Residents make repairs after an airstrike on the rebel held al-Fardous neighbourhood of Aleppo, Feb. 18

The battle of Aleppo is upon us and the game is about to be over.

Syria is at a historic crossroads. The Turkish-Saudi camp is nervous and angry at its inability to change the balance of power that was tilted by the Russian intervention. All the roads lead to Turkish-Saudi failure.

The Russians and their allies are advancing on the ground by the hour, as the world watches. The Syrian army, backed by Hezbollah fighters and a Russian air cover, is heading towards a decisive victory on the Turkish border. “Grand Aleppo Battle” has technically started with the Syrian army and Kurdish People Protection Units closing in on rebel militants from all sides.

The Syrian governments and its allies control the air, sea and ground. The decision to recapture Aleppo and the territory on the Turkish border has been made. And it appears that the hand of the arm has been freed, as the West is busy dealing with its own political and economic crises.

The Turks thought about changing the equation and aimed for a ground operation to quell the advance of the Syrian army and the Kurds. The Saudis were enthused by the idea. But their efforts ultimately failed because of the American reluctance to support such an adventure. It was clear that the United States does not want to be dragged into such a battle, which could prove long and costly. Washington would not let allies dictate its agenda.

The Turkish government is enraged at Washington.

Saudi Arabia is scared for its standing in the region and wants to stage a victory, even if only in propaganda, after its disastrous campaign in Yemen.

The Americans know that Moscow is fully invested in the war and will not compromise over the Syrian land and airspace, which it considers its own playground.

“We view Syria’s territory as the territory of a sovereign state,” the Russian ministry said Thursday. “Any incursion into the territory of a sovereign state is illegal.” 

Turkey knows that Russia means those words and cannot start its own campaign in Syria without Washington’s blessings.

Headlines in the Russian media that Aleppo is the “Stalingrad of Syria” and the Syrian war could turn into World War III are not exaggerations. Negotiations to end the conflict have become impossible because the opposition is fragmented and does not have any bargaining chips. Only the battlefield will decide the outcome of this war.

The Syrian army was able to take advantage of the Russian air power and made exceptional achievements on the ground. Besides breaking the siege on villages and military airports, the army and its allies were able to break rebel militants’ first lines of the defense and almost cut the lines of supplies from Turkish border to rebels in Aleppo.

The emerging alliance between the army and the Kurdish Protection Units is also a massive setbacks for the rebels — who are mostly Islamist extremists — in the north.

The Kurds want to link their two main strongholds in Kobani and Afrin. Turkey is anxious about the ground hostile Kurdish presence on its border.

The fall of Aleppo will end the ambitions of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to have control over Syria’s largest city. Since the days of the Ottoman empire, Aleppo has been an important economic and symbolic cosmopolitan hub for the Turks. But most importantly, the fall of Aleppo will lead to the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region along the Turkish border. Ankara considers Kurdish militants a threat to national security and views them with more animosity than ISIS.

As for Saudi Arabia, the kingdom fears for the extremist rebel groups it has backed for years. The fall of Aleppo will be a setback for Saudi-sponsored militants even outside the city. Rebels in the Damascus countryside and Idlib province will be isolated.

Despite the Saudi and Turkish Hysteria, it seems the American administration is not involving itself, which mean the battlefield remains for the Russians and their allies to finish the job.