The Syrian revolution will inspire the masses in other countries in
the region to move against their tyrants [photo credit: Ugur Yıldırım]
For all their faults Iran and Hezbollah had the benefit at least of
being familiar foes who Israel knows well. Assad was the ideal frenemy:
though Syria has been officially at war with Israel since the country
was founded there was never any chance he was actually ever going to
attack. The proof of this is that in the last few days Israel has
deployed ground troops both into and beyond a demilitarised buffer zone
for the first time in 50 years and conducted 480 airstrikes destroying
targets including advanced weapons to prevent them falling into rebel
hands, weapons that had previously been regarded as non-threatening in
Assad’s hands. Monday night saw further escalation with the sinking of the Assad regime naval fleet at Minet el-Beida and Latakia.
As al-Jolani made clear in his victory speech
in Damascus’ Ummayad Mosque on Sunday Iranian influence in Syria is now
set to end which means the Iranian infrastructure Assad allowed to be
implanted with its transit route from Iran to Hezbollah is going to be
shut down. This is something Israel has sought to achieve for a long
time, but in attacking Syria immediately in the wake of the HTS win it
once again chose a military rather than a diplomatic route that is not
going to bring security.
On the contrary, the dawn of a revolutionary Sunni Jihadi government
in Syria, however softly it presents itself, is far more dangerous to
Israel and the regional Arab leaders than Iran, Hezbollah and the
Huthis. The Arab leaders are all locked in a war with Sunni political
Islam and their dungeons are full of men like al-Jolani. Israel knows
from its long war with Hamas, that Sunni Jihadis are a much more potent
foe than Shia forces like Iran and Hezbollah because while Iran and the
Shia forces claim the mantle of Islam, they fight Israel mostly out of a
political motivation, to maintain a balance of power in the region
against the US. Sunni Jihadis on the other hand fight for a different
reason: out of a burning, inner religious conviction which dictates they
will never give up until Israel is completely destroyed.
Given the sudden change in the fortunes of the Islamists it is to be
expected Israel, the West and the Arab regimes that opposed the original
Arab Spring will all quickly rally and try to find ways to undermine
the revolution. Israeli officials have already developed a sudden
interest in Syrian minorities with Netanyahu extending the hand of peace to the Druze, Kurds and Christians, as well as Muslims and the Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar saying at a press briefing on Monday that Israel has been talking with Kurdish rebels that control northeast Syria.
Many observers had disengaged from news about the Syrian civil war
due to the widespread belief that the revolution was over and that the
Assad regime had effectively regained control of much of the country. A
similar thing happened with the Palestinian issue prior to the 7 October
Hamas attack. In both cases such assumptions turned out to be wrong:
the human desire for freedom from tyranny is universal and can never be
fully suppressed.
With the overthrow of the Assad dictatorship optimism for
revolutionary change among the peoples of the Arab world has surged.
Whether that leads to the strategic foresight, unity, and disciplined
leadership that is critical to navigating the challenges ahead and
securing a brighter future for Syria and the region remains to be seen.
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