Kyle Anzalone
Washington
finally completed its dirty war in Syria. What started as a CIA covert
operation to smuggle weapons and jihadists from Libya to Syria has resulted in
Syria leader Bashar al-Assad being deposed and replaced by Abu Mohammad
al-Julani.
Julani found his
way to Damascus by rising through the ranks of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Inspired by
the 9/11 attack, he joined AQI to fight against the US during the Iraq war.
Julani was a close associate of both AQI leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and
founded the al-Qaeda affiliate group Syria in coordination with Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi.
As more
Americans became aware of the CIA’s covert operation in Syria to back
jihadists, Julani changed his organization’s name from Al Nusra to Jabhat Fateh
al-Sham, then Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) to obscure his group’s al-Qaeda links.
However, HTS was no moderate group and focused on bringing ISIS forces under
Julani’s control following the collapse of Bagadadi’s caliphate.
Even the US
State Department was not fooled by Julani’s rebrands. In 2017, the State
Department issued a $10 million reward for the capture of Julani.
For most of the
past decade, Julani has ruled over northwestern Syria under the protection of
Washington’s NATO ally, Turkey. Had Turkish troops not set up outposts
surrounding Julani’s territory, Syria, and its Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah
allies may have eliminated the lingering jihadist threat. During this period,
Julani’s Idlib province was the largest safe haven for jihadists on the planet.
Since the ISIS
caliphate was defeated, the frontlines in the Syrian War largely froze. Still,
Washington and its allies engaged in a relentless assault on Damascus.
Turkey protected
jihadists on Syria’s northern border, allowing them to terrorize the Kurds that
lived there.
Israel engaged
in weekly strikes on Assad and his allied forces. Over the past year, those
strikes have escalated to hit civilian and diplomatic targets in downtown
Damascus. Tel Aviv even bombed the Aleppo Airport following a major earthquake,
preventing aid from reaching the desperate citizens.
The US illegally
occupied the eastern quarter of Syria, exploiting and stealing some of
Damasus’s most valuable resources. In this region, the US allowed the Kurds to
lord power over the local Arabs. The Kurdish SDF runs a massive torture prison
known as the al-Hol camp, and local citizens protest the Kurds conscripting
their children as young as 15.
Washington waged
an economic war on Syria, deliberately meant to prevent Damascus from
rebuilding its war-destroyed infrastructure. The US also bombed Assad’s allied
forces near the Iraq-Syria border.
Additionally,
Turkey and Ukraine used this period to bolster the HTS forces.
The long-frozen
conflict thawed rapidly over the past two weeks. Seemingly in coordination with
the announcement of a truce in Lebanon, Julani’s forces went on the march,
first seizing Aleppo. Reported to be aided by advanced drones, HTS made quick
work of any Syria forces that resisted, and on Sunday, Julani arrived in
Damascus and declared the “mujahideen” won the war. And Washington celebrated.
“Syria is free.
The rebels won. The people liberated themselves from tyranny. Freedom won,” the
Washington Post’s Josh Rogin wrote on X. “Russia, Iran, Hezbollah & Assad
lost. Historic. The road ahead for Syria won’t be easy. But it will be better
than the past. The world should celebrate Syria’s liberation & help it
succeed.”
Post columnist
Max Boot wrote, “Assad – after a quarter-century of ruthless rule – had fled
the country. Syria was free at last.”
“The fall of
Assad. On some days, one can believe that while the arc of the moral universe
is long, it bends toward justice,” neocon Bill Krystol wrote on X.
Of course, what
happened to Syria is not about the Syrians. The real goal of Washington was to
weaken Damascus because they believed it would weaken Moscow, Tehran, and
Hezbollah.
What happens
next in Syria is unlikely to be good for many of the minority groups that
enjoyed some level of protection under Assad. However, Washington and its
allies are swooping in like hungry vultures to feats on the remains of Syria.
Shortly after
Assad left Damascus, in Tel Aviv Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced
Israel would be seizing a “buffer zone” in southwestern Syria. Turkey also
launched airstrikes on a Kurdish-held city in northern Syria.
No doubt, in the
coming days, we will hear crowing from the hawks in Washington about their
triumph in Syria by severing Tehran’s land connection to Hezbollah in Southern
Lebanon. In the White House, Biden’s staff is no doubt discussing how to
exploit Assad’s downfall as far as possible; this includes attempts to remove
Russia from its military bases along Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
The biggest
losers in Syria are the Syrian people, who, for nearly a decade and a half,
have been subject to a brutal and complex war that shows no signs of ending.
They have been bombed by a seemingly unending number of countries, all with
their unique geopolitical interests. The Syrian people have been intentionally
starved and impoverished by the US to bring about Assad’s downfall. While Assad
was a tyrant, no doubt Julani will come with his own, and likely more
oppressive, tyranny.
Among the other
losers are the American people. More American lives and treasure were wasted on
a project to dispose of another Middle East dictator. In Iraq and Libya, this
policy caused unimaginable suffering for the locals.
The top threat
is that our government has empowered the only true enemies of the American
people. Iran, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Assad’s Syria, etc. all
present no threat to the American homeland. However, now an al-Qaeda terrorist
sits on the throne in Damascus, and Washington’s support for Tel Aviv’s
genocide in Gaza has given him an endless supply of anti-American hatred.
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