Islamic State is retreating but this does not signal the end of the Syrian conflict. For the conflict has never been about religion; it is about freedom.

Just when Bashar al-Assad thought he was on the verge of a military victory over the Syrian rebels after pummelling the citizenry of Aleppo, this month’s events in Damascus may require everyone to take a closer look. In effect, the Syrian opposition delivered serious blows to government forces in the suburbs of Damascus on 19-20 March. They came to within 2 kilometres of the old walls by moving unobserved at night through the city’s drain pipes. The surprise attack, originating in the Jobar sector of the city, caught the government soldiers off guard and Damascus was again plunged into a series of running street battles. By attacking the capital, the rebels hope to release some of the pressure on their northern enclaves while re-focussing on strategic targets in and around Damascus.

All this comes at a particularly bad time for the Russians. With Aleppo in ruins (a poignant reminder was the image of a Syrian government flag stuck on top of one of the innumerable piles of rubble in Aleppo) and the Turks in their hip pocket, all that remained was to sue for peace. Unfortunately for them, the Turks remain unable to deliver all or even most of the rebel factions to the peace table.

Russian efforts to reach a diplomatic solution have been ongoing. In early 2016, the Russians sent Igor Sergun, head of Russia’s GRU military intelligence and one of their most trusted generals, to Damascus as a high-level emissary rumoured to be carrying a message from Vladimir Putin. Several weeks after his dispatch to Syria, Sergun, 58, turned up dead, reportedly due to “natural causes”, and his body was returned to Moscow. Was he carrying a request for Bashar al-Assad to step aside to make way for negotiations with the rebels?

In the spring of 2016, several other Russian generals were killed in Syrian Turkmen territory. News out of Syria in early 2017 has not been good either, with another Russian general severely wounded by a roadside bomb. What is clear is that the Russian plan for a diplomatic solution is stalled in its tracks despite UN support.  The Russians have over estimated Turkey’s pull with the rebels, while seriously underestimating the military grit and punch left in the rebel ranks as well as the intransigence of their sole Syrian interlocutor and ally. One wonders what their Plan B might be.

Over the past few months, Islamic State strongholds in the north and west of Syria have been weakened by Kurdish forces backed by a strengthened Coalition presence and Syrian rebels backed by Turkey. An IS defeat in al-Raqqa is now within sight while they continue to lose ground in Iraq. For the moment, the two anti-IS forces seem content to concentrate on defeating IS.

If IS is soundly defeated in Syria, which now appears likely, how will the two armed forces left on the ground face off with one another? We know that the Turks are unhappy about Western support for the Kurdish forces and equate the Democratic Union Party in Syria with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey.

According to the Turks, both are terrorist organisations and, with the impending referendum on enhancing his own powers as the President in Turkey, Erdogan repeats to those who are still listening, “You cannot fight one terrorist organisation using another.” Setting aside the complete impracticality of such a statement, which would require the dissolution of the present coalition against IS, President Erdogan, like many leaders of his ilk, has unilaterally expanded the definition of terrorism to include almost all those who propose to vote ‘no’ on the referendum question.

The strengthened US presence in Syria alongside their Kurdish allies, whom it trains and arms, reflects the political vacuum created in Washington by the Trump presidency. The latter is so ineffective and distracted that the Pentagon has simply moved forward on the Syrian issue on its own, taking up the enhanced Syrian interventionist policy envisaged in the dying days of the Obama administration. The US military brass appear to have decided not to wait for executive guidance while President Trump rages from one fake news story to the next. Who can blame them? If anyone asks, the dutiful reply will be, “We are fighting IS as planned.”

For their part, the Kurds continue to play the Western card and appear more than willing to do the Coalition’s dirty work fighting IS in Iraq and Syria. A quick look at the history of the Kurds should have revealed to them that the temporary fix they offer will not be remembered for long once IS is defeated. Contrary to the Turkish analysis, the Kurds are incredibly divided along tribal, ideological and generational lines.

The weekend violence in Damascus reveals the real nature of the Syrian conflict. It is not a war about religion or ideology. In this sense, IS is on thin ice in Syria and its defeat is predictable. Nor is the Syrian conflict a war that can be understood by Ivy League professors of international relations spinning webs and case studies to explain the complex interplay of the geopolitical interests of the parties. To make peace, you must understand war.

As a foreign diplomat on the ground, my reading of the Syrian conflict has been different. First and foremost, it is a fight for human dignity, family and land. After hundreds of conversations and meetings with Syrian rebel commanders and fighters along the Turkish border and in Syria, this much became clear.  There will be no surrender. They will never surrender. The cold steely eyes of determination only convinced me more of this. What choice do they have? Become a refugee?

After six years of conflict, the Syrian opposition is still standing—against Bashar’s army and henchman, the Russian bear and Iran and its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon. The resolve of the Syrian rebels and the people they defend is the stuff of which heroes are made. They are young, energetic, motivated and determined. I would not like to confront them on the battlefield, but I understand how one can underestimate their potential. They are poorly armed with almost no foreign support yet they continue to fight for the reasons mentioned above. It would be so easy for them to spurn the West entirely and embrace radical political Islam. Yet that would betray the essence of the Arab Awakening and the reasons why they fight.

I can well imagine the same unforgettable stares of Viet Cong fighters, of Castro and Guevara when they took on the Batista regime supported by the US, or the Czech patriots with their fists raised in defiance of invading Nazi troops after the Munich sellout agreement of 1938.  History has taught us that bombing does not win wars. It did not convince either the British or German people to give up during the last World War nor did it weaken the resolve of the Vietnamese people. So much for Trump’s simplistic recipe for defeating IS.

The Syrian conflict is about freedom, not religion. It is a logical extension of the Arab Awakening, which has yet to take its ultimate course.

Dr Bruce Mabley is the director of the Mackenzie-Papineau Group think tank based in Montreal devoted to analysis of international politics. Dr Mabley is a former Canadian diplomat and academic. In 2002, he was decorated by the French Republic as Chevalier des Palmes académiques.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.