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.
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.
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.
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?
Seriously, do you also believe North Korea is a People's Republic or that the Soviet Union consisted of a literal union of soviets?
It's not about trust. We have enormous amounts of evidence from all human rights organizations monitoring the situation. You may not understand this but the entire war was filmed. You can just go look up who they are, what they believe and what they have done to people. They advertised it themselves for the majority of their career.
I still think it's pretty clear that there can be some hierarchy within that category. HTS and the Kurds are less evil than the Taliban, which is less evil than Al-Qaeda, which is less evil than ISIS.
Like you said, there is plenty of history to look at here. HTS has run Idlib for years and they have done nothing that compares to the likes of ISIS. Maybe that will change if they consolidate total power, but neither of us have any evidence to state definitively what will happen. There are plenty of reasons to be either pessimistic or optimistic.
> I still think it's pretty clear that there can be some hierarchy within that category. HTS and the Kurds are less evil than the Taliban, which is less evil than Al-Qaeda, which is less evil than ISIS.
This I can agree with for sure. There are lesser evils and a hierarchy. I think the hierarchy also depends on the situation on the ground for who it's tolerable to support at a specific time. If it would have taken HTS as much bloodshed to get to where they are today as it did Assad to originally regain control, then I think it would less favorable than what actually happened, for example.
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.
Lets not get too emotional in these discussions, facts are enough.
That's misinformation which has been debunked:
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.347B339
https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/video-people-thrown-roof-...
To quote Wikipedia:
> Homosexuality is not a capital offence in the Gaza Strip or elsewhere in Palestine.[54][55] The laws against homosexual behavior in Palestine[d] are a relic of the British and Ottoman rule in Palestine; they specify prison sentences of 10 to 14 years.[54][55] There is no evidence that these British colonial-era laws are actually enforced in Gaza.[54]
> Reports of extra-judicial killings of LGBT people in Palestine have circulated, without being confirmed. Sources such as the news agency Reuters, the news outlet The New Arab, and the NGO Human Rights Watch, characterise many of these reports as misinformation: the stories are exaggerated, oversimplified, or misattributions of events that occurred elsewhere.[56] Examples of this include:
> Two members of Palestinian nationalist militant groups were accused of espionage and killed by their comrades in situations that included rumours about homosexuality or bisexuality.[57][58]
> During the Israel–Hamas war, a video described as "Hamas executes people by throwing them off a roof of a building!" circulated on social media. Some derivatives of the meme claimed the men were executed for being gay.[56] The video, however, was from 2015 and not from Palestine.[56] A July 2015 report from Al Arabiya, included identical images and states that they were originally shared by the so-called Islamic State, and showed the execution of four gay men in Fallujah, Iraq.[56]
> In February 2016, the Al-Qassam Brigades (the militant wing of the Hamas movement) executed Mahmoud Ishtiwi, the commander of Al-Qassam's Zeitoun Battalion.[59] The alleged offences were described evasively, the stated reason was Arabic: تجاوزاته السلوكية والأخلاقية التي أقر بها, lit. 'for behavioral and moral violations, to which he confessed',[58] which some western news media interpreted as a euphemism for homosexual activity.[60][61] Local sources clarified that Shteiwi was convicted of spying for Israel.[62] The Qassam Brigades alleged that Ishtiwi had been executed by firing squad,[63][58] but people who saw his body before burial alleged that he might have died in custody and been shot after death.[64][58]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_homosex...
There's plenty of "stuff on internet" about piles of beheaded babies on Oct 7, too.
Links to reasonably trustable reports needed, please. Otherwise what you're saying is just more "stuff".
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.
And then Western mass media stopped showing news from "freed" Libya. Because, you know, public executions and human slave markets kinda not something, their population should know about, unless it's done by "bad guys".
This concept of neoMarxist sympathies of educated people(white collar workers) in urban areas and Ivy Leagues, that focus extremely on sex and wokeism, that concept only exist in the US.
In Europe "liberal" means he who follows economic liberalism, that is being part of the "right".
In Asia and Middle East is even weirder. Iran is probably the place of Earth that had more Empires in its History. Nationalism, ethnic identity and religion is way more important than anything else, specially on Sha's time. If you call communists people you are referring to Chinese land type of communism instead of industrial, very different from Europe or the US one.
I had a great time skiing on Iran back on the day.
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.
I love it when online commenters display more confidence in their opinions than experts in the field. Really shows how much value their opinion has.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Except Germany and Japan, the third and fourth largest economies in the world…
Which is a shame because the 1950s strategy of investment and prosperity made the world much better and the modern strategy of destabilisation tends to make it worse.
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.
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.
West propped and props up Islamism (and other tyrannies) to prevent nationalisations of oil resources. Seems to be mostly working as intended.
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.
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.
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.
[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
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.
The Salafists (HTS) sparked this series of events with the November 27 offensive and cut off Hama but it looks like 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.
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.
None of the actors in the region are good. America doesn’t have to support any of them, especially Israel, which is based on a religion that has genocide as a core moral in Deuteronomy 20:16-17.
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.
The Iranian embassy in Damascus has been stormed by rebels and protestors as we speak.
Time will tell, but my point stands: Iran and its proxies (and Russia for that matter) are the only meaningful actors interested in keeping the area around Israel destabilized.
You think they will be pro-Western before they will be anti-Israel? It's a very risky gamble to make.
> Iran has torpedoed any attempts at normalizing relationships between Arabs and Israel
> see the now frozen rapprochement between Saudi and Israel.
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.
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.
No, this is how an overstretched (Russia) empire collapses. First the edges collapses.
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.
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.
* 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?