Thoughts on Syria -
https://x.com/ArmchairW/status/1865865295669166240
Thoughts on Syria - having observed the situation closely for the last two weeks I feel confident enough to comment on what exactly unfolded and what we should expect to see going forward.
1. Machiavelli admonished princes to trust their own arms and avoid foreign auxiliaries. Bashar al-Assad - one of the few men on Earth who could have used that advice directly and in the way that it was originally intended to be taken - did not heed him. Instead, Assad was always soliciting foreign powers to come in and fight his battles for him while trying to balance and play off those foreign sponsors against each other. First Iran, then Russia, and lately flirting with the Gulf Arabs.
Meanwhile the Syrian Arab Army languished as a second or third-line fighting force in its own country. Given the crack performances we've seen lately from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Ansar Allah in Yemen, all of whom had far fewer resources to work with, the SAA's collapse is simply inexcusable and indicative of either absolutely systematic rot or a grand betrayal of Assad by its leadership. In light of that it's unsurprising that his foreign sponsors washed their hands of his regime.
2. The Iranians decided to leave Assad to his fate for a reason. Not only did Assad contribute nothing to their "Axis of Resistance" project to develop regional proxies against Israel, he was actually a drain on the scheme - not lifting a finger against Israel in the last year while expecting Hezbollah to commit troops and resources to buttress the SAA. Meanwhile he was also seeking to realign Syria with the Arab states and distance himself from Iran. The price for an extremely tenuous land bridge into the Golan to facilitate a direct, conventional Iranian military assault on Israel (with an approximately 0% chance of success), was simply too high.
Meanwhile Iran has demonstrated a hypersonic strike capability against Israel, probably has nuclear weapons, is developing an alliance with Russia, retains "productive" proxy forces in Yemen and Lebanon, and is going to be the man behind the curtain in Iraq for the foreseeable future. They'll be fine.
3. Need be the Russians will re-base their Syrian detachment to Eastern Libya or something. They'll also be fine. With the Dardanelles closed in wartime the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean largely exists as a prestige project rather than a serious sea control force in any event.
4. The Turkish proxy army in Syria is Al Qaeda with the serial numbers filed off. Any portion of Syria these people end up ruling independently - without Turkey swooping in and directly annexing the place - is going to turn into a jihadist nightmare that will generate terror, refugees, and regional instability on a scale not seen since ISIS raised the black flag a decade ago. Furthermore it is highly unlikely that these people will remain under Erdogan's thumb and reliably subject to his orders now that they're not totally dependent on him for their survival. Jihadis cannot be trusted, they cannot be tamed, and they cannot be reformed.
5. The Kurds are going to lose big in this. Turkey will squash them, and the US will look on and do nothing.
6. None of this is particularly helpful to Israel, which now faces either the prospect of ISIS 2.0 squatting over the Golan border or, alternately, the very capable and potentially very hostile Turkish military in the same direction. Netanyahu's crowing about supposedly defeating an "enemy" that hadn't fought with Israel in generations is idiotic. He needs to worry about staying out of jail after somehow managing to hazard Israel into its greatest crisis since 1948 fighting a bloody, protracted war against (checks notes) a third of Palestine.
1. Machiavelli admonished princes to trust their own arms and avoid foreign auxiliaries. Bashar al-Assad - one of the few men on Earth who could have used that advice directly and in the way that it was originally intended to be taken - did not heed him. Instead, Assad was always soliciting foreign powers to come in and fight his battles for him while trying to balance and play off those foreign sponsors against each other. First Iran, then Russia, and lately flirting with the Gulf Arabs.
Meanwhile the Syrian Arab Army languished as a second or third-line fighting force in its own country. Given the crack performances we've seen lately from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Ansar Allah in Yemen, all of whom had far fewer resources to work with, the SAA's collapse is simply inexcusable and indicative of either absolutely systematic rot or a grand betrayal of Assad by its leadership. In light of that it's unsurprising that his foreign sponsors washed their hands of his regime.
2. The Iranians decided to leave Assad to his fate for a reason. Not only did Assad contribute nothing to their "Axis of Resistance" project to develop regional proxies against Israel, he was actually a drain on the scheme - not lifting a finger against Israel in the last year while expecting Hezbollah to commit troops and resources to buttress the SAA. Meanwhile he was also seeking to realign Syria with the Arab states and distance himself from Iran. The price for an extremely tenuous land bridge into the Golan to facilitate a direct, conventional Iranian military assault on Israel (with an approximately 0% chance of success), was simply too high.
Meanwhile Iran has demonstrated a hypersonic strike capability against Israel, probably has nuclear weapons, is developing an alliance with Russia, retains "productive" proxy forces in Yemen and Lebanon, and is going to be the man behind the curtain in Iraq for the foreseeable future. They'll be fine.
3. Need be the Russians will re-base their Syrian detachment to Eastern Libya or something. They'll also be fine. With the Dardanelles closed in wartime the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean largely exists as a prestige project rather than a serious sea control force in any event.
4. The Turkish proxy army in Syria is Al Qaeda with the serial numbers filed off. Any portion of Syria these people end up ruling independently - without Turkey swooping in and directly annexing the place - is going to turn into a jihadist nightmare that will generate terror, refugees, and regional instability on a scale not seen since ISIS raised the black flag a decade ago. Furthermore it is highly unlikely that these people will remain under Erdogan's thumb and reliably subject to his orders now that they're not totally dependent on him for their survival. Jihadis cannot be trusted, they cannot be tamed, and they cannot be reformed.
5. The Kurds are going to lose big in this. Turkey will squash them, and the US will look on and do nothing.
6. None of this is particularly helpful to Israel, which now faces either the prospect of ISIS 2.0 squatting over the Golan border or, alternately, the very capable and potentially very hostile Turkish military in the same direction. Netanyahu's crowing about supposedly defeating an "enemy" that hadn't fought with Israel in generations is idiotic. He needs to worry about staying out of jail after somehow managing to hazard Israel into its greatest crisis since 1948 fighting a bloody, protracted war against (checks notes) a third of Palestine.
posted by Satish Sharma at
04:36
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