Syria - developments

[catlovingdoctor]

I couldn't find an up-to-date thread on the latest unfolding situation in Syria. It's clearly very fluid. Following Sky for updates; it looks to be a dramatic period. Hopefully however it unfolds will bring a little more stability and peace to the country 🙏

Well Assad going is good news so the people have some optimism. But look at who's taken power and there track record. Let's face it al-Qaeda don't have a record of democracy and are well known to be involved in the trade of opium.

I've travelled through Syria, Gaza Libya and Iraq while on various contracts for the water industry and most Brits don't have a clue. I can tell you Libya is no where near as prosperous as it was and it's people are less safe. I travelled with a two heavily armed detail in Syria and Iraq to protect me from the so called jihads who would glee fully gut you at the side of the road. Which is why people like Assad and Sadam were so bloody ruthless.... because not to be was to be naive,

So it could very well mean out of the frying pan and into the fire. I'm afraid the future looks more dangerous than it ever was ..and now they are losing territory to Israel who again has other motivations. These regions are still very tribal with varying Muslim factions buying for power....when one faction wins power the other suffers ....it can be seen even in places like Turkey but tourists simply don't understand.

The west is powerless to influence what happens next. I should imagine Assads wealth has left with him and the country will be an empty shell and what's left will be looted. Land will be grabbed and factions will fall out and fight for dominance

The west didn't destabilise a country, millions of the citizens who are refuged elsewhere right now and the remainder that stayed destabilised the country under a brutal regime. A regime that used chemical weapons remember to its citizens. The west and east then took sides.

now they are losing territory to Israel who again has other motivations.

Syria is not losing territory to Israel. It is maintaining its border (with the help of the UN, surprisingly) against terrorist insurgents.

I think you will find that Assad destabilised his own country then Russia and Iran and Hezbollah helped him terrorise his country then Syrians took back their country with the help of the Iranians and Russians being distracted by embroiling themselves in wars they started themselves. Turkey and Israel just tipped it over the edge. Not much to do with the west who have been fine with Assad doing whatever as long as he did it over there.

Sinwar may have just brought down the entire axis of resistance.

Sorry didn’t mean to quote you, meant the poster above you.

Western centric views on this seem to be off point to me.

@User37482

"Sinwar may have just brought down the entire axis of resistance"

That's a really interesting observation.

The Axis of Resistance operated best in constant low level attritional conflict or interference - and avoiding an all out open confrontation which they would most likely lose.

Sinwar changed all that with the 7th October attacks (which I genuinely think that Iran, Hezbollah and Syria were not fully aware of and certainly didn't approve of).

However once the Gaza conflict started then Hezbollah and Iran had to choose between getting involved and potentially coming off worse (which is what happened) or not getting involved and losing popular support at home.

IMO the fall of Assad is a serious threat to the continued Islamic fundamentalist rule of Iran.

When the west destabilises a county what comes after is always bad news.

More than slightly simplistic. Your agenda is showing.

But then you have the threat of ISIS and other terrorist groups taking full advantage of the situation. If there was no risk of this then why is the west bombing targets in Syria why are all those with interests in Syria now conducting there own operations....no regards at all for civilian life

Yanks are targeting ISIS, Turkey are attacking US backed Kurdish forces, Israel are moving tanks and units into the Syria buffer zones, Russia and Iran looking after it's own interests

I've got no agenda other than one that is based on my personal experience of the region and what has happened following previous wars.

At the moment there's no space for democracy as there is too much going off. It will take months if not years for safe elections to take place

Assad destabilised his own country then Russia and Iran and Hezbollah helped him terrorise his country then Syrians took back their country with the help of the Iranians and Russians being distracted by embroiling themselves in wars they started themselves. Turkey and Israel just tipped it over the edge.

Indeed. Russia has been militarily propping up Assad for years but then committed a huge percentage of its military resources to invading Ukraine, and is still trying to take more Ukrainian territory to this day.

Last year Putin assassinated his close friend Prigozhin, whose Wagner Group private military company (ie mercenaries) has been playing such a big part in Syria.

It's been due to fall apart for a while.

I'm very concerned for Syrians for what comes next – potentially a lawless period, militias, some extremist...

But I'm also listening to Syrian people, who though scared about what may come next, are absolutely thrilled at the end of the Assad family's rule.

History is all I can say, history says these revolutions don't end well. Throwing shoes at statues is the beginning but when it turns sour then comes the problems. Terrorism is our biggest risk but the risk for the Syrians is that there is no smooth transition of power to a government that represents it's people. What they get is a corrupt military machine who will bring a decade of civil war.

Interesting stuff.

The rebel groups have taken a fair bit of hardware in the last few days, including some state-of-the-art Russian radar and surface-to-air missiles. It looks like they got a lot of stuff intact, the rout being so complete.

I imagine it will matter exactly who out of "the rebel groups" actually got the various bits of kit. My hopes aren't high that Syria will get a just peace any time soon.

This article is from 7 Dec, so already out of date:
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2024/12/a-3-day-smo-done-right-2024-syrian.html

[ETA article]

Watching with interest. I agree with the above posters, it looks extremely unlikely for Syria to turn into a democratic nivena.

It's not enough to hold elections. A true democracy requires a free press and the rule of law to hold the Government in check. Syria is just emerging from a 50 year long dictatorship with staggering levels of internment and torture. They country is already split into rebel fiefdoms.

Right now, something along the lines of a peaceful pause would be enough to celebrate.

Every time we meddle in another country and remove a dictator it turns out worse. We tried to remove Assad last time and this time the yanks, Israel and this new brand of islamic terrorists have removed Assad while Russia is fighting a war in the Ukraine.

But what next? Who will hold power and what will happen to the thousands of ex military that supported Assad....the loyal ones most likely plot revenge just like Iraq and Libya. What about the growth of ISIS, Israel and Turkey....seems to me there's lots of loose ends.

Do you consider Saudis government to be any fairer....I'd say they are worse but we openly support them.

I can't see any good coming from this at all and it's all hype designed for one purpose....

There's some quite odd posting on this thread.

We have almost universal agreement that the future of Syria is unclear and the likely period of instability following the fall of a dictator can be very dangerous for civilians.

But one poster when agreeing with this obvious fact takes a tone as though they are somehow arguing against other posters and "putting them right". They make token statements that it's good Assad has gone, but some of their other comments make them sound sad about it, and they're oddly upset at hearing about the Assad regime's drug money connection.

They repeatedly try to claim that Assad was brought down only by other countries' "meddling" (UK, Israel, etc), while having little to say about Russia's meddling that kept him there in the first place – and ignoring almost completely the Syrian people who seem more than a little pleased at Assad's fall despite obvious concern about what will come next.

Then they refer to Ukraine as "the Ukraine".

I heard the same argument about Gaddafi, yet in his absence the country is now poor and worse off.

Sadam the same...all not very nice but look at what they have become.

People like you don't seem to understand there are still wars waging there years after it left your attention span of about a month. I've had to work in these places and Ive seen the change. Yes they are dictatorships but look around the world it's full of these nutters...North Korean being probably the best example....but what would happen if he was overthrown...do you think it would be like South Korea....not a chance...it would end up another military dictatorship or a corrupt government.

The middle east is divided by different militia....there is no middle ground.

@dubsie do you understand that Ukraine is a country?

A sovereign country?

Yes and the war you talk about has been waging long before Russia set foot on Ukrainian soil because that there regions were people wanted to be Russian and a civil war was the result. Unfortunately the west didn't take a neutral approach and Russia annexed crimea. Since then America had been training and arming a Ukrainian regiment and Putin used this as the perfect excuse to go for a full scale invasion. Over a million people have died and some of those are civilians.

Had Biden actually gone to Russia and met Putin and negotiated a deal none of this would have even happened. But Biden is too old and too narrow minded to see that there was a easy solution... instead we went for let's break Russia. A month into the war and we were told Putin is terminally ill and had months to live, he was going to run out of men in less than two months, the Russian economy was weeks from collapse....how many lies are you going to eat to realise it's us that's running out of money because British people are paying the price through inflation and taxes to arm someone else to fight a war that should never have happened in the first.

The only positive of Trump winning is that this will end in January. He went make those two leaders sit and talk about a permanent ceasefire.

@dubsie

"The only positive of Trump winning is that this will end in January. He went make those two leaders sit and talk about a permanent ceasefire."

I agree that Trump intends to end the war in Ukraine (whether he achieves this or not is another matter). But it won't be by getting Zelensky and Putin to have a fireside chat over some hot chocolate to iron out their differences.

It will be by Trump telling Zelensky to cede territory to Russia in return for a peace deal and a pinky promise by Putin not to take any more land. If Zelensky refuses then the US will turn off the military aid and Russia simply wins and probably takes even more land.

Thank you for so promptly proving my point.

Like I said, strange posting where poster vehemently agrees with what others say about the obvious dangers of post-dictator instability, but bizarrely casts themselves as arguing against the posters they agree with.

Oh, and they seem sad Assad has gone.

It's good to have a thread here, but it would have been preferable to title it something better than "developments."

A lot of people don't seem to understand the middle east, remove a man like a Assad and that power vacuum creates a problem in itself. Money and power will corrupt and there's plenty of that available in Syria.

Russian intentions in Syria have always been about power and projecting it's military into the middle east. So they will find and support any organisation of political party that allows them that influence.

Israel wants land and has interests in removing Irans influence.

Turkey has been fighting Syrian Kurds as long as I can remember

America has been arming Syrian Kurds for the last 20 years.

Iran has influence in Iraq, Libya and Syria and will seek to influence Syria as much as it can.

So can you see where I'm going, it's how you stop the influence of all these opposing factions and stopping another never ending civil war. Not one is representative of ordinary Syrian people. So western media fireworks of the removal of Assad will be front page for a month at max and then will forget about Syrian people and then next you'll hear is about how mad men are throwing gays off rooftops and stoning women.

So before we start funding militias to over throw another dictator maybe we should think about the end game....what comes next. I think you'll find this has more to do with Russia than it has to do with Assad.