Bashar al-Who? Despite Appearances, All Is Not Quiet on Eastern Front

Chaos in Syria? Call it the last of the big Middle East surprises — after all, before jihadist rebels pounced on Aleppo and overran Syria’s largest city, the Syrian dictator and president, Bashar al-Assad, controlled only 60 percent of the country. What happens in the coming weeks could impact the Assad clan’s half-century grip on power but is potentially more consequential for the regimes that run Russia and Iran. Insurgents led by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a two-pronged attack last week and took over most of Aleppo on Saturday. They claimed to have entered the city of Hama too. Government troops have with Russian support been trying to stall the rebels’ momentum, especially around northern Hama province. In the midst of this mayhem Mr. al-Assad reportedly flew to Moscow for a meeting with Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not confirm that meeting, but stated that Moscow wants “the government of Syria to quickly restore order.” It makes perfect sense that Mr. al-Assad would fit in a little tête-à-tête with Mr. Putin ahead of the former’s meeting with the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, at Damascus on Sunday. Only a week before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow’s former defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, flew to Syria to meet with Assad and inspect a Russian airbase in the country. The airbase in question is Khmeimim air base in western Syria, now nearly a decade old. Russia’s navy base at Tartus has a longer history, but taken together they represent the physical footprint of Moscow on something Russia never had: an opening to the Mediterranean.Syria, even in its present fractured state, is for Moscow an ideal platform from which not only to exert a modicum of control over events in the Middle East and beyond. It is a major military and logistical hub and springboard for its efforts to carve out spheres of influence in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. In Komsomolskaya Pravda, the Russian war blogger Alexander Kots writes that “through our bases, our activity is carried out both in the Middle East and in Africa, which supports, among other things, the battle against the isolation from the world that the West imposes on us.” He adds that “if we were deprived of this hub, no one in the Mediterranean would pour us a glass of water.” For Russians like Mr. Kots, the events in Syria and demonstrations against the pro-Russian government in Georgia are links in the same chain, or as he put it, “the West is trying to hit two targets with one shot.”After Ukraine, Syria is nothing less than a second front for Russia in an amorphous but escalating global confrontation with the West. Yet almost three years of conflict on this eastern front have been a drain on resources and investments in an already volatile region. If Islamic rebels were to topple Mr. al-Assad, it would represent a major strategic setback to Russia’s hegemonic aspirations.The alliance between Moscow and Damascus has contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths in Syria’s ongoing civil war, but humanitarian interests never concerned either Messrs. Putin or al-Assad and for the latter all that matters is his own survival.Iran, too, has been a key political and military ally of President al-Assad throughout his country’s civil war, and according to a statement from Mr. al-Assad’s office, Mr. Araghchi reassured the Syrian leader during the visit to Damascus that Tehran was ready to support the government in their counteroffensive.What worries the Shiite axis is less the fate of the Al-Assad family per se than the possible repercussions of the latest Syrian crisis in Iraq. With Hezbollah severely weakened in Lebanon, there is a domino effect that could ultimately reach Tehran. Little coincidence then that Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, reportedly phoned the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani, to say he was ready “for any cooperation” to “quell the insurrection in Syria.”News agencies on Monday reported that Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have been deployed in Syria to back the government’s counteroffensive against the insurgents’ advances.The AP reported that according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 200 Iraqi militiamen on pickups crossed into Syria overnight through the strategic Bou Kamal crossing. They were expected to deploy at Aleppo to support the Syrian army’s pushback against the insurgents, the monitor said.This was against the backdrop of ongoing Syrian and Russian airstrikes on rebel positions in Hama and Idlib provinces. It seems that the enduring tragedy of Syria, for centuries haunted by an unenviable location at the intersection of competing empires, is not likely to end soon.

Bashar al-Who? Despite Appearances, All Is Not Quiet on Eastern Front

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