A Syrian man poses for a photograph with children on his bicycle in Homs on August 15, 2018. (AFP photo)
DAMASCUS, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- As the Syrian army will launch a wide-scale offensive against the last major rebels' stronghold in Idlib province in northwestern Syria, analysts say that the United States and its allies want to place hurdles.
New threats come to put pressure on the Syrian forces, who are poised to launch an offensive on Idlib, or establish reconciliation to resolve the situation with the help of Russia, which is already engaged in talks with Turkey to figure out a solution regarding Idlib.
The Western powers, which have been so downright about their opposition to the administration of President Bashar al-Assad and his rule, frequently said about the need of power transition in Syria.
On Tuesday, the United States, France, and Britain warned Assad against using chemical weapons, warning that "we remain resolved to act if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons again."
The three powers had launched a missile attack on Syrian military positions in April over chemical weapons charges. At the time, they said they had targeted the facilities involved in the manufacture of chemical weapons in Syria.
At the time, the Syrian government charged that the Western powers are supporting the terrorist groups in Syria, vehemently denying claims of chemical weapons use in the battles with the rebels.
The government countlessly said that all the chemical arsenal of Syria was handed over the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which later said that the Syrian government has made its chemical weapon production facilities inoperable.
But the Western powers continued to accuse Damascus of using toxic gas in the battles with the rebels.
Now the same scenario is being repeated in terms of the Western threats to launch attacks on Syria over the same allegations.
Analysts believe that the statement of the three Western powers aim to encourage the rebels with such reasons to strike the Syrian army as its emerging victories after more than seven years of war in the country.
In its response, Syrian Foreign Ministry said the new escalation is part of "the campaign of threats, hypocrisy and misinformation resorted to by those powers against the Syrian Arab Republic, which comes in the framework of the outright support to the terrorist groups."
Mahmoud Meri, a Syrian political analyst, said that the United States is preparing an attack on Syria as it doesn't want an end to the crisis with the army capturing all rebel strongholds.
"The United States is preparing an attack on Syria and always they take the chemical weapons as a pretext despite the fact that Syria handed over its chemical stocks to the OPCW long time ago," he said.
Meri said the recent escalation comes as the Syrian army is sending reinforcements to Idlib, "which means that the U.S. wants to prolong the Syrian crisis and prepares an attack on Syria but the Syrian army and government are ready to liberate all Syrian areas despite all of the powers of aggression as the Syrian army is determined to restore all of Syria."
The analyst said that Washington wants to pull back the Syrian war to the time of the 2012 Geneva meeting on Syria, which came up with the need for a "transitional government body with full executive powers" in Syria.
Meri said the situation has changed, adding that the solution for the crisis is no longer about the 2012 Geneva talks, but should be based on the UN resolution 2254 that was adopted in 2015.
He also said that inter-Syrian talks should be based on the Sochi talks that included members of the home-based opposition, not the exiled opposition.
Osama Danura, another political expert, told Xinhua that the recent remarks of the United States indicate that there are "hidden threads between the U.S. and the Nusra Front."
"We can sense this coordination as the U.S. has not struck any position of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front even though the al-Qaida-linked groups are designated as terrorists along with the Islamic State," he said.
Maher Ihsan, a political expert and a journalist said that the situation in Idlib is being discussed between Turkey and Russia, noting that both sides will eventually agree to an acceptable formula.
He said that the United States may have a totally different reason behind the escalation and the possible attack that they are planning to carry out.
"President Donald Trump is now having a hard time dealing with his own crisis at home so he may need to divert the attention from his issues by launching an offensive elsewhere," he said.
