Support for Syria, Not Interference

The green light for Israel's invasion and devastation of Syria's ability to defend itself bode ill for American policy, among many complications for the international community.

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The era of Ba’ath party rule in Syria is over, as Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown and is now in exile in Russia. The speed with which this happened was amazing, and has certainly raised a lot of questions about what happens now.

Bashar al-Assad was an absolutely brutal mass murderer. His crimes against the Syrian people and others who tried to find refuge in Syria from nearby conflicts are unforgivable and unimaginable. The scenes of joy as people are liberated from his torture chambers are inspirational.

The international community has an opportunity to right the wrongs they have done to the Syrian people and stand for one principle: that where Syria goes from here is entirely the decision of the Syrian people, all the Syrian people, and no one but the Syrian people.

So far, it is not promising.

A Syrian victory

U.S. President Joe Biden made the bombastic statement that Assad’s demise "is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine and Israel have delivered" against Russia, Hamas and Hezbollah "with unflagging support from the United States." This followed the script of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who stated, “This is a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, the main supporters of the Assad regime.”

It is true that Israel’s campaign of destruction made it impossible for Hezbollah to help Assad, and this certainly was a factor in the swift victory for the opposition in Syria. It also was a factor in the decisions by Iran and various Iraqi Shi’a militias to stay out of the way. But it was not the cause of those decisions, nor even the major factors in them.

Syria’s economy has withered under the weight of sanctions, its infrastructure has been decimated, and its military is exhausted after a decade of fighting. The corruption of the Assad regime and its inability to repair the cataclysmic damage that had been done to the country after more than a decade of war were hardly incentives for the soldiers, who had been underpaid and demoralized for years, to keep defending the regime.

Hezbollah’s losses to relentless Israeli attacks, Iran’s need for greater caution to avoid a regional war, and Russia’s need to focus more on Ukraine than on saving Assad were all factors, but they were not the cause of Assad’s fall. Rather the cause of the fall—Assad’s weakness and lack of any vision beyond his own survival—combined with the resilience of the Syrian people and, yes, the fact that Iran and Russia had other, bigger concerns, to change the calculus for Assad’s foreign patrons, without whose support he would have fallen a decade ago.

Israel’s actions in destroying nearly all of Syria’s military capabilities—which will leave any new government weak and dependent on outside forces for security—and occupying significant parts of Syrian territory are a major obstacle to achieving stability and improvement in the lives of the Syrian people. The impunity with which Israel acts—with the United States’ blessing, the silent acquiescence of Europe, and the empty saber-rattling of the Arab states—is also undermining any sense of international order that is crucial for a peaceful transition and rebuilding in Syria.

Israel is, of course, not alone in acting forcefully in its own interest in Syria. Türkiye is also asserting itself in the northern part of Syria, attacking the U.S.-backed, Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whom Türkiye alleges are connected to the PKK, the Kurdish independence militia that Türkiye and the United States consider a terrorist group. The United States has brokered a deal which they forced on the SDF to retreat farther from the Turkish border, leaving the city of Manbij, but it seems unlikely that this will be enough for Türkiye in the longer term.

The international community should be working with all parties in Syria to re-constitute the country. That could mean a federated system, one representative government, or some other arrangement that could find approval with the Syrian people. That, in itself, would be a massive project that would be very difficult and complicated and would certainly take years to succeed.

The UN seems to recognize this, as do some other parties. Bu Turkish and Israeli activities, if they continue to be left unchecked, are unlikely to remain isolated for long. Other actors will then, of necessity, become involved, whether directly or not, they will all work to stoke sectarianism, and violence will return.

Dealing with HTS

Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that led the charge of this latest uprising, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, and if it is a part of the next government of Syria—which is very likely—that raises issues for the U.S.’ ability to deal with that government, as well as in providing the massive amount of aid that will be required to rebuild Syria physically and politically.

The UN as well classifies HTS as a terrorist group, presenting similar problems on a larger scale since an international effort to support the rebuilding of Syria physically and economically must work through the UN.

Given the disposition of Donald Trump’s presumptive Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard—an uberhawk on “radical Islam,”—and given her sympathy for Assad, she is unlikely to recommend removing the designation in order for the U.S. to work with a new Syrian government.

Gabbard doesn’t make those decisions, though as DNI, her analysis and recommendations will carry considerable weight. But it will be a matter for the State Department, and Secretary of State Nominee Marco Rubio seems unlikely to disagree with Gabbard’s assessment of HTS. Trump himself, whose prime concern is keeping the United States as uninvolved as possible, is not going to go to bat for enabling massive aid for Syria.

Biden administration officials signaled that they were considering HTS’ status, and that is a hopeful attitude. The UNSG’s Special Representative for Syria also held out the possibility of de-classifying HTS if the group can convince the international community that its recent change in image is real and permanent.

There are reasonable concerns about HTS, a Salafist, Sunni group that has in the past been associated with ISIL and has its roots in a split with al-Qaeda. They have committed many human rights violations in the past.

The Alawite community in Syria, which is the community from which the Assad family hails, and which had considerable protection under the Assad regime, is justifiably fearful right now. Shi’a, Christian, Druze, and other communities are also concerned, and they too have reason to be. Yet there has been minimal reported sectarian violence and there is a concerted effort in Syria to avoid it that has been successful so far.

More to the point, HTS has worked to change its image, reaching out to Christian and even Druze communities, trying to reassure them that their abusive behavior toward them is in the past. They were engaging in that outreach long before they led the charge to topple Assad.

But HTS retains an authoritarian character and, while they are trying to appear pragmatic, they remain a conservative Salafist movement. They are clearly a nationalistic Islamist group, and as such it is reasonable to believe that the assertions of some of their leaders—particularly their top man, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani—are credible when they say they have rejected the global ambitions of groups they have been both connected to and fought with in the past, like ISIL and al-Qaeda.

Yet even if they have abandoned the ideology of global jihad, skepticism as to how they would govern Syria is warranted and many Syrian members of minority communities, as well as potential political dissidents, hold that skepticism. There were protests in Idlib against HTS earlier this year, and, while they have joined with other groups in toppling Assad, there are significant doubts about their willingness to create a representative government in Damascus that they do not control.

That said, HTS, though not a particularly powerful group in itself, is certainly enjoying a massive rise in its popularity right now ion Syria, for obvious reasons. They cannot be dismissed out of hand as a terrorist group if there is to be any substance to the idea that those of us outside of Syria truly support the full and unfettered self-determination of the Syrian people.

U.S. sanctions on the country are severe, and need to be lifted for a real recovery to take place. Given that fact, the U.S. must give HTS and any other group that ends up being part of what one should hope will be a diverse and representative new Syrian body politic every opportunity to show the people of Syria who they really are. Sanctions must be lifted if Syria is to rebuild, and the guideline for how to make that happen must be a simple standard—the will of the Syrian people.

U.S. and its allies

According to Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, U.S. policy toward Syria currently involves three main policy goals:

· That the fighting in Syria not lead to the resurgence of ISIS.

· That U.S. allies Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and others who border Syria, or who would potentially face spillover effects from Syria — are strong and secure.

· That this not lead to a humanitarian catastrophe, both in terms of civilians’ access to lifesaving necessities and in terms of the protection of religious and ethnic minorities in Syria.

What’s missing in Sullivan’s outline is support for fully free and independent Syria. It should therefore surprise no one that the Biden administration has given an unconditional green light to Israel’s invasion of Syria. I’ll dive deep into Israel’s actions in an article that will be published later this week.

Direct American attacks have been directed at ISIL, ostensibly to prevent that group from trying to extend its own influence in eastern Syria. But the Turkish advance is unlikely to end in Manbij, as Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan wants to defeat the armed Kurdish force, the SDF, which he claims is aligned with the PKK, a Kurdish nationalist group which Türkiye and the United States have both designated as a terrorist group.

SDF controls a significant amount of Syrian territory near the Turkish border. Given that HTS is backed by Türkiye, and that the fight against Kurdish nationalism is a fundamental staple of Erdogan’s policy, it is hard to imagine that he is content to settle for the status quo.

Turkish backing for the HTS cannot be disconnected from HTS’ capture of the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor from SDF forces, which had taken the city only a few days earlier. This is almost certainly a harbinger of more such clashes to come.

It is important to note that, at this point, the United States is allowing both its NATO ally Türkiye and its protégé Israel to operate with enormous latitude in Syria, carving the already shattered country up to suit their interests. Unsurprisingly, the Biden administration has chosen war over diplomacy. It has chosen Israeli expansionism and Türkiye’s war against the Kurds over trying to help Syria rebuild after the destruction of the war and decades of corrupt Ba’athist rule.

Donald Trump insists that the U.S. should “stay out” of the fight for Syria’s future. In the abstract, that’s the right approach. But there are ways in which the United States is inextricably involved, including the 900 troops stationed in the south of the country, its control of oil and wheat fields that will be crucial for rebuilding Syria’s economy, and its close ties to Türkiye and Israel as they wage war inside Syria.

Simply allowing those things to continue is not being uninvolved. U.S. policy needs to be more active on those questions, and it will be crucial that Americans press their government for that activity.

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News Roundup

Gulf monarchies scramble in Syria as ghosts of the Arab Spring return

By Sean Mathews, Middle East Eye, December 10, 2024

‘Entire days without food’

By Maram Humaid, Al Jazeera, December 11, 2024

Israeli soldiers systematically abusing Palestinians in Hebron, report reveals

By Oren Ziv, +972 Magazine, December 9, 2024

Meet Brian Mast, firebrand Israel ally tapped to chair House Foreign Affairs Committee

By Megan Mineiro, Al-Monitor, December 10, 2024

The world owes Palestine this much - please stop censoring Palestinian voices

By Ramzy Baroud, Middle East Monitor, December 9, 2024

A New Syria is Born: Hopes and Challenges

By Marwa Daoudy, Arab Center, Washington DC, December 11, 2024

Dealing with Trump, Israel, and Hamas: The path to peace in the Middle East

By Hugh Lovatt and Muhammad Shehada, European Council on Foreign Relations, December 11, 2024

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