Fall of Damascus

Published on: December 15, 2024 11:12 PM

Should it be called the fall of Damascus, or the toppling of a decades-long ruthless autocracy, or the opening of wanton balkanization of a vanquished Muslim country by the real victors clawing away parts of it in a neo-imperial game. Iran’s road to Levant would end at the borders of Iraq; Israel has already traversed the so called buffer zone and is advancing in the Syrian territory; Turkey will hold onto the buffer zone created by it during civil war. The fate awaiting Syria would not be different from Iraq, Libya and Yemen.
Abu Muhammad Al-Jolani, leader of Hayat Tahir Al-Sham, touted as the moderate and pragmatic man from amongst the militia commanders involved in the Syrian civil war, is a former Al-Qaeda leader, direct descendent of Al-Nasra militia, and the close ally of the Salafist Arab rulers. His militia is proscribed and he carries a head money of $10 million. All of sudden, he has become the darling of the Western world. He is wielding power and would be overseeing the Interim administration being cobbled by an unknown figure, Muhammad Al-Bashir with the consent of his Arab patrons.
Since 2011, the so called Arab Spring, we have been witnessing with a ting of gloom Muslim countries falling victim to the follies of their rulers; the conspiracies of brother Muslims and their Western allies. Yemen has been suffering by an unending armed struggle between the nationalists and the monarchists. The country was divided into North and South Yemen both parts ruled by Sunnis notwithstanding a substantial population of Shias. The assets of Yemen – Seaports of Aden and Sanaa – have been the bane of the country. The division was sustained by the rich Salafist rulers. The country has faced proxy wars, militancy, militia warfare, persecution, poverty, hunger, disease.
Saddam Hussain held the country together despite simmering sectarian tensions. He was a bad ruler, a dictator, a ruthless autocrat, a threat to the neighboring monarchs. What Iraq suffered as a result of the wars and the subsequent extremism was too big a price than the Saddam’s autocracy. Now, the majority Shias are in power to the peril of Sunnis. Wars were imposed on Iraq and Saddam was toppled and his entire family eliminated to not bring Shias in power or promote democratic governance. This was done to save the thrones and the wealth of the Arab monarchs.
Colonel Moammar Qaddafi was an autocrat and ruled his country for decades. He was popular in his tribe-ridden country and regularly paid monthly stipends to less endowed families out of the oil wealth of his country. He remained defiant to the Western hegemony and Arab monarchs to his last breath. A ragtag militia was organized recruiting mercenaries from poor Arab and African countries, armed to the teeth and lavishly funded by Arab wealth and let loose on Libya. NATO bombarded the positions of the Libyan army. Qaddafi and his family was eliminated. What the Libyans got in the aftermath of this staged civil war is the division of the country at least into three power centers. From this truncated country, there is at least no threat of destabilization to Israel, Egypt and Arab monarchs as the US-led Western world feared in the presence of the Libyan autocrat.
Nobody can definitely predict what the future holds in store for Syria. Nobody can guarantee the safety of the Shias, Duruz Christians, and other sects in the multi-religion Syrian society ruled by religious extremists under the watch of Abu Muhammad Al-Jolani? Israeli troops now camping beyond the buffer zone within the Syrian territory would stay there, and control strategic positions. The land grabbed by Israeli troops within the past couple of days would remain irreversible like Golan Heights. We know, out of the territories captured by Israel in wars, it has so far returned only Sanai desert to Egypt as a prize for President Sadat’s desertion to Arab cause in the Camp David. The Camp David neutralized the Arab resisting axis and turned Egypt from an ardent Arab nationalist into an ally of the West and Arab monarchies.
Turkey would not vacate the buffer zone carved by it to stave off Kurds. Would the US back out of its pledge to Kurds to carve out an autonomous territory for them on the analogy of the Kurd autonomous rule in Iraq? This remains to be seen. Would the new rulers of Syria acquiesce in the advance of Israel troops, carving of a Kurd autonomous region or the continuous occupation of the buffer zone by Turkey? For the time being they have no wherewithal to do so. Turkey had a common cause with Salafist Arab rulers to topple Bashar. The exit of Bashar ul Asad has effectively ended this common factor. Now, how Turkey balances its geopolitical interests with those of the rich Arab monarchies would remain to be seen.
Would the new rulers avoid engaging in witch hunt unleashing a new wave of persecution and migration, and set on the reconstruction of their devastated country resisting its balkanization? Israel continues pounding the Syrian defence strategic positions – leaving nothing to chance – to be used by the new rulers to resist its advance. The Asads have joined the long list of the autocrats reduced to the dustbin of history. The Syrians are freed as said by Ambassador Ashraf Jahangir Qazi, or have fallen out of fry pan into fire. Nobody knows.
No one has emerged as a winner from Arab civil wars. The Egyptians camped for months on the Tahir Square for democracy which remained elusive barring the brief appearance of President Muhammad Morsi. They have fallen under another military rule thanks to Arab monarchs. Libya and Yemen are two hopeless cases unless a miracle like that of the fall of Damascus happens again in the Arab lands. The new Sultan – Al-Jolani who conquered Damascus in a lightening swoop with Israeli and NATO firepower and funds of Salafist Arab rulers may have a limited territorial space to rule.