I pray every day for the restoration of Syria. Specifically, I pray for an end to the crippling sanctions and to the theft of Syrian oil by the US, and for the departure of foreign troops. It seems that all those prayers may finally be being answered, but not in a way I had anticipated. I have been truing that humanitarian concern in the US and EU would ultimately win out over greed and political expediency. Instead, it seems that the key to new life and peace might be the economic ambitions of China!
China’s brokering of a peace accord between Iran and Saudi Arabia last month is possibly the most significant indicator of the shift in the global balance of power that we’ve seen in this generation. Ever since the CIA-led overthrow of the Iranian government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, the US has been at the centre of Middle-Eastern turmoil, with Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Israel all being pushed around like pieces on the hegemon’s chessboard. Now a new player has entered the game, and the newcomer isn’t playing by the same rules.
I am excited with the implications of the new global balance of power, most especially for the people of Syria who have shown such extraordinary resilience over twelve years of violence and deprivation resulting from foreign interference.
Steven Sahiounie writes in his article, “Bridge of peace and prosperity proposed from the Arab world to Syria”:
Syria is on the brink of recovery as Saudi Arabia plans to invite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the Arab League summit in Riyadh on May 19. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan will travel to Damascus soon to hand Assad a formal invitatio’n to attend the summit, in what will be the most significant development in the Arab rapprochement with Assad.
Riyadh and Damascus are in talks to reopen embassies in both countries, in a culmination of diplomatic meetings, statements and policy shifts demonstrating new and independent positions on Syria.
The people of Aleppo say that they went to bed one night, and they woke up under occupation of armed fighters supported by the US Obama administration, Turkey and Qatar.
In December 2016 the city was liberated from Al Qaeda and their affiliates, and they have been trying to recuperate, but with US-EU sanctions opposing their reconstruction plans, the recovery has been slow going.
The people of Aleppo have hoped that as quickly as their lives were turned upside down by outside forces, the turning point of recovery and prosperity would be just as quick. Syria stands today on the threshold of a recovery which may hold peace and prosperity in the near future for 21 million inhabitants.
Read the rest of this article here.