319 - Freeing Syria Rejigs the Middle East

We now have a brand newly forged Middle East, conceivably even one potentially much more pliable and people-focused than that which existed a mere handful of days hitherto. The militant overwhelming ouster of the murderous Assad dictatorship by an upstart movement led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, or the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant) frees Syrians from fifty-three years of relentless repression, especially since 2011, and also rearranges nearly every power relationship from Cairo to Tehran. As President Biden cautions, the world has to see what develops and to hope for more positive outcomes than those that occurred during and after the Arab Spring; dictators Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, Hosni Mubarek in Egypt, and Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia all fled aggrieved and agitated mobs but were sooner or later followed by anti-democratic regimes that have curtailed the rights of their long suffering citizens. How to help the new Syria follow a better trajectory is the key question now.

Importantly for Syria, and conceivably for better outcomes in the Middle East, HTS is a Sunni movement. It ended the rule in Syria by Shiites of the minority Alawite persuasion. The majority of Syrians are of the Sunni persuasion, as are most Muslims everywhere. This factor separates Syria sharply from Iran (and Iraq), two Shia-dominated territories. For a start, Iran will no longer have a religious or an ethnic corridor through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza. It may do business with the new Syria for other reasons, but the religious tie will not be paramount, further isolating Iran. (Syrians ransacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus.) Separating fully from Tehran may be among the more profound results of this week's startling remaking of Syria.

HTS will likely want to oust the Russians from their prized naval base at Tartus, on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. No Russian ships were visible at the port last night. The Russians also have a major air base nearby. The Russians in alliance with Assad kept the family in control after the Arab Spring erupted in 2011, bombing Syrian cities like Aleppo and, generally, enabling Bashar al-Assad - the errant ophthalmologist and successor to his even more ruthless father, Hafez al-Assad -- to cling to power when nearby tyrants succumbed to angry protesters. Without the Russians, the Assad dynasty would have collapsed. HTS is unlikely, along with the now freed population of Syria, to give the Russians a pass. Whatever happens, Putin's ultimate inability to protect the Assad regime becomes a blow to his reputation and to his strategic security outreach.

We do not know yet if HTS will emerge unchallenged as the new ruling dispensation in Syria. It led the breakout assault from Idlib province, where it has ruled firmly, even harshly, for a decade. It swiftly took Aleppo, and then Hama, Homs, and Damascus. But the Syrian National Army, a Turkish sponsored and financed rebel movement based near Idlib, also joined the conquest of Aleppo. And Turkey may have played a critical role in unleashing HTS.

The American-backed Kurdish Democratic Forces (SDF) army that has long held sway across northeastern Syria (about one third of the country's total land area) is a further factor. Its fighting prowess is bolstered by a small U.S. troop detachment that has helped to deter ISIS -- the Islamic State -- from reoccupying territory now controlled by the SDF. ISIS once proclaimed a widespread caliphate in the region and is now confined to several small pockets in eastern Syria. Earlier this week the U. S. Airforce bombed those pockets more than seventy-five times to keep ISIS from attempting to take advantage of the fall of Assad.

But Turkey is also using Assad’s fall to attack the SDF, using the SNA against the Kurds. Turkey fears Kurdish forcefulness threatens to undermine Turkish marginalization of the Kurdish-speaking population within eastern Turkey. Turkish-backed troops pushed the SDA yesterday about of Manbij, a key town in the northeast. The SDA wants more backing from U.S. soldiers.

Israel also bombed Syria this week more than 350 times to destroy chemical and other war depots, the entire Syrian navy, and to send a clear message of hegemonic interference to HTS. Israel was and is determined to deny either ISIS or HTS access to the Assad machine's arsenal of deadly war. Israel also advanced north out of the Golan Heights to take possibly only temporary control of adjacent sections of Syria, giving Israel a bigger buffer against anything that may come from the transfer of power.

Washington declared HTS a terrorist movement some years ago, given its early ties to ISIS (cut in 2012) and to al-Qaeda (disavowed in 2016). As far as the Biden administration is concerned HTS may still be a militant force motivated by terrorist instincts. Even so, it should behoove both the Biden and incoming Trumpers to befriend HTS until its actions counter what are now fine words about proper governing. The U.S. will not want to alienate a new, possibly non-dictatorial, force in the Middle East (and one that is potentially anti-Iranian) before there is concrete evidence to the contrary. A case might even be made in few weeks to rescind the terrorist designation if HTS' actions in power conform to its rhetoric. So far, HTS does not resemble the Taliban, despite Islamist roots.

HTS says that it will respect minorities -- Christian, Armenian, Druse, and Shiite -- and will not impose tight Sharia controls on the Syrian people. It is very early days, but HTS' initial utterances are positive. It claims that it long wanted to end the Assad dictatorship; but it has not yet had time to say how it wants to replace it, and exactly with what kind of order and governmental vision. Nor has it as yet specified the definitive arrangements that it has made with the Kurds and the SNA.

HTS began as the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda inspired Islamist anti-Assad movement. No one yet knows how much of al-Qaeda's approach to life and governing is still deeply embedded in the sinews of HTS. But, as a possibly symbolic gesture, HTS' 42-year-old black bearded leader shed his nom de guerre for his birth name as he entered Damascus. Once Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, he is now again Ahmed al-Sharaa. "We can't dispense with the previous state," he declared. Sharaa has also signaled that he seeks a government of "unity and inclusiveness."

It will be weeks, months, even perhaps years before we can know for sure that the HTS conquest of Damascus augurs well for Syrians. Will they be better off? Will they be able to lead relatively free lives? Will they be able to express themselves in public, even criticize their overlords? Will educational and health systems be revived? Will starvation become rare?

But what we already know is that Iran and Russia are both weaker, especially the former. Iran still has a threatening outpost in north Yemen, and the remnants of one in the devastated Gaza Strip. But the loss of Syria plunges a final stake into Hezbollah, and thus into Iran's ability to keep Lebanon in thrall.

Israel is more ascendant than before. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will be able to take credit for pummeling Hezbollah, destroying much of its missile launching capacity and -- if the truce holds -- forcing it back across the Litani River. He can take at least private pride in helping indirectly but importantly to enable HTS' easy march into Damascus. If Iran had not been weakened by successful attacks on its proxy forces in Lebanon and Gaza, and by direct Israeli destruction of air defense systems and war depots in Iran itself, the Iranians might last week have not abandoned Assad and his followers.

Equally, the overthrow of Assad started with Hamas' misguided Oct. 7, 2023 assault on Israeli kibbutzim and towns near Gaza. The killing of 1,200 Israelis and the taking of hostages led to the total devastation and to the wanton extirpation of 45,000 Gazans, combatants and civilians -- not to Israeli bargaining, the collapse of the Israeli state, or the wider Middle Eastern war that Yahya Sinwar wanted and predicted. In fact, the invasion of Israel by Hamas has led -- possibly (and we earnestly hope) to the ironic lasting greater good -- to the total reconfiguration of the Middle East. Inshallah!

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