Why is Aleppo liberated now? | policy

Concerns and challenges

History will record on Friday, November 29, 2024, an important day in the history of Syria, the region, and the Arab and Islamic nation. How could it not? Aleppo, Syria’s economic capital and largest city, was liberated, which had been subjected to severe strangulation since the Assad family seized power in 1970.

Everyone asks an important question: Why was Aleppo liberated and how? What are the concerns and challenges?

First: Why was Aleppo liberated?

1. The liberation of Aleppo is necessary to restore balance in presenting the Syrian issue after Al-Assad felt that things were wrong for him, and he returned to relative Arab and Islamic engagement.
2. The liberation of Aleppo is necessary for the political solution to be presented seriously and not just as slogans. Aleppo represents a quarter of Syria’s population, and a third of the Syrian economy. Its departure from the regime’s control makes it confusing for all Syrians, especially its guardian, as it is unable to rule Syria despite its relative control over it after 2020, which makes thinking about a solution to the dilemma of the Assad family’s monopoly of power an urgent necessity.
3. The liberation of Aleppo reveals the fragility of the Iranian axis, which has penetrated Syria and formed an independent state within it, and has even come to control the joints of the fragile Syrian state. Because of Assad’s weakness and lack of ability to rule.
4. The transformation of Syria into a state controlled by sub-state components makes the liberation of Aleppo a starting point for the idea of ​​rebuilding a state according to political controls consistent with international law and United Nations standards.
5. Russia’s preoccupation with its invasion of Ukraine led to a decline in the priority of supporting Assad.
6. Russia and even Iran are dissatisfied with Assad’s tricks after his contacts with Arab countries.
7. Türkiye feels that the Astana negotiations are no longer useful, despite all its attempts to extend the hand of the Turkish leadership towards Assad.
8. America does not object, and this is evidenced by its failure to take any preemptive action or warning, as it usually does in other regions such as northeastern Syria.

Second: How did you break free?

1. The Military Operations Department has had the appropriate idea, preparation, and plans for quite some time.
2. The operating room chose the appropriate time after the Iranian and Hezbollah militias suffered psychological and moral defeat.
3. The revolutionaries had a strong desire to achieve achievement after a long hiatus from achieving victories, which made them thirsty to achieve victories again.
4. The regime’s feeling of relative security and the absence of a real threat towards it since the 2020 de-escalation agreement, which led it to demobilize reserve conscripts.
5. Assad’s army has sagged due to poor economic conditions and the cessation of the looting on which it has lived since the Russian intervention in 2016.
6. The lack of harmony between the regime’s militias and the Iranian militias, which began to treat them with condescension, which made them lose the desire to fight alongside them.
7. The element of surprise, especially on the first day, with the rebels controlling strategic locations, with the regime not expecting to target Aleppo.

The most important concerns

• Security chaos and thefts, especially since the city of Aleppo possesses wealth, banks, factories, and antiquities.
• Imposing a value model to which the people of Aleppo are not accustomed, as Aleppo is characterized by openness and the presence of many components, such as: Christians, Armenians, Mardels, and Kurds.
• Revenge, as there are groups in Aleppo that are strongly supportive of the revolution and others that are strongly hostile to the Shabiha who wreaked havoc during the previous period.

Challenges

1. The complexity of governance with the accession of Aleppo, as there are central institutions within it: (grain silos, seed multiplication, cotton, railways, the central bank).
2. Recycling the economic wheel, as the population of Aleppo has become approximately half of the current population of Syria.
3. Providing basic services, such as: electricity, water, health, education, and basic materials.
4. Security: Joining this large gathering requires the number and space of a professional police and judiciary to overcome this major challenge.
5. Lack of trained human resources due to the migration of a large number of them during previous years.
6. Return migration, as the return of large numbers of Aleppo residents represents a challenge that is not easy, especially since many families have housed their relatives from the eastern regions whose homes were destroyed. Because of the regime and the Russians.
7. Reverse migration represents a real challenge, especially in both aspects: The private sector, businessmen, and the public sector, if employees with experience in state administration are not absorbed with very small salaries.
8. Securing resources for state administration and institutions.
9. Political representation of the liberated areas, as it is no longer possible for the coalition to represent them politically or engage in the political solution.
10. Convincing the international community that it is not extremist and that it has a sober political discourse.

In conclusion

Syria and the region are at an important turning point that requires regional, Arab, and international cooperation that contributes to imposing stability in the region, and returns Iran to its borders after it expanded and contributed to creating strife and destroying Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Will the date of the liberation of Aleppo be a date for rewriting the civilization of the region again?