What does the battle of Deraa symbolise?

The Western powers present the battle of Deraa as a symbol of the failure of the combat they were supporting. This is absolutely exact, but not in the way they mean. Let’s return to the events which triggered the hostilities.

From 4 February 2011, a mysterious Facebook account called « Syrian Revolution 2011 » (in English in the original text) called for a demonstration every Friday against the Syrian Arab Republic. Using exclusively Sunni symbols, while pretending to speak in the name of all Syrians, it set the rhythm for events for several years.

According to Al-Jazeera, on 16 February, 15 adolescents (and then 8 of their friends) were arrested in Deraa for having tagged slogans hostile to President el-Assad. They were allegedly tortured, and the local representative for state Security allegedly insulted their parents. To this day, although it has been confirmed that the minors were held in custody for several hours by the police, the torture and the insults have never been proved. The videos and the interviews broadcast by the Anglo-Saxon Press are terrible, but they correspond neither to the original Qatari reports nor to what was verified on site.

John McCain is an elected US Senator, and is also president of one of the branches of the National Endowment for Democracy, one of the secret services of the « Five Eyes » (USA-UK-Australia-Canada-New Zealand) [1]. On 22 February, he was in Lebanon, where he tasked the transport of weapons in Syria to the Haririst deputy Okab Sakr. He also journeyed to Ersal in order to establish a future rear base for the jihadists.

On 15 March in Deraa, a traditionally Ba’athist town, a demonstration by civil servants presented various demands to which the President and the government responded, on 17 March, by way of large-scale social measures.

Still in Deraa, on Friday 18 March, an Islamist demonstration was staged at the exit of the Al-Omari mosque. The crowd chanted « Allah, Syria, liberty » - on the understanding that « liberty » should not interpreted in the Western sense, and is not meant to denounce a dictatorship. The term should be understood in the sense given by the Muslim Brotherhood, that of « the freedom to apply charia law ». During this demonstration, shots were fired both against the police and also against the demonstrators, without anyone knowing where they were coming from. It is probable, as we have seen in Venezuela [2], Libya and other countries, that the shooters were from a third force tasked with creating an atmosphere of civil war and preparing a foreign invasion. The situation deteriorated. The Palace of Justice and its archives were burned, while a group of rioters left the city in order to attack, not far from there, a centre of the services of Military Intelligence charged with observing the Israëli troops of occupation on the Golan Heights.

Thereafter, Senator McCain admitted that he was in permanent contact with the heads of the jihadists (including the commanders of Daesh) and compared his strategy against Syria with that of the war against Vietnam – any alliance is worth making in order to defeat the enemy [3]. Confronted with a recording of one of his telephone conversations, Okab Sakr admitted that he had supervised the transfers of weapons to Syria [4]. Saudi General Anwar Al-Eshki (his country’s official negotiator with Israël) bragged that Riyadh had previously delivered weapons to the Al-Omari mosque [5]. Although they were the only ones to have benefited from this, the Israëlis continue to deny their role in the attack on the centre of Military Intelligence which surveils the Golan Heights, which they occupy.

However we interpret these events, we are forced to note that they had nothing popular about them, but were the fruit of a conspiracy which implicated, at that moment in time, at least the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israël.

According to the Western Press, the « fall » of the « cradle of the revolution » marks the end of all « hope of overthrowing Bachar el-Assad ». No doubt, but would it not be fairer to say that the Syrian Arab Republic, its army, its people and its President « liberated » the « cradle of foreign aggression »?