Alastair Crooke
The Syria story,
it seems, is not so simple as ‘President Assad fell’ and the ‘technocratic
Salafists’ rose to power.
At one level,
the collapse was predictable. Assad was known to have been influenced by Egypt
and UAE for some years past. They had been urging him to break with Iran and
Russia, and to shift to the West. For some 3-4 years he had been incrementally
signalling and implementing such a move. Iran especially faced increasing
obstacles over operational matters in which they were co-operating with Syrian
forces. His shift was meant as a message to Iran.
The financial
situation of Syria – after years of U.S. Caesar sanctions, plus the loss of all
agricultural and energy revenues seized by the U.S. in occupied north-east
Syria – was catastrophic. Syria simply had no economy.
No doubt,
reaching out to Israel and Washington was presented to Assad as the only
practical exit to his dilemma. ‘Normalisation’ could lead to the lifting of
sanctions, they implored him. And Assad, according tothose in touch with him,
(even at the eleventh hour before the HTS ‘invasion’) was believing that Arab
States close to Washington would have opted for his continued leadership,
rather than see Syria fall prey to Salafist zealots.
To be clear:
Moscow and Tehran had warned Assad that his army (as a whole) was too fragile,
too underpaid, and too penetrated and bribed by foreign intelligence services,
to be expected to defend the state effectively. Assad also was warned
repeatedly about the threat from Idlib jihadists planning to take Aleppo, but
the President not only ignored the warnings – he rebutted them.
He was offered a
very large external military force not once, but twice, even in ‘the last
days’, as Jolani’s militia were advancing. Assad refused. “We are strong”, he
told an interlocutor on the first occasion; yet shortly afterwards, on a second
occasion, he admitted: “My army is running away”.
Assad was not
abandoned by his allies. It was by then too late. He had flip-flopped once too
often. Two of the principal actors (Russia and Iran) were frustrated and
rendered unable to help – absent Assad’s consent.
A Syrian who
knew the Assad family, and who spoke with the President at some length just
prior the Aleppo invasion, had found him surprisingly sanguine and unflustered
– assuring his friend that there were forces enough (2,500) in Aleppo to deal
with Jolani’s threats, and hinting that President Sissi might be ready to step
in with aid for Syria. (Egypt of course feared Muslim Brotherhood Islamists
taking power in a former secular Ba’athist state).
Ibrahim
Al-Amine, editor of Al-Akhbar, noted a similar perception by Assad:
“Assad seemed to have become more
confident that Abu Dhabi was capable of resolving his problem with the
Americans and some Europeans, and he heard a lot about economic temptations if
he agreed to the strategy of exiting the alliance with the resistance forces.
One of Assad’s workers, who stayed with him until the last hours before he left
Damascus, says that the man was still hoping for something big to happen to
stop the armed factions’ attack. He believed that “the Arab and international
community” would prefer that he remain in power, rather than Islamists take
over the administration of Syria”.
Yet, even as the
Jolani forces were on the M5 highway linking to Damascus, the wider Assad
family and key officials were making no efforts to prepare for a departure, or
to warn close friends to think about such contingencies, the interlocutor said.
Even as Assad was heading to Hmeimin en route to Moscow, no advice to ‘get out’
was sent to friends.
The latter said
that they did not know after Assad’s silent departure to Moscow who exactly, or
when, ordered the Syria army to stand down and to prepare for transition.
Assad briefly
visited Moscow on 28 November – a day after the HTS attacks in Aleppo province
and their swift advance south (and a day after the ceasefire in Lebanon). The
Russian authorities have said nothing about the content of the President’s
meetings in Moscow, and the Assad family said that the President had returned
tight-lipped from Russia, too.
Subsequently,
Assad departed finally to Moscow (either on 7 December, after despatching a
private plane on multiple flights to Dubai, or on 8 December) – again telling
virtually nobody in his immediate and family circle that he was departing for
good.
What caused this
out-of-character mindset? No one knows; but family members have speculated that
Bashar Al-Assad had been seriously disorientated emotionally by the grave
illness of his wife, Asma, to whom he is devoted.
Put frankly,
whilst the three main players could see clearly the direction events were
heading (the fragility of the state was no surprise), nevertheless, Assad’s
denial mindset and the consequent speed of the military dénouement was the
surprise. That was the true ‘black swan’.
What triggered
events? Erdogan has for several years demanded that Assad firstly negotiate
with the ‘legitimate Syrian opposition’; secondly that he re-draft the
Constitution; and thirdly that he meet face-to-face with President Erdogan
(something Assad consistently refused to do). All three powers pressed Assad to
negotiate with the ‘opposition’, but he would not, and nor would he meet with
Erdogan. (Both loathe each other). Frustration on these counts was high.
Erdogan now
indisputably ‘owns’ ‘former-Syria’. Ottoman irredentist sentiment is ecstatic
and demanding more Turkish revanchism. Others – the more secular city dwellers
of Turkey however – are less enthused by the display of Turkish religious
nationalism.
Erdogan however,
may well be (or may soon be) experiencing buyer’s remorse: Yes, Turkey stands
tall as Syria’s new landlord, but he is now ‘the responsible’ for what happens
next. (HTS is plainly exposed as a Turkish proxy). Minorities are being killed;
brutal sectarian executions are accelerating; sectarianism becoming more
extreme. There is still no Syrian economy in sight; no revenues, and no fuel
for the gasoline refinery (previously supplied by Iran).
Erdogan’s
espousal of a re-branded and westernised al-Qaeda always risked proving to be
paper-thin (as the sectarian killings are cruelly demonstrating). Will Jolani
manage to impose his al-Qaeda-in-a suit makeover across his heterodox
followers? Abu Ali al-Anbari, al-Baghdadi’s top aide at the time (2012-2013),
gave this scathing appraisal of Jolani:
“He is a cunning
person; two-faced; adores himself; does not care about his soldiers; is willing
to sacrifice their blood in order to make a name for himself in the media –
glows when he hears his name mentioned on satellite channels”.
In any event,
one clear outcome is that Erdogan’s ploy has re-ignited formerly (and mostly)
quiescent Sunni sectarianism and Ottoman imperialism. The consequences will be
many and will ripple across the region. Egypt is already anxious – as is King
Abdullah in Jordan.
Many Israelis
see themselves as the ‘winners’ from the Syrian up-ending – since the Axis of
Resistance supply line has been severed at its middle. Israeli security chief
Ronan Bar was most likely briefed by Ibrahim Kalin, Turkish Head of
Intelligence, when they met in Istanbul on 19 November on the expected Idlib
invasion – in time for Israel to institute the Lebanon ceasefire, and to
obstruct the passage of Hizbullah forces into Syria(Israel immediately bombed
all the border crossings between Lebanon and Syria).
Nonetheless
Israelis may discover that a re-kindled Salafist zealotry is not their friend –
nor ultimately to their benefit.
Iran will sign
the long-awaited defence accord with Russia on 17 January 2025.
Russia will
concentrate on the war in Ukraine and stay aloof from the Middle East quagmire
– to focus on the slow global restructuring that has been happening, and on the
Big Picture attempt to have Trump in due course come to acknowledge Asian
‘Heartland’ and BRICS security interests, and to agree some frontier to the
Rimland (Atlanticist) security sphere, such that cooperation on issues of
global strategic stability and European security can be agreed.
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