If Bashar Assad was told in 2011 that the Syrian opposition would end and lose its credibility locally and internationally, he would not have believed. The leader of the opposition gave him more than he had dreamed of and under international auspices.
Today, if we told the Syrian people that many of the opposition symbols were closer to Iran from the beginning, and they were financed by entities close to it, no one would have believed it, even if we provide it with all evidence. These people would continue to deify and applaud, despite all the indications confirmed the leaders’ positions that did not pay attention to people or to their demands. These people, however, were weaker to organize itself or to have a political program.
When we recall the beginnings, we notice that the people dreamed of change, they went on demonstrations thinking that, like other peoples, they were deciding their own fate, but soon they discovered how the regime could easily kill the unarmed demonstrators and how the Muslim Brotherhood and the Damascus Declaration together monopolized the opposition in order to make crucial decisions, that history proved to be one of the causes of the revolution’s failure.
At the beginning, there were no finance or salaries. Muslim Brotherhood had enough to held conferences in Turkish hotels or European ones, as Istanbul Conference, Brussels one, and so on. People did not know Muslim Brotherhood well, but they had heard about some of the opposition figures whom they trusted.
Some refused to take part in those conferences, like the late Tayyeb Tizini, who may have foresight, and did not involve in killing Syrians or benefited from the money of loyalty.
The agreement between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Damascus Declaration is old, some suggested it as a guarantee so Syria would not slip into an Islamic Republican. These alliances were at the beginnings like what happened in Tunisia, where the secular left and Muslim Brotherhood agreed upon the revolution and upon the democracy later. In the Syrian case, however, differences emerged between them even before the revolution won.
The required Islam was more like what we know in Idlib countryside today, extremist Islam that does not accept the other, and the Syrian leftist is torn apart, while the secularists were absent and the allies of the Muslim Brotherhood were forced to give up secularism.
Over time, the Syrian regime with the help of Iran and Russia became too bloody. The Syrian people held weapon, and some officers defected because they refused to fire at the unarmed people, but they did not gain the trust of Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar. Since then, finance was given to the opposition groups that took names which reminded us of being in another time, such as Ahfad al-Rasul, Liwa al-Haqq, and so on.
The Syrian people expected that an international intervene would happen and save them, but Obama and Qatar were not ready to anger Iran to that degree. Qatar financed opposition which thought of as the alternative, but Qatar practically succeeded in making Iran win. Iran is a friend of the Muslim Brotherhood, as Muhammad Morsi’s statements and the stances of the Jazeera TV channel and Hamas proved, but the military actions in Syria were assigned to Muslim Brotherhood.
The US and Europe were well informed about what was happening: Iran had a hand in the opposition and supported the regime. Regarding the date of relations and how the nominators of the opposition were chosen to do that heroic role, the left and secularists who received money from Iran in the past were chosen through the Lebanese Amal Movement for example. One of the them had received money from Iran since he was a student and he remained loyal to Iran. As for Muslim Brotherhood, they are allies of the Malays of Iran who own the same project.
When the rebels inside Syria were told this fact, they did not believe it, and the people’s anger on the West was growing day by day. In fact, the people did not know that the opposition was negotiating with the West to defend Iran’s interests.
The people became more Islamic, and the gunmen saw themselves in Islamic conquests. We could hear “Quran is our constitution” and the late opposition figure, Michele Kilo said “I accept Islam, provided that the right Islam is applied.”
Gradually, groups affiliated with al-Qaeda appeared, and then ISIS was declared. Monks were executed, and in Idlib countryside, the liberated regions the legitimate Body replaced the state.
At the same time, financial corruption of the Coalition began to emerge, and the opposition leadership did not accept being in liberated areas and preferred to lead their revolution from Istanbul and Paris. There were many staff members of opposition institutions and organizations.
When we talk about those who led the opposition and those who benefited from the institutions concerned, we do not talk about all of Syria. We just talk about the followers of Muslim Brotherhood and the leftists of the Damascus Declaration, and we add some independents, as they call themselves. We do not forget some fake formations. This lobby, however, represents only a group of opposition, and there are other trends in Syria, and other oppositions that have not benefited from money of Qatar, because Qatar is not satisfied with them.
Qatar can do whatever it wants with its money. It is free to accept the Muslim Brotherhood approach. It could impose this approach as representatives of the Syrian people for some time. However, Qatar, at the end, is a friend of Iran, and it wanted, at some point, to make a breakthrough and impose what Iran has as a Sunni alternative to Assad, but Iran did not accept because the conflict in Syria makes sense to both Russia and Saudi Arabia, too.
Handing over Syria as a Sunni form to Iran, with Turkish approval, almost took place, but the Syrian people said their word as everyone discovered that this opposition is unable to control any group on the ground, it has not actually entered the liberated areas, it carries out what Turkey orders them, and all what it has is just the holding press releases which the international news agencies have stopped translating them.