LOS ANGELES.–Backing the Syrian revolt against 59-year-old Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, 70-year-old Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan comes away the big winner in the fall of Damascus, largely because new rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has close ties to Turkey. Turkey has sponsored proxy war with various rebel groups against al-Assad since the 2011 Arab Spring when dictators across the Mideast were toppled, liked Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Bashar al-Assad fought with his once powerful military to resist a rebel takeover of Damascus, especially when former President Barack Obama jumped into the fight spending billions on rebel groups to topple the Damascus government. When things looked bad for al-Assad in 2015, 72-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin jumped in the save his Damascus government from collapse.
Putin, Iran and its subsidiary Hezbollah militia fought to save al-Assad’s regime but, after a series of catastrophic mistakes with Israel, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah could no longer provide al-Assad any protection from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham [HTS] the main rebel group that had recently taken over Aleppo and was heading to Damascus. Unfortunately for al-Assad, Putin was too bogged down in Ukraine to offer any more help to Damascus. So, on Dec. 7 Bashar al-Assad fled with his family to Russia for an uncertain future and rebels led by al-Jolani planted the new Syrian rebel flag in Damascus. “Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost. Turkey is going to hold the key to Syria,” Trump said, knowing, at this point there’s little the U.S. can do to protect its interests. U.S. still has about 900 troops giving support to Syrian Democratic Forces in the north.
Trump’s national security team has no problem with Turkey providing stability to the new government as long as Erdogan doesn’t march into Turkey with the intent to getting rid of the Kurd’s YPG militia. Kurdish-backed forces under Syrian Democratic Forces helped get rid of ISIS and its elusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Oct. 27, 2019. When Trump was president the last time, he promised to not abandon the Kurds. Trump’s national security team should signal to the EU and Erdogan that it’s OK to Turkey to play a role in stabilizing al-Jolani’s new Syrian regime but not OK with him to tamper with the YPG Kurdish militia in northern Syria. Syria has played an outsized role in housing Syria refugees after the first civil war backed by Obama that killed 500,000 Syrians, displaced 10 million more and put intolerable strain on the European Union, prompting the U.K. to bail out.
U.S. State Department officials, designating HTS as a terrorist group, now consider taking it off the terrorist list now that it’s the ruling authority in Damascus. Unlike the Taliban and other Islamist groups, al-Jolani rejects Sharia law for the new Syria, saying he respects other religions and ethnic groups like the Kurds. Al-Jolani used the Muslim Uyghur brigade known as the Turkistan Islamic Party [TIP], considered a terrorist group in Jinyiang, Western China. Now that al-Jolani the head of state in Syria, he wants to use his real name Ahmed a-Sharaa. There were certain principles that most parties seemed to agree on. These include preventing terrorist organizations from benefiting from Damascus in the new era, encouraging good treatment of minorities, especially Christians, Kurds, Alevis and Turkman, and establishing an inclusive government,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
U.S. officials can’t disagree with Fidan’s assessment and plans for a new Syria. Fidan needs to let go of old hatred Turkey has for the Syrian Kurds AKA the YPG that are not linked to PKK or Kurdistan Workers Party that have tried to overthrow the Turkish government for years. “We want both a civil and democratic state,” Fidan said, saying nothing about Erdogan’s plans to purge Syria of the YPG Kurdish militia. “I think Turkey will be there to help with the new administration that will be formed there,” said Mustafa Kibaroglu, director of graduate studies in political science and international relations at MEF University in Istanbul. Fidan made clear they don’t want Iran back in Syria, fomenting war with Israel or seeking to topple the new Syrian regime. “We do not want Iranian domination of the region, nor do we want Turkish or Arab domination,” Fidan said.
Ahamed Sharaa, former nom de guerre for Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has a real opportunity to establish and free-and-diverse Syria, not seen since Bashar’s father, Haffez al-Assad, established the Baathist state in 2000. “By standing shoulder to shoulder, we must establish our own interests and order in the region,” Hidan said, showing that Turkey looks for stability not more war in the region. Syria’s 13-year-old civil war caused untold economic harm to Turkey and Europe, flooding the regions with millions of refugees who should gradually return to Syria once the economy can support growth and development. Like any developing economy, it’s all about U.S., EU, Chinese and Russian investment in the region, something that can eventually employee returning refugees. Anything Turkey can do to provide administrative security to the new regime is welcomed.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
