Bulletins and News Discussion from December 9th to December 15th, 2024 - Assad Must Go

After less than two weeks of retreating with few shots fired and little resistance, the SAA has retreated into, well, a state of non-existence. This thereby ends a conflict that has been simmering for over a decade. With the end of this conflict, another begins: the carving up of what used to be Syria between Israel and Turkey, with perhaps the odd Syrian faction getting a rump state here and there. Both Israel and Turkey have begun military operations, with Israel working on expanding their territory in Syria and bombing military bases to ensure as little resistance as possible.

Israeli success in Syria is interesting to contrast against their failures in Gaza and Lebanon. A short time ago, Israel failed to make significant territorial progress in Lebanon due to Hezbollah's resistance despite the heavy hits they had recently taken, and was forced into a ceasefire with little to show for the manpower and equipment lost and the settlers displaced. The war with Lebanon was fast, but still slow enough to allow a degree of analysis and prediction. In contrast, the sheer speed of Syria's collapse has made analysis near-impossible beyond obvious statements like "this is bad" and "Assad is fucking up"; by the time a major Syrian city had fallen, you barely had time to digest the implications before the next one was under threat.

There is still too much that we don't know about the potential responses (and non-responses) of other countries in the region - Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Russia, for example. I think that this week and the next will see a lot of statements made by various parties and an elucidation of how the conflict will progress. The only thing that seems clear is that we are in the next stage of the conflict, and perhaps have been, in retrospect, since Nasrallah's assassination. This stage has been and will be far more chaotic as the damage to Israel compounds and they are willing to take greater and greater risks to stay in power. It will also involve Israel causing destruction all throughout the region, rather than mostly localizing it in Gaza and southern Lebanon. Successful gambles like with Syria may or may not outweigh the unsuccessful ones like with Lebanon. This is a similar road to the one apartheid South Africa took, but there are also too many differences to say if the destination will be the same.

What is certain is that Assad's time in power can be summarized as a failure, both to be an effective leader and to create positive economic conditions. His policies were actively harmful to internal stability for no real payoff and by the end, all goodwill had been fully depleted. By the end, the SAA did not fight back; not because of some wunderwaffen on the side of HST, but because there was nothing to fight for, and internal cohesion rapidly disintegrated.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

You're viewing a single thread.

1.7K comments

Russia is close to reaching an agreement with the new Syrian leadership to keep two bases in the country, two sources tell Bloomberg
Israel couldn't help it. All they had to do was play ball with a NATO backed goverment. HTS had been going out of its way to say they had no problems with Israel and were anti Hezbollah/Iran. But no, the Israelis just had to do a shameless landgrab and bomb the shit out of Syria instead.
No future government of Syria can exist without military infrastructure. And now Russia is back into play as the only actor that can make that a reality. I'm sure nobody in Washington will blame Israel for this though.
- realism winning again. The Syrian state's international position is the same as it was under Assad, even worse actually now that they lost their entire milliary. Turkey is fundamentally a threat to Syria with their territorial ambitions in the north. The NATO-Zionist bloc has extensive power projection in the region and nakedly imperialist ambitions. Their Arab neighbors are either wrecked and occupied (and thus useless allies) or already cut deals with the Zionists that they won't renege on for poor, powerless Syria.
  Russia is the only major power that doesn't directly threaten Syria's state sovereignty, that makes them natural partners in this current world order. China is the other exception but Syria has nothing to offer China that they couldn't get somewhere else easier. Russia meanwhile has few options and needs to maintain their own limited power projection in SWANA. Assad didn't work with the Russians just because he loved Молчат Дома and hated liberal democracy, they were the only ones who could offer him the best deal. HTS is finding out the hard way that the realities of international relations and governance are a lot less fun than looting the country.
  
  I disagree on one point. I don't think Turkey has territorial ambitions towards Syria. If anything they come across as one of the few actors that don't. To them the game is economic and political, but they don't need to annex territory to project power.
  Yes, Turkey is a foreign instigator of the second civil war. But against whom? Assad and the SDF. Turkish troops haven't crossed the border and Turkey hasn't annexed territory. Even though Turkey has been bombing SDF positions, just by comparison to Israel the Turks come across as restrained.
  Wether one sees Turkey's actions as legitimate or not is down to wether they see the new government as legitimate or not. So what happens should the new government objectively improve people's material conditions? The real hard part there is re-founding the Syrian state. If that is done, then there goes the sanctions and in comes the oil field revenues. That by itself goes a long way and who will have made that possible? Not Russia, not Iran, not the US but Turkey. Erdogan will be the one who rolled the dice, triggered Assad's ouster, and the pressed the US backed SDF into negotiations.
  There are Turkish Nationalists online talking about annexing Aleppo or whatever. They don't matter. The Turkish State only cares about two things. The immediate survival of its current government by tackling the refugee crisis, and that the SDF does not remain/become a platform for kurdish nationalism. Turkey will be happy as long as Damascus recovers the northeast or, even better, the SDF withdraws from the arab majority areas and transitions into a sort of syrian version of the KRG. Turkey doesn't have to annex a single mile of territory to create a Syria that is very lucrative as a dependency for economic, military and diplomatic reasons. A cursory look into how things trucked onwards in Idlib and Afrin show that turkish companies were the ones supplying the populace there. A stable Syria would be that, just economically viable and much bigger.
  The two objectives sort of feed into each other. Turkey wants a stable client in Damascus to feed its industry and so that the refugees have a place to return to. Those who do will end up being supporters of the new government if for no other reasons than they've consumed Turkish and European media for a decade + they were probably Assad detractors in the first place. The Israeli invasion and American support for the SDF makes Turkey look better by comparison.
  
  You are correct. I didn't mean to refer any neo-Ottoman fantasies of Turkish nationalists. But turkish troops have crossed the border in active operations like Peace Spring and Olive Branch (ridiculous names for milliary operations btw). On paper this new government is supposed to be controlling the territory but its still an occupation by foreign troops and a violation of sovereignty.
  But yeah, their priorities are expelling the refugees and punishing the Kurds. HTS could just roll over and accept that they are going to continue to be Turkish puppets, but Kurds are part of Syria too and if this new government throws them to the wolves, I think other minorities will be feeling very nervous and not secure. States with limited sovereignty don't tend to be very stable states. For their own survival and stability it would be rational for this new HTS government to expand their relations beyond Turkey so they don't become overly reliant, and Russia is the only real choice.
  
  Peace Spring and Olive Branch (ridiculous names for milliary operations btw)
  I remember reading somewhere that HTS' offensive was called Anticipation of Aggression or something. Which is hilarious in a macabre way. Fucking National Endowment for Democracy school of naming things.
  
  Turkish troops haven't crossed the border and Turkey hasn't annexed territory
  Didn't they move in a couple years ago when Trump pulled out US troops in the north?
  I think Turkey would be quite happy to carve off the north east of Syria to get rid of the Kurds and take over the oil infrastructure, probably less about oil revenue than denying the oil to anyone else.
  
  The actual Turkish Army did move into Afrin years ago, yes. But there's only so much you can get away with now that Assad has fallen and the Syrians have a modicum of hope for the future. Israel gets to do a full invasion of Syria, the US gets to maintain their occupation of the oil fields and the Russians are trying to negotiate their way back in. But nobody wants to see the turkish army cross the border again.
  Moving into northeastern Syria, occupying not only the Kurdish cities at the border - like Qamshli - but going deep into arab majority areas like Raqaa and Deir Ezzor would not only be a strategic disaster on Turkey's part, it would go against Erdogan's survival as a politician.
  Turkey has faced a massive ethnic struggle due to the sheer number of syrian refugees that moved into the country, which 'masks' in some ways the also huge number of afghans that spilled over through Iran and towards Turkey as well. Half of the reason why the HTS offensive even happened is because Erdogan needed to have fewer arabs in his country, where the secular opposition adopted nationalist and straight up racist rethoric last election.
  The economic incentives aren't there either. An occupation of these arab majority areas would be costly. The SDF is currently failing to build an amicable governance with the local tribes, Turkey would only have have greater difficulty than they do. It is much better for Turkey to sit back and let the SNA pressure the SDF into the negotiating table. That way the Turks get a more stable client in Damascus, don't worsen their image before the arab majority of the country, accomplish their objective of KRGifying the SDF, and still make a lot of profit from supplying Syria's reconstruction, its grocery markets, and from benefitting from future oil and gas pipelines.
  Simply put, Turkey has no reason to go deep into Syria themselves when they can just support their allies.
- Bad move on the part of HTS, their supporters and allies despise the Russians almost as much as Assad, the Russian jet was the bane of these beheaders for nine years, this guarantees infighting and splintering
  
  The HTS have no choice if they want to get any advanced weapons, like air defence systems, aircraft, and tanks, though. Israel just destroyed all of it. Turkey, the NATO member, will not give that to them, China will not give that to them because they want to remain neutral, Iran doesn't have much to give, and the US certainly won't give them anything. The only option, and only nation prepared to sell, is Russia. Russia gave Syria S-300 and S-200 air defence systems along with Pantsir and Tor, MiG 29s fighters, Su-24 bombers, and T-72 and T-90 tanks under Assad. What other nation is prepared to sell equivalent equipment to Syria? It can be remarked that a lot of this is "Soviet era", but is there any nation prepared to give Syria anything better? A lot of this equipment is still very useful, T-72 tanks have taken out export specification Abrams tanks in battle during the Ukraine - Russia war. Tor and Pantsir are widely used by Russia.
  
  At this rate the new syrian government has no choice if they want to have weapons at all. Israel is destroying the entire security infrastructure of the Syrian state. Airbases, barracks, police stations, naval bases, intelligence agencies, even an university from what I understand. You name it, Israel probably destroyed it 'in self defense'.
  Turkey doesn't like seeing this, but it can't go against the US directly. The US might think the Israelis are going too far, but they would never dare reprimand them. This leaves Russia as the only viable actor to offer security guarantees (you'll be bombed 3 times a week instead of 500 or more). Turkey in turn becomes the cement that gels Russia and HTS communications.
  
  Putin selling weapons to HTS is the equivalent of him selling weapons to foreign mercs in Ukraine in the hopes of destabilizing Zelensky
  
  It all depends on how badly Russia want to keep their naval facilities and airbase in Syria. They're going to have to cut a deal with HTS to keep that, such a deal could involve arms sales.
  
  That would invite the wrath of the US upon HTS and the Americans would begin pressuring the Qatari paymasters and Turkish Intelligence to either discipline HTS or break ties and it would make the Americans more accepting (than they already are) of Israeli land grabs
  
  The whole future of Syria is a difficult thread to needle. But HTS has already said they a) don't think Israel's landgrabs are a priority, and b) announced 'free market reforms'. This is code for 'the Qatari-Turkey-Europe pipeline is happening'. Remember, that pipeline is the reason why the west was ready to coup Assad years before the Arab Spring was even a thing. HTS is also positioning itself as anti-Hezbollah and anti-Iran, so that's another bargaining chip.
  Add all of these together and HTS can be a compliant government of Syria while at the same time having good reason to give Russia an inch - Israel just invaded it and bombed the entire fucking country. In this scenario neither Turkey nor Syria would be pressured to do even more to comply.
  
  There is no pipeline
  
  Who in their right mind would make a pipeline in the year of our lord 2024, lng happened, europe builds terminals for it out of a wazoo, why lose margin and freedom of trade on giant physical infrastructure?
  
  They're still importing russian energy through Turkey and Azerbaijan, why not import Qatari energy as well? The EU just announced an FTA with Mercosur. The whole point of which is to swamp us here in South America with their industrialized goods. Now the Chinese are investing here, so if Europe can't get its act together in terms of energy prices we might end up exporting industrialized goods to them instead.
  
  i understand why turkey or europe would want it. Why on earth qatar, saudi arabia and usa would want it?
  I can even see it becoming kinda like the line, ever been built never completed. But no way it will work
  
  The Line is just science fiction, a pipeline is not comparable to that. Its something that can actually be built.
  Qatar would be the ones making money, together with some transit fees for Turkey and Syria. Saudi isn't really in a position to block anything. And the US gets to have Qatar undercut some of Russia's energy dominance. Americans also make money regardless of who's selling what to whom by virtue of controlling the international financial system. It might be a different set of Americans, sure, but the only people whose profit margins really go down are those European elites who made bank by owning the private monopolies that imported all that american LNG.
  
  That's all true, but remember when it comes to Russia, the US is in full maximalist mode and I can see them pressuring Turkey and Qatar to replace HTS with the SNA
  
  I don't think there is such thing as replacing the HTS with the SNA. The latter is directly controlled by Turkey, the former is a Turkish ally and they are both joined at the hip with each other as well.
  What the US might do is make the SDF's retreat from non kurdish areas (and the syrian oilfields) contingent on the Russians leaving Tartus after all. But that play is becoming more and more untenable together with the SDF's control of the northeast. First Deir Ezzor then Raqaa, you have syrian arab regions with protests being dispersed with guns. If the local councils keep flipping, the SDF will soon find itself more and more isolated, enforced only by their alliance with the US.
  
  If the SDF's position keeps deteriorating, that only gives the US more incentive to either bring HTS in line or rip the SNA out of Turkey's hands, otherwise they'll have to start building another faction from scratch out of Al-Tanf
  
  To achieve what, exactly? Instability is not an end goal in and of itself. It's a means to an end. And one end the Americans do not want is to see an unstable Syria turning into an Iranian smuggling route.
  Personally I assume that the American priorities are the gas pipeline (to undercut Russia) and blockading Hezbollah (to undercut it and Iran). Getting Russia out of Tartus is a nice third objective. HTS is willing to give the Americans at least 2/3 objectives. At that point the Americans could turn to Turkey and say 'if HTS kicks Russia out of Tartus, we'll force the SDF to join the new government'. Either way the Americans win without having to confront the zionist invasion in southern Syria.
- on the contrary it will be framed as Russian meddling
- Just create the Latakia state at this point, because the HTS wont survive the next years anyways.
- Laughing at the people who said the rebels would never work with Russia because they were American/Israeli puppets or whatever. Zionism makes strange bedfellows.
  
  Wait a bit longer. This is the watermelon seller we are talking about. More betrayals are coming
  Russia was slaughtering these guys by the tens of thousands. All the factions won’t play nice with Russians protecting Alawites.
  Arab nations can’t be outwardly Zionist, they have to lie and say they aren’t (even though everyone knows they are). Jolani seeks to establish a similar understanding, and it’s why he hasn’t said a single bad word about Israel as they violently dismantle his country
- I rather think it's about oil (at least transitionary) or neutralizing turkey somewhat. Iran wouldn't send the oil to hts (well likely wouldn't), cause their value is likely negative. Russia could easily ship 50 k barrels per day to save face for 6 months later withdrawal. While hts will try to take the kurds out.
  Also i could just as well see this as entity (under usa auspices lol) sticking russia there to ward off turkey influence. (despite erdie being big doggie of empire (aspiring sub-empire), pisrael is bothered by him), if it's more permanent arrangement.
  Russia has contradictions with rebels the size of a moon and they have bad blood against russia.

1747 comments