 Hello, and welcome to Mapping Fault Lines, a show by NewsClick, where we discuss major geopolitical developments and their impact on the region and the world. Today, we'll be talking about the situation in Syria, and with us we have Prabir Porcaesta. Hello, Prabir. Prabir, so over the past few days, there have been some major developments in Syria. First of all, the Syrian army has completely taken over the areas around Aleppo, which were under rebel control for the longest time. And this follows over the past few weeks, there have been other major developments like the capture of Sarakib, the city of Sarakib. And the Syrian army looks set to advance on Idlib, although there will be considerable amounts of fighting. And meanwhile, the Turks have also brought in some soldiers, so there's a lot of questions regarding what is going to happen over the past few weeks, but next few weeks. But to start with, what is the significance of the capture of Aleppo directly? You see, as you know, Aleppo has been under siege for quite a long time. I think last eight years or so, Aleppo has been at the siege for the first time, because these areas have now been taken over by the Syrian army only in the last 10 days or so. We have a situation where Aleppo is not under the guns of the Islamist forces who have been trying to cleanse the country of what they call non-believers, in which also they include the Alawites, the Shiites, the Christians, whatever. So this is definitely a major change, particularly Aleppo was the industrial heart of Syria. So in that sense, liberation of Aleppo, the fact that it's not under the guns of the rebels, is a huge positive for the Syrian government. It's also true that the Turks, that Eddogan and his government, has made lots of noises, seem to have sent a lot of forces in Idlib to protect what effectively was in Al Qaeda or Tahir el-Sham, the Al Qaeda light in other words, all these forces. Eddogan had provided them with logistical and other support. I think increasingly for Turkey, it's clear their interest lies really in the Kurdish areas that that should not be a long-term threat to them. And if they have to make a, what shall we say, bargain with the Syrian forces, then they would like to bargain one against the other, Idlib versus the Kurdish areas, and how to see that the Kurdish forces do not have an autonomous region there as they had earlier. So if you take the long-term strategic interests of Turkey, then Idlib is not as important for them strategically as the Kurdish areas are, and therefore having a Kurdish area which recognizes the Syrian government and the posts or the Czech posts, the border is petrol by the Syrian Arab army, actually is better for them, and therefore their stakes in Idlib are not that high. Having said that, it is also still true that what do they do with all these forces they have accumulated over the last 10 years or so, what do they do with them? And if they don't do anything and the Syrian just roll over these forces, then if they all come back to Turkey, it's going to be a huge issue. So what do they do with them? Do with them is an issue. And one of course solution is to export all of them to Libya, which also they are doing. Part of these forces have been exported to Libya, but they do face a major issue. And that is why Turkey is making lots of sounds. I don't think they want to go back to the American fold, confront Russia and the Syrian government. So I think they're trying to bargain their best out of the situation. But I don't see that there is a threat of a war between the Syrian government forces and Turkey, particularly as Russians are guaranteeing the control of the air force, the whatever the air force that is there. Russians have basically made that very clear that Turkey cannot really control the skies. Given that I think this is going into a much longer grind for the rest of Idlib, but the key issue is that Aleppo is now safe. And now we are really talking about the M4, M5 highway. And we can talk about the M5 highway, which is also a very critical element of Syria. So coming to the highways themselves and especially the campaign that began in December last year, and it's been quite a substantial, a very strong campaign by the Syrian army and they've taken over substantial amounts of territory in Idlib. So what role exactly to the highways play in this context? You see the two highways, M4 and M5, are the major arteries for Syria. The M5 is even more important. It connects Damascus to Aleppo and it goes even further, Manbij and even further to northeast Syria. So therefore this highway has been the most critical artery for Syria. And this last two months of whatever battles have been waged in the area, the Syrian army's advance has seen the entire M5 come under the control of Syrian forces, M4 is still partially under rebel control. So that is one part. M5, they have also taken over the critical junction between M4 and M5, which is Sarakib city town, which you what you already said. But they've really liberated about 1500 kilometers, square kilometers of area. And that means the entire M5 now is under control between Damascus and Aleppo. This is totally under government control. That's a huge, huge advance over what it was earlier, because again, this has been lost to the Syrian forces for quite some time. They had control most of M5, but there are still parts of M5 which was not under their control. That means the flow of traffic from Damascus right up to Aleppo via Homs, etc., was not going to take place. I think that's a major strategic advance. Coming to M4, that really connects Latakia to Aleppo and that joins M5 in Sarakib. So effectively we are talking of Sarakib to Latakia. And yes, that means that it would probably mean taking over of Idlib. Or you can really take over or control the highway completely. And Idlib is not going to be that easy as yet. And the Syrian forces also have a policy, I think the Russians have also fine tuned for them. They don't take head on these kind of forces. What they do is have a partial siege, leave an exit for the forces to leave and then slowly grind them down. And after a certain period it seems in the negotiations a section of the forces would like then to reach an arrangement by which they can lay down their arms and also have some respect left for them instead of surrendering or fighting to death, which are the only other two options available. So they have taken a much slower way of fighting the rebels and it has worked for them because they have liberated large parts of the country without such fights, to death or complete subjugation of this military holdouts. But Idlib is not going to be that simple because this is where rest of the Syrian rebel forces, the hardcore, has chosen to go instead of laying down arms. So I think that situation is not going to resolve itself so easily. And the fact is behind them there is a Turkish border which is supplying arms. Turkish forces have come in, there are lot of Turkish vehicles which have military vehicles which have entered there. So what role Turkey is going to play, whether it is also going to protect them militarily or it will be a supporting force is not there at the moment. So I don't think Idlib is going to resolve itself that quickly. I think it will need a lot of protected negotiations between Russia who is guaranteeing the peace in some sense and Turkey and Syria. And in that sense I don't think the Americans who had thought that this was an entry point for them and Pompeo had made various noises, had expressed support for Erdogan, I don't think he has fallen into their trap, mainly because the way they backed the Kurdish forces in the northeast, that is something which has set the Turks completely off against the Americans. So I think at the moment Idlib is going to be a slow grind, it will take half diplomatic, half military measures as everything else Syria has done before it gets rid of. It's also interesting to note that despite the US offensive in the region, especially targeting Iran, which is a close ally of Syria, the Russian-Syrian strategy has nonetheless continued to silently, not silently maybe, but steadily move forward and leaving both Erdogan and the US in a bind. I think that's also very clear that there's a larger geo-strategic unfolding, as you said in the beginning, in the region. And that is telling against the American strategy, which is support Israel wholeheartedly. We have seen the so-called peace plan, which is essentially complete surrender or the demand for Palestinians to completely surrender their homeland. We have also seen their alliance with Saudi Arabia. It's also true that Saudi Arabians and Emirati forces are not really doing very well. Saudi Arabia is not able to make not only any headway against Yemen, it's suffering losses, even air losses in the war. So I think that weakens Americans' hand because all the forces which are supposedly their close allies, their local battles are not going well. In Iraq, they have really made themselves isolated because within Iraq now, whatever anti-Iranian feeling which they're trying to whip up might have been there. The point is after Mohandas and Soleimani was assassinated, Iraqi government is not the only one who's turned against them. Last section the Iraqi people also have who saw that against the al-Qaeda forces, against ISIS, it was really Mohandas and Soleimani who fought from the front lines. So they're not going to accept that these are all pro-Iranian forces, Mohandas and others are all pro-Iranian, as Americans keep on calling them, that these are militias led by Iran, Iran backed militias or led by Iran. This is total lie. So given all of this that you are going to see that increasingly the United States is playing with a weaker hand because essentially it is playing against historical forces which have been unleashed, monarchy and colonialism. Old-fashioned settler colonialism of the Israeli variety, old-fashioned imperialism of the United States Trump variety, and monarchies is not a winning hand today. And I think that's what is beginning to clearly unfold in the region. So yes, they may make some gains here and there, but I think arc of history as you put it is against them. Thank you so much, Prabir. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching Newsclick.