On occasion I have been asked to comment about events or affairs in countries that I know little about. I have always respectfully declined to talk about things I have not read about or studied from a historical perspective. We really should not comment on things we don’t know about.

In recent years there has been increasing understanding that what we hear from the mainstream media in the West is largely propaganda. The Western coverage of the Ukraine War has emphasised this fact. The so-called alt-media has been a development reflecting the scepticism of the general public about Western coverage of world affairs. However, it too has been found wanting in explaining recent developments in Syria.

In truth, what has been happening in Syria has been very unclear and ambiguous since the conflict within it began, as part of the so-called Arab Spring, in 2011. I myself have written nothing about it. I am, however, aware that the West acted recklessly toward it, during the Obama Presidency. Obama seemed to be in two minds about what to do after the insurrection against Assad had begun and Hilary Clinton later blamed him for the mess after backing down from his “red lines” in 2013. Obama had declared he would intervene in Syria if chemical weapons were used by the government and amazingly a chemical weapon incident was declared only a few weeks after. Obama did not follow through.

It seems that although the US armed the rebels it did not give them the bigger weapons needed to finish Assad because they were not ideologically pure and fighting for Western democracy and freedom. The US also encouraged Turkiye to be a conduit and base for anti-Assad forces before leaving it high and dry to pick up the pieces when the insurrection was stemmed and degenerated into ISIS etc.

In the end, a civil war was fuelled which Russia joined in 2015, just after the pro-Western coup in Kyiv. The Russian intervention, in conjunction with Iran, saved Assad and rolled back the rebels to the North. Millions of refugees relocated in Turkiye. The US, allied with the Kurds in north eastern Syria, seized the oil producing regions to act as future leverage on the situation.

It is dangerous to comment about events that just occur. We don’t know how they will develop or what their implications are. However, social media platforms like YouTube demand that people – sometimes called “influencers” – give their views on everything and anything that is occurring in the world. Inevitably these people have a single-issue focus, emanating from their original disposition. That might be unconditional support for the West or unconditional support for its enemies. Then they produce videos, seeking monetisation, attempting to explain events in other countries and they are invariably drawn towards interpreting these events through the lens of their pre-existing prejudices, one way or the other.

Along with the highly paid Western deceivers, the alt-media, “axis of resistance” camp followers, and Kremlin propagandists are not reliable as guides to the world we live in. They are not supporters of the multipolarity they preach, but want an imaginary bipolarity with the good being the opposite of what the West says is the good. They leave no room for anybody or anything that does not either join the ranks of “the resistance” (I.e. Russia, Iran, Hezbollah) against the West. National interest seems to have nothing to do with it and subordination to what they feel Moscow wants of them is what they require of everyone.

They do not seem to have an understanding of what the founder of Sinn Fein, Arthur Griffith, once said, that “between the individual and the world there is the nation” and that it is the national and peoples who determine history. It was these which gave their verdict on Assad’s Syria in the last 2 weeks, from within and without.

The Karabakh war of 2020 alerted my suspicions to the so-called alt-media. In this they confidently predicted that the Armenian occupation and/or Russia would do for Azerbaijan and they could hardly conceal their pro-Christian Armenian sympathies in slandering the Turks. It appeared to me that Muslims had only one purpose for them – support of Moscow. They got a big surprise when the Azerbaijanis defied their predictions and beat the Armenians and outwitted Moscow to boot.

Why do these “resistance” people like Pepe Escobar etc. support Assad? Because he is secular and not a “terrorist”? Well, if that is the case why do they support Iran against Azerbaijan, where the secular issue is most profound? It has, therefore, to be concluded that this is a nonsense and they are still Russian chauvinist/Armenian backers at heart and hate Muslim Turks with a vengeance. Why? Is it because the Turks really are the main thing of consequence in the Muslim world and they are hated for this as a source of power in Islam that the Russians don’t care for, but which Putin (to his credit) deals with realistically and carefully?

I have long concluded that the alt-media does not understand Putin, let alone the Middle East. Most of them are merely contrarians that have attached themselves to Russia, Iran, China, Palestine etc. – anybody but the West. Even in the last few days the pro-Russian alt-media has been predicting dire consequences for the rebel army at the hands of Russian aerospace. But Russian Aerospace seems to have also melted away after a brief foray a few days ago. And with it went Hezbollah and Iran.

It seems that Putin made a deal with Turkiye and possibly others, enabling a relatively peaceful transition of power and Assad was told that the game was up when he was in Moscow a week or so ago.

Social media is full of faulty analysis by YouTubers producing content that is motivated largely by money making. There will inevitably be a host of videos now – explaining the events in Syria to get likes, subscriptions and earnings. They should be treated with caution.

Knowing insufficiently about the character of the former government of Syria or the present character of the forces that have captured Damascus I will confine my thoughts to the geopolitics of the situation in December 2024.

What we know for sure is that Damascus has fallen and the Assad family has fled and is presumably gone for ever. There will be no putting Humpty Dumpty back together again by anyone. It was defeated in the space of a fortnight by an army organised equipped and trained under the auspices of the Turkish state. That army has won an outstanding military victory that nobody predicted.

The new Syrian liberation army that was welcomed into Damascus doesn’t look much like a “bunch of terrorists” now. It has been armed and trained by the Turkish state behind the protection zone negotiated by Erdogan with Putin and has become something approaching a professional army on Ottoman lines, encompassing elite forces, regulars and irregulars. It has drone warfare at its disposal, electronic jamming and battlefield control systems.

Putin could do nothing but accept this, unless he wanted another war, potentially with NATO. It has been a rerun of Karabakh, politically and militarily, all over again with the same result. In fact, the Turkish military tactics, built in the Turkish way of borrowing technology and tactics from the West and refining it for cheap, functional usage in the east was first used against Assad’s forces in 2019 to devastating effect. It was this which prevented Assad and the Russians from winning a complete victory in Syria.

The Russia/Turkiye/Iran conference at Astana’s importance lies in persuading Erdogan to be a stabiliser of Syria in conjunction with Russia and Iran, rather than with Washington. This is going to be the ultimate test for Erdogan and is a big moment for Russia and Iran too. Not only Syria’s future but the region depends upon it. In this case the Sultan is the kingmaker and it may be that the only thing to negotiate about is the future of the Russian bases on the Mediterranean and perhaps protection for the Nusayrites/Allawite communities.

Perhaps it is good Trump is there at this moment, as Biden or Harris would have involved half-assed meddling that is no good for anybody. Trump has indicated that Syria is no longer the US’s business and for that we can be thankful.

It is undoubtedly the case that over the last decade and a half Syria has been part of the chess board of geopolitics. It was a target for Washington in lighting geopolitical fires in anywhere which was seen as a Russian sphere of influence. Assad seemed to have won the war against the Islamic Insurrection through Russian and Iranian support from 2015. But events since 2022 have removed the main basis of Assad’s power and he had become merely another chess piece on the chess board, and another pawn to be sacrificed.

Although I was very sceptical about Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022, on the basis that the West was obviously attempting to lure Russia into a swamp in which it was to be engulfed, I did not have the information about the alternative, which Putin had at his disposal, to make his fateful decision. Anyway, if Putin had concluded that Ukraine was a war of an existential kind for Russia, he was 100 per cent correct in abandoning Assad. Assad was intransigent, after his saving, and I think the Kremlin concluded he was not worth it. Putin is a realist and knew Assad had to make up with Erdogan to survive, despite Erdogan’s past actions against the Syrian government. Erdogan and Putin attempted an accommodation but were rebuffed by Assad who should have realised he held a very weak hand without Russia.

The West is rejoicing at the Russian reverse in Syria but perhaps chickens should not be counted until they are hatched. The shedding of Assad and Syria may prove beneficial to Russia in Ukraine and pose problems for the West, particularly in relation to Israel.

Assad’s power has been shown to be based on external forces and an Allawite minority in Syria, which is seen as heretical in the wider Muslim world. It could, therefore, only be sustained by military force and oppression. Syria had no means to rebuild with Western sanctions placed on the Assad government to stifle reconstruction, so support for the Damascus government was in decline and the conscript army no longer wished to fight, without the Russian airforce behind them.

The external forces that aided Assad, Iran, Iraqi Shai militants and Hezbollah, may or may not be seen as allies of the Palestinians, but they are not popular in the wider Islamic world. In fact, both Hezbollah and Iran are detested by large numbers of Muslims – Hezbollah because it is an extension of Iranian/Shia revolutionary power and influence that the US and Israel facilitated in spreading across the region after the invasion of Iraq.

The truth of it is that the battle waged in Syria is between external players and everyone fighting in Syria is merely a pawn in a bigger chess game. Syria, like Ukraine, is a battlefield.

The second event that changed the chess board in Syria were the events of October 7^th 2023. The Hamas attack led to an Israeli campaign against not only the Palestinians, but also against Hezbollah and Iran. Both of these forces, which were instrumental in Assad’s survival, along with Russia, have been decimated by Israel. With them has gone the “axis of resistance.”

The alt-media now has a big problem with its line of argument: If the fall of Assad is a disaster and a further disaster for the Palestinians (some of whom have been celebrating it) the siuation was brought about by Putin in February 2022 and by Hamas on October 7th 2023. The logic, therefore, is that Hamas have greatly weakened the position of the Palestinians.

That is why it has always been more accurate, and better, to describe the events of October 7th as having been generated simply by the intolerable conditions of life the Israeli state has imposed on the Palestinians over the course of generations.

It has become clear for some time now that it would be best for the region’s interests if Iran is contained within Iran. Its influence is inherently destabilizing, and there is a general feeling in the Muslim world that it needed to be cut down to size, along with its militias, for stability to return. The fact that Israel is currently doing this is really beside the point. In cutting down Iran’s proxies Israel may, in fact, be doing the region a favour, whilst paradoxically debilitating itself at the same time.

Iran has long had a symbiotic relationship with Israel. Israel is good for Iran and Iran is good for Israel – and neither are good for the Palestinians. In fact, if the Palestinians were to win tomorrow the Iranian regime would quickly be finished. It carries far too much baggage to survive in the long term, without Israel or Washington, or a combination of both, threatening it. The armed militias/proxies/allies in support of Iran really have no function beyond their patrons in Tehran. They too, like the various armed groups in Syria, are just pawns on a chess board being moved and removed by the main players.

It remains to be seen if the fall of Assad is good or bad for Israel. Netanyahu certainly celebrated the end of the Syrian government on the Golan heights. The best thing for Israel is civil war in Syria. I suspect Israel liked a weak Damascus government under Assad. Arms deliveries could be tracked and Hezbollah penetrated through the dubious elements in Syria who ran the arms routes. What Israel does not want is a functional Syria – particularly under Turkish hegemony. The Turks undoubtedly manoeuvre vis a vis Israel, but Israel respects them as they do not respect Arab states, because they know power when they see it. The Iranian government is an asset to Israel as it fulfils important functions for Tel Aviv in the West, whereas Turkiye does not. Ankara has an important relationship with Baku that Israel has to be very mindful of. There is a very complex web of Turkic Eurasian states on the periphery of Russia/China which are essential to Eurasian development. This is the great game that all the important people from West to East, from Washington to Beijing, know to be the great prize. 

There is some hope that something revolutionary is going to be tried in Syria on the lines of a Muslim solution in the Muslim world. Arab Foreign Ministers at Doha have called for the integrity of Syria to be upheld at Astana and it could be an Arab/Turkish collaboration that rescues the Syrian situation. Perhaps it should be the case of “Turkish leadership/Arab Gulf States bankroll” as Shahid Bolsen has suggested, with the other external players including the West, Russia and Iran leaving the scene. They have, after all, caused little but misery for the Syrian people over the last decade or more. However, the question is whether the Arab states and Turkiye can work together in the common interest to stabilise Syria and keep a tight control on any new government there. Syria has been a moderate and tolerant Muslim state and the Turkish model is likely the best fit for it.

It is amusing that the pro-Russians in the alt-media describe the Syrian liberators as “terrorists” – taking their lexicon from their Western opponents. Do they not know that there is a group of “terrorists” administering rule as a government in part of the UK, whose chief of staff shook the hand of the British Queen and assisted in a peaceful resolution of the long-standing Northern Ireland conflict? The world is full of “terrorists” who built functional states or found themselves in government, from Israel to Afghanistan, from Hamas to Hezbollah.

The Muslim world had one successful form of government and that was the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was a decentralized state with much local autonomy. It functioned effectively for over 3 centuries before the British and French destroyed it. Places that are now bywords for ethnic killing, like the Balkans and Palestine, were regions in which various peoples actually lived together in relative peace and stability under loose Ottoman administration. When the British made their Balfour Declaration they expected to rule Palestine relatively easily because the Ottomans had done so. They thought they could be an improvement, but alas they were very much mistaken.

The destruction of the Ottoman Empire has brought disaster for the peoples of the Middle East. Of course, it cannot be reconstructed. There are new entities and centres of power which have become functional and these now should be brought together in order to sort out the future of the region. It is only the Muslim world taking charge, taking back control as it were, which will be good for Muslims and the world in general. There are, of course, powerful forces which want to prevent such a development and are keen to present Muslims as anything but capable to manage their own affairs.

I don’t know what happens but Syria is now a supreme challenge to statesmanship that could go one way or another. However, it is undoubtedly time that the Muslim world gets off its knees and takes back control of its destiny, for the good of everyone.