Next stop — the state of Kurdistan?
Our analyst looks at the huge changes rocking the Middle East as Assad falls
Things change.
A truism, right? But that’s because it’s true.
Two weeks ago, according to Alexander Smukler of Montclair — the Moscow-born Russian-American Jew whose work with us began with his analysis of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine but has expanded to what we call the Global Game of Thrones as that chessboard has become increasingly visible — “we were talking about the chaos in the world, with everybody fighting everybody, and the complete impotence of the United Nations and other world institutions that are supposed to control and monitor and lead peaceful coexistence.
“Just two weeks ago, we saw amazing developments in the Middle East, that apparently had not been expected or predicted by any intelligence agency that is monitoring the situation in this area.
“It seems to me that the resignation of Bashar al-Assad of Syria, and his re-emergence in Moscow, was as much a surprise to the world’s major intelligence agencies as it was for journalists, politicians, and everyone else,” he added. (Mr. Smukler has many sources of information around the world; his analysis is based on those resources as well as his own knowledge of the area.)
It’s not as if the situation in Syria is unfamiliar, despite being surprising. “It reminds us of the situation in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, when the Taliban completely demolished the U.S.-supported government and took power. The Afghan army, which was supposed to protect Kabul and the government, disappeared like smoke.” Its president, Ashraf Ghani, immediately ran away; he now lives in exile in the United Arab Emirates.
“It’s the same thing that we see now in Syria, when the so-called opposition took power so easily, and President Assad fled. He landed in Moscow with his family members. I would have thought that he’d find refuge in an Arab country, but, interestingly, he chose Russia, at least temporarily, maybe permanently.
“Russia is famous for hosting famous dictators — for example, Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych, lives there now.”
When Assad fled to Russia, he wasn’t heading off into the unknown, Mr. Smukler said. On the contrary, “Assad knows Moscow very well.”
For one thing, “his oldest son just completed his Ph.D. there.” (Hafez al-Assad, who was named after his grandfather, seems to have earned his degree in mathematics. This might be a good time to point out that Bashar al-Assad trained as an ophthalmologist.)
Beyond that, “several Russian media sources are saying that Assad has property and real estate in Russia, and his wife and family seem to have relocated to Russia about 10 days before, in the first stage of the turmoil in Syria, so it looks like they were prepared.
“Of course it’s just rumors, but they say that Assad owns several houses and apartments in Moscow.
“Nobody knows exactly where he is now — he’s given no interviews, made no speeches — but he’s obviously under the protection of Russian intelligence.
“So Bashar al-Assad was smart enough to escape from a dangerous situation, and Putin saved his life. Otherwise he would have ended up like Saddam Hussein or Muammar Qaddafi.”
Dead.
“During the last 30 years, we’ve seen many revolutions in the Middle East, particularly during the Arab Spring, in 2010 — in Libya, Tunisia, Iraq. Assad is maybe the most bloody, violent, and terrible of all of them. He survived because of Putin; probably he wouldn’t survive in the Arab world. The groups that are taking power are Islamic radicals. If he were anywhere in the Arab world, they’d find him.
“Still, I’m surprised that he didn’t go to Iran” — which, remember, is Islamist but not Arab — “because Iran has been his ally for so many years.”
But enough with Assad, Mr. Smukler said. “He is the past. The situation in Syria is new.
“Erdoğan is behind the political earthquake there,” he said; he’s talking about Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “who made a very strong move in the chess game that he’s playing.” He backed the military opposition to Assad and supplied munitions to the rebels.
“Nobody expected that the result of that move would be the complete demolition of the Syrian regime,” Mr. Smukler said. “The Syrian regime lasted for 53 years, since 1971, when Hafez al-Assad took power. He was a leader of the Arab Socialist party, which was always supported, financed, and protected by the Soviet Union.
“During his long political life, Hafez al-Assad always was a true friend and true ally of the Soviet Union. He was a leader among the Arab countries that were the most dangerous to Israel, and Israel’s continued existence. The Soviet Union supplied Assad and the Syrians with armaments, and many Syrian military personnel have studied in Soviet military institutions and colleges.
“I remember, when I grew up in Moscow, that there were really a lot of Syrian officers and students, and a lot of doctors, in Soviet universities. They spoke perfect Russian.
“For a long time, Syria was the strongest ally of the Soviet Union, and then of Russia, in the Middle East.”
As a result of that alliance, “Russia has two large military bases in Syria — one is a naval base in Tartus, and the other is an air base, Khmeimim, near Latakia. The air base is the key military base for Russia right now, because it controls and supplies munitions for its proxies in Africa from there. And the navy base is the Russian navy’s largest outside Russia, and it’s Russia’s only port on the Mediterranean. From the geopolitical point of view it’s probably Russia’s most important navy base outside Russia.
“The air force base played a key role in defending Bashar al-Assad during the 11 years of brutal civil war in Syria. He was able to survive partly because different groups fought against each other, but also because of the support from the Russians. Since 2016, Assad survived only because the Russian air force helped him by bombing opposition groups.
“But two weeks ago, when the so-called opposition group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which started out officially affiliated with al Qaeda, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa” — a terrorist whose nom de guerre is Abu Mohammed al-Golani, and now goes by both — “who was born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia, was a leader of the group created with Iranian support in 2003, and started his military career in Iraq fighting against the United States.
“We know that it is a radical Islamist group, but we also need to understand that it is Sunni.” Also, remember that Iran is Shia. “Russia fought against the group, because it was a danger to Assad. Russia bombed it terribly.”
To understate, it was a terrible, bloody mess.
Now, Mr. Smukler said, HTS and its leader, al-Golani, are trying to reposition themselves as no longer part of al Qaeda. “As the Taliban did in Afghanistan, he is trying to change his image,” he said. “He wants to show that the world that they’re more tolerant, more sophisticated than that.
“He has to solve the important problem of how to unite the different tribes and religious groups in Syria.”
Those tribes include the Assads’ Alawites, which “is between 2 million and 3 million people, who live mostly near the Mediterranean coast. That’s basically the only area that supported Assad. The Alawites are a minority, but they controlled Syria for more than 50 years.
“Right now, Sunnis took over, but the question is how they can control or unite the country.”
Another group to be reckoned with are the Turkemen, an ethnic group in northern Syria that is related to the Turks, and who get protection from Erdoğan. There are also many Druse in Syria, and “a very large, very ancient Christian community there.
There also is ISIS.
That group is centered in the desert near Aleppo, the country’s second-largest metropolis, and nearby Palmyra, the ancient Roman city that left behind spectacular ruins, including an aqueduct. “In 2016, the Russians bombed Aleppo so badly, when it was fighting ISIS, that it was almost leveled,” Mr. Smukler said. So was Palmyra. “The Russians took eight years and spent several billion dollars to rebuilt Aleppo and restore Palmyra. They celebrated their victory over ISIS in Palmyra with a big concert inside the ancient amphitheater there.
“ISIS still exists, and it has been controlling a large part of the desert. They were contained by U.S. and Russian proxies, but now it will have to be dismantled, and its members might join the opposition.
“Right now, nobody can predict what will happen.
“And the strongest group, the most powerful from the military point of view, is the Kurds,” Mr. Smukler said.
“One of the reasons that Erdoğan made his move is that he’d like to physically eliminate the Kurds, or, failing that, he wants to control the areas where they live. That’s because they control extremely rich oil fields in Syria and Iraq.”
The thing about the Kurds, though, is that while they do control wealthy areas, they do not have their own state. “The Kurds are amazing,” Mr. Smukler said. “They have survived through the centuries. They’ve been fighting for independence for centuries. But they’ve never had a chance to have their own state.”
If this sounds familiar to our readers, there’s good reason for that. The Kurds are in many ways unlike Jews — they’re Muslim, for starters, and their culture tends more to the martial than Jewish culture does. But their ability to retain their identity over hundreds of years while fighting for their own homeland sounds familiar to Jews.
The Iranian-financed, Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah also had a massive presence in Syria, supporting Assad, but “what happened during the last few weeks is an amazing thing,” Mr. Smukler said. “We saw that Hezbollah was not useful to Assad. It wasn’t even very visible.
“And Iran didn’t provide any support to Assad. Instead, it betrayed him. Iran easily could have sent troops to protect Assad, or had Hezbollah do it.”
Or could it?
“Most experts now say that Hezbollah is so weakened after its war with Israel in Lebanon that it simply has no capacity to participate in any military action in Syria,” Mr. Smukler said. “They are out of munitions. They sent everything to Lebanon. They have a major deficit of manpower, because its military group was sent to Lebanon and was devastated.” Remember the exploding pagers? “Its leadership did not participate at all in the recent events in Syria.”
What about Russia? For one thing, the forces now in control in Syria moved too quickly for them. “Nobody thought that they could move to Damascus so quickly, or that Damascus would fall within hours. The Russians tried to bomb them, but it wasn’t effective, and they gave up.”
Why? “It seems to me that Russia has no manpower or military capacity left to defend Bashar al-Assad, so they just gave up.”
Remember that Russia has been sending more and more and more soldiers into the meat grinder it created for itself in Ukraine; it’s been sending all its munitions, and North Korean fighters, and everything else it has or has been given into the war that it’s been winning, true, but at a pace and a cost that’s unsustainably high.
“So Erdoğan chose the most convenient moment to initiate the attack of the opposition, which he controls, sponsors, and supports” — and which, by the way, both the United States and the United Nations label as terrorist — “in order to demolish Assad’s regime.
“Until 11 or so years ago, Assad and Erdoğan were best friends,” Mr. Smukler said. “But then they became enemies, after Assad refused to share the oil business that the Alawites control with Erdoğan. That led to the conflict that eventually led to Assad’s resignation.
“Obviously Erdoğan had a unique window of opportunity to take over Syria. His plan is to build up a new Ottoman Empire, or at least to extend the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence.”
Why is this window of opportunity open now? For a few reasons.
In part, because “Russia is trying to withdraw its own troops from Syria and ship them to the Ukrainian front, and that weakens its military presence in Syria.
“I think that Putin must be missing Yevgeny Prigozhin, who he had killed a year or so ago.” Putin’s onetime friend, the Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a mysterious — or maybe not so mysterious — plane crash after leading a mercenary revolt against the strongman. “Prigozhin and Wagner were active and successful in protecting Assad. So Putin had to ask Erdoğan to help him evacuate the military forces that still are there. The Russian military is trying to take as many munitions as possible out of Syria.
“I spoke with several military experts and read many reports analyzing the situation, and they all report that in the last 11 years, Russia supplied billions and billions of dollars of military equipment and munitions, including anti-aircraft missile system C300, as well as lots of tanks and artillery. Now it’s all gone.
“The rebels probably would have taken everything that was left, but before they could do that, Israel bombed it to smithereens. Israel cannot allow Syrian rebels to use the sophisticated weapons that the Russians left behind, so it’s taking care of the problem.” “Now, there is the huge question of whether Russia can maintain its military bases in Syria. Russians are trying to create contacts with the opposition, who they have been fighting for many years, to make a deal that will allow them to keep their base on the Mediterranean.”
Another reason why Erdoğan’s window is open now is because of American politics, Mr. Smukler said. At this time of transition, “Biden is on his way out, a lame duck, and Trump is not yet in power.”
Even when Donald Trump is inaugurated as president in January, he will not be interested in the Middle East, he has said. This (with original emphasis) is the president-elect’s social-media statement:
“Syria is a mess, but is not our friend. THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”
So Erdoğan understood that he has a unique chance to extend his influence in the Middle East, and he used it unpredictably.
“It is impossible to know what will happen next,” Mr. Smukler said. “Erdoğan’s move puts him on top of the world. He became a real global player right now with this one move.
“But the question is what will happen in the next few weeks. Biden still is in the White House, and there are a few things happening in connection with Israel.
“The Kurds are among the key players in modern Syria, because they control a large area in its north, on the border with Iraq. The Kurds aren’t quite allies of Israel’s, but they have always had under-the-radar connections with Israel.
“Although Israel has announced its neutrality about the situation in Syria, and took steps only to protect its northern border, Israel always has supported the Kurds, sending them humanitarian aid, providing them with military training, taking their wounded warriors for treatment.”
He knows a bit about that relationship.
“I met with Kurdish leaders a few years ago, in a meeting organized by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, when I was a member of that group.” He was the president of the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry then. “The meeting was off the record, but they updated us on the situation, including their relationship with Israel.”
Mr. Smukler thinks that President Biden has the chance to make a big difference in the world right now.
“Today, the Biden administration has a unique window of opportunity to receive another ally in the Middle East, by recognizing the Kurds’ independent state, on the territory they control in Syria.
“Recognizing that state before he leaves office would be the biggest political move that Biden could make. It would be his biggest victory — if only he had the balls for it. It would be a big step.”
That step would involve convincing the Kurds that now is the time to announce their long-held dream, or at least a major step toward it. “This would be a window of opportunity that’s open for both Kurds and Biden, and it would enhance his legacy.”
It would be good for Israel.
“I know that Israel would recognize that state immediately, and it would change the whole ballgame in the Middle East,” Mr. Smukler said. “The Kurds would finally have their own state, and such a level of revolutionary turmoil would diminish Erdoğan’s success in the Global Game of Thrones.”
And that would be a purely good thing.
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