By Vijay Prashad
Vijay Prashad reflects on the latest developments in Syria and what they mean for the West Asia region
The development happens 14 months into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and weeks after signing a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah. Below are reflections from Vijay Prashad regarding the takeover and key elements to understand it.
1. The Syrian state had been devastated by the war which began 2011, and then by the sanctions placed on the country by the United States and its allies. The Syrian Arab Army (the official state army) had never fully recovered in the aftermath of the major fighting and was incapable of taking back the main cities of Hama, Homs, and Aleppo.
2. The Israeli bombardment of Syrian military facilities had weakened the Syrian armed forces’ logistical and ordinance capabilities. These attacks had been sustained and painful for the Syrian armed forces.
3. Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the assassination of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had weakened the ability of Hezbollah to operate even within Lebanon’s south, which forced the recent ‘ceasefire’ agreement with Israel. This demonstrated that Hezbollah was not in any position to enter Syria again to defend the Syrian government against any armed incursion on the Hama to Damascus road (highway M5).
4. The attacks on Iranian supply depots and military facilities in Syria as well as the attacks by Israel on Iran had prevented any build up of Iranian forces to defend the Syrian government. The weakening of Hezbollah also weakened Iran’s role in the region.
5. The nearly three years of conflict in Ukraine had certainly denied Syria the ability to call upon further Russian assistance for the protection of Damascus or for the Russian naval base in Latakia.
6. Therefore, Syria’s government no longer had its Iranian and Russian military allies for assistance against the reinforced rebels.
7. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formed in 2017 out of the al-Qaeda formations, drew together various military forces from Turkey to the Uyghurs – with a large number of other al-Qaeda influenced fighters – and built up its forces in Idlib over the past decade. HTS has received aid and support from Turkey, but also covertly from Israel (this information came to me from a highly placed intelligence official in Turkey).
8. What will the new HTS-led government do regarding the many social minorities in Syria? What will the new HTS-led government do regarding the Golan Heights and Israel? How will the new HTS-government regard the Israeli military incursion in Quneitra?
9. This story is not over yet. There will be much further unrest in the country led by ISIS as well as the Kurdish groups in the north; already Turkish-backed groups are in combat against the Kurdish YPG (People’s Defense Units) and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) forces in Manbij; US forces are already in eastern Syria, where they say that they will remain as a buffer against ISIS (and will therefore retain control of the oil); Israel also announced that it took over the Golan buffer zone. There will be tension between the governments of Turkey and the US regarding what the new HTS-led government must, and must not do.
10. I hope very much that the statements made by Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, that retribution must not be the new culture, will come true. The real fear is regarding the treatment of the minority populations. There is no word yet if the militia groups in Iraq will enter Syria. Much of this depends on what happens to places such as the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus.
This article originally appeared in People's Dispatch on December 8th, 2024
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