A new setback has afflicted the Syrian revolution, after the Islamic State of Iraq organization announced the expansion of its border and the changing of its name to the “Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria." As for the clarifications made by Al-Nusra Front in a tape attributed to its leader Muhammad al-Julani, they made things even worse. Indeed, two years following the eruption of the Syrian revolution and the fall of more than 100,000 victims, Mr. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stepped forward to announce his wish to seize control over the revolution and establish the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, which was blessed by the leader of Al-Qaeda organization Ayman al-Zawahiri in another tape as a prelude for the establishment of the Caliphate. Al-Nusra's denial of its knowledge in advance of Al-Baghdadi's decision does not alleviate the magnitude of the speeches, but rather increases it. This is due to the fact that the local branch of Al-Qaeda did not oppose its country's annexation to the new state, while its leader even swore allegiance to Al-Zawahiri and pledged to continue working under the banner of Al-Qaeda. The threat posed by these positions and statements over the course of the Syrian revolution should not be downplayed, considering that the media machine affiliated with the Syrian regime and its supporters quickly seized the opportunity to exploit and promote the statements made by Al-Baghdadi, Al-Julani and Al-Zawahiri as soon as they were published. Indeed, they used these statements to ruin the revolution's image, link it to terrorism, and prevent its political and media advancement around the world, by depicting it as being a mere cover for Al-Qaeda's control over Syria and the reestablishment of the emirate lost by the organization in Afghanistan. As for the posts published by the head of the National Coalition Moaz al-Khatib on his Facebook page, and in which he rejected Al-Qaeda's ideology and called on the revolutionaries on the domestic arena to deal with the situation in what serves the revolution's interests, they are right on the mark. However, just like the other positions issued by the Coalition and Sheikh Al-Khatib, they lack the material tool capable of transforming them into a political and field action. But the problem is even greater than that. On one hand, the most prominent forces of the revolution are waging a fierce battle to contain the Muslim Brotherhood organization's control over their institutions and work. On the other hand, these same forces have to deter the expansion of Al-Nusra's influence, which is the best organized, armed and trained among the wings fighting the regime in Syria. This has reached the point where one can talk about a popular revolution besieged by two factions of political Islam which do not lack funds, weapons and ideological tools, but above all, do not lack the wish to seize power and reap the fruits upon Bashar al-Assad's collapse. The problem does not reside in the delay affecting the foreign support which is not being delivered to begin with, and not even in the loss of important segments of the international public which no longer perceives the Syrian revolution as a popular uprising against a bloody tyrant, but as a sectarian war in which one of the sides is an extremist religious movement that does not hesitate to kill whoever disagrees with it, whether at the level of opinion or creed. The more important development rather resides in the deep change affecting the mood of the Syrians who are still standing fast on the internal scene until this day, and are determined to lead the revolution towards its final victory. There is no arguing about the fact that Islam is an important part of the Syrian people's conscience and that it entered the revolution since its first days as such, but also as a response to the blatant sectarian practices of Al-Assad's regime. And there is no doubt that it will be one of the components of the upcoming Syrian state. Nevertheless, this is one issue, and the efforts deployed by Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda to control the entire Syrian scene is a completely different one. At this level, there is nothing wrong with saying that the pressures exercised by Al-Nusra on Syrian society will – in case they are successful – lead Syria towards a period of costly and nihilistic adventures which might last a long time.
