Rapid collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria highlights key reality

(MENAFN) The recent rapid collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria has highlighted a key reality: both within Syria and internationally, there was little will to fight for the country's survival. The situation revealed that Turkey, possibly backed by Israel and the United States, had seized the moment to leverage the forces it had been training in Idlib for years, playing a strategic power game. The West has long aimed to turn Syria into a "failed state" similar to Iraq and Libya, and the new reality has enabled Israel to destroy much of Syria's military infrastructure almost overnight while expanding its occupation in the south. This has been the outcome that many of these actors have been working towards for the past 13 years. However, what remains unclear is Russia's precise involvement in these developments. The dominant view is that the turn of events in Syria dealt a severe blow to Russia. Syria was Moscow’s only strong Arab ally, housing its sole warm-water naval base in Tartus and a critical air base in Hmeimim, essential for Russian operations, particularly in Africa. Therefore, Syria’s fall is considered a major setback for Russia, likely exacerbated by its entanglement in the war in Ukraine, which hindered its ability to allocate resources to Syria. Coupled with Iran and Hezbollah's struggles following Israeli attacks, this situation opened an opportunity for rebels and their backers to push forward. However, this window of opportunity was fleeting—Hezbollah could regroup quickly, and if Trump had fulfilled his promise to negotiate a peace deal for Ukraine, Russia might have been able to deploy fresh troops to Syria within a couple of months.

While Russia’s options were clearly constrained, it is unlikely that President Putin was not consulted before the situation in Syria unfolded. The risk of decimating the rebels nurtured by Turkey through Russian airstrikes alone was significant. Both Erdogan and the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group would have tried to avoid this scenario and would have likely attempted to persuade Putin not to strike aggressively, rather than simply hoping he wouldn't do so. Moreover, the groundwork for such a confrontation had been laid long before the recent developments. Fighters from former opposition-controlled areas retaken by the Syrian government during the war were pushed into Idlib, where they were joined by over 20,000 Turkish soldiers by March 2020. These forces, including special forces and paramilitary units, had been preparing the ground for a renewed rebellion, and Russia was likely aware of these preparations. Although Russia may have struggled to send large numbers of troops to Syria, it could have offered financial support to the Syrian army to reduce defections due to poor morale and inadequate living conditions. However, Russia chose not to intervene in this way, likely for strategic reasons.

This does not, however, suggest that the collapse of Syria was part of a master plan by the Kremlin, as some have claimed. One theory suggests that Putin allowed Syria’s fall to trap the West in a long-term quagmire, similar to the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. However, this theory is flawed. Turning Syria into a "failed state" has been the West’s long-term objective, supported by sectarian and extremist forces, and they have succeeded in doing so now, just as they did in Libya. The West had been working toward this goal without Russian involvement, and Syria’s current state is a product of Western strategies, not a Russian plot. This theory seems like a desperate attempt to interpret events as part of a grand design from Moscow, but the reality is more complex and less about masterminding outcomes.

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