Author: Maurizio Vezzosi – 11/12/2024
The Assad era is over, not the great war in the Middle East – 10/12/2024
With the flight of Bashar al Assad to Moscow, the history of the Syrian Arab Republic born with the end of the French colonial mandate ends. The offensive of the militias supported by Turkey managed to reach Damascus in a matter of days, thanks to the Israeli air cover that for months, and even years, has bombed Syria and the now terminal weakness of Assad. What the anti-government militias have not been able to do in over ten years of civil war has been accomplished in a week. The Israeli forces are continuing to attack the infrastructure of the now ex-Syrian army, advancing in the Golan Heights area – calling the new occupation area a “buffer zone” – and destroying infrastructure – such as the port of Latakia – research and industrial centers with air strikes. At the same time, the attacks of the militias supported by Turkey are concentrating on the areas controlled by the Kurdish forces. The picture, still opaque, allows us to glimpse at least for the moment the greater Israeli, Turkish, British and American success achieved in the area in recent years. In addition to Damascus, the forces supported by Turkey would already be in control of Tartus, a coastal city where the Russian naval base is located. The connection of the Syrian events with all the other crises in the Middle East – above all, the Palestinian one – is clear: no less clear is the connection of these with the Biden-Trump transition. Whether this is yet another move by the Biden administration designed to influence the successor, a move aimed at anticipating the policy of the new administration or a “quid pro quo” between Moscow and Washington linked to Ukraine will become clear in 2025. What is certain is that what has happened in Syria in the last few hours could not have happened without the approval of the United States, also given the presence of Washington’s troops at the oil wells in the north-eastern part of the now ex-Syria and the ties between the actors involved with the United States. While former ISIS and al-Qaeda member Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani – Ahmed al-Shara – is presented as the strongman on the scene, Mohammed al-Bashir was appointed head of the transitional cabinet after a meeting with former Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed al-Jalali: the latter had appeared a few hours earlier escorted by men from the HTS (acronym for Hayat al Tahrir al Sham, “Organization for the Liberation of the Levant”) who now have control of the capital Damascus. These elements could explain the mass desertions among the Syrian armed forces and how they have given up on putting up significant resistance to the advance of the militias supported by Ankara. Assad’s weakness on the domestic front has long been known to Moscow too: confirmation of this can be found in the talks promoted by the Kremlin between the Damascus government and the opposition in the now distant 2018: in the background of these talks even the draft of a new constitution that would have given Syria a more decentralized and more federal structure had leaked out. A reform project aimed at giving greater representation and power especially to the large Sunni and Kurdish communities: a project never implemented also due to Assad’s extremism with which perhaps, at least in some areas of Syria, it would have been possible to save the legacy of that secularism that appears destined to disappear. Considering its commitment in Ukraine and the Syrian situation, Moscow has implemented the probably most logical choice in defense of its interests: after all, with an extremely reduced ground force – used to date mainly as military police – and with the government forces dissolved – on the political and military level – like snow in the sun, any other choice would have been unrealistic. For Moscow but above all for Tehran the new Syrian scenario opens a new phase of risks and unknowns. In addition to the bases present in the area, a significant problem for Moscow concerns the jihadist fighters from all over the post-Soviet space who are part of the HTS: a problem that will certainly remain at the center of the dialogue between the Kremlin and the new Syrian leadership. Iran risks losing the land corridor through Iraq with which it has had direct access to the Mediterranean until now, in addition to suffering greater military pressure close to its own borders: despite this risk and the strong opposition in recent years between HTS and Hezbollah, the first declarations of the Lebanese party-militia on the Syrian events have avoided taking any strong position. The era of Bashar al Assad is over, unlike the great war that is being fought throughout the Middle East.
Maurizio Vezzosi, analyst and freelance reporter. He collaborates with RSI Televisione Svizzera, LA7, Rete4, L’Espresso, Limes, the Treccani geopolitical atlas, the Quadrante Futuro study center, La Fionda and other newspapers. He reported on the Ukrainian conflict from the territories that rebelled against the Kiev government, documenting the situation on the front line. In 2016, he documented the repercussions of the Syrian crisis on the fragile balances of Lebanon. He deals with Islamic radicalization in the post-Soviet space, particularly in the Northern Caucasus, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In the context of the political transition affecting Belarus, in 2021 he followed the work of the National Assembly from Minsk. Between spring and summer 2021, he documented the post-war Armenian context, following the pre- and post-electoral developments from Yerevan. In 2022, after covering the constitutional referendum, the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, and the siege of Mariupol from Belarus, he continued to document the new phase of the Ukrainian conflict. In 2023 he continued to document the situation in the areas of Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhe and Kherson under Russian control. During the summer he went to Georgia, studying the social and political situation of the Caucasian republic. In September he participated in the AJB DOC Film Festival (Al Jazeera Balkans) in Sarajevo and in the Visioni dal Mondo festival in Milan with the documentary “Spring in Mariupol”. He is a research fellow at the Institute of Political Studies “S. Pio V”.