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It seems I got it wrong. Zenobia, Syria’s ancient Queen, who defied the Romans, never existed. She was, it seems, just a figment, conjured up from Asma Assad’s imagination, to instill notions of self-respect into the sons and daughters of Syria. It seems that Zenobia, Syria’s Palmyrene Empire and the Madonna and Child fables of Isis, Horus, the Queen of Heaven and the Holy Child are all likewise lies, designed by Asma Assad to widen our minds and deepen the cultural roots that sustain us and our societies. Just how were we so stupid to fall for it all?

Syria’s new rulers are having none of that. These proxies of empire have declared that Zenobia is a fictional character, no different in essence from Spiderman or Catwoman, but much more malign in intention as Zenobia, like all of Syria’s history, acts as a break on the barbarity all of Syria’s new rulers epitomise.

Consigning Zenobia and all of Syria’s history to the trash can shows that Syria’s new rulers are no different from the Israeli’s colonisers occupying Syria’s south or the Ottomans enslaving its north, both of whom are trying to reconfigure Syria’s history to pretend that it was only ever a vassal of foreign empires. For good or for bad, that is the new, revised history Syria’s schools and universities must now teach. Patriotism, as encapsulated in the heroic Syrian Arab Army, is to be no more an ongoing reality than are the ruins of Zenobia’s empire. Martyrdom is no longer to be a quality to be admired in patriots but is only to be a trait possessed by those who die for Islam, as preached but not practiced by Erdoğan and his shaggy haired satraps in Damascus, Homs and Aleppo.

Syria’s human sheep are to have a new golden age, under the watchful drones of Israel in their south, the Ottomans in their north and the Americans just about everywhere. Although the Syrians will no longer be lumbered with the tall tales of Zenobia and Asma Assad, there is, as we have already shown, little beyond Erdoğan self-serving rackets in Syria’s ransacked cupboards to replace them with.

Nor are there any plans to replenish those bare cupboards. POTUS Trump long ago made it clear that the United States was not running a charity and that, as far as he is concerned, the Yanks now own north east Syria. Netanyahu has made it plain that the Golan and all its water and other resources are his for all eternity. As regards the actual Syrians, well they did back Asma Assad in the hope that they could live peaceably and, now that they have lost, life itself might well be beyond their grasp. Hey, but NATO’s NGOs will further enrich themselves by pretending to help Jolani’s latest batch of sex slaves, so it is not all bad news.

If I were to opine on the fall of Syria and extrapolate its fate to that awaiting both Iran and Russia, I would draw important similarities not only between Zenobia and her Russo-Iranian equivalents but between aspects of Syrian society and those of Iran, Russia and even Palestine as well.

First off, though the Assads enjoyed widespread support and, though none other than Bashar Assad declared that most Syrians stood in the middle between the warring sides, he failed to bring those doubting Thomases firmly into his camp. This was as much the fault of the Syrian system itself than it was of Assad or of any other individual actor within that system.

Assad’s Syria was a closed system whereby only those in the loop, lickspittles like Dr Bouthaina Shabaan for example, could proffer advice and where dubious clerics were given far too much respect when, as often as not, they deserved a boot up the backside.

Though I am thinking of towns like Maaloula, which the nuns living in the convents there refused to evacuate even as Jolani’s storm troopers overran it, that is far from the only example and there is one notorious Melkite nun who has done all sorts of nefarious deals not only with the head hackers but with their Israeli, American and Turkish bosses as well.

The undeserved respect these nuns were shown was a reflection of Syria’s medievalism where those not in the loop were expected to stay in their lanes and not exercise their brains or their own resources even when the nuns had not only clearly transgressed theirs but had put the lives of Syrian soldiers at risk by being so myopically selfish.

But myopia is the middle name of all those Syrians. Too many would-be chiefs and not enough straight shooting Indians. A medieval society such as theirs fighting NATO’s modern wars has the odds hopelessly stacked against it.

Although most of the Syrian Army acted honourably, they just did not have the resources to keep their Palestinian and other allies on the straight and narrow. And nor did they have the sense to build up their own indigenous spokespeople but they instead handed their mics and, with them, their futures over to foreign grifters in league with their own fruit cakes and traitors.

But, all of that aside, Syria never really progressed from fighting the last war to fighting the ISIS war that NATO launched on them. Syria’s template remained the 1973 war with Israel, even though the nature of capital and much else besides had changed beyond compare since then. The underlying fissures of Syrian society were finally harnessed by its external enemies to destroy it in one of the greatest war crimes of our era.

When the military historians get round to writing up their postmortem on the heroic Syrian Arab Army, their analysis will have to explain why both the Tiger Forces and the 4^th Mechanised Division were out of position, with the former being in Latakia and the latter being near the Iraqi border, rather than being in and around Damascus.

Not that crying over that spilled milk can make any difference, unless those who can make a difference are prepared to learn from where the Syrian Arab Republic and its genuine allies got it so horribly wrong.

Much the same can be seen in Ukraine which, though it might run out of Ukrainians, is unlikely to run out of “Global South” mercenaries any time soon. Much the same process can also be seen in Iran which has far too many grifters in positions of influence for its own good.

As things currently stand, NATO’s Syrian satrapy is working like a charm. Zenobia and Asma Assad are being pilloried around the clock and their replacements are moving mountains to enslave both the bodies and minds of those Syrians, who have not yet been murdered. Although Syria’s new overlords say we have to submit, my hope is that the spirit of Asma Assad and of Zenobia will once more inspire Syrians to do great and good things and to achieve the freedom from NATO, Turkey and Israel all Syrians so richly deserve.