In the same way that Afghanistan suddenly collapsed in 2021, it looks like Syria has suddenly collapsed in 2024. The insurgent group HTS, which for the past few years has effectively ruled a small province in the north near the border with Turkey, took over Aleppo and then headed south along the conveniently located M5 motorway to Hama, Homs, and finally Damascus, encountering more or less no resistance along the way. The Syrian army was apparently just a hollowed-out shell after years of civil war.
Bashar al-Assad, Syria's barbarous longtime dictator, has reportedly fled the country; Sednaya Prison (the "Human Slaughterhouse") has been captured and all the regime's prisoners released; and both the Russians and Iranians have pulled out their military forces. This means that in the space of a year Iran has lost its proxies in Syria, Hamas, and largely in Hezbollah as well. But I guess they still have the Houthis in Yemen.
— Aaron Y. Zelin (@azelin) December 8, 2024
There's no telling what comes next. The transition to new leadership seems to be proceeding remarkably civilly, all things considered, and HTS claims they plan to rule moderately. That is to say, Syria will be a harsh Islamic theocracy, but there won't be Sharia law everywhere or women forced to wear head-to-toe burkas. We'll see.
HTS wasn't the only group fighting; there were several rebel groups with new ones popping up recently. Damascus was taken over by three prongs, none of which directly came down from Homs. There was one due south at the Jordanian border that drove up and entered Damascus from the south -- the first group to reach Damascus just today. There was another from the southeastern border with Jordan that had reached Damascus from the northeast. There was another rebel group that formed along the western border with Lebanon, leaving Damascus almost completely boxed in.
IMO, it wasn't like 2021 Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the US was making a planned exit. The chaos of the last few days of America's exit was panic. In Syria, Russian forces were making an unplanned exit, caught in a popular uprising against Assad.
US military forces and all US military equipment (besides embassy guards) were finished evacuating Afghanistan by mid July. The mass exodus following the collapse of Afghanistan were almost entirely our Afghan allies, whose evacuation prior to the collapse congress had made illegal.
Yes. And it was Trump who ordered that the US troop level in Afghanistan be lowered to 2,500 and Trump who set the timetable, which hampered the exit. The Republican criticism of the exit under Biden is another of their breathtaking projections. Under the (bad) circumstances, it was extremely successful.
Grading on a curve…
Indeed, but for the women of Syria who are used to a certain amount of personal autonomy -- apparently the Alawis are "progressive", kinda -- things are going to get worse, though they will be in much less danger of outright dying.
The Bro Culture sucks in all its many manifestations.
It should be pointed out that Syria's fairly large Christian community (about 10% of the population) was all in on Assad.
Both Assad in Syria and Hussein in Iraq ruled as minorities, so they tended to protect the rights of minorities against populist slaughter.
Minority rights will be crushed, and there is little likelihood that the regime that takes over Syria will differ materially from what is in place in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
It will be repressive and backward, but possibly not as murderous as the Assads were.
Unlike in Iraq, the Kurds in Syria may be able to retain some semblance of sovereignty, depending on how brutally the Turks cross the border to oppress them. The Turks may find it more convenient to drive the Kurds from within Turkey across the border as they generally seek to expel Syrian refugees.
Yeah, what does this sentence even mean? Anything?
I wonder if Trump will be brazen enough to tell Boulos to cut a deal with Iran via Hezbollah that lifts all the sanctions in return for promises not to do what they weren't planning to do anyway now their proxies have been so badly weakened. Following which he'll absolutely demand that Nobel Prize which is the only big trophy missing from his cabinet.
There are a lot of things missing from Trump's Cabinet.
(-:}
It's a small cabinet.
Trump probably thinks the Peace Prize would look good next to his signed Tim Tebow football helmet. He probably also thinks he can get the Trump Foundation to pay for the Noble Prize, just like they paid for the helmet . . . Oh that’s right, NY AG Letitia James made Trump close the foundation (and pay $2,000,000) and admit he had used it for inappropriate payments. When Trump says only he can “fix” things, that word “fix” doesn’t mean what the MAGAts think it does.
+1
I'm sure Co-President Musk would be happy to do whatever he could to persuade the Nobel committee.
Another Arab shit hole changes hands. I’m sure it will become a beacon of prosperity and happiness just like… no other Arab country. 😂
...And you wonder why you get threats. Gross, man.
France's Macron hails fall of 'barbaric' Assad regime in Syria.
Maybe you prefer barbaric. The truth is… there are no words to describe that place or that society.
💩
I mean, although inartfully put, he has a point --- there are no Liberal Democracies in the Arab World, all the non-oil states are poor, and a distressingly high proportion of them have experienced significant internal civil disorder in the past couple decades.
I wish the Syrians luck in building a relatively humane and prosperous state, but based on what goes on around them, it's not the way to bet.
The truth is what it is. And denying the truth is what makes people like you so contemptible.
More important is that Turkey will become the new puppet master. Probably a kinder, better master than Iran +Russia; but also probably with only limited ability to change things.
"There's no telling what comes next."
Assad gets offered a job as Tulsi Gabbard's deputy director of intelligence.
I thought Putin was going to be Tulsi's deputy now that work from home is so common.
❗️
+1
I'm curious why Russia didn't pony up more military help if only to protect their warm water port, not that they cared about Assad. iiuc Russian military aid was the main reason Asad lasted this long. Did the Rebels promise Russia they could keep their port?
Russia has other warm-water ports, but Tartus is/was their only Mediterranean port. We will see, but one would think the Syrians would want the Russians out, because of their long-time support for the Al-Assads. I don’t know what Russia would have to offer the Syrians to keep their base, but they have strong incentives to try. As long as the war in Ukraine continues, Russian warships may not transit the Bosporus, so for repairs etc. they would have to make their way to Kaliningrad.
Point taken.
At this point I doubt if Russia needs to offer either side much of anything other they won't help the other side.
Probably a lot cheaper than what they were paying Assad
NATO can easily cut off Russian access to Kaliningrad from both land and sea. Useless as a port during a war.
Apart from perhaps not having any help to spare, it is possible the rebels got word to the Russians they would be allowed to keep their port if they stayed on the sidelines this time.
It’s interesting that the Russians truly loathe Islamic extremists in Georgia and Chechnya yet cozy up to the Iranians. Is it just for the drones?
Yah, Russia would not have had to commit much materiel to help Assad hang on, and that's why I'm thinking Assad's fall is a clear sign that Russia is under more internal strain then they've been letting on.
Remarkable the difference between the few analyses with at least some thought behind them and the bulk of the analyses...
Well done, Parrots.
I think that’s correct but the difference between these two monsters is that Assad couldn’t hold on until January and Russia couldn’t spare the resources but Putin himself can certainly hold on until January when he will be in a position to force the submission of the Ukrainians. I doubt if Putin will be actively supported by the US military but he will certainly instruct the Republicans to cut all aid to the Ukraine unless it surrenders and it’s clear that the rest of NATO can’t or won’t give Ukraine the support that it needs.
There’s also a remote chance that he will order Trump to work towards the goal of restoring the Assad family to power.
The Assad family is not coming back to power any more than the Shah of Iran is.
I think that you’re right but also that there’s an outside chance that Assad will at least make an attempt. At the moment, he has nothing resembling a power base in Syria but, unlike the Shah, he has a patron who is extremely powerful and utterly ruthless. If Assad can gain a foothold anywhere in Syria, Putin might be in a position to give him considerable military support.
As I say, it’s a very remote possibility but I wouldn’t rule it out. And if my last name was Assad, I’d be very careful about standing too close to a window.
The Shah had the US
Iran ditched Assad first. Maybe Russia (understandably) thought that if Iran was dumping Assad, there truly was nothing left to prop up.
The Russian military is entirely bogged down in Ukraine. They had no spare resources.
Since Ukraine has been bombing the crap out of their Black Sea fleet, Russia could probably use a Mediterranean port.
Except Ukraine would probably bomb the crap out of that, too.
Supporters of a Palestinian state always seem to ignore the extensive examples of misrule, corruption, and social dysfunction which stalks MENA. They just can’t seem to pull it off.
“One reason these attempts at a democratic transition failed is that all these countries are desperately poor…”
https://www.juancole.com/2024/12/syrians-pitfalls-democracy.html
Today, let the Syrians bask in the overthrow of a horrid dictatorship that tortured 10,000 prisoners to death, kept thousands of prisoners of conscience locked up, and killed hundreds of thousands of people with indiscriminate fire and barrel bombs, and sometimes chemical weapons. Syrians are better off with the possibility of social evolution than with being locked in a political iron cage, even if the ride may turn very bumpy.
As bad as the Assads were, they were vastly better than the taliban. This has a very high likelihood of being a step in the wrong direction.
Yep. The folks in charge of Syria now are the same as those in charge of Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq. It won’t be pretty.
That’s not to say that the Shah and Hussein and the Assads were not murderous and oppressive. They were horrific.
But this is likely another case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. (Unless you’re a fan of 12th century patriarchical religious fundamentalism.)
Too bad Trump’s plan is to continue enriching them by furthering our addiction to fossil fuels, when we could easily bankrupt them and make them as inconsequential as sub-Saharan Africa merely by developing domestic renewable energy.
Speaking as a fuzzy-brained and sadly ignorant lib, this would be an auspicious time for the United States to offer tentative friendship to the new Syrian government.
We won't, for, among many other reasons
* Israel is now empowered to make land grabs in Syria, too (why not?), and anything Israel does is A-Okay, so its wars will continue to expand across the Middle East, yay.
* Joe Biden is a short timer, and knows everything he tries to do will be reversed by the Convicted Felon anyway.
It seems as if this could be an opportunity. A time for change, realignments, maybe even improvements.
They also won't because they don't need to.
Turkey will take over as calling the shots and (for everything important) Turkey is on our side.
This is also no tragedy. It's not like the US has great skill or a powerful track record in nation building...
If we followed what you want, we'd be forcing them to subsidize trans surgery and then be surprised when three years later every neighbor country bands together to invade and throw the infidels.
Wow, you sure must be having fun rocking on that hobby horse of yours.
Yeah, we subsidized trans surgery in Afghanistan.
🙄
IDF already on the Syrian side in Golan.
By 8:30 last night, I was wondering if Austin Tice will be released from a Syrian prison and possibly returned to the US, or if he is being held by a non-governmental group - his parents are convinced that he is still alive - & that trump really cares & will get him out.
Tice is almost certainly dead.
His only value was as a bargaining chip but no one ever tried to use him in a bargain. Therefore he is dead and his body is probably lost.
That was my thought for a long time, but Marc & Debra Tice seem to have some recent convincing indications to the contrary, & and they don't seem more gullible than hopeful.
Dictator erects statue of himself, and as sure as day follows night, the people topple statue as dictator flees country.
https://bsky.app/profile/amermatar.bsky.social/post/3lcrj5tapgc2e
(I look forward to Trump erecting a statue of himself in Washington. You know the country will be in for some glorious photos when we get rid of him.)
Good luck to the Syrian people. The possibilities for something better exists now, and let's hope that one of those paths is where the country goes.
I hope our new leader is taking heed as to what happens when dictators get too uppity.
You think Washington will fall when Putin finally withdraws his support from Trump?
😀
The leader of HTS is on a US terrorist list but he successfully moderated at least the public image of the group to make so that they faced no internal resistance to their offensive outside of a Syrian Army that was practically starving and no will left to fight for a brutal dictatorship, so brutal that even in the areas of the country predominate with Alawites like Tarsus people were celebrating his fall.
Russian planes were bombing the rebels during the offensive and killed many during the war so I can't imagine them wanting the Russians to stay in their country.
Assad was never in full control of Syria. People assumed he won because the war had gone dormant for eight years. But the rebels bided their time, regrouped after losing Aleppo in 2016 and waited for the right moment to strike which came as the Russians were fully involved in their war and Hezbollah wrecked by Israel's actions towards it.
The future is definitely uncertain. I was one of those who unfortunately felt a long time ago that brutal dictatorship the Assad family was they were the only ones keeping this famously fractious country together and protecting religious minorities in Syria. So I earnestly hope the rebels don't become ISIS overnight seeing the joy in the Syrian people for their liberation, not wanting Sharia law. Hopefully it will extend to Lebanon and Iran too and be an example to both countries. Then Russia will be truly isolated.
Yes, I too am still waiting for the real Arab Spring.
"This means that in the space of a year Iran has lost its proxies in Syria, Hamas, and largely in Hezbollah as well. " In reality, Hamas and Hezbollah are still going strong. Hezbollah still controls the Lebaneses government. They can deal with the most recent cease fire agreement requiring their withdrawal behind the Litani river by simply declaring their forces to be units of the Lebanese army. The Houthis have never been a proxy for Iran. They or their political ancestors have ruled large parts of Yemen for centuries.
This will be simply an exchange of one horrid regime for another, much like the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran by the Khomeini radicals. Anyone remember that?
Fortunately, this time it's the Russians who will be named as the "Great Satan" in this case, unlike 1979 when the Shah was a client of the U.S. due to our dependence on their oil. Remember that?
Or we could reminisce about Iraq in 2006. Or Libya in 2011. Or others that we were less involved in, but just as brutal.
I give it 5 minutes before the Trump Propaganda Machine starts highlighting the connection between HTS and Al Qaida, thereafter attributing this event to Biden's "weakness" and/or friendliness toward "Muslim terrorists."
Or you could, you know, actually think for those five minutes before opening your trap...
https://apnews.com/article/trump-syria-biden-administration-rebels-assad-72015f143aa6b40bb62c09724c71e34f
Trump's response is exactly what anyone who knows the man and his policies would have predicted.
It's truly contemptible the IGNORANCE people have on this site. And yet they're utterly convinced of the genius of their political insights. You can tell a donkey a thousand times that the GOP of 2024 is not the GOP of 2000, but a donkey remains a donkey, impervious to facts or reason.
The GOP of today is the same as it ever was with the exception of the absence of any pretense of having morals, ethics or standards. Trump taught them those things aren't important.
You seem to think that your citation is incompatible with Citizen99’s last paragraph. Try reading both again.
Citizen99 has been proven wrong if you take his time frame of 5 minutes literally, but I suspect that “5 minutes” was hyperbole.
Withdrawing from Afghanistan was Trump’s policy, but that didn’t prevent Trump from attacking Biden for actually doing it. Trump claimed he would have done a better job of withdrawing from Afghanistan, which is highly unlikely, but not directly falsifiable because Trump merely promised to withdraw from Afghanistan; he didn’t actually do so.
Your link shows that Trump agrees with Biden on policy, but that won’t stop Trump from attacking Biden. If Citizen99’s prediction is mistaken, his mistake is to assume that Biden is an attractive target for Trump now that the election is over.
I don't CARE if Trump attacks Biden or the other way round.
The difference between me and you is that I care about *things that happen in the real world*, not this high school game of who said what about whom.
Don't forget Assad was Alawite. Syria, like Iraq, was run by a religious minority. Odds are that within a year we'll start seeing an Alawite exodus. It would be ironic if they find refuge in Israel. It isn't clear who else would take them.
As their recent offensive swept through Aleppo, Hama and Homs, HTS was careful to reassure Christians and Alawites that they would be free to practice their faiths. HTS’ record has not been positive, but it apparently has been evolving: https://www.dw.com/en/syria-hts-islamists-pledge-to-show-tolerance-for-minorities/a-70959165
The Kurds hold a rather large territory, which gives them a position of strength, but are strongly opposed by Turkey. If HTS doesn’t want to be under Erdogan’s thumb, they would do well to solidify alliances with all minorities.
Apparently, Assad left for a winter vacation in Moscow.
If required, the Russians will trade him to the HTS in a heartbeat to keep their naval base open.
Of course the HTS and their assorted Al-Qaida affiliates now have access to thousands of tanks, artillery, combat aircraft, antiaircraft systems, ballistic missiles, and other military assets of the Syrian army, potentially including chemical weapons.
HTS broke with al-Qaeda to dissociate itself from the worldwide ambitions of the latter. Even if it were not so, they will be fully occupied with governing their religiously and ethnically diverse nation.
That's certainly in their press releases and talking points. We shall see by their actions in time. A whole lot of lethal material is now in their hands, or in whosever hands they may transfer (sell) it to.