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Comment by lbrito | Hacker News Reader

We're in a society where narratives need to be simple enough to grasp in 6 seconds. Any further thought or discussion is automatically antagonized or labelled "whataboutism".

Narratives must be clean-cut good versus evil. Assad evil (indeed he was), so logically any opponent must be the opposite of evil. Therefore Tahir al-Sham is now Good.

Tahir al-Sham/Al Nusra being classified as a terrorist organization[1] complicates that clean-cut narrative. Hence the downvotes you got.

[1] https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lst...

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To the extent there is black-and-white thinking here, it’s in reflexively dismissing HTS due to its links to Al Qaeda. (Or thinking their roots are some secret.)

Instead of rushing to judgement, maybe let Syrians decide for themselves. No one wants a return of ISIS. But if Israel keeps occupying territory and undermining HTS rule then we don’t know what will replace them. Destroying the military assets that might have assisted in that fight may be seen as shortsighted in the future.

> maybe let Syrians decide for themselves

What does this mean? From the outside the choices are work to reduce sanctions and increase commercial and diplomatic ties or keep the Syrian economy in a stranglehold.

> if Israel keeps occupying territory and undermining HTS rule then we don’t know what will replace them

Israel is like problem number eight billion for Damascus right now. (Keep in mind that without Israel neutralising Hezbollah, HTS would have had a tougher fight with Assad. Damascus and Tel Aviv may have more to coöperate on than fight over.)

The real threat to HTS is the USA.

One of the primary reasons Assad fell is something like 40% of Syrian national funding came from oil revenue denied by US backed Kurdish separatists.

The US will have to make the hard choice between HTS success or sacrificing Kurdish autonomy.

> US will have to make the hard choice between HTS success or sacrificing Kurdish autonomy

Could an Iraq-style autonomous subnational government that pays some tax to Damascus not work? Does Syria fundamentally not work without those revenues?

What if we took over the lease at Tartus?

All good questions and I would be lying if I said I knew. My assumption is that Syria does not work without the revenue, as evidenced by the fall of Assad and many other poor petrostates when the tap is cut off. Most states cant survive a 40% budget shortfall, let alone a fledgling one trying to bind together many armed factions.

HTS & Ahmed al-Sharaa is reportedly not open to national partition [1], but the SDF is unwilling to integrate into the national military structure.

It might work as an uncomfortable trupple if the US and HTS are willing to be bedfellows, but it is unclear if that is attractive or even viable for either. Everything we know about Ahmed al-Sharaa indicates they they should be a ideological enemy, and the only thing that hedges against this is that it would be really convenient if they wern't. Maybe this will be shown in time, but military trust building is measured in terms of years or decades, while payroll is due weekly.

In general, I think Syrian Kurdistan is a fascinating example cognitive blindness, where the US public and media simply memory holes anything that happens there because creates too much cognitive dissonance. This was true when the US was fighting Russia for the oilfields, and is happening again now, as NATO allied Turkey is bombing Kobani cement factories to impede US base building. [2]

https://www.twz.com/news-features/u-s-reportedly-setting-up-...

https://hawarnews.com/en/renewed-bombing-by-turkish-occupati...

So long as the Turkish and Kurdish nationalists are at odds, an independent Kurdish state is nonviable without foreign backing from the US to keep the Turks out.

There's a decent chance that they'd be better off working with HTS to carve out some concessions about their position within a consolidated Syrian state than relying on continued foreign support, especially seeing how things went last "T" was in office.

It's enough to simply say that HTS is much better than what came before them, and they are.

Time will tell, but I hope so.

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