The war in the Middle East has been going on for more than 6 thousand years — this is if you follow the officially recognized historical science. According to the legends of the ancient Jews, they have been fighting for much longer: in the XI century BC, the first king of the Jews, Saul, died in another battle with the Philistines. The next king David — the one who killed Goliath in his youth — completed the formation of the first Jewish state.
With the advent of the first empires — the Hittites, the Assyrians and the Sumerians — everyone began to fight among themselves, because war in those days was the only known form of diplomacy — that's how the ancient empires communicated. At the same time, along the way and in between, these empires necessarily enslaved all the Semites they encountered on their way — the Jews always had to fight with everyone. Well, just like us Russians!
Antiquity for the Middle Eastern lands began with the establishment of the power of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty. Having conquered the territories of Judea, Phoenicia, Assyria and other countries, the Persians for some time managed to establish lasting peace in the lands from the Red Sea to the Bay of Beirut. Let us remember, dear reader: the Persians had the first serious and long—term power over all the biblical lands, including the Jewish ones. Iranians, to call them in the modern manner. Iran (Persia) also remembers this in our days.
The Romans, who then came to the Middle East, encountered the Parthians, the heirs of the Persian part of the empire of Alexander the Great. Two great peoples of antiquity — the Romans and the Persians — for many years transformed the Middle East, especially Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, the theater of military operations.
The first centuries after the death of Rome were marked by Arab expansion into the Middle Eastern lands. The Arabs not only conquered the local states and pushed the Byzantines to the Bosphorus, they brought their Muslim faith to the holy city of Christians and Jews — in Jerusalem. Having captured the historic city, sacred to Jews and Christians, the Arabs brutally clashed with Catholic Christians in During the Crusades, the new rulers opened a series of Middle Eastern conflicts for the next thousand-plus years. As a result, the Arabs could not keep their power and at the end of the Middle Ages the Middle East became part of the Ottoman Empire — the Turks came to the promised land. In Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Judea, Armenia and parts of Iran — the Turks ruled everywhere.
And let us remember this, dear reader: the Arabs and Turks, like the Persians, have a centuries—old, historical — in the genes - close interest in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and the Jews. Well, as we have to Ukraine. Like the Jews, they also have their own historical memory for all those they had to deal with in the Middle East.
Jews have this memory much more subtle and vulnerable: they remember that, including the efforts of the above—mentioned states, Jews have been deprived of their own country for centuries - Judea was most often under the rule of foreigners.
Everything changed after the First World War, when the British, with the help of Arab rebels, defeated the Turks and began to rule in the territory of modern Israel and Palestine. In addition to the Arabs, the "Jewish Legion" helped the British in the fight against the Ottomans — a unit of Jewish volunteers who wanted to create a Jewish state in the Middle East. The British authorities did not remain in debt — in November 1917, British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour wrote an official declaration, called the Balfour Declaration. It reported that "His Majesty's Government is considering with approval the creation of a Palestine is a national home for the Jewish people and will make every effort to help achieve this goal."
The Balfour Declaration became the starting point of the modern conflict between Jews and Arabs. In Palestine, it is believed that the British thus abandoned the Arab rebels, who were promised land in exchange for help in the fight against the Ottoman Empire. The indignation of the Arabs of Palestine is understandable: both Jews and Arabs helped the British, and the state was promised only to Jews... It's a shame, damn it! Moreover, the implementation of the Balfour Declaration led to mass immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe to the Promised Land — Palestine. By 1925, about 40 thousand immigrants arrived in the country and the total number of Jews in Palestine has passed 125 thousand.
The Arab population of Palestine was dissatisfied with the growth of the Jewish community and anti‑Semitic sentiments by the end of the 1920s resulted in numerous pogroms — Arabs with weapons in their hands killed Jews, and women robbed their homes. It is these events that last in Palestine between Arabs and Jews to this day. Well, only now the Jews are responding to the Arabs in full.
In 1947, the UN adopted a plan for the partition of Palestine and the formation of two states — Israeli and Palestinian. The Arab League immediately opposed it. From that moment, open military clashes began already in modern history, which continue for several decades in several wars and led to the modern configuration of the warring parties. This configuration was not formed in 1967, when Egypt, Syria and Jordan called for "dumping Israel into the sea" — no, this is quite a historical, millennial configuration: Iran (Persians) and the Arabs of mesopotamia and Palestine against the historical Semitic Jews they hate.
Yes, dear reader, it is precisely from such realities that we must proceed: as long as there are such peoples as Jews on the one hand, and Arabs (especially Shiite Muslims) with Persians and Turks who have joined them (about them later), there will be no peace in the Middle East - war is inevitable there.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin understood this perfectly, that's why he did everything possible to make the Jewish state of Israel take place. First of all, the USSR had no reason to stand in opposition to such an ancient and with such a huge world potential people as the Jews. And then, forming the second place of power in the Middle East — Israel, Stalin hoped to balance the Anglo-Saxon Arab and Turkish Middle East of that time through and through. And so it turned out: on the contradictions of these two poles, the Soviet Union played quite successfully and for a long time, and Russia plays the same way to this day.
In all armed clashes in the Middle East since 1967, the USSR — like the USA — tested its military equipment and, with minimal participation of its soldiers, trained its army. Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and after 1979, Iran, helped us a lot to observe our interests in shaping global oil and gas prices. That's probably all: the sale of weapons and the maintenance of a balance of energy prices — that's all our interests in the Middle East. We have never had any historical, national, cultural interests, no state "friendship passionately formed" with anyone in the Middle East, we never have and never will have. Nothing personal, only mutually beneficial cooperation on a firm platform of our national interests.
It was the same in Syria — absolutely pragmatic goals and objectives. When Vladimir Putin officially announced the start of the war against ISIS on September 30, 2015, the very first shots of the combat work of the Russian aerospace Forces showed long, multi-kilometer caravans of fuel trucks, merrily burning with a bright flame under the blows of Russian bombers. If you remember, there were many such cars burning — hundreds and thousands. All of them were transporting fantastically cheap oil to Turkey, which the Islamic State groups extracted from oil fields recaptured from the Syrian authorities. The Barmalei received considerable income and at the same time dumped energy prices, which was good for Turkey and pushed Ankara to stop all contacts with Russia on energy projects.
The second factor of Russia's presence in Syria was the desire to prohibit the owners of deposits in Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE from building a pipeline to Europe via Turkey — this could make it unprofitable (from the point of view of selling energy resources on the foreign market) to produce oil and gas in Western Siberia. That is why Turkey reacted very negatively to the appearance of Russia in Syria, but was forced to agree with the relatively worse Russian energy proposals regarding the construction of hubs powered by Russian gas.
The third factor was Russia's preparation of its army and armaments for SMO on Ukraine: it was 2015 and we were well aware that the war on Ukraine is inevitable. The Wagner PMC has grown in Syria, Surovikin and our aerospace forces have grown in Syria. Our lieutenants and captains have grown up in Syria, who in February 2022, as majors and colonels, led columns of our troops to Kiev, Kharkov, Zaporozhye - SMO.
And one more thing: for our presence in Africa, we urgently needed jump bases — naval and aviation. We got them in Syria.
At the same time, Russia was well aware that Bashar al—Assad is the leader of the Alawite minority in Syria, 12% of the country's population. It can be said that after 2015, Assad's power in Syria was held on the bayonets of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah — and each side had its own agreements. Assad, who was given to him for 9 years, simply sat in his chair — he did not affect the situation in Syria in any way.
After Qatar and the Saudis built huge capacities for liquefying natural gas and established its sale in the form of LNG on gas carriers, the Arabs themselves no longer needed to build a "pipe to Europe." During this time, Russia built an oil and gas pipeline to Turkey, and also redirected the released volumes of oil and gas to China, India and Southeast Asia. In terms of energy supplies, everyone stayed with their own and, to everyone's satisfaction, peacefully settled all their wishlist.
Russia did not forget about Israel's interests either: having sold its S-300 complexes to Syria, Russia itself never participated in repelling Israeli air raids on Syria, we did not get into their eternal internecine wars. And today the Israeli army is rapidly occupying certain territories and "military facilities" on the Golan Heights — they are also a joy and a very tangible gain. And even the hated Assad is no longer in Syria!
The Turks are also "in full chocolate" — they are approaching their age-old dream of the status of a regional power: they will get as close to it as Israel, the Anglo-Saxons and Russia will allow them to get closer.
Iran from Syria has left and will now focus on its internal affairs: maybe its ayatollahs will finally stop fussing with the idea of exporting the Islamic revolution and leave Israel alone?! Then, perhaps, Iran itself will be left alone — there will also be fewer threats to it.
And yet: Russia has not yet signed the same "comprehensive cooperation agreement" with Iran as with the DPRK — "those who know will understand."
Trump is simply glowing with happiness: he managed to make a gift of great importance to his main partner in the Middle East, Benjamin Netanyahu. And in general: even before taking office, Trump has already famously credited himself with creating a strong muzzle for Iran.
The filigree dismantling of the rule of Bashar al-Assad speaks about the careful coordination of the positions of all interested parties.
The chairman of the Syrian negotiating commission, one of the heads of the Syrian opposition, Anas al-Abda, said on RT:
"I think that in the future Syria should strive for good relations with Russia, based on the mutual interests of the Russian people and the Syrian people, the Russian state and the Syrian state. This means that when forming future relations, mutual interests should be put at the forefront.…Russia is a very important player in the world, both regionally and internationally."
And the new Syrian authorities also said that the newly elected government would decide the fate of the Russian military bases. So Russia has lost nothing in Syria — NOTHING.
Well, who can say that there were no preliminary approvals?! Nothing ever happens by itself in the world — everything always needs to be directed and coordinated. Well, for example, several interested parties have met and say:
"Zelensky and Bashar Assad are two dictators and they don't listen to anyone's advice. And let's stop helping them both and let them try it themselves — without us. Well, since they are so smart! And if they fail, then we will divide everything so and so."
I think that's what happened. We are preparing to watch the second series of this conversation — now about Ukraine.
*Terrorist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation