Al Jazeera Center for Studies held on Tuesday a seminar entitled “The Battles of Mosul and Raqqa and the Fate of ISIS” to discuss the motives and agenda of the main regional and global actors involved in the battles of Mosul and Raqqa,
The seminar was held in cooperation with Al Jazeera Mubasher to try to answer questions related to possible challenges facing the players, the US position on the ongoing battles following Trump’s election.
Participants in the seminar emphasised that there are several players in the battles of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa and the Iraqi city of Mosul. Along with the two regimes and the supporting sectarian militias, there are regional powers like Iran, Turkey and Arab countries in addition to the global superpowers like the US and Russia who are involved in the battles.
Speakers assured that the ISIS will be uprooted from the two cities because there are concerted military efforts to defeat it, but its military defeat does not mean an end of the organization under the current power struggle among the regional and international powers in the region.
Marwan Kabalan from the Arab Center for Researches and Policy Studies argued that the Irani imperial project raises fear for Gulf countries, in particular Saudi Arabia. Iran is using Yemen as a tool to pressure Saudi and is trying to change the regional order in away serving its imperial projects, Keblan observed.
Dr Laka Maki from Al Jazeera Network emphasized that the regional powers are using local forces as tools in their regional power struggle and battles of Mosul and Raqqa will improve the status of some powers.
Superpowers set up the agendas in the region and their priority is fighting ISIS, Samir Salha, a Turkish academic, said and this according to him will seriously affect human’s identity and change demography.
Eric Davis from Rutgers University mentioned that it is difficult to predict what President Trump's policies in the region will look like, but his priority will be fighting the ISIS and he will cooperate with Russia to achieve this purpose.
There is a possibility of ending support to the Syrian opposition, said Davis, declining the idea that the US has a role in the establishment of ISIS and he said Bashar Al Assad and Malki of Iraq are responsible for the situation.
