Month: December 2024
Winners and losers from Assad’s fall
The success of Syrians in deposing Bashar al Assad poses the question of who wins and who loses. Inside Syria, Hayat Tahrir al Sham is the big winner for now. It led the breakout from Idlib and inspired the many risings elsewhere in Syria.
There are lots of other countries that stand to win or lose something in the transition. Let’s assume Syria remains reasonably stable and its government basically inclusive and not vindictive, which appears to be HTS’ intention. We can try to guess the pluses and minuses for the rest of the world.
Turkiye is the big winner
In the region, Turkiye is the big winner. President Erdogan had been ready to negotiate with Assad, who refused to engage. Erdogan lost patience and backed a military outcome. He unleashed both Turkish proxies and HTS, which could not have armed and equipped itself adequately without Ankara’s cooperation. He does not control HTS 100%, especially now that it is in Damascus. But he will have a good deal of influence over its behavior. Let’s hope he uses it in the democratic and less religious direction. That however is the opposite of what he has been doing at home.
Erdogan has two primary goals in Syria. First is achieving enough stability there to allow many of the three million Syrian refugees in Turkiye to return. Returns will take time, but there is already a spontaneous flow back into Syria. The second is keeping the Syrian Kurds associated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) away from Turkiye’s border with Syria. Erdogan would also like its Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) dissolved. Or at least as far from power as possible.
Refugee returns look like a good bet. Disempowering the Kurds in eastern and northern Syria does not. They are well-established and cooperate closely with US forces in that area. Future President Trump will want to withdraw the Americans. But the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces will remain essential to fighting the Islamic State (IS). HTS, IS, and the PKK all carry the “terrorist” label in the US and Europe. But HTS and IS are rivals. HTS will want the Kurds to continue to fight IS. They will also be vital, at least temporarily, to preventing Iran from re-establishing a land route through Syria to Lebanon.
Israel wins and loses
The Israeli government would have preferred to see the Assad devil it knew stay in power. But his fall means the Iranians and their proxies will no longer be stationed along the northeastern border of Israel. The Israelis have already moved their troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone inside Syria. They didn’t want some known or unknown force filling that vacuum. That advance might give them a stronger position in future negotiations with Damascus, whenever those occur.
But Israelis have to be worried that a jihadist group led the overthrow of Assad. Ahmed al Sharaa, the birth name of HTS’s Abu Mohammed al Jolani, was born in Riyadh to Syrian parents. They were displaced from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The second Palestinian intifada motivated his conversion to jihad. It is hard to picture someone with that background more pliable than the impacable Assad on border and Palestinian issues. Jolani himself appears to have said little about Gaza or the Lebanon war. But some of his followers are clear about where they want to go next:
Lebanon and Jordan
Lebanon and Jordan, two key neighbors of Syria, can hope to be winners from the change of regime . Both will want to see Syrian refugees return home, as they were a strain on their economies. They will also stand to gain from reconstruction and eventually a more prosperous Syria.
Assad had been financing his government and his cronies with proceeds from the export of the stimulant Captagon. Decent people in both Beirut and Amman will welcome relief from that flood of poison into and through their societies. Some of their corrupted politicians may regret it.
Lebanon will have to reabsorb Hezbollah fighters who supported Assad. They will be a defeated and unhappy lot. But the Lebanese Army and state stand to gain from any weakening and demoralization of Hezbollah. Anyone serious in Beirut should see the current situation as an opportunity to strengthen both.
Iran and Russia are the biggest losers
Apart from Assad, Tehran and Moscow are the biggest losers. They backed Assad with people, force, money, and diplomacy. They are now thoroughly discredited.
Iran has already evacuated its personnel from Syria. Tehran has lost not only its best ally but also its land route to Lebanon.
Russia still has its bases. Almost any future Syrian government will have a hard time seeing what it gains from the Russian air force presence. Moscow’s air force brutalized Syrian civilians for almost 10 years. The air bases will no longer have utility even to Moscow. Moscow will prioritize keeping the naval base at Tartus, which is important for its Mediterranean operations.
The Gulf gains, Iraq loses
Gulf diplomacy was trying to normalize relations with Assad in the past year or two. But few Gulfies will mourn his regime, provided stability is maintained. Qatar may be more pleased than Saudi Arabia or Abu Dhabi. The Saudis and Emiratis are less tolerant of political Islam. Nor do they like to see regimes fall. Qatar is more comfortable with political change, including of the Islamist variety.
Iraq’s Shia-dominated government loses a companion in Damascus. It won’t welcome a Sunni-dominated government in Damascus. But Baghdad, like the Gulf, is unlikely to mourn the fall of Assad. He did his damnedest to make life difficult for Iraqis after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The United States and Europe gain but will need to ante up
The US and Europe have long viewed Assad as a regrettable but necessary evil. They hesitated to bring him down for fear of what might come next. Now they need to step up and fund Syria’s recovery, mainly through the IMF and the World Bank. They will want Gulf money invested as well. The best way to get that is for them to ante up matching funds.
That is also the best way for them to gain leverage over the political settlement. If they want an inclusive outcome, they’ll need to be ready to pay for it. Hesitation could open the door to malicious influence.
Let the Syrians decide
That said, the details of the political settlement should be left to the Syrians. They will need to write a new constitution and eventually hold elections. The extensive constitutional discussions the UN has hosted for a decade may offer some enlightenment on what Syrians want. Just as important in my view is how the new powers that be handle property issues. Only if property rights are clearly established and protected can Syria’s economy revive. But who rightfully owns what and what to do about destroyed property are complicated and difficult issues.
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Will Syria stay together or fragment?
One of the threats to Syria now that Assad has fallen is fragmentation. In my experience, all Syrians say they want to preserve the country and its borders. But the conflicts among them and with neighboring countries can foil that goal and lead to partition.
The pieces of the puzzle
Syria’s population is mixed. Ninety per cent of its population is Arab. The rest is mainly Kurdish and Turkmen. More than 70% of Syrians are Sunni Muslim. But there are also various denominations of Christians as well as Alawites, Druze, Ismailis, Shiites and others. Damascus was thoroughly mixed. Several concentrations of Kurds were found along the northern border with Turkey, along with Turkmen and Arabs. The Alawite “homeland” was in the western, Mediterranean provinces of Tartous and Latakis. But they were a plurality and not a majority there. More Sunnis have sought refuge there, as under Bashar al Assad, an Alawite, those provinces were relatively safe.
The war is superimposing on this hodge-podge an additional dimension: military control of territory. Hayat Tahrir al Sham, the leader of the uprising, will control much of Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, and Homs. Turkey and its surrogates will control most of the northern border. They are trying to push Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) east of the Euphrates, an area the SDF already dominates. Other opposition forces will be in charge of the south and the Jordanian border. The Druze have long maintained their insular community in Suwayda. It is unclear who will dominate Damascus. The southerners are arriving there first, but it is hard to picture HTS settling for second fiddle there.
There are no clear pre-existing regional lines along which Syria might fragment, except for the provincial boundaries. But those do not generally correspond to ethnic or religious divisions. The pieces of the puzzle do not fit together. They overlap and melt into each other.
The divisive forces
That would be a good reason to avoid fragmentation. Homogenization of ethnic groups on specific territory would require an enormous amount of ethnic “cleansing.” Ordinary Syrians don’t want that. But there will be forces at work that might make it happen.
The Turkmen/Kurdish conflict has already removed a lot of Kurds from Afrin in the northwest and border areas farther east. Ankara backs the Turkmen and wants to prevent Kurdish access to Türkiye. This is because the Syrian Kurds have supported Kurdish rebels inside Türkiye. The Kurds have built their own governing institutions in eastern Syria. They might seek independence if they get an unsatisfactory political outcome at the end of the war.
The Alawites of Tartous and Latakia are dreading revenge from the rest of Syria for mistreatment under the Assad dictatorship. They could try to set up their own statelet, perhaps even attaching it to Lebanon. They could also try to chase the Sunni Arab population out, while importing as many Alawites as possible from Damascus. Many there served the Assad regime and will want out.
The unifying forces
Syria’s neighbors won’t want a breakup. Türkiye has the most clout because of its presence in Syria and support for HTS. Ankara will oppose even autonomy for the Kurds. Jordan and Iraq have less clout, but they won’t want fragmentation either. Nor will Russia and Iran, which supported Assad and are big losers due to his fall. Ditto Israel and the United States, which would fear radicalization of any rump Syria if its Kurds or Alawites secede. Israel doesn’t want a jihadist entity on its northern border.
HTS and other opposition forces will also resist fragmentation. They want to govern all of Syria, not a part of it. HTS has moderated its attitude toward non-Arab and non-Sunni Muslims. It has also tried to minimize revenge and has emphasized continuity of the Syrian state. But HTS is an authoritarian movement, not a democratic one. It remains to be seen how it will behave in practice.
The obvious solutions
The obvious solution is decentralization. Devolving authority to provincial and municipal institutions offers minorities opportunities to govern themselves, or strongly influence how they are governed. The Alawites and Kurds might be satisfied with decentralization, provided they also get reasonable representation at the national level. The Kurds already have their own institutions. Some non-Kurdish opposition areas in Syria have used local councils for governance since the 2011 uprising against Assad.
There are also power-sharing arrangements that can assuage minority concerns at the national level and lower levels. Quotas in parliament, reserved positions in the state hierarchy, and qualified majority voting in parliament or local councils. I’m not an enthusiast for these, as they often entrench ethnic warlords, but sometimes they prove necessary.
Syrians may invent mechanisms I haven’t considered. In any event it is they who should decide. The country will need a new constitution, then in due course elections. The existing road map for Syria’s political process is UN Security Council resolution 2254, which Assad stymied. HTS and the rest of the opposition can revive it and gain international support by doing so.
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He talks the talk, will he walk the walk?
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al Sham, is on a roll. His forces are leading a breakout from Idlib province that has now taken two major cities, Aleppo and Hama. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) forces of Bashar al Assad have retreated from both. HTS and its allies are now on the outskirts of Homs. Kurdish forces have evicted the SAA from Deir ez-Zur and environs. Other opposition forces are in the process of liberating Daraa and Suwayda south of Damascus. Once Homs falls, Damascus and the western provinces of Latakia and Tartous will be at risk. Assad is unlikely to stick around to see how they fare.
That’s the good news
Aaron Zelin, a leading expert on HTS, writes of al-Jolani’s governance in northwest Syria:
There’s nothing liberal about the polity he’s built in Idlib. They may have built institutions, but it’s still authoritarian. And he’s literally a leader above the law because technically he has no official position in the Salvation Government.
HTS is a descendant of the Islamic State of Iraq a as well as Al Qaeda. But Al-Jolani has tried for years to project a more moderate image internationally. And in recent days he has voiced and shown respect for Syria’s enormous diversity, which includes Christians of various sorts, Kurds, Shiites, Alawites and others. But there is no guarantee that he will continue in that vein once Assad is gone. Nor is political pluralism something he has practiced while governing in Idlib. Citizens there are not entirely free to criticize.
Uncertainty
Al-Jolani’s preferences are not the only uncertainty looming over Syria. Its economy is devastated. Its social fabric is in tatters. The Assad regime has been depending on income from drug trafficking. Russia and Iran (as well as its Lebanese Hezbollah allies and Shiite proxies) have been vital to the regime’s survival. Ukraine has weakened the former and Israel has battered the other. Even if they wanted to, they might not be capable of propping up Assad. Moscow has removed its warships from their base in Syria. Iran is evacuating its people.
Turkiye has been vital to HTS success. But Ankara’s primary interest in Syria is not liberating it from Assad. The Turks want the more than two million refugees it hosts to return south and Kurdish forces to keep away from its border. Turkiye may not support HTS’s desire to go all the way to Damascus.
The Americans and Gulfies are looking on in amazement. It is not clear whether they will support an HTS-led government, but there may be no better option. They don’t want Syria to break up. HTS might be the only thing capable of holding it together.
Israel will not welcome a jihadist state on its northern border. It might try to prop up Assad or an unworthy successor.
It could still go bad
HTS has had a relatively easy time of it. SAA resistance could stiffen. Infighting among rebel groups could lead to splits. The Kurds in particular will resent the Turkish proxies, who are chasing Kurdish forces and some civilians east of the Euphrates.
The Islamic State could take advantage of the chaos in Syria to re-emerge from its hiding places in the central desert.
HTS or other “opposition” atrocities against civilians could turn the population and the internationals against the liberators. After winning, HTS could return to its extremist roots. Or it could decide to take up the Palestinian cause and align with Hamas, turning off aid from the US and EU. Even without that, the internationals might fail to provide the assistance a liberated Syria will require.
Celebrate now, but prepare for later
Syrians are of course correct to celebrate now. HTS is liberating people who have been unjustly imprisoned for a decade and more. But they should also keep a keen eye on their liberators. Trading one autocrat for another, even a less pernicious one, would not be a worthy outcome.
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Make Kosovo and Bosnia Greater!
Biden Administration policy in the Balkans has been a failure. Kosovo and Serbia have continued their dialogue but with only minor results. The political normalization the US and EU aimed for is further off than in 2020. Bosnia’s constitutional arrangement is inconsistent with the European Union membership the country nominally seeks. The Serb and Croat nationalists who have vetoes over its politics prefer a state well-fed with EU funds but unable to enforce the rule of law.
Appeasement hasn’t worked
Mistaken policy is the root of these failures. Biden’s State Department chose to appease Belgrade, the biggest country in the Western Balkans by both population and area. Officials who like to repeat those factoids hoped Serbia would choose alignment with the West. They thought that would pull Bosnia in the right direction.
Appeasement hasn’t worked. Belgrade instead has pocketed Biden’s support and aligned Serbia with Russia and China. While selling ammunition to Ukraine and buying French warplanes, Belgrade has been re-arming mainly with Chinese and Russian equipment and supplying Russia with electronic components. Serbia, which has an official policy of military neutrality, has refused to align with EU sanctions on Russia.
Belgrade has also adopted irredentist goals. It seeks to establish a “Serbian world,” analogous to Moscow’s “Russian world.” That would unify the Serb populations of neighboring countries in a single de facto if not de jure political space. Montenegro has already joined up, the result of elections in which Belgrade and Moscow weighed in heavily. Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, its Serb-dominated 49%, is dependent on Russia and increasingly part of the Serbian world. Belgrade aims to incorporate the Serbs of northern Kosovo as well.
Creeping authoritarianism is the result
To compensate for its lean toward Serbia, the State Department also chose to mollify Albania, the second largest country in the Western Balkans. State Department officials hoped that would pull Kosovo in a more malleable direction.
Albania is a NATO member and has remained loyal to the Alliance. But its Prime Minister is a political rival of Kosovo’s Prime Minister. Their political competition has prevented any positive impact of Washington’s coddling of the former and antagonism toward the latter. But American favor towards Albania’s Prime Minister has enabled him to establish a de facto monopoly on power. He has fragmented and disempowered the opposition. Corruption is rampant.
Something similar has also occurred in Serbia, whose President has obliterated the opposition. The US and EU rarely speak out against corruption or abuse of power in Serbia. The security forces regularly beat and brutalize protesters. Brussels and Washington nevertheless consistently advocate for Belgrade’s priorities. They have bent over backwards to support lithium mining in Serbia that the Serbian environmental movement opposes. This despite the existence of bigger lithium deposits in both North and South America.
The right policy direction
The approach of the first Trump Administration to the Balkans favored partition of Kosovo, which would have also resulted in partition of Bosnia. That would have rewarded Serbia and Russia. The effort failed. The new American administration should not repeat that mistake.
It should also recognize the failures of the Biden Administration. That should not be hard. They are glaring: too much support for Belgrade and Tirana, too little attention to corruption and rule of law. And too little support for the sovereignty of Bosnia and Kosovo.
A realistic assessment of geopolitics in the Balkans should guide a change in policy. Serbia and Montenegro have aligned with Russia. They willingly help Moscow destabilize the rest of the Balkans. Serbia and Montenegro are also major recipients of Chinese financing. Kosovo and Albania remain pro-American and prepared to resist both Russian and Chinese malfeasance.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is split. The Dayton peace treaty gave it a constitution that enables Republika Srpska and its Croat nationalist leadership to align with Russia while the Bosniak and its relatively weak non-nationalist Croat leadership remains staunchly anti-Russian.
The right policy direction for the Trump Administration is towards helping America’s friends and undermining its adversaries.
Pristina and Sarajevo are frontline states in the geopolitical rivalry with Russia and China. But Kosovo and Bosnia are both still weak states. They need to consolidate their state sovereignty. Washington and Brussels should help with that. They merit military, intelligence, financial, and political support.
The Americans and Europeans should tone down support for Belgrade and Tirana. They should no longer ignore corruption in Albania and Serbia. Brussels and Washington should publicly criticize infringement on human rights and democratic norms. They should cut back financing.
This won’t be easy
It sounds easy enough, but there is a complication. During the past four years, Belgrade has assiduously courted former President Trump, his family, and his supporters. Jared Kushner is investing Saudi money in Serbian real estate development. If personal connections prevail, there is little hope for a good change of US policy in the Balkans.
But both Secretary of State-designate Rubio and National Security Advisor-designate Kellogg are not part of this real estate cabal, so far as I know. They should be amenable to the argument that America should be good to its friends. Rubio has supported Kosovo in the past. Kellogg won’t want instability in the Balkans while the US tries to settle the Ukraine war. Partition of Bosnia or Kosovo would reward Russian aggression.
Trump himself might like the notion of shoring up sovereignty of America’s friends in the Balkans. Neither Bosnia nor Kosovo has ever been “great.” But making them greater is still a worthy cause.
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Who should the US back in Syria?
The rapid advance in the past week of Syrian opposition forces raises difficult questions for the United States. The leadership of those forces lies with Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), a designated terrorist group. The US already cooperates with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which include Syrian Kurds aligned with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). It is also a designated terrorist group that operates inside Turkey. Turkey backs opposition forces in Syria generally termed the Syrian National Army (SNA), which control Afrin under the command of the Turkish Army.
Too many friends
The US cooperates with the SDF because it helps fight against the Islamic State (IS), still another designated terrorist group. HTS has also been effective against IS as well as Al Qaeda in the territory it has controlled for several years in northwestern Syria.
HTS’ leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, has been trying for years to soften his group’s jihadist rhetoric. He has sent messages in recent days to Syrian Christians, Kurds, and Alawites suggesting that they will not be mistreated in HTS-controlled territory. He has also indicated HTS will step back from governance, which it will delegate to an interim authority with broad representation. Its Syrian Salvation Government in Idlib province has administered the territory HTS controls there for several years.
Turkiye, a NATO ally, is unhappy that the Americans cooperate with the Kurdish-led SDF. Washington has tried to soften Ankara’s attitude toward the Syrian Kurds for years, to no avail. Turkiye wants the SDF pushed east of the Euphrates River and at least 30 kilometers from the Turkish border. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds are said to be on the move.
Israel, another de facto US ally, won’t be happy to see jihadists conquering Syria. The damage Israel has wreaked on President Assad’s Syrian Arab Army, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iranian forces is one of the reasons HTS has been able to advance, but Netanyahu is not going to be greeting al-Julani with open arms. He, and perhaps Biden, had hopes that Assad would cut, or at least diminish, his ties to Iran.
So how should the US lean in this complicated situation? With the Turks against the SDF? That isn’t possible without abandoning the fight against IS. With HTS against Assad? That would risk helping a group the Israelis fear may have less benign intentions than its current behavior suggests. With Assad against HTS? That could wreck prospects for a transition in Syria that the US has backed for more than a decade. It would also preserve an ally of Russia and Iran who has brutalized his own population.
Creating new options
If the current options don’t look good, perhaps the right approach is to create new ones. America doesn’t have enough troops in Syria (maybe 1500, depending on how you count) to command the situation. But Washington could lean one way or another to open up better options. This could be better than the current policy paralysis, which has failed to take advantage of a situation that could spell defeat for Russia and Iran.
The Turkish-backed forces in Syria want to chase the Kurds from Manbij, on the western side of the Euphrates. That is a fight that could split the opposition to Assad and give him a new lease on power. The US should encourage the Kurds to withdraw east of the Euphrates and duck a fight they are not likely to win.
The Syrian Arab Army (Assad’s army) will want to withdraw its forces from central Syria to meet these threats. There are still IS remnants in central Syria. The US should press SDF, after withdrawal form Manbij, to fill this vacuum and continue its fight against IS.
HTS and its allies today took Hama, south of Aleppo. Both Homs and the Mediterranean provinces of Tartous and Latakia, where many Alawites live, are now at risk. Risings against Assad could facilitate HTS takeovers. Damascus could be next.
The US could communicate to HTS that Washington would be willing to see creation of an interim government not only in Aleppo but also at the national level. Washington could then work with that government, provided it behaves in a civilized way, rather than HTS directly, in planning for the future of Syria.
What does the US gain?
Success of the rebellion against Assad would be a serious defeat for Russia and Iran, which have backed Assad through more than 13 years of civil war. It would be foolish to imagine the result will be Western-style democracy. But even an outcome (without all the interim steps please!) like Iraq’s current non-autocratic mishmash would be better than the homicidal regime that has governed Syria since the rebellion started in 2011.
PS: And Assad comes down:
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Assad is imploding, but it’s not over yet
With Russia preoccupied in Ukraine and Iran weakened, Syria’s President Bashar al Assad is now under siege. The forces opposing him include both Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) and Turkish-supported rebel groups. Opposition forces in several Syrian provinces are joining the fray, as are the Syrian Democratic
Forces. HTS and the Turks have been governing in Syria’s northwest Idlib and Afrin provinces. The Syrian Democratic Forces are affiliated with Kurdish institutions that govern in much of the east.
How far, how fast?
The HTS offensive has moved fast and far. It controls most of Aleppo, Syria’s largest or second largest city depending on how you count. HTS has also evacuated Kurdish forces from Aleppo and advanced south to the outskirts of Hama. In the meanwhile, the Turkish-supported groups have chased Kurds from their strongholds in Aleppo province. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Kurdish led but partly Arab manned, have evicted Iranian and Shia militias from the east.
The question is whether rebel forces can sustain their momentum and move further south to Hama and Homs. So far, there has been little fighting. The Syrian Army is evaporating. It is poorly staffed, trained, and equipped after more than 13 years of fighting rebels. After hesitating at first, Russian air attacks are now battering rebel-held territory, including civilian targets. Lebanese Hezbollah, a major Iranian-supported factor in Syria, has let it be known it will not send more forces. Israel has battered Hezbollah badly in both Lebanon and Syria.
The quandaries
For the US and EU, these sudden developments pose a difficult issue. They don’t like Assad and have maintained vigorous sanctions against him. But they also don’t like HTS, which is a spinoff from Al Qaeda. And Washington won’t want the Turkish-supported forces beating up on the SDF. They have been helpful in fighting remnants of the Islamic State in eastern Syria.
Israel has its own issues. It did not mind the Assad devil it knew and won’t want a jihadist state in Syria. But if he falls, the Israelis will be happy to see Iran and its proxies disappear from their border. And they will want some cred with whoever takes over. In the past they have been supportive to at least some of the opposition to Assad.
The endgame
HTS is trying hard to project a more tolerant image than many jihadists. It has reached out to the Kurds:
HTS has sought to justify its more tolerant approach (translation from a Tweet by Aaron Zelin):
The jihad in Syria has the duty to repel the attacks of the Assad regime. It is part of sharia politics that the mujahidin in Syria should only fight those who fight them, and refrain from attacking those who refrain from attacking them, and strive to disperse the enemies and reduce them.
Assad will have well-equipped, loyal forces defending Damascus. But if HTS takes Hama and Homs, he won’t have much country left. Opposition forces are rising in the south even as the SDF clears regime forces and its allies from the east. The western, Mediterranean coast would still be his, but vulnerable.
The greatest threat to the opposition forces will arise if Turkiye unleashes its proxies against the Kurds. That would divide the opposition and provide an opportunity for Assad to complicate the fight. He might try to strike a deal with the Kurds. Assad is imploding, but it isn’t over yet.
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