Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family
apnews.com
apnews.com
That's understandable for Iran which may want to avoid to overextend itself following the recent events, but it's hard to comprehend why Russia was unable to do anything at all.
In any case, it seems like there are several very important events happening recently that may reshape the world for the years to come.
In any case, this seems like a major loss for Russia.
its time for America to stop pushing Ukrainians into the firing line
OTOH, we have records of killings and rapes by American military personnel in Iraq when the US invaded the country back in 2003. And they did that unimpeded. Maybe you supported that invasion.
There were some, perhaps 1% to 2% of the population. There was not "a lot" and there never was.
Yes, and this point has been obvious to many for the last two years.
The problem has been the west drip feeding aid into the largest war since WW2. We actually have to define the objective as reclaiming all Ukranian territory (at least to the pre-2022 borders) and supply them appropriately. It might be expensive in the short-term but we can afford it, can seize the $300B of Russian assets, and will be able to reduce our defensive forces in the future use to the reduced Russian threat.
The problem now is that we may have run out of time with Ukraine experiencing significant manpower issues. They could mobilise a lot more people, but that will mean women and younger men (currently only 25+) from a generation that is already very thin.
We can ask Ukraine to do this, but we they will need an ironclad commitment that we will supply them with everything they ask for.
It’s not ideal for Ukraine right now.
Either way pretty much all their pre-war modern equipment has already been destroyed. Now they're fighting with really old stuff like T-55s pulled from storage, newly manufactured equipment, or whatever North Korea thinks it can spare.
"According to Joseph Fitsanakis, professor of intelligence and security studies at Coastal Carolina University, “Russian military production is currently outpacing that of the US and all of NATO member states combined. This may be hard to believe, but Russia is obligated to do it if it is going to outpace the support given to Ukraine."
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/2/russia-races-ahead-...
1. What is the difference between absolute quantities comparing against all relevant players,
2. How long would it take to bridge the gap at current production rates, and
3. Can that rate of production be sustained long enough for it to alter any fundamentals?
The point to rebut isn’t that Russia is making more, it’s whether they can continue to do so ongoingly before Ukrainian advances, regime falter or economic collapse, US/China step-in, or internal unrest will dramatically weaken or make the current Russian negotiating position untenable.
The article seem to indicate that it's much more sustainable for the West than for Russia.
Both sides are aching (very badly) for this thing to be over, or at least taken off the stove.
One can quibble further as to the details -- which are a matter of metrics, wildcards, politics. And (as recent events have shown) there are still many cards to be played.
But that's the fundamental equation we need to keep in mind.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Ongoingly-redesigning-...
I agree that it's not in common use.
It didn't. As we say in Poland "paper will accept everything". And russia is known for shameless propaganda.
Also, I don't think it's an "until" about China stepping in, they seem to be squarely on Russia's side, just presenting themselves slightly more moderate in public to appear suitable as a mediator. (Maybe sort of like the US does with Israel)
Finally, there is BRICS and some massive shifts of attitude in Africa that seem to work in Russia's favor.
This is again first derivative. Russia annexed Crimea, sent unofficial troops to Donbas, in 2022 moved rapidly and captured a lot of territory... But later was pushed back severely. And after that, it was gaining terrain in a truly snail pace.
BTW India and China are in an ongoing border conflict, the hostilities don't end there, with India banning many Chinese apps for example. They're nowhere near as united as EU or NATO, it's more like the Visegrád Group.
With regards to the broader claim that Russian production is outpacing that of the west. Yes, with artillery shells that's probably true, though we are continuing to ramp production. There aren't really any other areas though where a combination of western production + stock drawdowns couldn't supply Ukraine with greater quantities of material.
China is the competitor to the US nowadays. All Russia has is nukes and troll farms, and corruption.
But -- "destroyed"? What's that supposed to mean? What purpose is served by the use of such hyperbolic language?
Nevertheless, Russia clearly chose to stop their support; the Assad regime was cooked.
Except they weren't "the same" parties at all.
I realize that and I realize that this outcome is bad for Moscow, but the Nazis (and others, e.g., the Turks) went through Ukraine to invade Russia whereas no one has ever gone through Syria to get at Russia, so I would expect Moscow to care less about whether the government of Syria is aligned with Moscow than whether the government of Ukraine is aligned with Moscow.
Absolutely not, it's not intentional.
- Suddenly, the world defense base needed to get on up to a level to match the world's 5th largest army, with all its stockpiles -- regardless of if its just lil ol Ukraine, Russia is putting its full effort in.
- Politics in US delayed it several months, I can't recall the exact number, but it was at least 6.
Your points would have been valid maybe one year into the war. Unless you’re suggesting the US military industrial complex takes three years to respond.
You cannot appease an expansionist power that's intent on restoring the glory of an empire from days gone by (real or imagined).
Had all the escalations of the recent 2 years be condensed to the first month of war, BRICS (and not only, e.g. the pope was quite supportive of russia, not sure if he still is) could unite and coordinate a response, and the west could possibly lose the war in the political sense, kind of like Israel lost it. I'm not putting an equal sign between Israel and Ukraine, but who would predict a few years ago common harsh criticisms against Israel in mainstream TV?
Personally I think the west should have been firmer early on that the Russian invasion was unacceptable and they should go or be forced out. Instead they were kind of wishy washy.
In total violent deaths, 2nd Congo is worse. Let’s hope the war ends before that happens again
Sounds like a good way to escalate the war.
Which may depend on continued US support from the newly elected administration.
This is normal in any political system, even during times of war. The UK during WWII still had many Labour MPs, meaning a significant portion of the British electorate did NOT support Churchill by definition. However, most people were united in their opposition to the Nazis.
That didn’t stop them voting out Churchill the first chance they got once the war was over.
I don’t think anyone is seriously naive enough to think the entirety of Ukraine loves Zelenskyy without reservation, however its clear that the Ukrainian people have no desire to let the Russians expand their campaign of torture, rape and murder throughout the country.
Russia is a country with a modest GDP. They are very close to Mexico or Brazil both in GDP and population. We wouldn't be surprised that Mexico couldn't hold multiple wars
Pretty much every nation bar the US was on the verge of economic collapse by the end of WWI (and Russia’s did). The financial burden of two world wars killed the French and British empires. Germany’s WWII war economy was totally unstainable and the USSR’s was bankrolled by the US lend-lease program.
It’s not a panacea - it’s just what you have to do to drive enough military production to sustain a near-peer conflict.
GDP was a good war metric for an industrial economy, and fucking terrible for a services based one. There's never one metric that describes all. You know it, Goodhart knew it, anyone was worked with metrics ever knows it. This is rather important and frankly I don't get the glibness. Russia's not an unstoppable force but it's not a joke either.
It's true however that winning a war is incredibly difficult, and the outcome could still be the same for Russia, if their GDP was increased by an order of magnitude.
Russia also has a unique ability to turn the entire economy into a sort of "war economy". That hasn't really been done yet.
More recent examples include the both sides of the Iran-Iraq war and Armenia in its war with Azerbaijan.
GDP has implications for the productivity of an economy and the budget of the government.
41% of Russia’s government spending at the minute is on the war which means they have to either cut spending on other things weakening the state or drive massive debt and inflation.
There’s a reason you can only run a war economy for so long - eventually you win the war or bleed your economy dry. Russia’s had the advantage of huge legacy reserves of equipment from the USSR days and a larger population. We’ll see how long they can last tapping the well.
Would you explain what you mean by this and why you believe it to be true?
Also, GDP is easy to manipulate: simply increase the bread price and your bread GDP will magically rise without any changes.
Is it really? Russia literally has to rely on North Korean soldiers to continue their own "special operation" a few miles away. Their power projection ability is now zero.
They maybe can do the good old Goebbels "total war" and stop producing consumer goods, but not sure if that's something they want to do.
I now think it was either only a few North Korean officers or it was just Ukrainian propaganda to justify more western support.
Did you miss that Russia has to import cannon fodder, artillery grenades and missiles from North Korea and attack drones from Iran? I don't think they have any resources to spare in Syria at the moment.
https://x.com/AXChristoforou/status/1864324321960972298?t=4H...
https://x.com/BowesChay/status/1864447294474457245?t=yK0OU-9...
The North Korean claims appear to be complete lies, designed to make Russia look bad.
The DoD says North Korean soldiers are already in Kursk and preparing? News of NK armament deliveries and use is old at this point and not debatable.
Is the DoD spreading fake news? Just because they haven't seen front-line combat _in Ukraine_ doesn't mean Russia isn't using NK assets.
If that’s true, they might want to stop publishing press releases about their actions in Syria.
“CENCOM Destroys Threatening Weapons Systems in Syria” https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/39...
“US will remain in eastern Syria and seek to prevent IS resurgence, Pentagon says” https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-will-remain-eas...
Maybe NK will use Saddam's nukes against Ukraine...
All of this to say, pointing out the Daily Mail's crap doesn't really indict "the media" as a whole. I don't think that one story is what American big general guy is referring to as "reports".
Russia definitely does look bad though, and that is no accident -- but I don't think it's the fake stories doing the heavy lifting.
Most of the MSM in the UK has made false claims about NK soldiers in the Ukraine, but the Daily Mail was the most overt and easily debunked that I saw.
Easy. Because russia is all talk and no do. If you punch russia in the face it folds in half.
What is the hot take on the rebels.?
Are these the ones the US was backing a few years ago against ISIS?
Is this another case of the replacement is worse? Or not?
Assad was so bad for using chemical weapons on citizens, the US couldn't conceive of worse? But is that true?
> "with this spirit… we will not only reach Damascus, but, Allah permitting, Jerusalem will be awaiting our arrival”
https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/hayat-tahrir-al-sham-re...
> Assad was so bad for using chemical weapons on citizens, the US couldn't conceive of worse? But is that true?
I never doubt in ability of US to snatch defeat from jaws of victory. I'm starting to think they do it on purpose. I mean chaos is good for Raytheon stocks.
Thats fake/contested
The dust hasn't settled, but my assumption is that the Russians had a sort-of working plan that the Syrian army would do the heavy lifting and Russia would be funnelling in supplies and providing power for key points - following a proxy-war style defensive model. Given the speed and totality of the Syrian army's collapse they didn't really have anything to do that wouldn't be hideously draining on resources that they don't really have.
The collapse of the Syrians may be related to the Russian military being distracted by the Ukraine war in an indirect or direct way. My base case guess is the Turks/Turk-backed faction spotted an opportunity while the Russians were distracted and went for it, and the Syrian forces were complacent because they hadn't really prepared for the situation where Russia is in a war elsewhere.
From the cold-blooded point of view, it makes sense, somehow "It's fine" when the US bombs are being dropped by the IDF, and screwing Russia helps Ukraine and Europe too. But probably that's a myopic point of view, a lot of the world has burning hatred against Israel and the USA now.
Depending on the ethnicity, religion and politics of those Syrians you’ll get wildly different views.
This doesn't necessarily mean they are better but at the very least of two very theistic groups, the latter better represents the population than the former.
And of course while this means Russia and Assad are finally out of the equation, the governments in North and East Syria aren't exactly stoked about the HTS' explosive growth in power.
Talking to actual people is the magical, indispendible ingredient you need in your analysis.
Of course they're quite often biased. That's not the point. But at least you get a human perspective. And even when they're biased, it turns out that "actual people" are usually far less intellectualized and rigidly ideological than the stuff you'll read online. And when they do have an axe to grind, usually there's at least a story behind it ("my family went through this") that you can at least incorporate into your dataset.
And the more actual people you talk to, the more you get to triangulate. Plus, they sometimes invite you into their house for really awesome food.
But if all one does is soak up online narratives and analysis (and worst off all, the crap that thinktanks typically put out, even when they're mostly on the right side) -- one basically becomes a language model.
Full of facts, but knowing nothing.
There is a massive disparity between the treatment of Alawites/Shiites/Druz and Sunnis in Syria (Re: employment opportunities, etc)
I've always heard horror stories about starvation and torture from my father (Sunni) who served over a decade in Hafiz Assads military, as well as constant fear of the "Mukhabaraat" (government informants), leading to huge amounts of self-censorship when speaking on the phone or in public.
My alawite/druz relatives are generally well off and would tell me "eh, it wasn't so bad", despite having the same informant fears and self-censoring
For example we have Sunni/Shia, Sunni/Druz, Sunni/Christian and most recently Sunni/Alawite in our extended family, all from Tartus.
Our relatives from Homs/Dimashq are almost exclusively Sunni, religious, and tend to marry from their own sect and even city.
There are irreconcilable differences between (for example) Sunnis and Shiites that would usually prevent marriage if the husband is 'stricter' in faith, not to mention the rift caused during family gatherings by the politics behind each sect (ie: Alawites are generally pro-Assad, Shiites are usually pro Hezbollah, Sunnis are usually against both)
Edit: This is obviously a gross oversimplification, basically less religeous more intermixing.
Overall, though, there's a lot of fear. Just recently family of mine were going to visit for medical/humanitarian reasons, but now won't any time soon. We all know people there who've been struggling economically for years with the sanctions, but there's a different feel when this sort of ambiguous future violence looms. I'd disagree with other commenters stereotyping "most Syrians are celebrating", it does vary with a spectrum of wanting "stability" and wanting "freedom". farkanoid's stuff about torture and the mukhabaraat (never seen that mentioned in English!), can somewhat confirm, but am personally further away from that since I haven't been to Syria since the war started. The most definitive thing to say is the variance in Sryians' responses is not completely explained by their ethnicity or religion, and that just like any political people, their feelings come less from geopolitical simulations and staring at battle maps, more from their history and connections.
I'm not qualified to give predictions. I mostly wrote this comment to demonstrate that there are sort of Syrians on this website, not to give detailed political analysis. And finally, the sample you see here ARE sort of the "elite" that aprilthird2021 mentioned -- my people are Christian doctors, and farkanoid's Alawite relatives I'm guessing are more well off than the median.
Been to many countries like UAE, Saudi, and finally Germany.
I can tell that the joy is immense. Most druze and alawite are not too happy and fearing, mainly because of the feare built into them throughtout the war years.
Incertanitiy is very big, but the joy of seeing a north-korean-like system collapse in few days is unimaginable.
I have seen too many nk documentaries, I can say that it applies 100% to Syria, with many many more complexities in the region.
AMA
Happy to give proof to mods.
A lot where changing clothes in the middle of the street.
The majority of the Syrian people opposed the ruthless dictator and their allies.
We know whats going on, the world was just focused elsewhere when this all started and suddenly spiraled.
Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham launched a run of the mill offensive on November 27 in retaliation to SAA attacks and it turned out to be so successful that the Kurdish SDF launched its own offensive on November 29 to take advantage of the situation. Within a week almost every rebel group joined in, the SAA lines of defense broke down, and Russian/Iranian/Hezbollah support disintegrated and evacuated from the country.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some intelligence agencies greased the wheels here but this was mostly dominoes suddenly falling thanks to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East sapping military resources and a single spark lighting the powder keg.
Turkey has also been involved in this because they don't want the Kurds to have a state, but HTS seems to have managed to form a coalition for now.
There was also reports of US strafing attacks on columns of some SAA forces (and possibly IRGC) but that seems to have disappeared in the rapid events.
The existing government is trying to stay relevant, the current PM is in Damascus and is promising to work with whoever forms the new leadership. That might just be because he didn't escape and wants to stay out of jail.
Israel (and Russia) have been rumoured to have tried to destroy all the stocks of chemical and other weapons.
Russia will be desperate to hang on to its naval base at Tartus, but that seems to be wishful thinking, but maybe it can make a deal.
Do they actually still need it?
A quick bit of Googling suggests that the main thing they use it for is supplying arms to Syria, which presumably they will no longer need to do.
They only have one, which has been having problems and has been out of service since around 2018, with repair being hampered by accidents and embezzlement. It was supposed to finally get back in service this year but that doesn't seem likely.
Assad was an evil dictator and his father before him, but Syria had a stable government and bureaucracy etc until the civil war. It was a functioning state.
There are sects and regional populations in Syria, the Kurds, Alawites (Assad's group), Sunni, Christian. It's more that they will have to accommodate the regional and religious groups in their government.
1. Russia, being too entrenched in Ukraine, wanted some global focus shifted away from Ukraine, and managed to get Hamas (probably via Iran) to attack Israel last October. This would predictably become a very hot issue - especially in the US - and make the world "forget" Ukraine. There's been a lot of writing that the support for the Ukraine war will only last as long as there's mainstream focus on it, and that no new wars pop up.
2. The Gaza plan failed. Israel attacks Hezbollah and Iran, which means neither of those can help Syria. The retaliation from Israel was too strong.
3. Vital support from Russia, Iran, Hezbollah is now severely limited.
And that's pretty much that. The rebels in Syria saw their opportunity, and seized it.
What's more, is that Syria has long been an important supply route for Iran and Hezbollah. With rebel control, which is anti-Iran and anti-Hezbollah, this will have much wider-reaching impact.
https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-visits-its-closest-frien...
Syria is a Sunni majority country. During the Assad dynasty Alawite minority (population 2-3 million) was the ruling ethnic class in Syria. They have their own sect of Islam (Alawism). Alawites were stuck with Assad family even if they came from competing factions. If Assad falls, they get massacred.
The insurgents fight under the flag of Syrian National Army, backed by Turkey, but the fighting has been mostly led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS).
If we look at Egypt, they could become again a dictatorship.
Libya’s been at peace for 4 years now, but it’s politically a mess. Syria has seen 18 times as many deaths as Libya with only 3 times the population.
Anyways the question wasn’t “will Syria be better than 13 years ago” it was “will a Syria become an Islamic state” - and it’s a fact that Libya hasn’t ended up that bad in that regard.
They don't want to be involved and would be ecstatic if the Syrian and Lebanese refugees were able to return and leave Jordan.
However, Turkey to the north is really not keen on the Kurds having any territory, so they'll do whatever they can to frustrate this.
> However, Turkey to the north is really not keen on the Kurds having any territory, so they'll do whatever they can to frustrate this.
It's not true that Turkey is not keen on the Kurds having any territory because their friendly relations with KRG is a counter example.
Could it work that if the Kurds have their own 'official' region (either country, or province with-in another country) Turkey (Türkiye) would simply throw money at people to move to it?
If there aren't any Kurds living with Turkey's borders, would that be a win for Turkey?
The only reason Kurds would say they don't want their country is Turkey.
But rather the fact that it seems difficult to imagine such a state being set up without further conflict / ethnic cleansing.
This is a misuse of the term.
Even the Syrian Kurds don’t want independence, rather just autonomy as part of a multiethnic Northern region.
Doesn't have to be full-scale independence. I think "stable, legal regional autonomy" was probably included in what the commenter meant by "their own land".
As opposed to the halfway / fully isolated / unstable situation they've had up until now.
way too early to say much more right now. next few weeks/months should be interesting though.
I guess you can’t have everything good. Chinese sacrifices in 1989 lead to collapse of USSR after all
There are going to be elections, right?
That was a lot of suffering and chaos of what's actually a fairly trifling dynasty in the grand scheme of things.
* destabilising a region already in flames
* replacing a secular evil government by.. jihadists in a loose coalition. WCGW?
* Russia used port and airfields to maintain a presence in the Med and for nefarious purposes in Africa. What do they do now, to replace them because I doubt "nothing" is the answer.
* does Iran feel a need to do "stupid things" now to prop up regional Shia politics?
* could this be bad for Ukraine?
* how will Turkey negotiate with this facing the pkk and Kurdish nationalism?
HTS of today might be different from HTS of the past, but that's very much could be just their propaganda. We'll see. Given "guaranteed evil" vs "probably evil" I'd probably prefer the lesser evil.
I very much suspect Russia is fully focused on Ukraine and cannot or will not project force in the region.
Iran has been remarkably restrained over the past little while, and I suspect they want to keep things cool and not hot.
Looking at the speed with which the Syrian military now unraveled, the government was an empty shell of its former self.
Russia was in no position to intervene. First, the development was too quick. Second, the best units are on the Ukrainian front and redeploying them would certainly inspire the Ukrainian General Staff to probe the Russian defenses. Third, the Russian general (Kisel) tasked with leading the Syrian detachment was/is an incapable commander, sent there as a punishment.
Russia cannot fight two wars at once.
There are reasons to interpret this as very good news: Iran and Russia no longer have enough resources to project power. Even with a warm water port and strategic position in the Mediterranean at stake, they just can’t prop up the regime anymore. I can’t help but think that two fewer regional powers meddling in Syrian affairs is nothing but a stabilizing force.
Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have the chance to return home and rebuild now. That’s great news.
B) they released all prisoners now. And at least some of them were part of ISIS.
The point is, that no matter what they did, they are all free now.
If their numbers are so small, why was the IS a global problem then, a couple of years ago?
While the US spend lots of effort on hunting them?
Keeping the flames high, to play firemen?
I don't think that there was a need of more flames, for that theory to be plausible. Occasionally some western weapons likely did found their ways towards IS as well, but they rather captured the bulk of it. Or do you have other sources?
How it will develop has yet to be seen, but I'm hopeful.
Freeing all the political prisoners, yes, I support that. I am not a fan of Assad.
But also all the IS militants who while being free, made a competition, of who can be the most cruel?
I am sceptical. And also about where those people will end up. And they are more than a handful.
Overthrowing Gaddafi didn't make Libya a better place. Now it has open air slave markets, amongst other loveliness.
I certainly wouldn't like to be a black manual worker in any Arab country. Even if you aren't a formally legally enslaved person, you will be treated as one.
Questionable statement.
Syria has (had) a secular government that allowed Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Druze Muslims, twelvers, and Kurds to live there. The status quo for the region is theocratic iron fist of a particular Islamic denomination, with all others persecuted.
Not to mention, Assad is a Ba’athist (as was Sadam) which by definition is all about Arab unity.
Which Sunni warlord group should we hand the country to now? Do you think things will be better? Can you name a single Syrian political figure or interest group (don’t Google!) that you would propose lead the country? Be honest with yourself.
>Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have he chance to return home and rebuild now
They’re not going back.
"live" is a strong word to use there.
Yes, I would argue the islamic state was indeed worse. And so far I see nothing preventing them or a similar force taking hold again. I mean turkey is the moderating factor here and turkey under Erdogan has gone the authorian islamic way since a while.
I said I am sceptical for the outcome, if Erdogan is the moderating factor. Or do you think, he cares much for human rights and democracy?
That is far from saying he is like IS.
Erdogan is as much pro-ISIS as one can be. Maybe just a political game during complex conflict to fight against US-supported kurds at all costs, maybe not. We don't know.
Btw. I just read, a pro SNA news source:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/russia-astana-format-meeti...
It seems the war will continue.
Edit: Also your linked article no longer reflects the current stance of Russia.
It was just to illustrate that Erdogans goals are not peace, after Assad is gone.
No, it implies the focus on the authorian aspects of Islam, just like certain groups in the US would like a authorian christian rule of law.
They don't know that Turkey has been delivering oil to Israel all the time and that Israel is in favor of the current events in Syria.
If all of Turkey, the U.S. and Israel support the Syrian rebels, we may assume that the goal is to install a U.S. friendly government (perhaps supervised by Turkey) and have more buffer states against Iran.
The asylum claim processing authorities were a bit overwhelmed, but soon learned to ask questions such as "can you tell me in which city you used to live, what was the name of the mayor, what was the closest mosque/church, your address, your school" etc. Few of the fake ones could answer such probing in a satisfying way.
Just because they might have chance to return home and rebuild doesn't mean that they will. Somalis arrived in the 90's, and they never returned back there except for vacations.
There's not likely to be much to go back to for most of the people who've left.
If it was the former case, then approximately 7b people would be valid refugees.
Regardless, HTS isn’t the group that captured the capital so I don’t know why everyone is so focused on them right now. They got the ball rolling with their November 27 offensive and captured Hama but they’re still restricted to the northern provinces.
While on the topic of ISIS, I don’t think it’s the rebels we should be worried about. ISIS would never have become what it was without the former Ba’athist officers from Saddam’s regime building out its command structure and military. It’s the disaffected Ba’athists from Assad’s regime that we should be worried about.
It didn’t turn out well when we took him off the board.
West propped and props up Islamism (and other tyrannies) to prevent nationalisations of oil resources. Seems to be mostly working as intended.
Both Syria and Lebanon have managed, in the past, to work out a way for their various regions and tribal/ethnic groups to co-exist.
No? The post-invasion process turned into a simmering insurgency followed by a loose civil war, but since then and so far, Iraq has stabilized into a more or less functional state in which investment is growing and living standards are again moving upwards. I don't see how the automatic response of "it didn't turn out well" applies. The shaky morality of a historical decision (invasion and toppling Saddam in this case) doesn't necessarily translate to a bad outcome in the long run.
Possibly, but it also shows how weak Russia is and how limited their presence in Syria was (because they sent everything to Ukraine). Russia can be defeated in Ukraine, but the west will need to step up support.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-...
The frontline is stabilized and the ruble is collapsing. What exactly is being won here?
Total casualties since the start of the war (less than 3 years ago) are 600,000+. That's about 200,000 more than more than the US sustained in Korea, Vitnam, First Gulf War, Afghanistan, and The Second Gulf War combine.
Which seems to be US plan since beginning, give enough support to make them bleed but not really corner them existentially to trigger nuclear strikes.
We can see a massive success here, mostly due to very predictable russian stupidity and primitive emotions at controlling positions. Well done CIA, well done indeed, hopefully this will make world a better place in the future. But it can easily backfire too.
But I would prefer a democratic development to Salafist terrorism.
I fear the worst, but it doesn't always have to be like this.
I remember ISIS beheading people. Some of these people are still around. Some of them are imprisoned in Kurdish camps. Will they be freed?
The best scenario I can imagine:
Erdogan controls the Islamists and guarantees the security of the people and leaves the Kurds alone.
At some point, even the millions of refugees will be able to return.
The Salafists (HTS) sparked this series of events with the November 27 offensive and cut off Hama but the Southern Front and US backed SFA forces were the ones to actually capture Damascus.
Who overthrew Assad is debatable but the former Al Qaeda affiliate isn’t in control of the capitol. Between the SFA and SDF, they’re only one voice at the table.
That's a blanket statement that's simply untrue. There are plenty of Muslims (arguably the majority) who believe religion shouldn't play a role in politics. Syrians are considered generally leaning towards secularism.
No, this is how an overstretched (Russia) empire collapses. First the edges collapses.
There's a ton of other wrong in your comment (as if Hezbollah, alone, hindered Lebanon from being a functional state and not the decades of war and brutal massacres of their civilians), but let's focus on the main thing.
As far as Lebanon goes, decades of wars are mainly a result of Lebanon's dysfunctional sectarian political system. But having Hezbollah run around and exchange fire with Israel doesn't improve the already bad situation.
Decades of wars have nothing to do with Israel invading the country and installing the extreme right wing Fascist inspired Phalange party into power after 1982? The very event which led to the founding of Hezbollah? Okay
The Sunni world is mostly fine with Israel, other than Hamas of course, which is why Hamas had to work with Iran (although it seems like it backfired on Iran)
Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Sudan, Bahrain and the Saudis (through back channels)
It's just a fact, there's absolutely nothing ridiculous about what I said, if anything Sunni regimes are more worried about Iran than israel.
> Iran has torpedoed any attempts at normalizing relationships between Arabs and Israel
> see the now frozen rapprochement between Saudi and Israel.
Hopefully Turkey does the honorable thing, recognizes an independent Kurdish state and apologizes for decades of oppression, murder and state-sanction terror? Unlikely though.
It feels to me that when HNers agree that a people should be sovereign (the Kurds), they ignore the terrorism. When they don't agree (the Palestinians), the terrorism takes center stage.
Not condoning the attack, but it's also not that black and white. It was an attack on a defense contractor.
Some guys doing bad stuff, say other guys doing bad stuff are really bad - trust us - and thus have them added to the definitive naughty list. In case you're in any doubt, there are lots of bad people and folks out there, but believing there's one definitive list is pretty much Western chauvinism writ large.
that's what strikes me the most. All the newspapers have rebranded "ISIS" "the rebels". The headline would be otherwise "ISIS milicia takes over Syria" and somehow that's good news. I don't know who coordonates the rebranding, but clearly there is coordination, almost every newspaper in every country I checked followed it. It's a spectacular exercise in opinion manipulation.
Yes, we should be cautious and skeptical, but the views currently being expressed by HTS are fairly moderate.
Reminds me of what we were told of the talibans when Biden was trying to hand them over the country. "They are not the same talibans", "they want to be a good world citizen", etc. Well that didn't age well.
Effectively it was Trump who made that decision, via the Doha agreement.
Biden's role was merely to fumble the actual delivery as spectacularly as possible.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Mohammad_al-Julani]
> When asked about al-Nusra's plans for a post-war Syria, al-Julani stated that after the war ended, all factions in the country would be consulted before anyone considered "establishing an Islamic state". He also mentioned that al-Nusra would not target the country's Alawite minority, despite their support for the Assad regime.
Idlib governance
> In response to the unrest, al-Julani made several concessions. He released hundreds of detainees from a previous summer's security operation, including his former deputy Abu Maria al-Qahtani, who had been arrested along with 300 others in a purge of his movement. He also promised local elections and increased employment opportunities for displaced persons, while warning protesters against what he termed treachery. [38]
- "He also mentioned that al-Nusra would not target the country's Alawite minority, despite their support for the Assad regime"
In the past, al-Julani (or al-Golani) has explicitly demanded Alawites convert to Sunni Islam,
- "But any Allawite considering taking advantage of Golami’s kind offer must meet certain conditions. They must not only stop supporting Assad, but they must convert to Nusra’s brand of extreme Sunni Islam or, in other words, stop being Allawites. Christians will be given a grace period before they have to start pay jizya, a special tax, and Golani takes for granted that Sharia will be implemented. “The basics remain the same,” says Lund, “and they’re extreme enough to be borderline genocidal even when sugar-coated by Al Jazeera.”"
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/syrian-civ... (2015)
And the surrounding context of that quote is apropos, too: "They had earlier forcibly converted hundreds of Druze to their fundamentalist variant of Sunni Islam." These people have no intention of coexisting with different religious groups—they intend to violently convert them, and eradicate their religions.
Maybe they're naive, but here are Syiran Christians celebrating: https://x.com/GrecoLevantines/status/1865621018531840273
Aside from the coming back of ISIS, that is the major unresolved conflict potential I see. I see no compromise, the fight between the PKK and Turkey has been too long and bloody. Best case kurdish autonomy is becoming stable and established a bit away from the turkish borders, but the SDF won't give up their weapons to Islamists, if they should become the new government. And why would they?
But I am open for miracles. Like turkey releasing Öcalan to become local president in the kurdish areas in Syria, to start a serious peace process. In the sense of - you get this land, but stop the fight for secession in Turkey. The PKK would likely take that deal. But turkey wouldn't. Öcalan and the PKK are terrorists and that's it.
When general Patton won over Germans in WW2 he wanted to continue to overthrow USSR and free countries like Poland and the rest Soviets took over when they colluded with Nazis to split Europe by half. But he was told no, Poland was sold to Stalin for "a pack of fa.s" so to speak alongside the rest of Central Europe. USSR had no nuclear weapon at the time and was a country in ruin. But with the coerced resourcefulness of all the countries like Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Czech and so on (all modern manufacturing was based in "Soviet republics" with few notable exceptions, rocketry and aviation - Ukraine, computing/electronics Poland and Belarus, advanced machinery - East Germany and so on, later Soviet planners started moving people around to "closed cities" and other special places within Russia, but that's where most of them came from). As a result USSR developed nuclear weapons in record time and was a match for the free world militarily for a long time which few times almost ended our civilisation. If Paton was allowed to continue back then? None of it would've happened. We still live the bad consequences of this decision today.
Democracy is very fragile, it requires that the players respect the rules of the game. But in reality, some players use democratic processes to undermine democracy itself and establish their own regime with a democratic shell.
"The strangest thing is that after 14 years of war, the Syrian rebels walked into the entire country faster than if they were on a tourist sightseeing tour. Except at the beginning, there was no fighting."
(from his X Account)
Assad was only able to take back Syria with air support from Russia, ground support from Hezbollah and re-enforcement by Iran and other Iranian aligned groups in Syria.
Russia is busy and drained of resources because of its misadventure in Ukraine, Hezbollah is reeling from it's shocking loss to Israel while Israel has been targeting Hezbollah and anything vaguely tainted by Iran in Syria for years now. Iran itself is being very careful with that it's doing after losing so much of the long-term strategic positioning it invested in.
All of that, that was what was holding back opposition. SAA couldn't have done it in the first place without that support and that support later became security while SAA had other things to do. When it was weakened, the opportunity began to exist.
My personal opinion is that it's been a while since that security actually existed and due to all of the above mentioned problems, it's been a bluff for longer than it has seemed. When the Aleppo lines collapsed, HTS figured this out and acted swiftly to take advantage of that fact. SDF and the southern front joined in when they say they were having so much success.
Taleb should know better, or not be commenting. It makes it sound like a conspiracy theory or something.
Maybe he doesn't. There's nothing wrong with that. It feels surreal to me and like it came out of nowhere.
I'm also sort of frustrated that none of the coverage or comments I see go into how this happened or what lead to it. Nobody is trying to figure out or explain what's actually going on and why now.
Well, what I mean is it sounds like he's trying to insinuate something. Maybe he's just coming from your position, but in the position that he's in, I think he has far more responsibility than that and shouldn't be commenting on things he hasn't spent five minutes researching. While the timing is extremely surprising, all of the factors involved were covered non-stop in Western media for the last year or so. This is by no means a Black Swan event.
edit: It sounds like to wanted to know more. Check out r/syriancivilwar.
His view that the interference of all possible powers has only brought disaster seems plausible to me. He has criticized the export of fanaticism from Saudi Arabia in particular for a while.
The downfall of a regime is perhaps simply difficult to predict.
I experienced this in the case of the GDR. Suddenly it was gone, everyone was astonished.
Strangely enough, there is good Middle East reporting in Germany by academically educated journalists.
Kristin Helberg is great, she reminds me of Peter Scholl Latour in his good times.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristin_Helberg
Thomas Avenarius from "Süddeutsche Zeitung" is nice as well. Though I think he is usually crippled by his neocon boss.
For me, he has become obsessed with being an anti-establishment contrarian that he is too biased to trust.
But that's the wrong comparison to make. The rosier Dutch government won't be taking over control here. The rebels will be.
And if you compare the Assad regime to the actual alternative, the rebels, you'll instead realize: the hard times have only just begun [1].
[1] https://medium.com/opacity/the-syrian-war-condensed-a-more-r...
Can anyone explain which one is the bad side?
[0] https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1865009325669818430?t=r-Pr...
I'd also note that HTS is a proscribed terror organisation in the UK - yet nobody is having their doors kicked in for supporting them, in stark contrast to those publishing the truth about Israel, Palestine and Lebanon.
"The group at the vanguard of this rebel advance, HTS, is actually a terrorist organization designated by the United States. So we have real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organization. At the same time, of course, we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure. So it’s a complicated situation.”
[1]: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/the-moderate-jihadist-l...
That doesn't mean they're "good" guys necessarily. But they have not governed Idlib as extremists for the past several years. The future is open to the possiblity of improvement.
Syria is a place where optimism goes to die, but this is the first time in generations that Syria has been given a chance to rebuild itself, so there's at least a tiny glimmer of hope.
For 50 years, the Syrian government has been controlled by the Assad family.
The Assad family controls the governance of Syria no more.
The original title makes more sense:
> Syrian government falls in stunning end to 50-year rule of Assad family
however I am not entirely sure about that one either.
[Thing happens] in [description of thing]