The news about the recapture of Syria's ancient city of Palmyra by Syrian regime forces with the help of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and other allied militias recently grabbed the international media headlines in the same way it got attention when DAESH took over the city. The reason for such media attention and international hue and cry on both occasions was, actually, for the safety of artifacts and the UNESCO world heritage sites in Palmyra, and of course not for the human lives and continued death and destruction in Syria.Both the loss and recapture of the city has worked as a perfect propaganda game for the regime in Damascus. In fact, the theater was meticulously planned. Initially, the city was allowed to be taken over by DAESH without much of a fight, and now it was taken back again with much fanfare and live media coverage. So the loss of Palmyra was the perfect stunt to get international attention, and now the retaking of Palmyra was a bigger event.PALMYRA WAS A SCHEME BY ASSAD, MOSCOW AND TEHRAN

The retaking of Palmyra is being shown as more important internationally than the fight on the ground in Syria. The regime literally handed over Palmyra to DAESH when it was losing ground to the rebels last year, and that received ample news coverage. Bashar Assad admitted: "Concern for our soldiers forces us to let go of some areas." One of those areas was Palmyra.Now the regime is showing the world that it recaptured the ancient city, improved its military position and liberated and defended Syria's monumental heritage from annihilation while pushing back the terrorists with the help of massive Russian and Iranian military support. After retaking Palmyra, it is now trying to prove to the world that it is a viable partner in the fight against DAESH terrorism.It is important to note here that after years of fighting, the same regime could not retake the Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp and the towns of Daraya, Moadamiyeh, or the Eastern Ghouta countryside from the rebels, all of which are within a few kilometers of the center of the capital Damascus. While some in the international community celebrate the return of the regime's reign of terror to Palmyra, Assad's inhuman starvation sieges of rebel-held towns and mass torture continue.The kind of congratulations pouring in from the highest echelons in Moscow and Tehran after Palmyra was retaken speaks to it all. Ironically, the retaking of Palmyra is not going to impact the actual military situation on the ground much; it may only help the regime boost its lost image for the ongoing U.N.-backed negotiations.During the stage-managed Palmyra theater, the high-octane, live media coverage and minute by minute commentary on social media were maneuvered and projected in a way to present a fight between good and evil.The U.N.-backed truce with the rebels also helped the regime retake Palmyra. With the cease-fire, the regime could focus on one front rather than scatter its troops on multiple fronts.The Palmyra episode is undoubtedly helping the regime alter the narrative after five years of civil war. For the first time in years, many Western media outlets have stopped calling regime forces or Assad's forces, instead, they now call them Syrian government forces while describing their recapture of Palmyra from DAESH.In the pre-revolution days, the region around Palmyra had an estimated population of 70,000 before the outbreak of the civil war. After the regime took over, the landscape of the ancient city, in general, is in good shape, as reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP). But the inhabitants around Palmyra were not as fortunate as the ancient ruins. In fact, the city was totally deserted before its recapture by the regime.There is no difference between DAESH's brutalities and those of the Assad regime and its thuggish allies. Thus, with this recapture, the ancient city of Palmyra has only changed hands from one tyrant to another.An old imperial perception is now being reshaped around Assad's cult of personality that only a strongman - actually a lackey - can defeat the terrorism in the Arab world. In reality, these dictators are the root cause of this menace.Dictators in the Middle East have successfully sold the narrative of "either me or chaos" while the media in the West portray them as strongmen, but in reality lackeys or, sometimes, lackey's lackey. Now after Palmyra, Assad is also trying to sell a perfectly crafted narrative with massive propaganda from Russian and Iranian media.RESPONSIBLE FOR THOUSANDS OF DEATHS

Brutal dictators like Assad will not hesitate to destroy many Palmyras to cling to power. Those who do not respect human life also do not care for human creations and history.After retaking the city, Syrian state news agency SANA along with Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah media outlets launched false and deceptive coverage of a massacre by DAESH. In fact, the picture of mass graves shown was from Iraq, outside Camp Speicher, a former U.S. military base outside Tikrit.Suffice it to say, Assad did not save Palmyra, rather he has been the sole reason behind its falling in danger of extinction. The history of Palmyra is full of the Assad clan's brutalities. In June 1980, Bashar Assad's father and predecessor, Hafez Assad, had thousands of defenseless Syrian prisoners in Palmyra - also known as Tadmur in Arabic - murdered. Its prison cells were specially designed for the most depraved acts imaginable. Today, the world appears to have forgotten the horrendous crimes of successive Assad regimes while at the same time the world gullibly allows itself to be distracted by the very monster responsible for committing such crimes in the first place. As reported by human rights agencies covering the Syrian civil war, Assad is responsible for an estimated 90 percent of total civilian causalities in Syria. No attempt of his image makeover, however devious and hard maneuvered it could be, will enable him to rule the majority of Syrians again.With the retaking of Palmyra, Assad, with his homicidal patrons in Moscow and Tehran, might have achieved a point in diverting the narrative that favors a lesser evil, but for most of the world Assad still remains an atrocious dictator responsible for colossal death and destruction of a great civilization.