Monday, December 9, 2024
[Salon] Syria’s Ibn Saud - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Syria’s Ibn Saud
Summary: HTS’s Mohammed al-Jolani has proven to be a political and strategic genius with the potential to unite Syria and transform the region.
In an historic and joyous moment for the people of Syria and the wider Arab world the Assad dictatorship has finally fallen.
The offensive by a coalition of Syrian opposition groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that triggered its collapse, codenamed “Operation Deterrence of Aggression”, was not a reactive manoeuvre against Assad’s attacks on civilians in the West Aleppo countryside but a meticulously planned campaign that had been years in the making. The rebels had been ready for months, but to avoid accusations of undermining the resistance or stabbing it in the back they delayed until the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement was in place. The offensive started just a few hours later.
The timing turned out to be highly propitious because a significant portion of Hezbollah forces had returned to Lebanon and Russia’s involvement in Ukraine had left it with few assets committed to Assad’s support. At the same time, Türkiye’s strategic interests had aligned with weakening the Assad regime to strengthen its negotiating position and counter Kurdish factions while Donald Trump’s victory reduced the likelihood of renewed U.S. intervention.
That point was underlined on Saturday when the president-elect used social media to state in unequivocal terms “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” Hours later after al-Assad had fled he added that Russia had abandoned the Syrian president.
When the rebels discovered that the regime’s forces were collapsing, they seized the advantage and to universal amazement after 13 years of civil war began riding down the road to Damascus, liberating one city after another. So rapid was their advance, conspiracy theories sprung up about whether they had received international support. The evidence for this is limited. The US government did support the rebels until 2015 and during the rebels’ attack they conducted a few air strikes in north-east Syria. The mobile phone masts and other infrastructure being rapidly erected around Aleppo and in other liberated areas suggest some kind of state-level financial backing and technical support, possibly Qatari money. Some Islamist social media accounts said the rebels had training from Ukrainian intelligence. Türkiye clearly coordinates with Idlib's leadership as some of the rebel factions are directly under its influence.
All eyes now are on Mohammed al-Jolani and what he will do next. The first task is to completely uproot the Deep State and dissolve all the remaining militia. The lesson of Egypt’s 2011 revolution was that if you delay the counter-revolutionary forces will quickly coalesce and destroy you. Given the regime’s collapse, this should be straightforward either using HTS’s current forces or through the creation of some kind of Khomeini-esque revolutionary guard to ensure the survival of the revolution.
The next job is to unify the state. Now that the regime has totally collapsed a major obstacle that remains is the Kurdish-controlled areas in the east, heavily backed by the U.S. with advanced weaponry.
But the Kurdish situation in Syria is not like that in Iraq or Türkiye. Kurds in Syria lived harmoniously with Arabs till the civil war began in 2011 and ISIS arrived in 2014. Syrian Kurds are mostly Arabic speaking and in the past Syria has had two Kurdish presidents. They also faced discrimination from the Assad regime and fought in the revolution, so it is feasible that unless outside powers interfere a way could be found to incorporate them smoothly into the new Syrian state.
But it is one thing seizing control of Syria’s major cities from a decaying regime and another thing altogether governing them and this is where Mohammed al-Jolani will be tested.
Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’aa (born 1982) known by his nom de guerre as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the second emir of Tahrir al-Sham, liberated Syria from the tyrant Bashar Al Assad
A far-sighted visionary and shrewd politician, al-Jolani is a new kind of pragmatic, modern Jihadi leader whose foundational achievement that paved the way for sudden victory was ending the infighting between rebel groups and unifying all rebel military decision-making and the military structure under one command. Infighting and ill-discipline had long been the rebels’ Achilles Heel in the Syrian civil war that saw a proliferation of factions who mistrusted one another and suffered a multitude of internal problems including a prevalence of extremist ideologies, as well as a casual regard for bloodshed and a lack of any comprehensive plan or strategy.
While external interventions, including support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, as well as US airstrikes, played a decisive role in suppressing the revolution and helping the regime regain much of Syria, the squabbling between the rebels themselves led to unnecessary confrontations and violence which held up the revolution for years.
Many political and media missteps were also made giving the Assad regime ample ammunition to rally regional support and buttress global opposition to the revolution, while mercenaries and opportunists further weakened the cause.
In four years Mohammed al-Jolani turned all this around.
While the Assad regime was steadily decaying and its allies Hezbollah and Iran were being hammered by Israel, he was busy turning his small jihadi group into a civilian administration and establishing a micro-state in Idlib with a functioning government and a disciplined, unified and strategically adept fighting force. Idlib’s government is called the Salvation Government and HTS gives it allegiance. It is run on conservative Sunni principles, the closest parallel being the Taliban administration or cities in western Libya.
Al-Jolani’s group developed well-trained cadres, advanced military production and established political channels to support its goals. It created a governance model unparalleled in Syria, providing security, independent judiciary services and basic necessities like food and consumer goods. Idlib has supermarkets, German bakeries and Sushi restaurants.
Cleverly, he also managed to establish a reciprocal relationship with the Turks without simply becoming their agent, despite the power imbalance and in the face of the most adverse circumstances: no international support, a people subjected to decades of authoritarianism and oppression, Iranian and Russian occupation, war and bombing and a massive number of IDPs.
Given his jihadi background, human rights and treatment of minorities in the newly liberated territories have been among international observers’ top concerns. So far HTS has been extremely eager to show they take such issues seriously and the rebels’ Military Operations Command has issued slick messaging placing emphasis on the rights of minorities and prisoners. No one has told women to wear the veil and the overwhelming majority of videos circulating online, including those posted by minority groups themselves, show no serious violations. Thus far government buildings are being protected and looting has mostly been contained.
Although al-Jolani has been trying to rebuild his reputation in the West for years, how the West will treat him going forward is unclear. He is obviously keen not to aggravate Western powers but he remains a US designated terrorist as do others in his network and it is hard to imagine he would hand any of them over to the Americans, although he might, like the Taliban, be ready to guarantee they would not target the West from Syrian territory.
In 2021 a senior US official proposed working with al-Jolani on the basis that he is the least bad option available in Syria and in recent days there has been a steady beat of positive Western media articles about him, significantly boosting his profile. Ultimately, however, the West and Arab governments chose to prefer Bashar al-Assad over any opposition group in Syria so it seems more likely Donald Trump will listen to his Arab allies and Israel who will warn him it would be better to give Mohammed al-Jolani and his incoming revolutionary government the cold shoulder.
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