What are the Russians saying about the fall of the Assad regime?
Yesterday’s talk show Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov on Russian state television devoted a long segment to the fall of Bashar al-Assad and to what comes next for Syria. The panelists were ‘regulars’ on this show, but among them always were professional orientalists and retired military officers who had spent time in Syria during their careers and knew the subject matter firsthand.
Before setting out here what was said by these Russians, I am obliged to note that this morning’s BBC and other major Western media make it clear that those in the United States, Britain, Turkey and Israel who backed the rebels financially and militarily, those who had been cheerleading the ‘rebels’ of the HTS as they moved out of Idlib province, stormed Aleppo, swept through Hama and Homs before capturing Damascus now are themselves uncertain what comes next. It would appear that the speed with which the HTS brought down Assad surprised them all. Though they all commented in the midst of the process on how the fall of Assad would be a major setback for Russia, likely ending its lease of a naval base in Tartus and air base in Khmeimin, they do not now know whether it is a good or bad thing for their own interests in Syria and in the wider Middle East.
In this context, the uncertainty I heard last night from Russian academics, Duma members and retired military is justified and no doubt arises from the fact that the overthrow of the Assad regime was done by a force numbering approximately 30,000. What we have witnessed over the past 11 days was not so much the conquering strength of HTS as the total collapse of the Syrian army, which surrendered its positions. Soldiers ran for their lives, leaving to the approaching enemy their arms, tanks and munitions.
This victorious force of 30,000 will be unable to hold onto power alone and force its will on the very diverse population of Syria where many local actors have their own interests to defend. Moreover, those competitors in place will now be challenged by the large number of variously motivated terrorists who have been released from the Syrian prisons and by the large numbers of refugees living in Turkey and elsewhere who may now return to Syria to present their political demands.
HTS leader al-Julani has spoken of his intentions to practice an inclusive policy to rally all Syrians to his side, but the extent to which this will happen is presently unforeseeable. The reality that the future make-up and direction of the Syrian government is uncertain was proven already yesterday by the decision of the Israeli government to send in the IDF to take control of the buffer zone separating their occupied territory in the Golan from Syrian forces.
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Even before the fall of Damascus, commentators on Russian television had indicated that the Kremlin was deeply disappointed with Assad, that his armed forces were asleep and unready to deal with a renewed armed struggle by insurgents. This view was substantiated in detail last night on the Solovyov show. We were told that the Syrian army simply melted away because its soldiers were disaffected: they were dirt poor, they were starving from inadequate supply of provisions and they were led by corrupt generals who never came near the front lines and had no combat experience to justify their positions of authority. We were shown a video clip of Putin dating back several years in which he said Russia had no intention of ‘being more Syrian than the Syrians themselves,’ meaning that Russia would not provide soldiers to fight if the Assad government could not constitute a fighting force on its own.
The expert panelists last night had no fears for the future of the Russian bases. We were told that Russian diplomacy is in contact with the HTS and other political-military actors in post-Assad Syria to ensure the continuation of Russian military presence on Syrian territory. Moreover, we know that those bases in the northwest of Syria are in the Alawite areas that were the political constituency of the Assad dynasty which will surely be able to defend its interests in the newly formed government in Damascus. So much for the short-lived gloating of British and American journalists over Russia’s alleged defeat due to Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow.
Russia will likely remain a major player in Syrian politics for other reasons relating to its activities in 2015-2017 when it was heavily involved in crushing the several Islamic extremist groups active across Syrian territory. Though the Russian military effort then was mostly in the air, using its locally based as well as long range bombers to great effect, and though the boots on the ground were mostly Iranian proxies, the pacification process village by village was enabled by Russian soldiers negotiating with the terrorist groups and with the civilian populations. Russia gained then vast experience of local politics, as much or more than what other foreign interveners in the Syrian civil war may have gained. We may assume that this valuable knowledge will be complemented by whatever Russian intelligence may now gain from talking to Bashar al-Assad during his exile in their country.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024