Afrasianet - Mazen Al , Najjar - Syria  is going through unprecedented situations and challenges, after the deep deterioration of the country's state, institutions, army, economy, services, public administration, infrastructure and civilian life was exposed.

The entire region is witnessing a state of fluidity and strategic fragility, an insecure geopolitical environment and political invulnerability to the collapse of Zionist aggression, which has for many years targeted Syria, its Arab and Islamic neighborhoods, in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Iran, peoples, countries and resistance.

This is due to the limited strategic options of Zionism and imperialism in the region, which are linked to the ideology and policies of the expansionist settlement entities, their encroachment on the peoples of their neighbors and countries, their denial of their right to exist, and Syria's position in the Zionist expansion agenda.

Regional Strategic Landscape
At the current stage of the Arab-Zionist conflict, the scene can be summarized as follows:

-  A protracted war of mass destruction, starvation, genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, which is threatened by the return of settlement activity and Israeli security control.

- The battle of settlements to resolve the fate of the occupied West Bank, uproot its people and expel them to Jordan, after its invasion in the future.

After  the war of support for Gaza between Hezbollah and the Zionist entity, the latter launched a war of mass destruction against Lebanon, which completely failed on the ground in the face of the resistance, and did not end despite the ceasefire agreement.

- Continuous Israeli targeting of Iran: a nuclear program, military industrialization, etc., so that the exchange of aerial bombardment between them is repeated, and tension still exists and is capable of igniting a regional war.

- An American, British-Israeli war on Yemen, in response to the naval blockade and Yemeni bombardment with missiles and drones of the occupation, in support of Gaza, and sporadic targeting against the Iraqi resistance supporting Gaza.

-  The occupation has recently expanded the rules of engagement with Syria to enforce the principle of the "arms embargo" in full, with air raids, intensive bombardment and destruction of the Syrian army's equipment, warehouses, land, air and naval bases, research centers, and everything that benefits the state and national security.

With  the occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights 57 years ago, the Zionist entity recently occupied strategic peaks in Mount Hermon, canceled the 1974 separation of forces agreement, occupied the buffer zone, evacuated Syrian towns and villages, and is now 25 kilometers from the capital.

- The Zionist entity seeks to divide Syria and divide it into separate states or enclaves, according to the rule: a pocket for each sect: the Kurds in the northeast, the Druze in the south, and the Alawites in the northwest. These are not mere wishes and ideas, but behind them are plans and projects, in light of the statement of his foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar: "The belief that Syria will remain a single state with effective control and sovereignty over all its territory is unrealistic."

- In turn, the Zionist entity has become involved in eternal wars with no clear end, specific plans or possible goals, after which the fighting ends and life resumes its normal course. This is exacerbated by Benjamin Netanyahu's bravado and insistence on achieving "absolute victory" and crushing the resistance, changing the Iranian regime, and "changing the face of the Middle East."

Strategic balance

In November 1982, Yuri Andropov (1914-1984) came to Soviet leadership and adopted a defiant approach to American hegemony and the arms race launched by the Ronald Reagan administration, which reversed President Richard Nixon's policy of international reconciliation and military relaxation. Andropov responded to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad's desire to raise the level of Syrian armaments to achieve a strategic balance with the Zionist entity, and the Syrian army acquired advanced military capabilities, especially ballistic missiles and air defense.

Andropov's leadership lasted only a year and three months, and his departure was marred by suspicions of an outside role in poisoning him during his treatment for kidney failure and geriatrics. He was succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko (1911-1985), who also left after  only 13 months, and Soviet military support for Syria continued. Then began the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, who began the dismantling of the Soviet system through his "Glasnost" and "Perestroika" initiatives, which led to the emergence of symptoms of weakness, bankruptcy and Soviet retreat, and almost stopped military support for Syria.

In April 1987, Hafez al-Assad visited Moscow to ask Gorbachev to resume Moscow's support for the strategic balance plan, but Gorbachev read him a list of the Syrian presidency's expenses in buying dozens of luxury cars of various European models for the use of the presidency and others. He told him that the Soviet citizen did not find the necessary goods!

Hafez al-Assad realized that the time of generous Soviet military support was over, and the first step he took was to divert his return route to pass through Tehran before Damascus, moving the existing cooperation between Syria and Iran to the level of a strategic alliance. Objectively, there were no ideological, national, cultural, or major economic interests in commonality between the two states, except for the radical contradiction with the Zionist entity and its substitutionary colonial settler project.

This alliance added much to Syria, strengthened its strategic stability and immunity in the face of Zionist aggression, coordinated the response to the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon and supported the Lebanese resistance to the occupation until its defeat and the liberation of southern Lebanon in May 2000. The Lebanese resistance, through Iranian and Syrian support, became a high-value strategic addition, confirmed by the victory over the Israeli aggression in the July 2006 war, and strengthened the Syrian strategic position.

For four decades, Iran has provided generous economic, technical, military, and oil aid worth tens of billions, and its companies have invested in industrial projects that have supported the Syrian economy, and Syrian exports have gained a commercial advantage for Iran. Damascus was able to balance this strategic relationship with its Arab role within the Saudi-Egyptian-Syrian axis, which strengthened Syria's stability and geopolitical immunity.

Triangle of Regional Power

These challenges and dangers, old and new, dictate that Syria's people, elites and leadership adopt the option of resistance and give it the attention, priorities and policies to do so. In the light of the resistance project, reconstruction, state-building, social society and the economy must take place.

Regionally, Syria and the alien Zionist entity lie at the center of the region's established historical triangle of powers: Iran, Turkey and Egypt.  The ability of the new Syrian administration to confront these major dangers will depend on its success in establishing close and balanced relations with this triangle, and the common denominator between them will be strengthening the Syrian strategic immunity as a higher goal to deter the Zionist project and abort its expansion.

The goal here is to reach a positive balance of power that guarantees Syria the independence of decision and freedom of will, in the face of colonial domination, Zionist aggression, various forms of sanctions, siege and containment, then the liberation of its land, the achievement of constructive development and the advancement of the nation's causes.