[Salon] Graham Fuller commentary on Damascus - Guest Post by Graham Fuller

Damascus– the Dangers of Getting What You Want In a movement stunning in its speed, the long-standing 50-year regime of the Asad family in Syria suddenly collapsed, virtually overnight. Few will weep tears over the collapse of one of the harsher dictatorships in the Middle East – not quite on a par with Saddam’s Iraq, but getting there. As with any major geopolitical tectonic shift, there are plusses and minusses and trade-offs. Syria had largely avoided direct attacks on Israel, although it definitely supported guerilla groups like Hizballah that did carry out periodic operations against Israel —mainly when Israel invaded Lebanon.. I have heard Mossad officers often describe the Assad regime as “reliably predictable”—-meaning that it was not given to highly erratic and dangerous moves. Israel found it a fairly predictable adversary on the border. There are not a lot of good things to be said about the Assad regime. But until its civil war provoked by outsiders as of a few years ago, the Asad regime did provide some degree of internal stability whose value is not to be underestimated for people who actually live in an unstable region. More to the point, although the Asads represented the power of the small ‘Alawi branch of Shi’ite Islam, the Asads were pointedly secular.and did not impose any religious strictures on the country. it had relatively liberal social restrictions, including for women. Many other religious minorities like Christians and.Druze felt almost “comfortable” under the regime because they otherwise feared far more the political and social power of a Sunni Islamist takeover like the / PersianTaliban/Wahhabi social order. But that fear has now happened—with uncertain outcome. Many in the Sunni-dominant Muslim world greatly respected Syria at least for what they considered Its principled stand over decades against Israeli oppression of Palestinians, and its willingness, along with Iran, to resist harsh Israeli policies against Palestinians. While much is made of the fact that Shi’ism is a minority sect within islam, it is noteworthy that Muslim Shi’a have been among the most outspoken and active forces in supporting the Sunni Palestinian cause. That goes for. Shi’ite Hizballah in Lebanon and the Shi’ite Houthis in Yemen as well, and of course, Shi’ite Iran itself. Nor did Shi’ite Iran have any religious difficulties in supporting the purely Sunni Hamas movement against Israel in Palestine. So this really has very little to do with the West’s much touted "sectarian differences" between Sunni and Shi’a. But in the short term, there is no question that Iran has been the chief geopolitical loser now in Damascus. With the collapse of the Asad regime Iran. has lost its main logistical route through Syria to help maintain Hizballah in Lebanon. The crushing Israeli blows against Hamas leadership in Gaza, also supported by Iran is another blow. But in the end Iran demonstrated that it also feared direct military confrontation with Israel leading it to abstain from support of Damascus in this recent struggle because of its vulnerability to damage that Israel would certainly have inflicted upon any Iranian troops crossing through into Syria. Nonetheless, I believe that Israel is still aiming for "the big prize" of bringing down the Iranian regime —with US help. Russia also wisely decided that it did not need involvement in another war front while the conflict in Ukraine continues. But Russia has a long history going back several centuries to pre-communist days – of involvement in the Middle East, where of course Constantinople – today's Istanbul – was the heart of Eastern Orthodox Christian faith to which Russia belongs. We would nonetheless be very unwise to consider that the present collapse of Damascus in any way constitutes a knockout blow against the centuries -old Russian presence and involvement in the Middle East. The port of Latakia in Syria has been the major Russian military anchorage in the Mediterranean for decades. Russia's present restraint.is largely tactical, for the moment. Turkey, of course has been the major player in supporting, training and cooperating with Syrian Jihadi groups that kicked off this campaign that within days brought down Asad. It seems inconceivable that Washington was not only deeply aware of this Turkish-driven operational plan, but was deeply involved in its planning and execution as well. Let us not forget that Damascus has been a constant major candidate for active overthrow by Washington for nearly 50 years. Washington policy makers detested the Asad regime because of its long-standing major resistance to American power and military intervention into the Middle East, its hostility towards Israel – and that was long before the Iranian revolution, which further strengthened Syria’s hand. Syria has always considered itself as part of a loose Third World opposition movement against American global/imperial power. So this recent event is at last sweet revenge for Washington. However, when you sup with the devil, you need a long spoon. Despite its endless invocation of GWOT as mantra— the “Global War On Terror”— Washington has been quite ready to cooperate with Jihadi groups whenever it serves its purposes. Note hence, the US State Department’s recent coy and waffling remarks that they did not quite consider (arch-Jihadi) leader Jawlani to be a “terrorist”--even though it's origins lie in Al-Qa’ida.’But now Washington will have to live with the so far unknown consequences of a Sunni Jihadi regime in power in Damascus. Will Washington – or Israel – be better off with this Jihadi group? You may certainly count on the fact that this development is deeply unwelcome among the authoritarian rulers all down the entire Persian Gulf. One of the key reasons for the Sunni Gulf rulers’ fear, and detestation of Iran was not only because Iran is Shi’ite and not Sunni, but because the Iranian revolution of 1979 represented a rare, truly mass popular revolutionary movement within the Middle East – stirring deep fears of similar possible popular revolutions against autocracies in the Gulf and elsewhere. That fear may be now somewhat diminished with the lavish social programs that Gulf oil exports can provide, but nonetheless fears of popular and destabilizing social movements – including popular pro-Palestinian street movements —still exist. Will this spectacular victory on the part of Syria’s Sunni jihadis help resuscitate similar movements once again across the Middle East? The Gulf rulers have reason to be concerned, and so should Israel. Furthermore, it is inconceivable that Israel's marked success in crushing both Hamas and Hizballah leadership for now will somehow mark the end of anti-Israeli movements in the Middle East. Whatever one may think of the conflict, there is no doubt that the Palestinian issue probably ranks close to number one in the minds of most Muslims around the world as anl bold emblem of Western oppression against Muslims —with considerable support from the United States. These movements can certainly be temporarily suppressed, but the very source of grievance of the revolutionary spirit still does not die. Indeed it has been daily intensified by ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Memories abide in that part of the world, so rich in long history. If not Hizballah then surely another Muslim leader will see opportunity to pick up this cause as long as it exists and ride it once again. Turkey has had long-standing grievances against the Asad regime going back to Cold War days when Turkey was a more enthusiastic member of NATO than today. But more important Turkey is determined to eliminate the main Kurdish separatist liberation movement – PKK. That movement now controls significant portions of north eastern Syria and indeed is a key target of Turkish counterinsurgency operations. The fact that the Erdoğan government in Turkey lent major support to the Islamist Party for Liberation of Syria (HTS) was a major source of that movement’s success. However, now once in power in Damascus, it is not clear how long the close ties between the HTS and Ankara will abide. The Erdoğan AKP Turkish government has sympathies with the relatively moderate Muslim Brotherhood which helped bring about Turkey’s cooperation with the HTS. But other geopolitical grievances may spring up, including issues of Syrian sovereignty, possibly feeling threatened by Turkish interventions into Syria against the Kurds. And of course no one has forgotten that large hunks of what is today's Syria were incorporated within the Turkish Ottoman Empire for many centuries. Those ties, positive and negative are culturally, if not politically, close. (Two of the most popular and delicious kebab dishes in Turkey are Halep İși -“Aleppo Creation”) and Şam Kebabı —Damascus Kebab) The territory of today’s Syria has been the scene of several thousand years of civilizations, religions, and the movement of peoples. It is not that "Syrians are somehow politically unstable" so much as the country is the repository of so many small communities of different languages,religions and regions for so long. Anytime what passes for “Syria“ is shattered, It is not easy to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Especially as vultures in the form of many states of the region— including the US— all seek a voice and a piece of the action. There has been very little comment, so far about the reaction in Iraq towards these events in Syria. But these two countries are linked in numerous ways as well, including the domination of Iraqi politics by the majority Shi’ite population coming to power there after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni power – courtesy of Washington. That's the complex algebra of relations among Iran, Iraq,, Syria, Turkey and newcomer Israel and others that will continue to unfold in uncertain directions. And then throw into the hopper Israel's own uncertain future – either a triumphant attempt to forge a Grand New Middle East, or a country that has vastly over reached itself leading to its own ultimate collapse as some Israelis fear. In short, while it is easy to single out Israel and the US as "winners" in the collapse of Damascus, and Iran, Syria and Russia as “losers" there are all kinds of inconvenient historical realities lying hidden just beneath the surface. No one should be quick to pocket these transient gains without serious consideration of the downsides of this event and the abiding deep rooted nature of many intractable geopolitical realities and passions that will not go away. Although sadly, these realities will probably not be considered by our own policy makers, eager to chalk up a quick kill. To any triumphalists out there– or sore losers – remember this is merely Chapter Five? Fifty? One Hundred?of the long ongoing dramatic saga of Middle East geopolitics. It is far from the end of the story. =======================================================Graham E. Fuller is a former vice chair of the National Intelligence Council at CIA responsible for long-term forecasting. He served as a CIA operations officer overseas for 20 years, much of it in the Middle East..