CURRENT SITUATION IN SYRIA
Posted on December 27th, 2024
By Nalliah Thayabharan
The Israeli regime has failed in Gaza. It’s been almost 15 months and they fail to take Gaza. Slaughtering thousands of children and women is not a victory. We see Israeli operations taking place daily in Gaza and a number of Israelis have been killed over the past few days. So Gaza is still not a victory for the Israeli regime. In fact that’s a major defeat because the world has been exposed to the brutality of the Israeli regime.
The world has been exposed to the brutality of the Israeli regime in Lebanon as well. We saw how they murdered senior commanders of Hezbollah and that is a success but Israeli forces have also been fighting Hezbollah for almost 15 months now. During the last two months of heavy fighting uh the Israeli regime failed to make any meaningful inroads into Lebanon – that’s a failure again. The Israeli regime succeeded in slaughtering thousands of innocent Lebanese children and women.
The only place the Israeli regime has scored a victory is Syria. Along with the Americans, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, family rich dictatorships, oil rich dictatorships and gas-rich dictatorships, Israeli regime have succeeded in destroying Syria, because Syrians were brought to their knees since the Syrian economy is crushed due American sanctions, and the terrorism that was being imposed upon the Syrian people through Turkey and Jordan and also through the no man’s land in Iraq between Iraq and Syria. The Americans occupied the oil rich areas of Syria along with the agriculturally important areas of Syria so Americans kept the Syrian people starving and stole Syrian assets. It doesn’t take a genius to understand why Syria collapsed, but this is a tactical defeat for Russia and Iran.
But it will not necessarily a long-term success story since Syria is a very complicated country with significant minorities including Kurds (Sunni, Yazidi), Turkmen Alawis, Sunni and Alevi Turkmens, Sunni Chechens, Sunni Circassians, Syrian Bosniaks, Sunni Muslim Greeks, Muslim Ossetians, Black people of Yarmouk Basin, Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks, Italians, Romani people of various creeds, Mizrahi Jews, Mandeans, and Arameans.
Huge segments of Sunnis in Syria do not support the extremists of al-Qaeda. Syrian jihadist leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani was the deputy for ISIS. He was al-Qaeda leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s deputy for Syria. The present split between Jolani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and al-Qaeda is not an ideological split. It is based on mutual consensus since both sides believe that the split should take place for PR purposes. Jolani always praised al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda also praised Jolani. There’s no difference between ISIS, al-Qaeda and Jolani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and that is why Iran opposed these extremists in Syria and went to defend the legitimate government in Damascus.
The Syrian government had major shortcomings and it was no more despotic than other Arab dictatorships in the region but it had one positive aspect to it and that was it asserted independence and it stood up to the Israeli regime in addition to its adversaries who were extremist terrorists. That is why Iran went to Syria to help the Syrians to defend the country against the extremist terrorists.
The current situation in Syria is a short-term tactical victory for the Israeli regime, Americans, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, family rich dictatorships, oil rich dictatorships and gas-rich dictatorships. But this is not an easy ride for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Erdoğan did not anticipate owning Syria. He only wanted a bigger peace outside of Idlib to use at the negotiating table. The sudden collapse of Syria was not expected by anyone. Now Erdoğan has to take care of Syria and the political and economical burden is simply too much for Erdoğan.
The situation in Syria is going to complicate the situation across the region including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and Qatar which are most vulnerable to the spread of al-Qaeda ideology.
Iranian oil is no longer going to Syria. Russian oil and Iraqi oil are no longer going to Syria. The countries in the US camp, Turkey and Qatar will obviously be funding Jolani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and al-Qaeda in Syria but how much and how long are they going to help Syria is a big question.
Here comes the question of the importance of the role of Israel in this whole situation. The Israeli regime was incapable of defeating Hamas and Hezbollah. Even with those interactions direct fight between Iran and Israel without the United States, United Kingdom, France and Jordan all of these countries together helping Israel, Israeli regime was not capable to defend themselves and right now Israeli regime is trying to brag about what has happened in Syria and without Turkey and the West being part of this operation. Attack on the Syrian Government was a collective operation of NATO led by the United States which has been pursuing this for since 2011. The Israelis have always been supporting al-Qaeda and ISIS alongside the border with Syria or at least along the occupied Golan Heights. Al-Qaeda and ISIS were funded by the Israeli regime, wounded Al-Qaeda and ISIS were treated by the Israeli regime and that they had air support from the Israeli regime whenever the Syrian government would attack them – so the relationship between Al-Qaeda and ISIS is not new – the cooperation with these terrorists existed in Jordan, Israel and in Turkey and they facilitated the aid that came from the Persian Gulf, Europe and North America.
Tens of thousands of foreign fighters enter mostly from Turkey; and from across the world and Western intelligence agencies were key to the movement of all those people and Western intelligence agencies and the Israelis are always on the same page the foreign fighters will never do anything that runs against the interests of the Israeli regime.
Hezbollah had to withdraw its troops from Syria to fight the war or at least to protect Lebanon from the Israeli regime and the Syrian government did not replace them adequately and that was a part of the problem.
As soon as the ceasefire took place in Lebanon Turkish intelligence and Israeli intelligence cooperated very closely and the Israelis have now taken key areas in southern Syria.
What would be the future of Syria right now? Are they going to divide Syria in different parts or as Erdogan and his foreign minister are talking about the sovereignty of Syria should be respected. It’s very ironic that Turkish leaders are now speaking about Syrian sovereignty but they were the first to violate that Syrian sovereignty since 2011.
Serena Ali Suhaim- A Lebanese American journalist with two kids was on the Syrian Turkish border when she reported in 2014 that Turkish intelligence was using World Food Organization trucks to supply ammunition and troops for ISIS. The Turkish government said that she’s a spy and on that same day as soon as she heard that she went on TV live and said they’re calling me a spy I’m not a spy I’m a journalist I’m just reporting and then hours later she was killed. Obviously Turkish intelligence wanted to silence her and that’s not how you preserve a country’s sovereignty.
Now in different cities Syrians themselves are setting up militias to protect themselves and their towns from both the extremists but also thugs, thieves, gangs and Mafia groups.
Syria has fallen apart, the Israelis have destroyed the Syrian infrastructure, and the economy is broken.
The Americans and the Europeans are in an interesting position: if they remove the sanctions against Syria, they will empower the same people who, according to their narrative, carried out 9/11.
Lebanon is now surrounded by Israel and al-Qaeda. However the burden of Syria is no longer on the shoulders of Hezbollah. Also Syria has been a burden for Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Iraq and that burden no longer exists. Hezbollah had to protect citizens from the extremists. Iranians, Iraqis and Russians played their own role, and provided fuel and significant financial support to preserve Syria and that burden has been removed from them.
Hezbollah is very resourceful and very powerful and willingly sacrificed themselves for the people of Gaza. The image of the stature of Hezbollah has grown immensely of course they paid a heavy price. Hezbollah is too powerful and it’s too influential and it’s too popular for the French to do a great deal about it.
The war in Ukraine will continue to deplete the energy and resources and capabilities of Western Powers. The relative power of France, Germany, the USA and the British is very different from what it was three years ago and they have many challenges at home and abroad.
It is not Hezbollah that’s weakened, the Israeli regime is also severely weakened. The Israeli regime is constantly violating the ceasefire in Lebanon. Netanyahu wants to be seen as a conqueror at home and a powerful figure in order to remain in power but what he’s doing is that he’s humiliating Erdogan and Jolani. Israel is now making a new alliance with Saudi Arabia and UAE, against Yemen. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are making the grave mistake of entering an alliance against Ansar Allah – the Houthi movement which will destroy their oil assets and that would wreck their economies.
Ansar Allah – the Houthi movement is a very powerful force, survived a genocidal war where the collective West was supporting Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates spent hundreds of billions of dollars to undermine Ansar Allah – the Houthi movement in Yemen but they couldn’t. Today Ansar Allah is much more powerful than what it was. Today we see the missiles that they’re firing at the Israeli regime. Ansar Allah has been defending the Palestinians and the people of Gaza during this period of time whereas no one else was doing anything.
Yemen is different from Syria. The demonization of Syria has been going on for 14 years and it has been more successful because these oil and gas dictatorships in the Persian Gulf region have tried very hard to make this sectarian issue from the very beginning and to use sectarian hatred and religious hatred in order to demonize the Syrian government and to
turn ISIS and al-Qaeda into heroes.
During the 30 year war in Sri Lanka, LTTE killed more Tamils than anyone else. Similarly ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists killed more Sunnis in Syria and Iraq than anyone else.
The Sunni areas of Iraq were targeted and destroyed by ISIS. Syria was economically broke since it failed to stand up economically because it was demonized so thoroughly. Anyone who joins a coalition against Ansar Allah will definitely be seen in a negative light by the people of their own countries.
There is a new agreement between Iran and Russia going to be signed in Moscow on January 20, 2025.
Erdogan, the Americans and the Israeli state in Syria only serve to strengthen Iranian and Russian ties further and in fact it serves to create more concern in China about the actions of NATO. We know that thousands of Uyghur speaking Chinese Nationals from Xinjiang, as well as Uyghur speaking Uzbekistan Nationals have been trained by Turkish intelligence and many thousands of Central Asians have also been trained and that is a threat to China and countries in Central Asia. It is also a threat to the Taliban because the past couple of years these terrorists tried to challenge the Taliban in certain areas.
The current situation is Syria will strengthen the cooperation among Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries and it’s going to be a further challenge to Erdoğan and those who are supporting these terrorist groups.
United States is not going to be able to create space between Iran and its friendly countries, that’s just simply not possible whether Russia or China or any other country that has treated Iran with respect at a time when the Americans and the Europeans were trying to undermine Iran that’s something that Iranians will remember and there’s no chance that the Iranians are going to come to trust Trump or anyone else in the United States or European capitals anytime soon after all they’ve done to Iran after all the harm they’ve caused.
The Iranians made huge concessions in the nuclear deal enormous concessions it’s still being argued in Iran, but the Americans and the Europeans never intended to abide by the commitments they never intended to do so from the very beginning under Obama – they violated the deal just like the Minsk Accords- they were never serious and and that’s because of their exceptionalism that’s because they consider themselves to be superior they consider themselves to have exceptional rights. So when you’re dealing with countries that believe they have exceptional rights which believe that they can violate their commitments yet they expect the other side to abide by their commitments how can you ever trust them? How can you ever move close to them? You have to treat them with great caution and that is one of the reasons why the West is on the decline because no one trusts them anymore since they support genocide; they create and promote never ending wars; and their behavior towards the global South.
Trump is more crude in his language when he speaks about Greenland or Panama but the mentality of the United States has always been that the whole of Latin America is their backyard. The whole notion of having a backyard is outrageous but Trump is basically saying explicitly what the collective mentality of the Elites in the west are and the United States in particular.
Iranians will continue to improve their relations with Russia, China and India. If Iran is able to come to terms with the West, if it’s able to have an agreement with the West that is Meaningful, it will do it.
The collective west couldn’t overthrow Cuba or Venezuela but the west is dreaming about overthrowing Iran and Russia.
Iranian’s culture is very similar to the Sufi culture of Turkey, and that’s why if you travel back and forth from Turkey and Iran you’ll feel very much at home because of the similarities.
Ever since 2011 we’ve had the rise of Salafism in Turkey and this is going to be increasingly a serious problem.
Biden said himself very explicitly that he’s a Zionist and two closest people to him with regards to foreign policy were Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken who are Zionists.
Iranians don’t like Trump, since he murdered Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, his Companions and his Iraqi allies. However, what Biden did to Gaza; to Lebanon. to the region; to Syria; and to Yemen is far worse than anything Trump has done during his tenure.
The genocide, the holocaust, the slaughter, the destruction, the devastation, the ruin of so much of Western Asia was carried out by Biden. Without Biden it wouldn’t have happened; without Jake Sullivan; without Antony Blinken; none of this could have happened. The dislike for the Biden regime is much greater than the dislike for Trump.
Western leaders should not take the wishful thinking of Western media and Western think tanks too seriously as these media and think tanks were informing how the Russian ruble will be turned into rubble and how the Russians are devastated in Ukraine.
The world that we live in today is very different from the world that Trump was dealing with during his first term as a President. Since then, things have changed enormously.