Post-Assad Syria Is in Danger of Being Run by Out-of-control Militias - Middle East - Haaretz.com
The kaleidoscope picture of Syria is changing almost by the hour, as the forces chopping up the country into pieces reshape the borders of their control. Within ten days, the rebel forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have succeeded in taking control of Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, and Hama. The turning point came overnight into Sunday, with rebels capturing the city of Homs and the capital, Damascus, and the Syrian prime minister announcing that president Assad's regime has fallen.
In the south, rebel forces – who are not affiliated with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – took control on Saturday of the city of Suwayda and parts of the Daraa province, where the civil war in Syria began in 2011, and for the first time, government forces have withdrawn from the Quneitra area on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
From the east come reports of local and Kurdish militias taking control of parts of the city of Deir el-Zour and the city of al-Bukamal, which sits on the main road between Baghdad and Syria.
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The main battle that marked the beginning of the Assad regime's collapse was over the city of Homs, which commands two main roads – west, to the Latakia region, where Syrian government forces are concentrated and which has a large population of Alawites who support the regime, and most of all, where the Russian military bases are located; and south, to Damascus.
On social media and according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, whose reports are considered reliable, Syrian army troops found fighting back difficult, even while aided by bombing sorties by Russian warplanes.
Map of control in Syria, updated as of December 7.Credit: Institute for the Study of War
Over 300,000 people have been uprooted from their homes so far, Syrian soldiers deserted en masse and layed down their arms, and pro-Iranian militia members were seen in videos abandoning their positions, seemingly fleeing toward the Iraqi border area.
Senior officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Quds Force were also seen abandoning their posts – as Jordan and Lebanon closed their border crossings on Saturday, after rebel forces took control of the Syrian side of the crossings.
The goals of the military campaign were planned over many months, according to Abu Mohammad al-Julani, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. It aimed to capture Damascus and remove the Assad regime.
Ten days ago, it seemed these goals were very ambitious – it was still unclear whether al-Julani would be able to rekindle the rebellion in southern Syria, and organize a pincer movement from the north and south, without knowing how Iran and Russia would react – as those responsible for the turnaround that allowed Assad to hold on to about 70 percent of the country, and providers of a safety cushion for his regime.
Now however, the developments on the ground and the strategic moves have quickly made the rebellion's leader's goals reality.
Not only has Iran withdrawn part of its forces and its top military leadership from Syria, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday that "Assad's fate is not known," and later made it clear Iran has made no decision to send troops to Syria, and if Assad asked this, "Iran will consider the request."
This statement differs widely from his previous commitment, announced just days earlier, that "Iran will always stand by Syria's side and provide whatever support is needed."
Although Russia's air force has been operating against the rebels, the country's response is nowhere near the scope it began applying in September 2015, when it decided to enter the campaign in full force.
On Friday, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran, and Russia – the countries that sponsored the Astana Process in 2017 to draw up an agreed diplomatic solution between the Syrian regime and opposition – met in the Qatari capital of Doha, to decide on a possible response, and try to find a possible settlement to end the war.
A shattered, framed photo of Syrian President Bashar Assad at a Syrian Army facility in Hama, on Saturday.Credit: AFP / Omar Haj Kadour
The three countries declared their goal to preserve a "united Syria", geographically and politically, but each of them has a different definition of that Syria. Most of all, each of the sponsors tried to grab diplomatic wins for itself, or at least minimize its losses.
With Iran and Russia not sending forces to aid the Syrian regime, the fast-paced developments has already dictated a new reality, in which rebel forces control Damascus, and President Bashar Assad has fled the country.
It might already be impossible to stop the process that has already begun, in which Syria crumbles to autonomous or even independent districts controlled by rival militias and local gangs.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried over the past year to encourage Assad to negotiate with the rebels in order to stop Syria's collapse, without success. Even after the rebel offensive began, Erdogan again proposed negotiations and was again rebuffed, when Assad conditioned the talks on a full Turkish withdrawal from all Syrian territory.
Ostensibly, Erdogan now holds a strong bargaining chip as the ally, financial sponsor and arms supplier to the two main rebel coalitions. These are The Syrian National Army, previously known as the Free Syrian Army, which merged into its ranks small militias; and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which planned and launched the offensive.
Erdogan's leverage includes threats to stop the financing pipeline and close the Turkish-Syrian border crossings, that are one of the main sources of income for these militias.
But developments in the past ten days have changed the weight of Turkey's leverage. Al-Julani's militias have seized Syrian army weapons, munitions, and other military equipment warehouses, and their dependency on imported weapons has decreased.
Additionally, since their concentrated presence in Idlib over the years, they began to produce their own weapons, UAVs, and armored vehicles.
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi at a press conference in Iraq, last week.Credit: Hadi Mizban / AP
Besides, Al-Julani will try to convert the rapid battlefield victories into political gains for himself, and there is no assurance that, down the road, he will obey Turkey.
Al-Julani, 42, who started his ideological path as the Al-Qaida leader in Syria, but severed relations with it in 2016, now talks and acts like "the leader of all Syrians."
In an interview with The New York Times, published on Friday, he said that he was open to any political solution, but "now is not the time." The time will seemingly come after Damascus and the Assad regime have fallen.
Meanwhile, he has ordered his forces to "act with respect" toward captured Syrian soldiers and with their collaborators, and on Sunday, said Syria's government instutions will remain under the control of Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali until an official change of regime.
His men also issued "protection certificates" to senior Syrian officials who worked for the regime, which are supposed to keep them from harm if they are arrested, in order to prove he is not vengeful.
As someone well-known as a radical Islamist, who arouses fear and concern that he is planning to establish a strict Sharia state in Syria, Al-Julani has been making conciliatory statements in the past few days, promising to protect and respect all the country's religious and ethnic minorities.
As an alternative to Assad, Al-Julani cannot continue to see Iran, Russia, and their affiliated militias as potential partners, but even the assumption that he is in Turkey's pocket will require proof on the ground.
As "leader of all Syrians," he will have to deal with serious domestic opponents, including rival militias, such as the ones in Daraa and Suweyda, which have now closed ranks with him in the effort to topple the regime, but also with the Kurdish forces, which quickly seized more territory in the country's northeast over the weekend.
Kurdish forces took over Deir el-Zour and the Bukamal border crossing and have been waging serious confrontations in the past couple of days with Turkish forces, which, in turn, are now trying to take control of Manbij, one of the important Kurdish outposts west of the Euphrates River.
A union between the Kurds and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham forces will require Al-Julani to compromise between the Kurds' desire to protect their autonomy and Turkey's wish to push them 20-30 kilometers (about 12-18 miles) away from the border.
Will Turkey agree to "its militia" giving the Kurds a win at the expense of what it defines as a threat to national security? Will Al-Julani, who is seeking to surround himself with overwhelming national support, agree for Turkey to continue to wage war against the Kurds while he strives to form a governing coalition with them?
The collapse of the Assad regime is an unprecedented strategic blow, the likes of which Iran has not suffered since the end of the Iran-Iraq War.
Unlike Turkey, which possesses diplomatic alternatives that may grant it a much more substantial influence in Syria than what Assad allowed, Iran's options will likely vaporize.
Rebel forces soldier in Hama, on Saturday,Credit: AFP / Muhammad Haj Kadour
Not only will the billions of dollars that Iran gave Assad in credit, oil, and arms be lost, Syria's strategic position as the lifeline of Iran's Lebanese proxy, possibly its most important proxy, will cease to exist.
Although the Syria of Hafez Assad, Bashar's father, was the only Arab country that supported Iran, rather than Iraq, in the Iran-Iraq War, Hafez Assad always knew to keep a safe distance, fearing Tehran's take-over attempts of Damascus. Iran also never considered him as their man in Syria.
Iran's then-Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, even said that Hafez Assad wasn't a true Shi'ite, but a secular non-believer.
Although Bashar Assad was perceived as someone who turned Syria into "another Iranian province", as one of the most senior Islamic scholars in Iran put it years ago – he also took care not to join the Ring of Fire or participate in the Unity of Fronts.
Assad blocked attacks by Al-Quds forces against Israel from Syrian territory, and ignored Israel's assaults that were directed at Iranian targets and Hezbollah weapons convoys and facilities in Syria. Also, despite Iran's vast aid in the civil war, its share of the economic spoils was far less than Russia's.
Compared with Iran's conditional influence in Syria, Lebanon is a different story. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has so far granted Iran direct and almost unlimited control.
The blow Hezbollah suffered in Lebanon forced Iran to agree to what it sees as harsh conditions, set in the cease-fire agreement. And yet, although the agreement prescribes that Lebanon must disarm Hezbollah, there is little, if any, readiness to implement this clause.
Moreover, Hezbollah, as an organization, movement, and influential force in Lebanese politics is alive and kicking, and it is maintaining Iran's leverage in Lebanon.
But if the war in Syria will shrink Iran's standing there, or even eliminate its and Hezbollah's forces, the geographical discontinuity between Hezbollah and its military logistical sources will have a significant impact on its ability to recover as a military organization.
In the face of the chance to liberate Syria from the Assad regime and Iran's presence, Arab states – most of which have offered Assad support and aid (albeit not with arms or soldiers) – are now worried about the alternatives.
When militias' take over a country, regardless of their ideology, it threatens traditional regimes that rely on authoritarian control. Such a success, as was seen in the Arab Spring, is contagious, and encourages the revival of organizations and rebel movements.
Although rebel movements succeeded in toppling the regimes in some countries, only to revert to tyranny, others, such as Yemen, Libya, and Sudan, fell into civil wars that tore them apart.
However, the immediate challenge will depend on the nature of the regime that will be established in Syria, and who will be in its crosshairs.
Moreover, the Syrian rebellion in 2011 set the ground for ISIS' conquest of parts of Syria and Iraq, and there are already reports that ISIS in Syria has resumed activity in some areas where the regime retreated. If that is the alternative, Assad's remaining in power might have still been considered as a reasonable price to pay.