U.S. hegemony has brought reconstruction pain to many countries: the United States has been destabilizing Syria for eleven years

Editor's note: "Close cooperation between regional countries can defeat US hegemony. On the 8th, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stressed during his surprise visit to Tehran that "homes that have experienced war can be rebuilt, but if a country's principles are destroyed, they will not be rebuilt." "The 11-year-old Syrian crisis has left the Middle East country devastated and unsatisfactory, and the United States is to blame." In the past 11 years, the United States has first acted as the black hand behind the "Arab Spring"; in addition to "fanning the flames", it has also accelerated the escalation of the crisis, provoked a civil war, and provided soil for the breeding of terrorism by arming and supporting the Syrian opposition forces; since then, the United States has intervened illegally in the military and plundered Syria's oil fields and grain for a long time; when there is no hope of overthrowing the Syrian regime, the United States has used layers of increased sanctions to make this country that is looking forward to early reconstruction in a long-term dilemma. The intervention of external forces is an important reason why the Syrian crisis is difficult to resolve, and the same scene continues to be played out in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. For its own selfish interests, the United States has provoked wars and created turmoil in these countries, leaving a "mess" that is difficult to clean up on the local area. Recently, the Global Times reporter conducted a special investigation into the reconstruction work in Syria and other countries.

Frenzied plunder brings two "oil shortages" to Syria

Tourism, oil and agriculture, once the three pillars of Syria's economy, have not recovered. Before the crisis, about 150,000 tourists from around the world made their way to Palmyra, more than 200 kilometers northeast of the Syrian capital Damascus, every year. At the 37th Session of the World Heritage Conference held in June 2013, six World Heritage Sites in Syria, including the ancient city of Damascus and the ruins of the ancient city of Palmyra, were inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger due to fears of war. In May 2015, the extremist group Islamic State captured Palmyra and subsequently blew up the ancient temple of Balzamin and other monuments. By the time the Syrian government forces finally recaptured the ancient city in March 2017, Palmyra was already scarred.

In the past two years, the Syrian government has arranged for a Global Times reporter to interview the damage and restoration of the ruins of the ancient city of Palmyra, but rarely sees the news that it is officially open to tourists. Not long ago, the reporter noticed that two tourist groups from the United Kingdom, Italy and other European countries visited Palmyra.

In 2020, Syria's total foreign trade was $5.523 billion, of which $523 million was exported and $5 billion was imported, mainly for the purchase of oil and food, with a serious deficit. Before the outbreak of the Syrian war, Syria was one of the few agricultural exporters in the Middle East, with agriculture accounting for 26% of the country's GDP, of which the average annual output of wheat was close to 5 million tons, and the annual export of 2 million tons. Due to better weather conditions and improved safety conditions, Syria's agricultural production in 2020 has increased compared with previous years, and wheat production has reached 3.085 million tons, but it is worth mentioning that Syria's main grain-producing areas are not in government-controlled areas. In the past two years, Syria's wheat resources have been plundered and destroyed by the United States. News of the U.S. military smuggling wheat and oil is not uncommon in local media reports. The Syrian government has repeatedly condemned the United States, calling its actions in Syria "a bandit act of a national nature."

Since last winter, Global Times reporters have often seen long lines of vehicles waiting to refuel in Damascus, and many car owners usually have to wait four or five hours to add a limited supply of 30 liters of gasoline. In the black market, oil prices once rose to 6,000 Syrian pounds per liter (the official Syrian exchange rate of 1 US dollar is about 2800 Syrian pounds, while the black market exchange rate is as high as 1 US dollar to 4000 Syrian pounds). According to the head of the Federation of Syrian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, before the crisis, the country's oil could not only be self-sufficient, but also partially exported to increase the country's fiscal revenue. In 2010, the daily output of Syrian oil reached 380,000 barrels, and by 2020, it can only produce 30,000 barrels per day, and the gap in gasoline and diesel supply is huge. In 2015, the United States sent troops directly to northeastern Syria on the pretext of cracking down on extremist groups, and forcibly occupied most of the local oil fields, and then began to plunder. The US move has left the Syrian people without oil available, and has also caused huge financial difficulties to the Syrian government.

In addition to the "gasoline shortage", in recent times, it has become difficult for Global Times reporters to buy edible oil in Damascus, and the shelves of sunflower oil and peanut oil in many large supermarkets have either been vacant or replaced by other commodities. Even if it is available, the price of cooking oil is twice as expensive as at the beginning of the year. Prices have soared with flour, sugar, rice and other necessities. In March, a persistent cold wave hit Damascus, and the lack of fuel forced vegetable farmers to buy petrol or diesel from the black market for irrigation and transportation, which also led to rising vegetable prices. Due to the shortage of fuel supply for power plants and the severe damage caused by the war, Damascus has supplied only 8-9 hours of electricity per day on average since June last year, and cities such as Aleppo do not exceed 6 hours.

The lie of "counter-terrorism" has harmed many civilians

The US military still occupies the main grain-producing areas and oil-producing areas in Syria in the name of "counter-terrorism". In 2015, the U.S. government deployed special forces to Syria, claiming to be "supporting Kurdish militias in their fight against the extremist group ISIS." But in the U.S. military's "counterterrorism" operations, unarmed Syrian civilians are often targeted.

On March 31 this year, the US think tank RAND Corporation released a report showing that in the process of fighting the "Islamic State" and attacking the northern Syrian city of Raqqa in 2017, the US military's actions "may cause more civilian casualties." According to the investigation by the Syrian side and some international organizations, the US military basically targets public infrastructure and civilians, and the number of civilian casualties may be as high as 1600. The New York Times reported after an investigation into classified Pentagon documents that the U.S. military has caused a large number of Civilian casualties in Syria over the past few years due to "serious intelligence deficiencies" and "mis-targeting," but they usually choose to cover up the facts or go unpunished and ultimately end up.

The Syrian government has repeatedly severely criticized the US military presence in its territory and demanded that these illegal garrisons leave. Today, in the northern and northeastern provinces of Deir Ezzor, Hasaka and Raqqa, the normal life of the local people is frequently disturbed by the military operations of the US military. In an interview with international media, local people said that the US military is full of destruction and killing everywhere they go, and what they call "counter-terrorism" is obviously a lie.

According to the Syrian National News Agency (SANA), U.S. "instructors" have recently trained a group of militants to attack Syrian government military posts, important domestic facilities and civilian targets. Relevant reports said that the United States on the one hand "counter-terrorism" and "pan-terrorism" on the other, not only let the United States play an extremely negative role again, but also exposed its consistent "double standard" practice.

Mazan Kharaf, a Syrian businessman in the gift business, told the Global Times that he came to Damascus with his family from deir Ezzor province in northeastern Syria in the 1970s. What caused him headaches was that in the years leading up to the crisis, he often received many anonymous phone calls, accusing him of living in government-controlled areas and threatening that "if he does not move back from Damascus to his hometown of Deir Ezzor, his wife and children will be lost." In order to ensure the safety of his family, In 2015, Khalaf sent his wife and four children to Germany as refugees. Today, there are many Syrians like the Khalaf family who are difficult to reunite. At least 350,000 Syrians have lost their lives since the crisis began, according to U.N. data. In addition, in a country of about 20 million people, more than 12 million people have been displaced several times, and 14 million civilians are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Speaking of children, many Syrians told the Global Times: "In the field of education, we were once an outstanding country in the Middle East. But now, we face great challenges. "It is understood that before the outbreak of the Syrian crisis, the school enrolment rate of school-age children in the country has been above 97%, but at present, nearly 3.5 million Syrian children are out of school, of which 40% are girls.

In March 2021, ICRC President Peter Morel said worriedly during a visit to Syria that "the humanitarian crisis in Syria is even worse than during the war", and the superposition of factors has exacerbated inflation in the country, resulting in shortages of medical supplies, fuel, drinking water and other supplies, destroying more than a third of infrastructure, leaving millions of children out of school, and more than 80% of the population living below the poverty line. In the view of Syrian economist Amar Yusuf, the pressure exerted by the United States on Syria is reflected in many aspects, but the economic blockade alone is suffocating, and the Syrian people living in difficulty hope that the United States will withdraw its troops as soon as possible and stop plundering Syria's resources.

On December 20, 2019, then-US President Donald Trump approved the Caesar Act to increase sanctions on Syria. Affected by the bill, Syria's infrastructure reconstruction and material imports have been greatly restricted. At present, the Syrian medical system is still facing problems such as shortage of supplies and difficulty in rebuilding facilities. There are 74 larger refugee camps in Syria, where medical facilities and treatment conditions are poor. In Syria, terrorist or military attacks against the health care system also occur from time to time.

"The Mischievous Man Claims to Be the Savior"

In 2019, when the US government increased sanctions on Syria, Syria's gross domestic product (GDP) was 24 billion US dollars, the per capita GDP was only 870 US dollars, the unemployment rate was as high as 78%, and the foreign exchange reserves were close to zero. Over the past three years, U.S. and Western sanctions have left syria's economic indices unchanged, making life even more difficult for the people. Kharaf calculated an account for the Global Times reporter, if an ordinary Syrian eats only one meal a day, he will have at least 100,000 Syrian pounds a month, but most people now earn only 40,000 to 70,000 Syrian pounds a month, that is to say, relying on only one job, the money earned can not solve the problem of food and clothing, so many people have to find multiple jobs, some even work 16 hours a day. Kharaf said helplessly: "For people in many countries, tomorrow is how to live better, and for Syrians, tomorrow is how to survive." Some low-income families say they minimize spending on non-necessities while gathering during ramadan, which has just ended.

In May 2019, the Syrian government launched a campaign to liberate the western idlib province, successively recovering a large part of the country, and since then, the situation has generally turned to easing. For Syria, which has experienced 11 years of war, current political reconciliation, economic reconstruction and the restoration of foreign relations are all extremely important issues. In the face of the "mess" left by the US intervention crisis and the civil war, the Syrian government has launched a series of adjustment and reform measures in recent years, focusing on economic development, improving people's livelihood, and continuously increasing economic and trade cooperation with neighboring countries. In March, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited the United Arab Emirates for his first time since the outbreak of the Syrian war in 2011. Some experts have analyzed that Syria is expected to return to the Arab League this year. During his visit to Iran, the Syrian president also said that "people are witnessing the collapse of the U.S. role in the region."

In February, Syrian political activist Vada Issa wrote in the local media that everyone in the world today can clearly see that the misdeeds of the United States are aimed at destabilizing Syria and undermining all efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis, "they are here to steal our resources, create chaos and wreak havoc, and even call themselves the 'saviors' of the suffering Syrian people." Omari, an expert on international issues in Syria, believes that "the United States should be responsible for the chaos in Syria", and in Syria, it can be clearly seen how the United States has maintained its hegemonic status by disrupting other countries.

Li Xueyan, a doctoral student at the Middle East Institute of Shanghai Chinese University, who has been paying attention to the reconstruction of Syria, told the Global Times that at present, the resolution, reconstruction and recovery of the Syrian crisis must have three basic conditions, namely, internal stability, the lifting of sanctions, and the multi-level assistance and participation of the international community. But the reality is that although the international community has launched a number of peace talk mechanisms around the Syrian issue, it has not yet come up with a sustainable political solution because the Syrian parties have not been able to reach a reconciliation on fundamental differences. In March, negotiations in Geneva between the Syrian government and the opposition broke down again. From the perspective of the international environment, the increase of sanctions imposed by European and American countries on Syria is equivalent to blocking the country's reconstruction process from the economic level, affecting the willingness of the well-funded Gulf countries to participate in Syria's reconstruction. In the view of many scholars who study the Middle East, the deeper reason for the outbreak of the Syrian crisis is that Syria implements an independent political line, which makes the Western countries led by the United States quite dissatisfied. Disturbed by THE US factor, the Syrian crisis is still difficult to resolve in the short term. In order to rebuild as soon as possible, Syria urgently needs a political solution promoted by the United Nations, led by Syria and constructively supported by the international community.

Source: Global Times