, resulted in people leaving their houses as part of the deal, but not being able to return despite many neighborhoods being announced safe areas. Subsequently documents surfaced proving housing Iranians in Damascus as well as Iranians ownership of many big estates; in what is thought to be an attempt to change the demographics of a country that has never, in its history, witnessed sectarian dividing or deportation.

Bashar Al Assad did not lie when he said Syria belongs to those who protect it. He actually meant that Syria now belongs to Iran and Hezbollah. The real and concealed meaning of his words which he never realized is that Syria belongs to its martyrs who die every single day in the torture dungeons of the regime. It is for those who sacrifice their lives for the fight for freedom. Syria belongs to the people who were forced to carry arms to fight a murderer who bombs his people with barbaric barrel bombs every day.

All this was because they told him “No”… Glory for he who said “No”.

13 comments

  • virgile

    According to that logic, then Saudi Arabia, the GCC and Israel belong to the USA ?
    Great observation! So what is wrong if Syria belongs to Russia and Iran?

  • Jardi1

    Zionist spin, I can guarantee you your evil plot against Syria will not succeed, Yes Syria does not belong to Zionist funded, trained and armed terrorists, in Levant there are men who wil fight to the last man to deny Zionist victory.

  • Sky01

    This article is complete and utter garbage trying to make the Syrian President look bad. Why dont you talk bad about ISIS huh? Don’t you know that there are no moderate rebels, but are all extremists now?

    • Exactimondo

      Syria does not belong to Iran and Russia. Iran and Russia are simply sick of this trend inhabiting Syria, starting in Iraq, Afghanistan, then Libya. So they do not want Bashar to go to cause a collapse in the region.

  • yatin

    “Defending” in Assad’s speeches means preserving the secular way of life that allowed different faiths to coexist mostly in peace. Ok Assad is a dictator who does bad things, but the rebels (all of them) only offer worse choices. As bad as things are now, with Assad’s fall things will be worse. Just look at the recent history. Afghanistan (vs. the commies), Libya (Gaddafi), Iraq (Saddam), Egypt (Mubarak) were ALL better than what followed.

  • Rovsky

    Will you ever speak to Yemeni rebels/refugees about flagrant human rights abuses, cluster bomb usages, violation of intl law, destruction of heritage and cultural genocide by the vile Saudis in Yemen? No, just blah blah Assad is the new Hitler. Just like Hussein. Just like Gaddafi. The media has a funny axiom of “Lets blow up these countries and then call the refugees fleeing the chaos to the EU scum”

  • Behzad Nili, PharmD

    I’d kiss your ass Mr. Asaad Hanna (the writer) because you look all ass to me.

    Mr ass-whole, every single one of those who fight Bashar all Netanyaus’ employees, not a single front care for Syria, all ALL of them are PROSTITUTES, yes the only one defending Syria’s soverignty is Bashar.

    If Syria falls, it will certainly be annexed to Israel territory and if that happens NOTHING will stop Israelis killing 6,000,000,000 people (yes, it’s six billion) on the planet.

    My hat off for such a resilient fighter, who cares not about his own life, who for the sake of saving the humanity from the pincer attack of the NWO planning to shave 95% of mankind, literally killing 6,000,000,000 people (yes, it’s six billion) on the planet is standing up like a insurmountable wall.

    https://youtu.be/5doeBEyjVDg
    https://youtu.be/b4kFYg1A6uo
    https://youtu.be/ansm5Fwwswg
    https://youtu.be/NOyHEVkdTnQ
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vELYvvPT4aI&t=46m00s
    https://youtu.be/7VZ7av9FWDM
    https://youtu.be/-ZJ2qzsNbac
    http://media.use.com/images/s_3/cd8aa6f71c080081a2e3_5.gif
    http://media.use.com/images/s_3/cd8aa6f71c080081a2e3_10.gif
    http://media.use.com/images/s_3/cd8aa6f71c080081a2e3_15.gif
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZJ2qzsNbac

  • steelcast2009

    According to the western media Bashar Assad is the villain. The Assad’s have watched out for Syria for forty years but is a Shia. The western governments wants him gone because Saudi Arabia , Turkey, two Sunni western allies want him gone. This is the same media that wanted Hussein and Gadaffi gone, how did that work out ? . Britain was all over getting rid of those two but doesn’t want to deal with the migrant crises that is flooding Europe because they are in their own fancy island . If Gadaffi was still in power there would be no migrant crises . Why is the west so hell bent on destroying the world . Isn’t 300 years of colonialism and making many cultures extinct not enough ? . God , what is it going to take ?

  • J S

    Putin’s decision to get directly involved is the best thing to happen to Syrians after the destruction wrought by US, Saudi, Turkey, Israel and their surrogate ISIS worms.

  • Zai Limpao

    “…sparked outrage among Syrian rebels who have spent the past four years fighting the regime and its thugs to free their country from a human rights and international conventions violating regime”

    What? Syrian rebels want to free the country from human rights violations? Hahaha. Do you have a f***ing idea who are those Syrian “rebels”? This is certainly a Zionist prop aka Hasbara shit.

  • Amrit Pal

    America has no right to say which others can’t say and to do what others can’t do.Assad has every right to defend its people and Russia has every right to support him,same goes for America supporting rebels.Wars are not about good vs evil,everyone is fighting for their own interests.

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