By Peter Števkov
The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad will go down in history as one of the most cynical operations by the powers in the Middle East.
And suddenly everything changed in a few days. The world was left in awe, the great powers were silent, Assad surprisingly gave up power and flew to Moscow, Israel acted quickly.
It is almost impossible to unravel the complexity of it all, but something can indeed be unraveled, and it inspires amazement.
While the West celebrated the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, the main Middle Eastern protégé of the US and Europe in the region – Israel – bombed the remnants of Syrian military infrastructure. Airports, air defense installations, tanks, ammunition depots, all military targets. According to witnesses, Syria was left with practically nothing in its arsenal.
Israel also rapidly expanded its occupation of the Golan Heights, capturing the peak of Mount Hermon. This is the highest mountain in Syria, which will give Jerusalem unlimited visibility over the entire country. Previously, Israel had a blind spot in its radar coverage of Syria behind Hermon.
Russian and American military bases, the former legal, the latter illegal, continue to exist. Turkey is also fulfilling its goals, as evidenced by Erdogan's recent statement that there are only two great statesmen in the world - he and Putin.
In the case of Israel, this is an illegal action. It is not acting in self-defense, nor under a UN mandate. But it is doing so after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement, who admitted that Assad's fall is a direct consequence of Israeli strikes on his allies Iran and Hezbollah.
He is right, Israel has achieved hegemony in the Levant for now. The contours of what will come of this are still difficult to estimate.
However, Israel's continued destruction of Assad and Syria underlines the cynicism of its motives. The goal was not to liberate the country, but to destroy it. Israel's actions also expose the policy of the West, which pretends that Assad's overthrow is an achievement, but fails to condemn Jerusalem's aggression.
Turkish-Israeli cooperation and Russia's calculation
If we only evaluate the end of the Assad regime, which lasted since 1972, when his father took power, the winners in the region are Turkey and Israel.
Turkey is the main and official patron of the jihadists, who, thanks to Ankara's cover, operated in the border Idlib for years. At the end of November, they rushed out from under the Turkish umbrella, only to be surprised by their own success and the pitiful state of the fleeing Syrian army. As a result, Damascus is heading towards Turkey's subjugation as a vassal state similar to the Syrian vilayet of the new Ottoman Empire. Incidentally, this is the second case in a short period of time when the support of Turkey and Israel has led one side of the conflict to a decisive victory. The first was the capture of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan, which resulted in the expulsion of the Armenian population from their historical territory.
Outgoing US President Joe Biden expressed his delight at the fall of the Syrian regime, but there is no evidence yet that the Americans were directly involved in the recent events. However, they were preparing the ground for the fall of Damascus intensively, the long-term effect of their sanctions and the seizure of Syrian oil fields guarded by US troops played a significant role.
The main loser is Iran, which, due to the disruption of the Shiite belt (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon), lost a direct land connection with its ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah.
Russia also lost, but unlike Iran, not catastrophically. Its prestige suffered in particular, but its military bases and diplomatic missions were not touched by the rebels. It seems that an agreement has been reached between Moscow, Ankara and the rebels, and it is currently not ruled out that Russia will reach an agreement with the new power to keep the bases. If that fails, it will not be a tragedy from the Kremlin's perspective. Russia conducts its operations in Africa largely through Syrian ports and airports, but one alternative is transportation through Sudan, where the Russians are negotiating with both sides of the conflict and planning to build a new large port. In the long run, getting rid of the incompetent Assad may be a good idea for the Russians. The Russians understand cynical games as well as the Americans.
The American-Islamist alliance is the rule rather than the exception
For those who became interested in the Middle East during the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the current events in Syria may seem like a scenario from an alternate universe. Former members of al-Qaeda have overthrown a secular regime, but the West is not bothered by this, and the Americans and French even welcome and applaud the change. And NATO member Turkey, as well as Israel – the much-vaunted fighter against Islamism – directly support the jihadist campaign.
How is this even possible? The short answer is that Western leaders have paved the way for the Islamists.
As a result of this support, Damascus on Sunday swapped the red color of its flag for green, and replaced secular Alawite Bashar al-Assad as the country’s leader with the internationally wanted Islamist terrorist Ahmad Hussein al-Shar, known as Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani.
But if we delve deeper, we actually find continuity.
Modern militant Islamism was largely born out of American support for the mujahideen who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. Many of the mujahideen returned to their home countries after the war in Afghanistan, where they further developed militant Islamism. On a cultural level, the American-Islamist alliance was iconically captured in the film Rambo 3 (1982), starring Sylvester Stallone. Rambo 3 ends with the title: “This film is dedicated to the brave mujahideen of Afghanistan.”
It seemed that this world had ended on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had pitted Americans against Islamists for a decade. But that was soon to change.
In 2012, the Pentagon’s intelligence service, the DIA, warned in a report that a Salafist principality in eastern Syria was in danger, and that is exactly what the forces supporting the opposition want in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
This “principality” did indeed emerge in its first form, known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). When the then-DIA director, Michael Flynn, was confronted with the report by the Qatari television station Al Jazeera, he reacted surprisingly. He did not attempt to downplay the report, but instead declared that creating space for Syrian jihadists was a "deliberate decision" on Washington's part.
According to US General Wesley Clark, Syria was one of seven Middle Eastern countries in which, according to a secret document he cited, regime change was to occur after the September 11 attacks. These were Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Iran.
Israel, whose lobby has immense influence on US foreign policy, was to benefit from this. Ideologically, this program was underpinned by US neoconservatives, and military involvement began with the invasion of Iraq, which – as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt describe in detail – was carried out mainly thanks to the contribution of the Israeli lobby. The current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also did his job, lying to the US Congress in 2002 when he said that “there is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards to the development of nuclear weapons”.
This lie, followed by other lies (including Colin Powell’s famous speech on the UN Security Council), plunged America and the West into tragic wars, the Middle East into severe civil and sectarian wars, but Netanyahu’s country benefited from it. However, the responsibility cannot be shifted; it lies with US President Bush and some of his followers, supported by allies in Europe.
However, military power cannot do everything. Within ten years, the Americans got into deep trouble in Iraq, the domestic population began to reject endless wars, and further adventures were put on hold. Obama was the forerunner in this, and Trump confirmed it.
The backlash from this ill-considered neoconservative policy was so strong that after the Shiite majority took power, Iraq became an ally of Iran. In other words, the Shiite belt to Lebanon could only be created thanks to the American invasion.
Jihadists fighting for diversity
Let us return to Syria and, for the sake of accuracy, emphasize that there is no evidence of direct American support for the Islamic State or al-Qaeda in the country. Washington supports mainly the secular Kurdish YPG militia, against the will of Turkey. However, the actions and statements of the jihadists there are remarkably in tune with the expectations of the American deep state.
An illustrative example is the new head of the Syrian state, Muhammad al-Jawlani, who fought on the side of al-Qaeda in Iraq, where he was captured by the Americans. After his release, he headed to Syria to fight against the government of Bashar al-Assad. He became famous as the founder and emir of the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. In order to gain international legitimacy, he later severed ties with al-Qaeda, merging al-Nusra with other groups into the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) organization. The US government designated Jawlani a global terrorist in 2013 and four years later announced a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture. The reward is still up today, but Biden has not stopped himself from rejoicing that Assad has been replaced by this Islamist.
It is safe to say that we cannot therefore assess the sincerity of the US effort to capture Jawlani. In recent years, however, his HTS, under Turkish auspices, has controlled millions of people in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. Jawlani has learned to say all the right things during this time, to the point that after the start of the offensive on Aleppo, he declared that in the future Syria, “diversity will be our strength”. He also spoke of protecting Alawites and Christians, and the same prime minister who served under Assad remained in office. The American establishment, such as Fareed Zakaria on CNN, said after taking power that Jawlani had “learned from his mistakes in Iraq”.
Reason for optimism?
The Western press is therefore promoting a narrative about moderate Syrian jihadists. It is impressive that HTS, with its activities in Syria, is so far helping this narrative. The organization has declared a ban on the forced wearing of the hijab by women and has issued orders to its units not to harass foreign journalists. But most importantly: so far there have been no massacres of the civilian population. Only Assad's statues are being destroyed, the luxury property in Assad's villa, the televisions have shown us footage of the presidential garage full of luxury cars, and the anger of the Syrian street. However, we have already seen something similar in Baghdad, Tripoli and Kiev, when there was a change of power. And this was not the end of the story.
What is surprising and probably also positive is that we see coordination between the main power players in the region and the takeover of power seems organized.
There is not that much speculation. For example, it is said that the overthrow of Assad was agreed on December 7th by the Turks, Saudis, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and also Russia, which offered to accept him on its territory. This would mean that no one is interested in a new Libya. After all, the only one who is currently behaving aggressively is Israel.
It is not only the inhabitants of Syria who would like this to be more than wishful thinking. Of course, anyone with a moral compass would be happy if Syria could breathe a sigh of relief after a decade of wars and sanctions and refugees from Turkey and Europe could return home. But, as the classic saying goes, optimism is a refuge for cowards. Therefore, even if we admit that the regional powers mean well this time, we should expect that it will end as it always does. That is, as after regime changes in Iraq, Libya, or Afghanistan.
A special chapter of the severely tested Syria is being written by the Christians there. In Slovakia, thanks to the Pontifical Foundation for the Church in Need (ACN), we organized aid for them, and Syrian bishops visited us. We understood here what the West ignored – that the Assad regime protected Christians from Islamists. That is why it is important to monitor what will happen to Christians in Syria now.
Syrian Catholic Archbishop Jacques Mourad expressed skepticism after the capture of Aleppo: “This is the end of the great history of Christians in Aleppo.”
It is quite possible that after the total victory of Jawlani’s jihadists, we can apply his statement to the whole of Syria. And let’s hope that the Syrian bishop is wrong.
And if not, we in Europe should remember who caused it.
Peter Števkov is the deputy editor-in-chief in the Slovak news website Standard.sk.
Published with permission. The article appeared first in Štandard in the Slovak language.
