South-West provinces of Syria are cleared from the terrorist

On 2nd of august, Syrian government troops, after more than 2 months of fighting, entered the historic strategic city of Quneitra in the province of the same name. The detachments of the 90th and 61st Brigades of the Syrian Armed Forces returned for the first time in the entire war to the place from which they were ousted four years ago. For the first time since 2014, the Syrian national flag again rose above the dilapidated building of the local administration. The Syrian military command announced a full return to the control of the border between Syria and the demilitarized zone in the occupied Golan Heights.
The Syrian commander’s statement summed up the two-month battle that began on June 22 and was one of the last major offensives of government forces against anti-government groups in Syria. The battle for South Syria allowed the government to regain control over the entire territory of the two provinces — Quneitra and Daraa, bordering Jordan in the south and the Golan Heights in the southwest and west. The symbolism of the battle is difficult to overestimate. The province of Daraa is the very region from which it all began in 2011. It was often called the “cradle of the revolution”, since it was the protests of a part of the local population against the governor there that in March 2011 are considered to be the beginning of the “Syrian revolution”, of which no one today speaks.
The battle for Southern Syria was the result of a regional compromise and a product of the volatility of the geopolitical situation around Syria. Two or three years ago, there was no reason to think about the likelihood of such an offensive operation. Israel, the United States and Jordan provided active political, financial and military support to local anti-government groups. Iran had plans to enter the borders of the Golan Heights with the Syrian army, and Israel sought to expand the buffer zone in the Golan at the expense of the adjacent Syrian territories, as long as they were beyond the control of the central authority in Damascus. Meanwhile, Russia was desperately trying to save the Syrian government of Bashar Assad and was engaged in large-scale battles in the east with the terrorists of the “Islamic state”. Saudi Arabia and its allies, together with Turkey, were the main players on the Syrian chessboard and provided generous support to anti-government coalitions that fought against the central government.
Two years later, the situation changed dramatically. The United States was replaced by the administration. President Donald Trump sharply reduced the role of the United States in the conflict and began to incline to the idea of ​​the full withdrawal of its troops from the country and the cessation of funding for all anti-government forces. He closed the CIA programs with training and funding for Syrian militants, froze financial support programs for areas beyond Damascus’ control and removed all those who considered his approach wrong.
Jordan plunged into the socio-economic crisis, which forced her to seek help from the IMF, and in 2016, the official Amman closed the borders with Syria and withdrew from the Syrian conflict. The additional financial burden of nearly 1.5 million Syrian refugees forced King Abdullah II of Jordan to seek ways of understanding with Damascus and the restoration of bilateral trade, as well as the opening of the M5 road that combined Damascus and Amman with the goal of returning refugees home. The only option to do this was the resumption of government control over South Syria. In the spring of 2018, Jordan advocated allowing the Syrian troops to clear these territories from the militants.
Russia helped the Syrian troops regain control over Central and Eastern Syria, destroy the ID terrorists and free up a large part of the troops that could be thrown to southern Syria. Strengthening its military presence in this country and the political weight in the negotiations, Moscow undertook complex and long-term negotiations on the formation of regional alliances to promote the idea of ​​a battle for Southern Syria.
Europe finally began to turn its policy towards Syria and abandoned attempts to achieve a change of power of Bashar Assad. In most European capitals, power changed. Instead of Francois Hollande, more accommodating in Syrian matters, Emmanuel Macron, instead of David Cameron in Britain, Immersed in the affairs of Brexit, Teresa May, instead of a self-confident and strong Merkel weakened and surrounded on all sides by political opponents by the Chancellor, who took over her last term. Tired of the migration crisis and the rise of Islamic extremism, which paralyzed the traditional liberal elites in Europe and led to the right-wing nationalist forces, Europe set the course for the rapid completion of all conflicts in the Middle East at all costs.
The oil monarchies of the Gulf quarreled among themselves. At first the long-standing Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani abdicated after the failure of his Syrian policy and gave way to his young Tamim, not interested in regional wars. Subsequently, Turkey, against the backdrop of a crisis of relations with the US and the EU, moved to the side of the Russian Federation and Iran. And in 2017, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates established a blockade of Qatar, and the side of the latter was Turkey and Iran. Oman and Kuwait remained neutral. Consequently, Qatar withdrew from the game and stopped financing the anti-government movement in Syria, and the Saudis gradually withdrew from the stage, occupied with more pressing internal political issues.
Under such circumstances, Israel, realizing that it will not be able to keep the situation in South Syria to its own advantage, and has almost no allies left, went to meet Russia and began to negotiate. Thus, the offensive operation “Basalt” was born, during which the Syrian army demolished anti-government groups for 2 months and forced them to capitulate.
The consequences of the battle for South Syria will be far-reaching. The central government in Damascus returned to the 2011 status quo. The trade and political ties between Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, lost six years ago, will rise again from the ashes and breathe life into their border regions along the strategic international highway M5. The model of the “contractor” in South Syria will become the base for all further operations, probably for an attack on northern Syria. The compromise demonstrated by the regional players showed that it is unlikely that any of them will fight for Syria, and therefore this battlefield temporarily ceases to be used for a regional war. The battle for South Syria showed how demoralized there are anti-government forces. Most of the settlements in the region they surrendered without a fight, preferring to get an amnesty or go by bus to the north of Syria, than to stand to death is not clear for what values ​​and ideas. Only a handful of terrorists of the “Islamic state” keeps to the very end in the south-west of Syria in its enclave in the Yarmuk basin. As in previous battles, they chose complete destruction and rout, preferring suicide for the sake of “getting into paradise”, at least promises their propaganda. The legacy of the battle for South Syria is a demonstration of the volatility of the geopolitical situation in the world, evidence of the cynical nature of international politics and the chance for the region to peacefully reformat the 100-year system, which in 2014 seemed to fail completely.