Turkey is a Winner in the New Syria

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Sydney, N.S.] Cape Breton Post

Chief among the rebel forces that have ended President Bashir al-Assad’s rule in Syria is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HST), a Sunni Muslim group that was previously affiliated with al Qaeda. Their victory is being shared by Turkey.

Ankara has provided indirect assistance to HTS. The Turkish military presence in the northwestern Syrian town of Idlib largely shielded the group from attacks by Syrian government forces, allowing it to run the province undisturbed for years. Turkey managed the flow of international aid into HTS-run areas, which increased the group’s legitimacy among locals. Trade across the Turkish border has provided HTS economic support, too.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, once close to Assad, had in recent months urged disparate rebel groups in Syria to unite. That included HTS, whose shock advance from its stronghold of Idlib in the northwest near Turkey led to the fall of Damascus.

Erdogan’s government said it told Assad that he had to make concessions to opponents or risk the 13-year Syrian civil war, frozen for years, erupting anew. Turkey said Assad ignored its warnings, to its ultimate cost.

Rather than worrying about Syria’s prospects after more than a decade of conflict, President Erdogan now sees opportunity in a post-Assad future. His optimism is well founded: out of all the region’s major players, Ankara has the strongest channels of communication and history of working with the Islamist group now in charge in Damascus, positioning it to reap the benefits of the Assad regime’s demise.

Since 2016, Turkey has occupied chunks of northern Syria. In 2017, it helped create a coalition of armed opposition groups called the Syrian National Army (SNA) to counter Kurdish militants there. In post-Assad Syria, Turkey ultimately wants to prevent Kurdish interests from taking root in a new Syrian government.

Turkish-backed rebels have wasted no time in pushing out Kurdish forces from two northern Syrian towns. That was in line with Erdogan’s long-held goal of creating a buffer zone inside Syria to exclude militants affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an organization waging a war for autonomy in Turkey’s southeast.

The success of opposition groups against Assad with Turkey’s long-standing support points to Ankara potentially having more influence in Syria going forward. With Assad out of the picture altogether, Erdogan is getting ready to cash in on his years-long investment in the Syrian opposition. If it can avoid potential dangers ahead, Turkey could end up a clear winner in Syria’s civil war.

After all, Iran and Russia, Turkey’s main rivals in Syria, are humbled, and a friendly government could soon be set up in Damascus, ready to welcome back refugees. And the downfall of the Assad regime is set to change a delicate balance of interests between Turkey and Iran.

It fell to Mohammed al-Jawlani, head of HTS, one of the several Syrian anti-regime groups, to test Iran’s residual power. He chose as his target Aleppo, historically Syria’s most important city and second in population only to the capital Damascus. Yet with Iran’s proxy Hezbollah weakened by Israel and unable to come to Assad’s aid, the Damascus regime crumbled.

That left Iran with no quick-reaction options at all. Nor could Iran risk trucking troops into Syria overland across Iraq. Not even its own Shi’a militias, with tens of thousands of armed men, could have secured their passage across Kurdish controlled north-east Syria.

Iran and Turkey, who for years have maintained a delicate geopolitical balance, are now faced with competing interests in a post-Assad Syria. For Iran, the Assad regime was a critical strategic ally in the Middle East, and as Turkey is poised to gain influence, Iran’s ability to project power in the region has been steadily diminishing.

Tehran had long kept the Assad dictatorship in power, along with its Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, the largest non-state army on earth. And now, perhaps, the revolutionary wind that engulfed the Assad dictatorship could blow all the way to Tehran.

Iran and Russia lament the loss of a key partner in Assad, while Washington is still figuring out what the situation means for its own interests. But for Erdogan, it’s another step up in regional influence, and a signal of his growing global clout.