Syria like Ukraine and because of Ukraine has become the victim of aggressive geopolitics being waged against each other by the West and the East. Syria like Ukraine has now experienced more than one color revolution, but in the case of Damascus both were violent, while in Ukraine only the latter, the February 2014 Maidan revolt, was violent but on a far smaller scale thereof. The November attack on Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and Idlib region carried out by a Syrian opposition alliance of jihadists, most notably al-Nusrah successor Hayyit Tahrir as-Sham (HTS), other jihadi groups, Islamists such as Muslim Brotherhood, and the supposedly pro-democratic Syrian Free Army mushroomed rapidly into the unexpected fall of the Bashir Assad regime. The operation appears to have been designed by Washington in part in order to force Russia to divert resources from Ukraine to bolster the Assad regime or risk the fall of the Assad regime and loss of Russia’s two military (one naval) bases in Syria. For now the attempt at the former has succeeded but that against the latter remains an open question.
The U.S. has openly welcomed the revolutionary seizure of power, without explaining why the new regime should be expected to be any more humane than the Assad regime. Violent revolutions rarely end well. Given the predominant position within the alliance of jihadi, formerly jihadi, and Islamist groups, one would expect more caution. This is the tipoff that there was a U.S. role in this revolt as was the case back in 2011-2012. We see this in the following White House comment:
“This is a day for Syrians, about Syrians. It’s not about the United States or anyone else. It’s about the people of Syria who now have a chance to build a new country, free of the oppression and corruption of the Assad family and decades of misrule. We owe them support as they do so, and we are prepared to provide it. But the future of Syria, like the fall of Assad today, will be written by Syrians for Syrians.
Now, as the President stated, the fall of this regime is also a fundamental act of justice. It’s a moment of justice for the victims of this regime and a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria, and also, of course, a moment of risk and uncertainty, as he discussed”(www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2024/12/09/background-press-call-on-the-situation-in-syria/).
Note that the statement all but takes credit for the overthrow and supports the ‘new regime’. The Biden administration could not disclose its role, since supporting a U.S.-designated terrorist or terrorist group is illegal. The surrealism of the statement is compounded by the fact that there is as yet no regime or order in Syria to speak of, with different regions of Syria under the control of different members of the revolutionary united front. Indeed, the country seems poised to fall into multiple internecine wars. In such violent revolutionary situations, the radicals are best-positioned to win out. But U.S. democracy-promotion is a ‘science’ in which only the destructive process is well worked out. Consolidation of such a revolution by pro-republican forces remains a goal for which there is neither strategy nor tactics. Under the present lame duck, revenge-thirst Biden administration, there is little to no thought being given to the long-term consequences of policy. Only the short-term ‘gains’ of trumping Trump and complicating Putin’s life seem important.
The West’s (including NATO Turkey’s) goal for its new Syria project at a minimum is an asymmetrical, parallel escalation against Moscow on the order of the Kursk incursion but deployed internationally in order to force the Russians to divert some of its focus and resources from Ukraine or suffer a small strategic defeat. Indeed, Ukrainian forces are said to be fighting on the rebels’ side and providing drone warfare assistance (www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/world/middleeast/syria-rebel-offensive-iran-russia.html). This small strategic defeat – still limited by the fact that Russia as of now still holds onto its naval and air bases in Syria – is the price Washington has exacted from Moscow for its imminent victory in Ukraine.
At a maximum, it was hoped that the renewed conflict would evolve into a ‘color revolution’ costing Moscow not just war resources but also a ‘strategic defeat’ smaller than that which the West hoped to inflict on Moscow in Ukraine and thereby confirm the ‘right’ to eternal NATO expansion. Thus, the CIA and Pentagon reportedly armed 21 out of 28 anti-government Syrian and foreign militias refashioned by Turkish training into a mercenary “national army,” according to the Turkish think tank SETA. Many of these groups took part in this week’s assault on Aleppo (https://t.co/aw6ueXG7hG). Regardless of whether the minimum or maximum program is achieved, Washington hopes to exact a high cost for Moscow and thus increase Putin’s unwillingness to make compromises with Trump, as the president-elect pursues an end to the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War.
The military invasion’s main curator is NATO member Turkey, the president of which, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has dreams of a Greater Turkey and becoming the region’s superpower, while solving his Kurdish problem, centered in Iraq but bolstering the opposition in Syria. By invading Syria with proxy and Turkish forces, Erdogan was pursuing his own ‘small imperial’ goals, while serving both NATO’s fight in Ukraine against Russia and Washington’s support of Israel against the Palestinians, Hezbollah, and Iran. Turkey clearly played the lead role by organizing, training, and equipping the HTS-led revolutionary forces, likely with financing from Washington and Brussels. Thus, NATO is endorsing Turkish imperial or at least revanchist military action, even as it goes to war against Russia for what it regards as imperialist aggression in Ukraine.
Ankara’s goals were in fact likely manifold: to secure Turkey proper’s security by placing one of the building blocks in Syria for what is hoped might become a Greater Turkey, to weaken competitor Iran, and to position Ankara in future perhaps to confront an increasingly ambitious Israel as the leader of the Sunni world and, with Iran weakened, of the Muslim world. These goals are to be served by the operation, at a minimum, diverting Iran and Hezbollah from their fight with Israel in order to defend their Syrian ally—Assad’s Alawite regime – or, at a maximum, to deprive them of said ally. The U.S. likely informed Israel of the plan, and this may explain Netanyahu’s sudden acceptance of a ceasefire in southern Lebanon, despite failing to achieve a single of its goals there or in Gaza.
In response to the Turkish/NATO-backed jihadist/SFA offensive into Aleppo, both Iraq and Iran reinforced Syrian forces with thousands of troops and militia fighters after jihadi-led, Western-backed counteroffensive took Aleppo in late November, but the jihadi-led coalition’s rapid advance led to calling off the assistance. Thus, Damascus fell and so too the Assad regime. This violent ‘color revolution – completion of the initial American effort at the same beginning in 2011 — has been condemned by almost all the region’s leaders and the Arab League in support of Assad. We now are faced with the specter of Turkey, Turkish-backed entities, Kurds, Israel, the various revolutionary factions, remnants of the Assad regime’s army, and perhaps others fighting in Syria. The unprecedented rhetorical support by Iran and Arab and Sunni states for Syria, many of which backed anti-Assad rebels back in 2012 and later, is a result of the U.S.’s failed Mideast policies, in particular Washington’s support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza.
The specter of a breakdown of the revolutionary coalition, civil war, and chaos hangs over Syria. In such situations – as the French, Russian, Chinese, and other revolutions demonstrate – the extremists, in this case the HTS, most often have the edge, given their zealotry, ruthlessness, and willingness to deploy violence to achieve their aims. The blowback potential is high here, with U.S. and its allies vulnerable. Israel now is under threat of having a full-fledged jihadi state, backed by NATO outlier, Turkey, on its northeast border. NATO’s Turkey is also at risk of similar blowback over time and more immediately continued instability next door and on its border. In addition, a threat comes from the opportunities the Syrian chaos affords the Kurds, who already have used it to seize Deir ez-Zur in eastern Syria on the Iraqi border. America’s European allies now await more than a million refugees, fleeing from the jihadi revolutionaries. In terms of other regional players, not just Iran but predominantly Shiite Iraq may have problems with an emerging Sunni-dominated Syria next door.
For the U.S. itself, the risk of blowback appears to be limited for the most part to politics, unless the 1,000 troops illegally located there are drawn in, forcing incoming President Donald Trump to go against his inclination to avoid wars. The world is bound to see the enormous cynicism of American republican messianism, which condemns authoritarian governments but supports extremist oppositions in Syria, Ukraine (2014), and elsewhere. HTS amir Muhammad al-Jolani (Golani, Jawlani), was once a U.S. wanted terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head. Perhaps, some in Washington decided to use the same money to buy him off for this special operation, for Jolani is now being afforded CNN television interviews, where he portrays himself as a tolerant moderate, pursuing institution-building rather than the global caliphate (https://x.com/wikileaks/status/1865668192636657752; https://x.com/craigmurrayorg/status/1865663546773655991?s=51&t=n5DkcqsvQXNd3DfCRCwexQ; and https://x.com/maxblumenthal/status/1865077375601418656?s=51&t=n5DkcqsvQXNd3DfCRCwexQ). Time will tell. But recall how Russia’s intervention in Syria to support the Assad regime and regional stability was billed by the West as Putin sowing chaos by flooding Europe with refugees. Now when AQ- and ISIS-affiliated jihadists seize the country with support from Washington and Brussels and carry out a bloodbath and spark an even greater refugee crisis what will this be called? Among the Rest, such Western cynicism will only cement its support for Russia and China. More importantly, depending on resources and foci, a HTS regime could begin to target U.S. interests in another AQ-tied case of blowback for Americans.
Begun in part due to the overlap with the Ukrainian, the demise of Assad likely will create a new black hole in perhaps the world’s most explosive region. Unintended consequences of the overthrow of the Assad regime include: a strict Islamist regime in all or a rump of Syria, the partitioning of Syria, or a series of wars between factions that draws in neighboring and perhaps other states, and the partitioning of the Syrian state. The Syrian civil war is almost certain to continue in a new, more vigorous guise. Internecine warfare is already being regenerated between Kurds, on ther one hand, and the Turlkish-backed Syrian National Army in the northeast, between remants of the former regime and all those who overthrew it, including the jihadists such as HTS, between jihadists and the Free Syrain Army, and between other groups, including foreign forces such as the Israelis, Turks, Iranians, Iraqis, and soon perhaps others.
In terms of a partition, Israel has already seized the Golan Heights, and its troops have moved to within 20 miles of Damascus while decimating former Syria’s military infrastructure and weapons stores. Turkey and its proxies hold much of northern Syria and has increasingly less latent imperial dreams rooted in Ottoman nostalgia. Turkish TV has discussed a future map of Turkey’s expansion in 2025, which includes parts of Armenia, Georgia, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and the northern parts of Iraq and Syria(https://x.com/sprinterfamily/status/1866451863165624497?s=51&t=n5DkcqsvQXNd3DfCRCwexQ).
Ultimately, the Syrian black hole if it is not likely to, certainly has the potential to spinoff new wars involving Western allies, such as Israel and NATO’s Turkey, and foes, such as Iran, and fence-sitters, such as Iraq, which draw in the Ukrainian war’s participants and others once again. Despite the consolidating factor that is the recent Israeli military aggression, the tectonics of conflict between NATO Turkey and Russo-Sino-allied Iran could lead to a strategic earthquake. Should NATO Turkey and Russian-allied Iran somehow overcome their differences in the face of an Israeli advance on Damascus, the specter of a major regional war between Israel and the Muslims would hang over the Middle East–another bad outcome for another poor revolution. In this event, Western powers, on the one hand, and Russia and perhaps even China, could be drawn into the Middle East vortex.
On the other hand, a war between NATO Turkey and U.S.-backed Israel would be a peculiar and ironic twist of a higher order on the curious case during the Syria color revolution 1.0. Nearly a decade back when Pentagon-backed forces clashed with CIA-backed forces as the Islamic State rose in the desert sands of western Iraq and eastern Syria–two states touched by the hand of America’s curious mix of republican messianism and military adventurism. Suffice it to conclude by noting that Syria color revolution1.0 led directly to the rise of ISIS. Syrian color revolution bodes no better.
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NEW BOOK
EUROPE BOOKS, 2022
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RECENT BOOKS
MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2021
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MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2018
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About the Author –
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu
Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the “New Cold War” (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media.
Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group.