Luc Brunet – 23 December 2024
As we are getting close to the end of 2024, I decided to give a try to my last article of the year.
I used the term “give a try”, as the article shall mostly be focused on the situation in the Middle-East, a very tricky subject. Writing about that region provides multiple occasions to miss the point and make mistakes that shall look ridiculous in one year or two.
I take the risk, but shall try to avoid detailed analysis or hard forecasts. I shall rather point to a few elements of the available information to help each of us to make its opinion about the recent events, better understand what is at stake. and get a feeling of what could be the future developments in the region, based on overall top level observations.
First of all, I would like to underscore something that official media, especially in the west, seem to carefully ignore. Like for many countries that have been “destabilized” or “liberated”, for example Afghanistan, Libya or Iraq, the result is always the same: thousands or millions of people losing all what they have, and often losing their life. Syria moves from being a relatively safe country, where various communities lived together in peace, to a country ruled by ex-ISIS guys now wearing suits and talking the talk to please western powers.
But violences have already been reported and we can have big doubts about how long it will take before the place becomes hell on earth. One fact leads me to be almost sure that it shall evolve badly is the decision by Israel to spend lots of money to annihilate most of the weapons that the new government would have inherited from Assad’s army. It talks a lot about the long term trust Israel places in those guys, even the ones claiming now that they shall respect human rights and never allow anyone to attack Israel from Syrian territory. It seems that Mossad does not really expects Syria to become a new Jordan!
Another fact supports my opinion – the liberation of thousands of ISIS fighters who were locked up in Assad prisons. By the way, they were liberated alive, and not found in small pieces as many were expecting, believing in anti-Assad propaganda. No, Assad’s prisons were no concentration camps…
Now let’s come back to the top-level approach I talked about.
Who made it?
The new leaders of Syria (or what shall be left of it) are clearly connected to Turkey and the Erdogan regime, although they also have close connections with Qatar. They have started their military operation from the part of Syria that was under Turkish control. Doing so, Erdogan stabbed both Russia and Iran in the back, as both countries were supporting Assad. Losing what was left of trust from the Russian side is not good for Erdogan.
We can expect Erdogan to push its new position of strength to develop his project of new Ottoman empire. He also uses the opportunity to progress in the destruction of the anti-turkey elements of the Kurdish ethnic group, itself protected by the US. I would not be surprised if the US became very concerned about the territories they occupy in the Kurdish region, the very place where they steal Syrian oil since many years – by the way one of the reasons why the Assad regime economically collapsed.
In short, Turkey also disturbed US interests in the region, and any action against the Kurds (by Turkey or by the new Damascus masters) shall upset the Americans.
What can key players do in the mid-term?
Let’s start with the apparent losers of the recent events.
Iran has lost a major ally and with the recent move of Israel into Syrian territory and the destruction of the Syrian army, is also much more vulnerable to Isreali military actions. If we add to that a growing level of distrust towards the new president inside Iran, I would not be surprised to see Iran playing low key over the next months, waiting for the other players to display their cards. But again, there are several groups in Iran having different agendas, so a surprise is not excluded.
I also expect Russia to play low key and focus on one main goal, to maintain its military bases on the Mediterranean coast of Syria.
Now, the apparent local winners, Turkey and Israel.
Here we see an interesting picture of a competition between two megalomaniac projects and visions, with Erdogan pushing for a new version of the Ottoman empire, and extremists in Israel dreaming of the “Great Israel”, both projects covering to some extend the same geographical region.
The two projects are indeed looking at capturing the same land, and have all what is needed to enter in a confrontation phase, first emotionally, then military if people do not come back to reason. The fact that Israel itself was part of the Ottoman empire makes the competition between the two projects even more radical.
Other countries in the region
Lebanon is of course in a dangerous position now, as they have been almost constantly over the past 60 years. They also were part of the Ottoman empire and may move from an Iran based domination (through Hezbollah) to a Turkish domination. Jordan is probably also concerned. They knew Bashar well, but still have to discover what is in the Pandora box that was open in Syria.
This is indeed the major question, that shall need a few months to be answered: who are the new leaders of Syria? Do they run for Turkey, for Israel, for Qatar? or shall they send everybody back home and start a Takfiri califate?
Shall they be able to survive is also a good question, and the fact that they fired most of Assad’s military personnel reminds me of the mistake made by the US in Iraq after the fall of Saddam, when the fired his military, that quickly organized as armed opposition to the new regime.
We moved from a semi controlled, half predictable Middle-East to something even more risky. 2025 is ready to start!