Unfortunately, it is nothing new. The interference of different actors in Syria’s internal affairs has been going on for decades. And, as the new Israeli military violation of Syrian sovereignty demonstrates, everything indicates that this will continue to be the case once the Al Assad dictatorship has come to an end, with Russia, Turkey and Iran among the most prominent, but without forgetting to the United States, the governments of the Persian Gulf and even Daesh.
For Moscow, Syria – in its capacity as “leader of the front of rejection” of the existence of Israel – was during the Cold War the main instrument with which to counteract US hegemony in the area. Today, Russian interest is focused on two points: Tartus and Hememim.
Bases that interest Putin
The Tartús naval base is the only one that the Russian war fleet has in the Mediterranean Sea, which for those who want to be recognized as a global power is essential, not only to navigate its waters, but also to access the Atlantic and the Indian, since most of its direct outlets to the sea are usually frozen most of the year.
For its part, the Hememim air base has not only served Moscow to get Bashar Al Assad out of trouble since September 2015 – when the fate of the Syrian dictator seemed to be against him – but is now essential to be able to project power towards the African Sahel, where the group Africa Corps (formerly Wagner) serves as the spearhead to recover a good part of the influence that the USSR once had in the region, supporting the coup military junta who have forced France to leave its territories.
This geopolitical reality leads to the assumption that Vladimir Putin will do whatever is necessary to preserve access to these two bases, seeking some type of agreement with the new authorities in Syria. At the moment he has already stated, feigning a humanitarian concern that has been conspicuous by its absence in recent years, that both are necessary to deliver aid to the Syrian population. And in the same way, it is also possible to imagine that he would be willing to play with the future of Bashar al Assad (and his brother Maher) as a negotiating asset if he considers that handing them over to Damascus can guarantee his objective.
Erdogan’s bittersweet feeling
In the case of Türkiye the feeling must be bittersweet. On the one hand, President Erdogan will have watched with satisfaction the flight of Al Assad, getting rid of a neighbor whom he first advised to carry out partial reforms to stay in power and whom he later wanted to overthrow, leaving jihadists from all over the world to enter. Syria along its common border, supporting ill-advised armed groups and even carrying out raids with its own armed forces. But, on the other hand, Erdogan continues to have many problems in achieving his two objectives: preventing the Syrian Kurdish people from consolidating a political entity in northeastern Syria and getting rid of the more than three million Syrian refugees who live poorly in their territory.
The former, with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) supported by Washington in the foreground, are seen by Ankara as a partner of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the bête noire of the Turkish security forces since the late 1980s. of the last century. The latter are already causing a political cost to the Turkish Government, with the opposition profiting from what they describe as terrible management. And the situation could still get worse if Syria once again enters a destabilizing spiral that leads to a new wave of refugees.
All of this suggests that Ankara will strive to reach an understanding with the new Syrian Government, without ruling out opting for military means, both through the Syrian National Army, which it has been supporting for some time, and by launching an offensive with its own forces deployed in Syria. In any case, since Erdogan is aware that something like this does not guarantee success in overriding those he considers staunch enemies (supported in turn by the United States), it is still more likely that he will lean towards the path of negotiation. On the horizon there is once again the possibility of materializing the idea of a gas pipeline that, from the Persian Gulf, crosses Syria to reach the Turkish coast, targeting the European market.
Setback for Iran
Iran has a more difficult time recovering from the fall of one of its regional strongholds. The setback suffered affects not only its intended image of regional heavyweight, but, very directly, its plans to have the Lebanese group Hezbollah as the main pawn in the area against Israel. Tehran knows that the destruction that Israeli forces are carrying out in Syria (airports, anti-aircraft defenses, radar systems, magazines…) increases the risk that Israel will end up using Syrian airspace to directly attack Iran. From this it can be deduced that the Iranian regime, knowing that it does not have the economic and military assets to immediately reverse the situation, finds itself in a difficult situation to structure a new relationship with the government that can operate in Damascus.
It also remains to be known how far President Donald Trump will be willing to go starting in January, swinging between the withdrawal of the 900 US military personnel who are still active in the Syrian base of Al Tanf – which would leave the FDS, in charge of keeping thousands of Daesh members and their families prisoners – or reinforcing them to prevent other rivals from gaining more weight in the new Syria.
A situation, in short, that inevitably reduces the room for maneuver of Syrian actors to be the true protagonists of a political transition at the level of what a population fed up with hardships and abuses demands and dreams of.
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