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Frank
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It had taken the Syrian regime and its backers – Iran, Russia and Hezbollah – more than four years to dislodge rebel forces from the country’s second-largest city of Aleppo. At the time, in 2016, they celebrated that victory as the turning point in Syria’s civil war.
Now, a surprise rebel offensive has recaptured Aleppo in just a few days, including parts of the city that the Syrian army had never surrendered before. This stunning feat is the direct consequence of new wars that have erupted outside Syria’s borders.
“It’s a tectonic shift,” said Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who served as Syria director in the Trump White House. “Regional and international powers intervened in Syria over a decade ago, and now the conflicts of Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon all come together and overlap in Aleppo.” Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Iranian ayatollahs’ regime are all currently embroiled in conflicts that threaten their very survival, and in which Syria is a sideshow at best. To a varying degree, all three have sustained strategic blows – while the Syrian rebels’ main backer, Turkey, has taken advantage of the turmoil.
“Russia is weakened, Iran is weakened, Hezbollah is beaten – and all this has created an enormous opportunity for Turkey, which it was quick to grab,” said Asli Aydinta ba, a Turkey specialist at the Brookings Institution.
At the very least, the latest developments will stem the flow of Syrian refugees into Turkey, a significant political problem there. Depending on how fighting develops in the coming weeks and months, the fall of Aleppo could also give Ankara a dominant role in Syria’s future — not necessarily a prospect that Israel would relish.
Syria’s President Bashar al Assad tried his best to keep a low profile ever since the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas turned into a regional war between Israel, Iran and Iranian proxies. Yet, that manoeuvring – including a recent rapprochement with Gulf monarchies that once funded the rebels – didn’t prevent Assad’s regime from getting embroiled in the maelstrom that is reshaping the Middle East.
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The most important factor behind Assad’s loss of Aleppo is the rout inflicted by Israel on Hezbollah. Equipped by Iran and Russia, the Lebanese militia used to be the most capable infantry fighting on Assad’s behalf, and was instrumental in rolling back rebel gains in the past.
But, in October last year, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah made a strategic mistake, joining the war against Israel that was kicked off by Hamas. As the Lebanese militia redeployed its weapons and forces from Syria to fight Israel, in what it believed would be a carefully calibrated campaign, it suffered nothing short of a military catastrophe.
In recent months, Israel killed most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership, including Nasrallah himself, decimated the militia’s ranks and destroyed its weapons caches in southern Lebanon and south Beirut. Following a ground invasion, Israel has forced Hezbollah, which had pledged to keep fighting until a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, into a separate ceasefire.
“Hezbollah is crippled,” said Navvar aban, a researcher on Syria at the Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies in Istanbul. “This has created a huge vacuum. Though there were regime forces located in Aleppo, they were not trained, they lacked military discipline, they lacked tactics and even their retreat plan was a disaster.” Since the Gaza war began, Iran, too, has lost some of its top Revolutionary Guard commanders in Syria and Lebanon to Israeli air strikes. Instead of projecting strength, Iran’s retaliation against Israel – the first direct missile exchange between the two countries – resulted in the Israeli bombing of Iranian air defenses and weapons-production facilities. This was a blow to Tehran’s military power and political prestige alike.
The Wall Street Journal
The Jews thank God every day for giving them the Arabs as enemies. You can see why.
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