Fares Al Shehabi as Post-Crisis President of Syria

Many rumours in the US were recently propagated that the US will circulate the name of Syrian MP Fares Al Shehabi to be an acceptable name as Syrian President after the interim period of the political peace process. Earlier, the US had circulated the name of Haitham Al Manna as an acceptable name, but was refused by both government and opposition. In addition, Mr Manna was known as long-time opposition and no supporter of the Syrian state would accept him.

For Mr Al Shehabi, the story is totally different. After extensive media campaigns he funded generously for the last three years, he gained some respect among supporters of Syria, inside Syria and outside. He was featured extensively on many Iran funded media such as Al Mayadeen and Al Manar as a patriotic and strong opponent of the “rebels”. At one stage, he was allowed to appear on Al Mayadeen holding an automatic machine gun vowing to crush the rebels.

On the ground, the story is very different. Mr Al Shehabi is widely accused by Aleppo residents to be a “collaborator” with rebels. Many pro-state journalists accused him of paying regularly to Al Qaeda in Aleppo in return for not looting his factories. This explains why many of his pharmaceutical factories survived during the crisis, despite the fact they were located in rebel-held areas.

The information we have now is that the US administration is happy to accept Mr Al Shehabi to lead Syria post the current crisis. US administration insisted even recently that President Assad should not play any role in the future Syria after the political peace process is signed. Al Shehabi is a perfect candidate acceptable by US and its allies. At the end of the day, he is a practical businessman who showed a lot of pragmatism even to deal with Al Qaeda terrorists at the same time while sitting in the Syrian parliament.

In the last few years, Al Shehabi was making extensive relations with Western “activists” and “journalists” visiting Syria under the slogans of “solidarity” and “truth-seeking”. Al Shehabi wanted to be seen as the most influential patriotic Syrian politician who speaks good English and embraces Western democratic values. This will fit well to promote him both in Syria and among anti-Syrian Western regimes. He is the young pragmatic English speaking politician that works very hard to develop Syria according to Western democratic values.

We understand that his allies, who are Western “infiltrators”, are trying to help promote him as the future president of Syria. This could explain why one of his strong allies, British “journalist” Vanessa Beeley had made comments that Syrian army under current president had committed torture and crimes against humanity in Syria. The comments were supported by Australian Tim Anderson, working closely with Vanessa and her cell.

Mr Al Shehabi knows very well that he is walking into a mine field. The current president Bashar Al Assad is very popular inside Syria. He is also very popular among his allies: Russia, Iran and supporters of The Resistance. Accepting any proposition from the US to be President could see the end of Al shehabi’s political future.

We understand that Al Shehabi is gambling and capitalizing on the miserable economic situation in Syria and the demands from ordinary Syrians for any solution to the crisis that was dragged for 7 years. He will make his bid for power on this.

The weakest point for Al Shehabi’s venture is his lack of any respect from within the Syrian military and security agencies. As a businessman who never served in the army, he has no respect and no understanding of how the military and security agencies operate. He also has no respect among these agencies as well.

While we believe that Fares Al Shehabi will want to embark on this venture, he would fail miserably. In 2016, he failed to become Prime Minister despite the major media campaigns he initiated. While he was successful in his bid to become a Member of Parliament through some connections within the state’s networks, to actually oust the President is a different story.

Al Shehabi is already attracting a lot of negative attention inside Syria because of his major wrong-doings including coordinating with rebels, smuggling of drugs and making money out of it.

The prospect of success for Al Shehabi is close to NIL.