Making Sense of Syria

Not possible.  Way too many moving parts (as it were).

Sorry to break it to you all but that country is not going to be united any time soon.  Or peaceful.  Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and as they say “all the king’s men and all the king’s horses couldn’t put him back together again”.

It wasn’t a mistake, mind you.  This is all by design.  It’s what the American Deep State, Turkey, and (especially) Israel wanted.

Given our hyper-interventionist, post WWII era foreign policy, it was inevitable.  (George Washington has been spinning in his grave ever since 1917 but that’s a story for another day.)

For one thing, the Assad regime was brutally corrupt.  That being said, most Arab regimes are.  Like many ethnicities in that part of the world, the Arabs are notoriously tribal and thus, everything is viewed the the prism of tribalism.  Let us be blunt:  statecraft is not a Middle Eastern strong suit.

The problem with Assad however was his inability to listen to his Russian, Iranian and Chinese advisors who tried to tell him to take the corruption down a couple of notches.  He wouldn’t do it and when it became clear that the Syrian Army wouldn’t fight for its nation (most likely because they’d been bribed to stand down), the Russians and Iranians did the smart thing and bailed on him.

That’s all water under the bridge.  Instead of looking upon the past, let’s assess what’s what.

The Turks won, hugely.  Now their army is in Syria and they ain’t going anywhere.  Their borders will extend to Iraq in no time at all.  And we here in America won’t be able to do anything about it.

Why?  Because it’s all about leverage and Erdogan has it –in spades.  To make sure he gets even more leverage, he’s making side deals with the Russians; word on the street is that he wants them to stay at their bases in Latakya and Tartus.  If the Russians agree to this, then together they will serve as a check on the US, the Israelis, but most especially on the Kurds.

This last point deserves a little more scrutiny.  After all, aren’t we the guarantors of the Kurds?  Not if Erdogan stares us down.  Look at it this way:  he controls the Bosporus Straights and the Dardanelles; he can open and shut all shipping through that chokepoint.  It’s not just the Russians who need access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean but Uncle Sam as well.  Did you know that we are building the world’s largest naval base in Romania right now?  See what I mean by leverage?

In other words, the Kurds, are in a tenuous position, one which could go either way for them; they could get an independent homeland (Lord knows, they deserve it), or they could continue to remain stateless.  It’s really up to the Turks; for them, an independent Kurdistan is an existential threat.  So, I’m not expecting Erdogan to play along, no matter what the Americans or the Israelis want.  As the late Henry Kissinger said:  “It is dangerous to be America’s enemy, it is fatal to be America’s friend.”

For those who may not be aware, the Israelis have long been supplying the Kurds with ammunition and quasi-political support.

As for the Israelis, we could say that because of the ensuing chaos, they have bought themselves significant amounts of time.  More to the point, they have cut off the major land corridor that allowed Iran to supply Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Their northern flank is now safe.  That doesn’t mean that they’re completely out of the woods.  Although Mohammed al-Jolani, the present “leader” of Syria is openly expressing non-belligerence to the Jewish state, jihadist groups have a way of going off the rails when it comes to “the Zionist entity”.

As for the Palestinians, their cause is now finished.  As has been said for some time now “If Syria falls, Palestine falls”.  And Syria has fallen, never to rise again.  I’m not too sure about Lebanon at this point.

I expect Jordan to be the last domino to fall.  Once the neocons work their magic there, they can say that “Jordan is Palestine” and declare the Palestinian Question solved for all time.  At this point, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque were demolished and the Third Temple rebuilt.  Let us be frank:  the Muslim ummah has proven to be a paper tiger.

That said, If I were the Israelis, I’d keep my eye on Ankara as Turkey’s presence is only going to grow.  At two million men, it’s army is at least five times the size of Israel’s.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Israeli’s started making side-deals with Moscow, especially if Russia and Turkey don’t come to an agreement on their bases.  Anything’s possible.  As for the resulting statelets that arise in whatever remains of Syria, the Israelis should find them easier to control, so I don’t expect them to serve as breeding grounds for terrorist groups a la Hamas or Hezbollah for the time being.

So, let’s recap.  Who are the winners and who are the losers and who pulled a draw?

Here are the winners in descending order:

1.  Turkey,
2.  Israel,
3.  the American Deep State.

Here are the losers (in descending order):

1.  Iran,
2.  the Kurds,
3.  the American/European peoples,
4.  Syria and the various religious minorities,
5.  the Palestinians —always the Palestinians.  As it’s long been said, “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.

As for the Russians, initially, I thought that they had lost big-time,  given the fact that it looked like the Turks had betrayed them.  In retrospect, its more likely that both countries had worked out a deal in Astana and decided that all things being equal, it would be better for Turkey to be the hegemon in the Middle East.  After all, the Russians got their hands full in the Ukraine; the SMO is an existential threat for them, Syria wasn’t.

Thanks to the machinations of the Deep State, the neoconservatives got what they wanted.  That doesn’t mean that things will work out well for them.  Word on the street is that HTS (the Turkish-aligned terrorist group that conquered Damascus) is sending out feelers to join BRICS.  That shouldn’t surprise us if we consider that the Turks funded and trained them.  Lest we forget, Turkey wants to be a full member of BRICS.

See what I mean by too many moving parts?  Anyway, it’s a “fluid situation”.