A THOUGHT FOR NOW - THE SYRIAN PROXY WAR TRUCE:COULD IT TAKE ROOT?

Today is Monday, the day when the hastily agreed Syrian Proxy War truce is due to begin. As could be expected, the combatants, in anticipation of this truce starting, intensified the conflict, including the Syrian and Russian air forces carrying out increased airstrikes of opposition forces, probably to reduce how much opportunities they will have to use the truce to strengthen their positions. Would it not be good, it this were really to prove the dictum that, 'it gets worse before it gets better'?

It has been some months now, since a less comprehensive truce was agreed, but with only limited positive impact.

Will this truce which is due to start today bring forth better results? Let us hope that it will, notwithstanding the fact that, as they say, a lot has happened on the SPW battlefield since the last truce. Probably the most significant has been the rapprochement between Russia and Turkey, and Turkey's invasion and occupation of parts of its border with Syria, and her de facto establishment of her long advocated 'safe zone' in Syria; undoubtedly with Russia's at least tacit approval. There seems to have been no improvement in the mutual mistrust between the Russians and the Nato countries.

The prospects of his truce leading to a ceasefire and a negotiated peace settlement of the conflict, is almost certainly not as strong as the Syrian people and the world would have hoped for. After all, it is largely a proxy war, with powerful NATO and regional players players involved, not to mention what has been reported to be over a hundred armed groups or forces inside Syria doing battle with the Government and its forces.

How does one reach an agreement with so many player? If that is not impossible, it can only be done with great difficulty, and, most probably, only through a combination of continuing military campaigning by the Syrian Government and its allies, and negotiations between them and the 'legitimate opposition forces' and their western and regional allies.

So, while it would be a great relief if the truce does come into effect, hold and is able to be built upon, the weight of the deployment of forces on the ground and the, in some instances, apparently irreconcilable differences between the NATO and regional controllers of the proxy forces fighting, might well require the gods to intervene on the side of hope, for it to work.

Now is a time when the faithful might exclaim, Inshallah, in their hope of an end to this war, but, unfortunately, many of the faithful who are fighting it have declared themselves to be doing so in the name of Allah. Thus the confusion and the catastrophe, when humans appropriate their gods to provide them wit a fallacious justification to give vent to their blood lust.


The truth is that, the only god who has anything to do with this Syrian Proxy War, as with any war, is the god of death and destruction!

Let us hope, even against hope, that the god of the living and of peace, will, at last, be given a foot hold in this calamity.