Who exactly does Assad represent?


The consequences of seven years of bloody civil war in Syria are becoming increasingly grave. Unfortunately however, no one sees the dictator Bashar Assad, who is mainly responsible for this, and the global forces that support him. First, a malevolent apparatus named Daesh was presented as justification and now a few small terrorist groups like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) are being put forward.

In fact, there is a massive Syrian public and their representative, the "reasonable" opposition. No one, with the exception of Turkey, sees this reality of this opposition. A total of four million out of Syria's 22 million people are in Turkey, millions of others are in other countries across the world, particularly in Jordan, Lebanon and northern Iraq. The numbers are horrific, considering the fact that the number of refugees going to other countries alone exceeds eight million.

The number of Syrians reduced to refugee status inside their own country exceeds four to five million. Meanwhile, one million Syrians were also murdered. Considering the fact that there are 14 million Syrians who oppose Assad today, this picture is exceedingly creepy to say the least. Aside from the hypocritical attitude of the PKK-Democratic Union Party (PYD), nearly two million Kurds are in the same position. In other words, a total of 16 million Syrians oppose Assad.

What remains is six million Syrians living on the Damascus and Latakia line and an important part of them are opponent as well. In other words, the Syrian people are not behind the dictator Assad who has slaughtered his people. Assad and his bloody regime are a minority more so today than in the past. So, what is keeping this dictatorship alive? The interests of global (Russia) and regional (Iran) powers, and especially the U.S. These powers overlook massacres for the sake of their interests and want to justify Assad.

Those who justified Daesh to this end in the past are using small terrorist groups like the HTS now. They do not want these groups to be liquidated by Turkey. In fact, they see that if Turkey manages to do this, it will beinfluential not only in Syria, but also in the region and the world. In order to prevent this, they are pushing Turkey to negotiate with Assad. It is not surprising that this request is being voiced by Russia, which has been standing behind this entire massacre, or Iran that has been personally participating in the conflict with Hezbollah and its special forces since the beginning. What is surprising is that some are insistently voicing this in Turkey. All the political players, former diplomats and retired soldiers who are the remains of the old tutelary system have been suggesting for months that Turkey "negotiate with Assad." The PKK, which is waging an armed battle against Turkey, and its supporters, who label Turkey's government system a "dictatorship," have joined this pro-Assad chorus. They want Turkey to negotiate with Assad, but they do not want the same thing for the Syrian opposition, which maintains a "reasonable opposition" without getting involved in terrorism.

There is a dirty game being played, the main purpose of which is to smear and neutralize the moral and humanitarian stance represented by Turkey and its embrace of oppressed nations. This approach is not independent of recent political and economic sieges. If other actors in this conflict were to adopt Turkey's firm stance, the HTS terrorist organization would be sidelined like Daesh and the dictator Assad would be overthrown.

Even if Assad is replaced by a pro-regime figure, much less an opponent, the political climate in Syria will change and a solution will become easier. However, no one other than Turkey wants this. Quite the contrary, they condone air and land operations on Idlib, knowing that people will die. Is it that hard to oppose Assad and what he is doing? It's hard to understand why the world isn't saying stop to Assad and prefers to stay silent in the face of the massacre of the Syrian people.