In its current degraded state, nothing short of a full-scale American ground invasion in support of the regime can salvage Assad’s army.
In the aftermath of ISIS’ conquest of Palmyra, many Syrians both in the country and abroad could have been forgiven for resenting the disproportionate media attention that was given over to the possible fate of the site’s ancient archaeological ruins.
Having seen the site in person, I dread what may befall it under ISIS. Indeed, a picture I took of one of its ancient columns was my preferred background on many a computer, laptop and smartphone I owned throughout the years.
When my home village of Talkalakh was occupied by the regime in the summer of 2013, there was no media attention on the event. Today, my village has been depopulated of 90% of its residents, many of its houses looted by Assad’s shabiha, down to the copper wiring.
But if the attention currently being focused on Palmyra eventually serves to encourage moves to finding a solution to the conflict, before more of Syria’s towns and cities are destroyed and its populace displaced, then so be it.
The last time I saw anything of Palmyra was in September 2014, at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, where statues from the ruins were on display in a section marked “Peripheral Cultures”. What may have been “peripheral” to the massive Ottoman Empire very much symbolized and embodied the ancient heritage of my own country.
We can only pray that enough of that heritage survives for its people to return to, post-war, when both ISIS and the Assad regime are as much a distant memory as the civilizations that originally built the desert city of Palmyra.