Russia lost Syria?

The jointly anti-Israel, pro-Russia, pro-Iran crowd is not happy. Why?

In a piece titled “Russia Lost Syria,” Alexander Dugin (“Putin’s Brain”) poses the idea that Russia lost Syria! Is that up there with the argument in 1949 that “America lost China” or the argument in 1959 that “America lost Cuba”? Did America lose Iran in 1979? Let me pose the idea that China lost China, Cuba lost Cuba, Iran lost Iran, and Syria has lost Syria.

Part of Dugin’s idea seems to be that Syria had been absorbed within Russia’s sphere of influence and that maintaining Syria within Russia’s sphere of influence was a good thing for Russia. (Why?) Another part of the idea is that the US-led “globalists” engineered the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, but this was just part of the larger game between the globalists and Russia. Syria was just the lowest hanging fruit, or, as Dugin put it, “Syria was the weakest link in the chain”—the links in the chain being countries on the fringes of Russia’s influence. Dugin explicitly identifies some number of those links: Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Romania, anywhere “where Russia has a strategic stake.” Throw Ukraine into the mix.

I very much wish Dugin would elaborate about what strategic stake Russia has in these places. Similarly, it would be good to hear about what strategic stake the United States maintains in Syria. The US maintains a small but evidently potent presence near Syrian oil fields. The anti-Israel crowd is curiously pro-Assad—more on that below—and flippantly rationalizes the US presence as merely a matter of “stealing Syrian oil.” I would suggest that that point requires much more development. But, that matter aside, we did get reports some years ago about how a contingent of “Russian mercenaries” (from the Wagner Group?) had assaulted the small US contingent—and had gotten mauled. Being able to call in superior air power matters. The US military can be potent when it is not occupied with putting on Drag Queen Story Hour or other such distracting dramas.

According to Dugin, the latest adventures in Syria amount to globalists doing as much as they can to impose new facts on the ground before the Trump administration is inaugurated. Meanwhile, our friends over at Tablet Magazine pose the idea that it was the Turks who unilaterally set things off in Syria. The story is that Erdogan and his people also wanted to impose new facts on the ground before the Trump administration is inaugurated. Specifically, they wanted to take the opportunity to marginalize Kurdish forces operating in Syria—specifically in the Northwest of Syria. The Kurds and the Turks, of course, have been going after each other for generations. Last week’s extra-curricular activities merely amount to a small installment in their blood feud.

Some observers suggest that the Turkish initiative and the globalist initiative (if any) are not distinct things. They are the same thing. The Turks and globalists are working together in a grand conspiracy to get Russia. Something like that.

What to make of all of this from one’s comfortable perch? Let me pose a few ideas:

1. Syria seems to have degenerated into a something of a fractured borderland since at least 2011. The “Syrian regime,” such as it was, held sway over a few population centers in the East, but population centers to the West seemed up for grabs.

2. The Assad regime had been nominally aligned with Russia and Iran. Not that the regime was occupied with the larger regional ambitions of Russia or Iran. And not that the regime had been ideological. Rather, like many (most?) dictatorial regimes, it was occupied with self-preservation. It was pragmatic. Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was pragmatic. The mafia clique that governs North Korea is pragmatic. The regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya had been occupied with regional ambitions until 1986, but it learned to give up larger ambitions and take up the more pragmatic matter of self-preservation. (Credit Ronald Reagan in 1986 for delivering a short, sharp lesson.) Such regimes find support and friends when and where they can find support and friends. They’re not too fussy.

3. The anti-Israel crowd uniformly rues the fall of the Assad regime.

4. The anti-Israel crowd observes (correctly) that the fall of the regime amounts to the rise of jihadi factions. Professional Israel-hater Scott Ritter has been making the rounds on this point.

5. Before the fall of the Assad regime, the anti-Israel crowd crowed about how the regime would handily beat back jihadi factions with the help of Russian air power. Professional Israel-hater Scott Ritter has taken much abuse for his usual bombast and bluster on this topic. Like many observers, whether pro-Israeli, anti-Israeli, or uncommitted, Ritter moves seamlessly from one unassailable, all-knowing rationalization to the next, notwithstanding the fact that one rationalization may be inconsistent with the next. These people are interested only in pressing select narratives, not in trying to assemble ways of understanding what is really going on.

6. The pro-Israel crowd is pleased with the fall of the regime, the argument being that Syria had proven to be a conduit of arms and other resources to factions aligned with Iran such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. The fall of the regime amounts to a fracturing of Iran’s logistical network. The fact that the anti-Israel crowd is uniformly despondent over the fall of the regime suggests that the Israelis are on to something.

7. The pro-Israel crowd may not be too happy to observe the rise of a jihadi faction in Syria, but see point #6.

8. The Turks did make incursions into Northwestern Syria. The Israelis have also made incursions in the south of Syria, reaching out of from the Golan Heights along the border between Syria and Lebanon. The anti-Israel crowd points to this as evidence of territorial aggrandizement—as if territorial aggrandizement is the Israelis’ ultimate objective—but perhaps the operation is more about making it harder for the expanded jihadi presence in Syria to threaten Israel. Identifying the nuts and bolts of an operation to pre-empt a jihadi threat is beyond me—and beyond everyone else—but the broad concept strikes me as credible.

9. The globalists rolled out the ghoulish Biden to slur his way through some statement about how the fall of the Assad regime is a good thing and suggests that there will be a “period of transition” to something better. Biden says that the events of the last few weeks are good in that they are bad for Hamas, Russia and Iran notwithstanding the fact that the Obama-Biden apparatus has been trying to elevate Iran and its proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis over Israel and Saudi Arabia since at least the implementation of the “Iran nuclear deal” of 2015.

10. Many observers note that much of the mess in Syria over the past 13 years or so involves the US supporting certain factions of “moderate” jihadi factions in fights with other jihadi factions… whom the US also supports. I have no idea how to rationalize this seemingly uncontested fact.

11. I did come across reports about Syrians clamoring to get back into Syria from across the border with Lebanon… But there surely are certain Syrians who may now be clamoring to get out of Syria. On this point, the jointly anti-Israel/pro-Russia crowd illuminate the concerns of Syria’s Christian communities, but the idea that there may be important sorting going on is interesting. Certain factions prefer the rule of certain jihadis over that of the Assad regime. Other factions would prefer the rule of the Assad regime over that of their new jihadi overlords.

And that’s it from my perch as of a Tuesday morning. Let’s hope that important sorting does go on and that peoples who chose to remain in Syria can get on with their lives unmolested.