Bashar al-Assad had always been an existential threat to them; he was fiercely anti-Israel, on par with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi
October 7, 2023, it turns out, has worked out very well for Israel and its main backer, the United States. The initial bewilderment apart, Israel has managed to use the Hamas’s shock-and-awe attack as an effective political and social prop to successfully neutralise all its detractors, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad being the latest.
Syria, since at least 2020, has been in a state of political freeze. The civil uprising against President al-Assad in 2011 quickly turned into a violent armed conflict. The rebels, including the Free Syrian Army, the Al-Nusra front, and various other smaller groups, were able to make significant headway by capturing large swathes of Syrian territory.
By 2014, it appeared that it was the endgame for al-Assad.
A breather for al-Assad
However, what started off a united fight against the Shia Alawite presidency of al-Assad turned messy, with the Islamic and secular sections breaking away from each other. This helped the president catch his breath and retaliate with more force.
Complicating the situation further was the emergence and expansion of the Islamic State group, which leveraged its gains in Syria and expanded its foothold in neighbouring Iraq.
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The US and its Western allies, which were gunning for al-Assad, had to perforce turn their attention towards the Islamic State that was rapidly gaining territory in Iraq and Syria.
Al-Assad claimed that IS terrorists would replace him if he was overthrown from power. A large section of the rebels shrank back from their revolt.
Enter Russia
Russia used the opportunity and entered the conflict on the side of Bashar al-Assad. Iran, a fellow Shia nation, and its armed ally, the Shia-group Hezbollah were already in Syria fighting to protect al-Assad. Russia’s entry boosted the pro-al-Assad alliance.
Eventually, with all attention on defeating Islamic State, al-Assad got a reprieve. Russia, on the pretext of striking Islamic State targets in Syria, in reality bombed the stronghold of even the secular rebels. In the period 2014-16, the Syrian armed revolt all but ground to a halt.
The US, which encouraged the Kurds in Syria to fight al-Assad, managed to anger Turkiye’s Recep Erdogan, who shifted his alliance in favour of Russia. The Kurds are considered separatists and terrorists by the Turkiye state and Erdogan couldn’t countenance the US backing this ethnic leadership in Syria.
Failure to rebuild the country
In the meantime, thousands of ordinary Syrians, realising that the civil war was nowhere near ending and al-Assad entrenched in his presidency, fled the country and streamed into Turkiye and from there into European nations — many literally walking away from Syria.
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By 2020, the internecine fighting within Syria had all but stopped. IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed a year earlier in a US airstrike. However, Bashar al-Assad was unable to consolidate his position and rebuild the country.
With Syria’s economy in a shambles, and strict international sanctions against his government, al-Assad could barely survive in office. There was nothing his government could do to restore even a semblance of normalcy.
Furthermore, al-Assad blocked thousands of fellow Syrians from returning to their home country — fearful that the revolt would begin again.
Birth of an armed resistance
For Israel, the United States and their European allies, al-Assad had always been an existential threat. He was fiercely anti-Israel, on a par with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Naturally, al-Assad was a long-standing target of the US and Israel. When the Arab spring uprising reached Syria in 2011, the West used the opportunity to intercede when Bashar al-Assad let loose the military to quell peaceful demonstrations.
The US-led West helped the rebels organise, finance and arm themselves. This turned what started off as a peaceful protest into a blazing armed resistance against al-Assad.
Almost a decade later, the civil war reached an impasse. Syria moved to the back-burner in the perception of Israel and the US. But that did not mean they had forgotten al-Assad and their aim to oust him from power.
The two wars
In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine over the Nato issue — instigated by the US and its allies.
A year later, on October 7, the Hamas leadership attempted to poke its fingers into the Israeli government’s eye, completely shocking the Benjamin Netanyahu dispensation and its hardcore rightwing Jewish coalition partners.
Also read: Syria: 5 key developments as rebels take over; who is Al-Jolani, leader who toppled Assad's rule?
In response, Israel, in what is being debated as a case of genocide, has gone about literally decimating Gaza and at least 43,000 of its residents — most of them reportedly innocent civilians. Israel’s strikes are continuing even as this is being written.
The Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Iranian government in Tehran, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia have supported Hamas. Israel, which has used the Hamas’s strike as a pretext for an unbridled attack on Gaza, has also gone after the Hezbollah and Iran.
Israel’s military might
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad provided Iran with logistical support to help Tehran’s efforts to counter the attack on Gaza. But an angry Israel bombarded Damascus and killed Iranian advisers and personnel who were backing al-Assad. Similarly, Israel retaliated against Hezbollah which sporadically fired rockets into Israel to counter the assault on Gaza.
Eventually, Israel stretched its military power to neutralise the Hamas leadership that included the assassination of former Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh who was visiting Tehran. And, Israel, using subterfuge, managed to inject explosive chemicals in pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah in Lebanon. The resulting serial explosions, causing deaths and injuries, demoralised the Hezbollah leadership and its fighters.
Israel followed this up by decimating the Hezbollah leadership, including its iconic chief, Hassan Nasrallah.
Also watch: Israel-Hezbollah peace deal offers big relief for Lebanese residents
A change of agenda
Simultaneously, there appears to have been a track-two dialogue with Syria’s Islamist HTS (Hayat Tahrir al Sham) chief Abu Mohammed al-Julani, aka Ahmed al-Sharaa. This is a good possibility as al-Julani, a one-time aide of feared Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has changed his agenda in favour of Israel and the US.
Having vowed to target US and Israeli targets earlier, al-Julani scaled down his agenda to just overthrow al-Assad. He was quoted by the media as stating that he had nothing against the US and Israel.
Al-Assad was in no position to resist the sudden attack by the HTS. Reports say his military was dispirited and mainly comprised conscripts. They were not getting paid properly and had to put up with economic woes. The result was that when the HTS fighters, from their base in Idlib to the north-east of the country, stormed Aleppo on the way to Damascus, there was no resistance.
The Syrian army apparently melted away, leaving al-Assad with no choice but to flee the country.
A win-all for Israel
Russia, which in the normal course would have sent its troops to protect al-Assad, could not do much considering that it is stuck in a debilitating war with Ukraine.
The upshot is that Israel, backed by the US, has managed to eliminate all its threats. Of course, the situation in Syria is still fluid. Al-Julani’s HTS has an opportunity to rebuild Syria, open the doors for those who fled the country, and build an inclusive government. Most importantly, al-Julani’s views on Israel and its assault on Gaza will be indicative of the path the HTS will choose if he formally takes over power.
For Israel, 14 months since it launched the assault on Gaza, almost everything has gone its way. Whether Syria will turn out to be the icing on the cake will be known sooner than later.
