Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan must be delighted about what is unfolding in Syria, though it is a feeling bound to be tempered by swiftly changing circumstances. Iran’s Shia proxies have been weakened by relentless Israeli targeting and bombing. Russia’s eyes and resources are turned towards war in Ukraine. With reports that Syrian rebel groups are now fighting on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, the Assad regime looks frail, its leader either in hiding or evacuated.
In the salad mix of jihadis, nationalists, and run of the mill mercenaries, Turkey’s hand looms large. It’s intervention in Syria’s conflict was motivated by two main goals: the containment, if not elimination of Kurdish militants in northern Syria, seen as indistinguishable from their PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) counterparts in Turkey itself, and creating conditions of stability or “safe zones” that would enable a return of Syrian refugees when feasible.
Since August 2016, Turkey has made three incursions seizing parts of Syria’s north, imposing an occupation using regular troops and auxiliary forces including the Syrian National Army (SNA) and a coalition of groups comprising former Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters. In 2018, the Military Police was established by both Turkish authorities and the Syrian Interim Government (SIG), a force ostensibly intended to protect the civilian population. Instead, this period of Turkish rule has been marked by brutality, repression and sheer neglect.
In its February 2024 report, Human Rights Watch documented instances of abductions, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions (these include children), sexual violence and torture. The perpetrators spanned elements of the SNA, the Military Police, members of the Turkish Armed Forces, the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT), and various military intelligence directorates. To this colourfully gruesome range of cruelties can be added the abuse of property rights, looting, pillaging, confiscation of property, extortion and the absence of any consistent system of restitution.
The group enduring the heaviest burden of suffering are Kurdish residents, notably those that had received protection from the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) comprising the People’s Protection Unit (Yekineyen Parastina Gel, YPG), and the Women’s Protection Unit (Yekineyen Parastina Jin). These forces proved crucial in countering the Islamic State (ISIS) group. In October this year, Erdoğa reiterated the long held view that such Kurdish protective units were merely “the Syrian branch of the PKK terror group, destined to be abandoned, left isolated.” Arabs and other groups seen as having links to the SDF and the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (AANES), have also been targets of Turkish-led ire.
The SNA is no friend of the headline grabbing Islamist outfit, Hayat Tahrir-al Sham (HTS), the primary spear in the lighting operation against the Assad regime. HTS has marketed itself as a self-sufficient, modern, more considered group, less fire and brimstone from its al-Qaeda and al-Nusra iterations and supposedly more tolerant to other religions, sects and views. Its leader, Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani, has managed to receive praise and plaudits in the Western media for that change, despite his listing by the US State Department as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” worthy of a $10 million reward to anyone willing to offer information leading to his capture.
Even on the progress of HTS, Turkish influence cannot be discounted, despite Ankara eschewing open support for the group. As Fuad Shahbazov, writing for the Stimson Center remarks, the recent advances of HTS “would have been unthinkable without Turkey’s military and logistical backing, and provision of advanced weaponry.” It has also been suggested that Ankara gave a nod of approval to the offensive led by HTS after it failed to secure a rapprochement with Assad.
Erdoğan’s statements on the advance show a slippery mind in operation. On December 6, he told reporters after Friday prayers that the target of the offensive was evidently Damascus. “I would say we hope for this advance to continue without any issues.” But he also expressed the view that these advances were “problematic” and “not in a manner we desire.” While not elaborating on that point, it could be gleaned from the remarks that he is concerned about various “terrorist organisations” operating in the rebel forces.
The next day, the Turkish President decided to be lofty in his assessment as the rebels entered the suburbs of Homs. “There is now a new reality in Syria, politically and diplomatically,” he declared in a speech delivered in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep. “And Syria belongs to Syrians with all its ethnic, sectarian and religious elements.”
In keeping with the views of other leaders responsible for intervening in the affairs of another state, Erdoğan spoke of Syrian independence as viable, the will of its people as inviolable. “The people of Syria are the ones who will decide the future of their own country.” He hoped that the country would “quickly regain the peace, stability, and tranquillity it has been longing for 13 years.” He went on to remark that “responsible actors and all international organisations” should support the preservation of the state’s territorial integrity.
The audacity of such statements does nothing to conceal the sectarian and ethnic dangers unfolding at the end of this Ankara-sponsored mission. The fall of Bashir al-Assad will imperial Shia communities and do even more harm to the Kurds, leaving the door open for Salafism. The rebel groups, only united by the common cause of overthrowing Assad, may well find battling each other hard to avoid. As for the territorial integrity Erdoğan speaks of, Turkish officialdom and policy will never wear it short of any number of guarantees Ankara is bound to extort on hefty terms. And as for refugees? Expect many more to gush out in desperation.
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Can’t help but feel we’re on the cusp of WW3.
The Ottomans left behind something in the historical/social/political soil worse than anthrax. (we can consider the British and French later) And, few here understand the complexities of Sunni and Shia attitudes and inter relationships. War and trouble, big or small seems certain for ages. From the Mediterranean to the borders of Thailand, there is a huge strip of strife, ready to ooze blood, of the innocents. Superstition driven wilfulness, righteousness, supremacist irritability surges. (sags and sighs)
Not to be too celebratory about the fact of geographical isolation, and not to forget also, or ignore, the fact of the objectively awful circumstances and conditions confronting millions of our fellow humans, cousins all, with our shared ancestry of being the bipedal hominid that emerged from the East African rift to ultimately develop that uniquely human piece of physiology known as the cerebral cortex – which in turn enabled the evolution of thought, speech, imagination, acculturation and the development of civilisation globally – but when considered, all in all, the current state of play on the earth’s six continents (ignoring for the moment, Antarctica), Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and ours, Australia, we have a lot to be thankful for, local issues notwithstanding (and there are many, as any rudimentary reflection reveals).
But at least we’re not at war, or facing societal collapse, or riven by natural and human-made calamities. As Harry Lime might suggest, there’s shit that hits the fan and then there’s Big Shit that hits the fan and we humans, suckers for giving ourselves and all those around us a hard time, might yet again make the most tragic and damaging of all mistakes and trip over into global conflagration. Sabre-rattling and gorilla-like breast-beating aside, the Doomsday Clock is still dangerously close to midnight. Keep Einstein’s thoughts on this topic in mind, regarding sticks and rocks for WW4.
Harry, i think we have moved back 2 feet and stepped forward 1 from doomsday.
Russia has effectively been eliminated as a threat. China is having second thoughts about invading Taiwan and the middle east is about to blow up again. China will be having a good look at how much of eastern russian they can grab.
The middle east is again a hotbed of disruption, and you wonder why so many of its leaders seem to think “…let them eat cake..” was a prerequisite for grabbing power. And we the fools propped them up.
There is a recogning coming… no more no less. The EV revolution will not leave the Saudi unscathed.
Israel will continue to be a blackhole until the palestinian issue is resolved. But it looks like they have empire ambitions at the moment. Dont be surprised if they take a chunk of syria…as a buffer zone.
The one constant is how soldiers turn and run when the money runs out.
Many ‘anti-imperialists’ in the Anglosphere seem disappointed when Putin & allies or proxies are given a bloody nose…..along with the US fossil fueled right eg Koch Network and MAGA; why Europeans, esp left, look at far away Anglos with despair and eye rolls…..
Ha, the endless babble of stylized enlightenment, all seriousness and smiles, behind which lays deadly recourse, just like the deceptions of maddened chimpanzees. The ‘West’ and the Ottomans et al (and their proxies) have been at it for millennia. And in that, death and destruction remains the same.
As does the quest for wealth, power and dominion.
The Assad rule of Syria has ended with Bashar and family fleeing to the welcoming arms of best buddy Vlad.
But will that be an end to the brutal quelling of dissent or could it be a toss up as to who the better devil may be, the one we had or the one replacing him?
The fractious religious environment of the middle east does not hold out much hope for a peaceful resolution any time soon. Squabbling between the various sects and the rise and rise of fundamentalism has the potential to cause more grief in an already tortured land.
The power vacuum in Syria has many actors waiting in then wings to fill it, each with their own brand of religious rule and it’s own take of interpreting of the various religious law to impose on the Syrian people. If it comes to a power sharing agreement, will Lebanon set the standard for responsible shared governance? Or will the people be given a chance to have a say, a form of democracy? In Lebanon that has worked really well… hasn’t it?
For now lawlessness rules as the Presidential Palace is looted and the statues and posters of the Assad’s are removed, destroyed, the family expunged from view, the memory erased… for now, until a new despot or corrupt ruling elite takes control.
Will the Syrian people ever have their say?
I think there are some serious doubts that that will happen.
Bert you might be interested in a recent commentary by Craig Murray (republished on P&I).
Among other things, Murray notes: “This also spells the end for Lebanon and Syria’s Christian communities, as witness the tearing down of all Christmas decorations, the smashing of all alcohol and the forced imposition of the veil on women in Aleppo now.”
[ https://johnmenadue.com/the-end-of-pluralism-in-the-middle-east/ ]
Thank you Julian, I agree with the article, it does not look good.
A friend is from Lebanon, Christian. He has tried for twelve years to get his father out of Beirut, perhaps this will be the catalyst required.