Two wars changed Syria's fate - what's next?

Two wars changed Syria's fate - what's next?

There is also an opportunity in every crisis, and a crisis can lurk behind every opportunity. The amazing advance of the Syrian opposition this week is an unintentional episode of two conflicts, one near and a distant. This leaves several important US allies with a new and largely unknown, Islamistically guided force, the large parts of their strategic neighbors, possibly even most of them-if not until the point in which they read this.

the geopolitical importance of Syria

Syria has absorbed so much diplomatic oxygen in the past 20 years that it seems suitable that this week of profound change has appeared out of nowhere. Since the invasion of Iraq, the United States has had difficulty finding a Syria policy that can take into account the different needs of its allies-Israel, Jordan, Türkiye and occasionally Iraq and Lebanon.

The role of the past

Syria has always been the problem child of the region: it combined Iraq's oil with the Mediterranean, the Shiites of Iraq and Iran with Lebanon and the south flank of NATO, Turkey, with the deserts of Jordan. George W. Bush declared it to the axis of evil; Obama did not want to touch it, for fear of destabilizing it even further; Donald Trump bombed it once, and that very quickly.

the brutal dictatorship and its consequences

The country has been under the grip of a most brutal dictatorship for decades. Hama, Homs, Damascus - all of these cities have turned back to the headlines overnight because of the fast case of the regime. But they are also home to the most hideous parts of Syrian history - be it the massacre of 20,000 people in Hama in 1982 or the siege and subsequent starving of Homs 2012 or the gas attack with Sarin in Ghouta, near Damascus, in 2013. In 2013.

The geopolitical implications

The rapidly changing fate of Bashar al-Assad was not really decided in Syria, but in South Beyrouth and Donetsk. Without the physical support of the Russian Air Force and the Iranian proxy troops from Hezbollah, he was finally overthrown when the pressure became too great. Israel's brutal but effective two months of war against Hezbollah probably didn't take a lot of consideration for Assad's fate, but could have been his turning point.

Iran and the crisis of the allies

In the past six months, Iran was severely restricted because his war against Israel, which was normally considered in the shade or as denied, converted into long-distance missile attacks. The main proxies, especially Hezbollah, were used by a Pager-Atack to your hierarchy and then brutal air raids. So far, Tehran's promise of support have brought little, apart from a joint explanation with Syria and Iraq on the need for collective measures against the rebels.

a new reality in the Middle East

The Middle East is shocked because ideas that are considered naturally - how far -reaching Iranian strength and Russian solidarity as an ally - begin to crumble in the face of new realities. As a leader of a blood -soaked minority, Assad survived, not through cunning or courage, but because Iran murdered for him and bombed Moscow for him. Now, however, these two allies are very different, and the imbalance that Assad and its governing Alawite minority has secured power has also disappeared.

Turkish ambitions in Syria

When established regional powers suddenly seem to be incapable of action, there is often a moment of considerable risk. However, this risk is taken by Turkey, a NATO member, which has to carry most of the consequence of Syria's turbulence. Ankara had to follow the long -term strategy for Syria for years and has taken over three million refugees since 2012. The Kurdish fighters - the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), trained and supported by the United States - also had to observe that built up a strong backbone along their border.

The rise of Hayat Tahrir al-Shams

The comprehensive offensive of Hayat Tahrir al-Shams (HTS), which, with its drive, equipment and an inclusive communication strategy, inconveniest a large number of scared ethnic groups in Syria, has indicated a sophisticated hand behind the scenes. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave the strongest indication on Friday whose hand it could have been when he said that he had tried to negotiate the future of Syria with Assad, but failed and wish the offensive happiness up to the Syrian capital. It was not a subtle message, but that doesn't have to be, at a time of seismic changes that Erdoğan has probably been waiting for for a long time.

The uncertain future of Syria

Whoever was encouraged by Turkey remains unclear. The upper ranks of the HTS, which originally started as Al-Qaida and ISIS considered too extremely, are now trying to suggest that they have grown. The history of such evolution is often messy, and it is not always easy for extremists to reform. At the same time, the speed of Assad's collapse may have come unexpectedly. There is definitely a limit for success.

conclusions and outlook

The uncertain effect of a quick change has caught up in a number of half politics and US inactive. In 2013, the then US President Barack Obama said that he would initiate military retaliation if Assad used chemical weapons, but when Assad used Sarin in Ghouta, this "red line" was not enforced. The officials partially justified Obama's withdrawal with the argument that too much further damage to the already fragile Assad regime could ensure that ever more jihadist rebels could move so quickly that they would check Damascus within a few months. You may have been right at the time; However, it is even more likely that Obama's inactivity has encouraged Russia and Iran for years.

We don't know much about what is going on in Syria or what that means. HTS could possibly prove to be a better form of government for the ethnic mixtures of Syria than it was ever, which would not be difficult. Assad could dagen in a magnificent Moscow, while his hollow autocracy quickly disintegrates. Russia could lick its geopolitical wounds and concentrate on the catastrophic blood loss that accompanies its invasion of Ukraine while Iran pause and prepare for the possible tsunami of aggression that could come with the white house of Trump.

Obama's argumentation was directed towards a western audience that was exhausted by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A form of war -avoiding isolation, in which the overstretched USA hesitated, marked more changes that it could not control. Obama ended in financing and arming the Syrian opposition so weakly that it was massacred, and when her extremists combined with radicals from the long -end uprising in Iraq, she metastasis. That was the worst possible result. The West had played his game so weakly in a low conflict that he won the four-year industrial strength horror of a war against the ISIS caliphate.

This could prove to be the quick and drastic change that Syria needed to stabilize - a shock of the carpet that leaves society smooth. The past 13 years of Syria have been so brutal that it deserves exactly that. Nevertheless, they have also proven how unattainable peace can be and how deeply the suffering of its inhabitants is.