Afrasianet - Shaher Al, Shaher - Talking about a united Syria is not easy to achieve, because preserving the unity of the state will not be possible without giving up some power and allowing more political participation for all components of the people. 

The meeting between the Russian and American leaders was not an ordinary meeting, as it laid the foundations for a future phase that will have major repercussions on the entire international arena.

Trump's desire to put an end to the war in Ukraine coincided with Putin's desire in principle, but it collided with the latter's efforts to draw that end according to his perceptions and whims, and to ensure that his victory on the ground is consolidated.

The situation on the ground reflects Russian progress and superiority, so the superiority in negotiations will also belong to Putin, who is aware of this fact and seeks to exploit it to the fullest.

Russia has managed this war with strategic patience to the extent that it has announced a general mobilization of only 1%, and it has been able to face the largest economic sanctions on a country in history, and it has succeeded in reducing its effects significantly.

That may not anger Trump, who tends to admire "leaders with authoritarian tendencies" (by American standards), which has increased his admiration for President Putin for more than 20 years, and the likelihood of their friendship expanding since he ran for president in 2016.

Awareness and knowledge of history and strategy tend in favor of Putin, who far outperforms Trump, as Putin is an exceptional figure in modern political history, as he was able to unite Russia and restore its prestige on the international stage.

Putin was a supporter of Trump in that election, as he is considered an accomplished figure and possesses a lot of talent, so many suspicions were raised at the time about Russia's involvement in manipulating the US elections in support of Trump.

In response, fearing that Putin could single out Trump and convince him of his point, bilateral meetings were blocked at the White House's behest, signaling the immunity of institutions and the power of the deep state in the United States to put an end to the president's behavior when necessary.

Putin was able to move the discussion from looking forward to a ceasefire and then negotiations, to first negotiating a comprehensive peace agreement and then talking about a cessation of war that would come as a result.

Trump had promised the American voter to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, which has not been achieved so far, so this will affect his popularity as he aspires to win a second term.

The reaction of Ukraine and European countries.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and seven European leaders rushed to meet with President Trump to hear his perspective and the impressions he formed after meeting with President Putin. 

This summit was very different from this February's summit, which saw Zelensky humiliated by Trump and his vice president, Jayde Vance.

The summit was the "summit of the defeated" in a war that has been going on for four years, it was not really a Russian-Ukrainian war as it is intended to be portrayed, but rather a war of a global nature that took place on Ukrainian territory in which 54 countries participated against Russia in what was known as the Ramstein Alliance (after the large American military base located in Germany, where most of the meetings of the group concerned with providing support to Ukraine in this war were held). 

Western countries have spent nearly $1 trillion on this war, with the stated goal of exhausting and draining Russia in an effort to divide it.

"You will not reach the negotiating table any further than your guns," is the "bitter truth" that Trump wanted to convey to Zelensky, who is living in denial of his difficult reality.

A summit between Trump and Zelensky, which was joined by seven European leaders, focused on the idea of the security guarantees that Europe and America are supposed to give Ukraine in exchange for signing a peace agreement under which it would remove large areas of eastern Ukraine, especially in the Donbas region.

Talk of a "new Ukraine" seems to be the closest to reality, as there is no room for Ukraine to return to its full pre-war borders.

Trump's 40-minute call with Putin during the summit, which he left to speak to the Russian president and then return to the two meetings, revealed the general idea discussed at the four-hour summit.

Talking about Ukraine's future neutrality means that Ukraine will not join NATO or any other alliance that would pose a threat to Russia. 

America and the Europeans demanded that Putin give the rest of Ukraine some guarantees, meaning that eastern Ukraine would become Russia, while western Ukraine would be the "new Ukraine."

Speaking of the guarantees of the European leaders, they promised to send troops to the new Ukraine (western Ukraine), which is only a verbal promise given to Ukraine now, and there are no real guarantees that it will continue to be implemented.

When Ukraine separated from the Soviet Union, it was asked to give up its Soviet nuclear arsenal, in exchange for guarantees and security pledges given to it, provided by the United States of America, European countries, and Russia, under the Budapest Memorandum in 1992, but Russia took control of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, and in the current war, Russia occupied the equivalent of 20% of Ukraine's area, which means that the idea of security guarantees given to Ukraine did not benefit it in any way. 

Western countries that wanted to make Ukraine a second Afghanistan for the Russians have been exhausted, but the indications are that Ukraine will be a second Afghanistan for America, which came out of Afghanistan defeated and humiliated.

Despite Trump's serious efforts to put a political end to this war, international ambitions for Ukraine may prevent this, with many countries seeking to bring Ukraine to a state of collapse to make it easier for them to share it.

Winners and losers of what is happening in Ukraine...

It is obvious that Russia and Ukraine were the first to be affected by this war, while the United States was the biggest winner of it, for many considerations, the most important of which is the American arms trade and increasing its revenues.

European countries seemed to be the biggest losers after Ukraine, as the European Union today is not what it was before the war, politically, militarily and economically.

Talk of the European Union as a future international pole is no longer a possibility, and competition is limited to the United States, China, and Russia. 

Trump's desire to devote himself to his upcoming battle with China is a matter of concern for Beijing, and makes it wary of stopping the war in Ukraine, as it has constituted a drain on the United States and European countries, and has also increased Moscow's need for China and its dependence on it on a number of issues.

Iran and the countries of the region will also suffer from the repercussions of stopping the war in Ukraine, if it is achieved, because the victory of the Western axis means the loss of our allies, and the victory of Russia may make the countries of the region a negotiating card between them and the West, similar to what happened in Syria. 

Reshaping the Levant and reshaping Syria in particular...

As for Syria, it has become an ideal case for the model of geographical and demographic disintegration that puts the country's unity and identity to the test, which we see today in Suwayda, the Sahel region, and northeastern Syria.

What is happening in Sweida is not separate from what is happening in the region in general, and Syria in particular, which represents the heart of the Arab Mashreq, and Sykes-Picot was nothing but the dismantling of Syria in partnership between France and Britain.

Today, we are moving from dismantling the nation into countries (the Sykes-Picot Agreement), to dividing the countries into sectarian and ethnic nations under slogans that we have come to hear and repeat such as "Greater Israel" and "The New Middle East." etc.

In the early 1980s, a document called the "Odid Yinon Document" appeared that showed Israel's perceptions of the future of the region, by dividing the Arab countries into states, and for Syria, the vision was based on its dismantling into five states, which is identical to France's vision when it was occupying Syria.

Today, Israel seeks to use the Druze card as the only Arab group in the occupation entity that performs the service of the flag in Israel (and there are some Bedouins in the Negev desert who do so). Under a title called "Blood Alliance" and under religious claims such as the relationship between the Prophet Moses and the Prophet Shuaib, and so on.

It should be noted that the situation of the Druze does not concern them in any way, except that they want them to be a tool to consolidate the status quo created by Israel in southern Syria. 

Israel is aware that the dismantling of Syria will have serious repercussions on its national security, but it has not been able to overcome the temptation to be able to weaken Syria further and further. 

The idea of forming religious states in the region also tickles the feelings of the Israelis so that they will not remain their only state in the region based on religious grounds. 

The Syrian government's quest to negotiate with Israel can be understood as a kind of political realism, so what alternative is available to it if the negotiation process falters, especially since Israel is on the outskirts of Damascus.

The danger lies in going to the negotiating table from the logic of the defeated, which is stripped of all its cards, instead of seeking to create a new reality on the ground (even if it is temporary) that can be used as a card of strength in the upcoming negotiations between Syria and Israel.

Dialogue and transparency between the government and the people are necessary in this context, especially since there is a lot of confusion about the work of the government, and the intensification of criticism of it is a fact that cannot be overcome.

Talking about a unified Syria is not easy to achieve, as preserving the unity of the state will not be possible without giving up some power and allowing more political participation for all components of the Syrian people, including those who oppose the existing authority.