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The fall of Syrian President Bahsar al-Assad is a blow to Russia, the terrorist organization Iran, and Hezbollah’s cronies in Lebanon. But Syria’s next chapter begins amid uncertainty. President-elect Trump’s goal is to restore peace to the Middle East, and that road currently runs through Damascus.
“This is not our fight,” President Trump said. He was so perceptive that in 2019 he wisely left outposts of about 900 U.S. troops at both the An Tanf junction near the Iraqi border and along the Deir al-Zour oil fields to fight the defeated ISIS. prevented the return of the Caliphate.
Assad arrives in Moscow and is granted asylum by Russia
It is a shame that the end of the Assad regime will not be the beginning of ISIS 2.0.
Asad was terrible. Remember when he used chemical weapons against his own people? In 2013, Assad’s regime fired rockets carrying the deadly nerve agent sarin into the Ghouta district of Damascus. kill more More than 1,400 people have used it and used it again in 2017, according to the U.S. State Department. In 2018, President Trump, along with France and Britain, ordered airstrikes by U.S. B-1 bombers against chemical weapons facilities in Syria.
Abu Mohammed al-Golani checks the damage after an earthquake in Besnaya village, Idlib province, northwestern Syria, on the border with Turkey, on February 7, 2023. (Omar Haji Kadour/AFP via Getty Images)
“There is not a single family in Syria that has not been affected by the war. Praise be to God,” Abu Mohammed al-Golani, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, said in a speech at Umiyad Mosque yesterday. Today, Syria is recovering.”
President Trump urges people to stay out of Syria’s civil war, blames Obama for failure as Islamists close in on capital
What remains to be seen is whether the rebels, who toppled Assad in just 11 days, aim to rebuild in Syria or return to their al-Qaeda roots. Syria’s economy is depressed, unemployment is high, and the country continues to grapple with the 2023 earthquake that killed 5,500 people and affected many more. This could go either way.
The situation is uncertain, but so far geopolitics is very satisfactory. Russian President Vladimir Putin suffered a huge loss. Unable to keep his client, President Bashar al-Assad, in power, and with Aleppo, Damascus and Homs falling into the hands of the rebels, he decided to use the Russian air base at the international airport near Latakia and the Tartus navy on the Mediterranean coast. The base is more or less on lockdown. Syria was a major investment for Putin and, in some ways, a training ground for Ukraine. With Assad gone, everything went away.
President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Syria, May 3, 2023. (Borna News/Matin Ghasemi/Axonline ATP Images/Getty Images)
As for the Iranians, they have lost a member of the so-called axis of resistance. Their supply route to Hezbollah in Lebanon is currently cut off. Golani said Syria had been a “playground for Iranian ambitions” but nothing more. An Iranian official leading a terrorist militia was killed by HTS forces in Aleppo on November 28th. There wasn’t much Iran could do against Assad, as he was slaughtered by Israel and restrained by US deterrence.
The bad news? Syria is currently in the hands of a UN-designated terrorist group. Mr. Golani, 42, has been a sophisticated operative for years and praised the 9/11 attacks but chose not to ally with various al-Qaeda leaders and set up his own base in northern Syria. I built it. Mr. Golani seems to have calculated that it is better to do well on his own in Syria than to remain loyal to al-Qaeda’s outsider bigwigs. Somewhat worryingly, he calls himself “Golani,” after Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights in 1967, when his grandfather fled from Israeli forces.
For now, much will depend on how Golani handles his victorious forces. If he is wise, he will continue to act as their liberator. And it will not go near the Golan Heights, which the Israeli Defense Forces have newly reoccupied.
Opposition fighters remove a government flag from a government building in Salamiah, east of Hama, Syria, Saturday, December 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Ghaith Al-Sayed)
The biggest concern, of course, is keeping a lid on ISIS. In the West, the US-allied Syrian Defense Forces are “sitting on top of a prison that has imprisoned about 10,000 ISIS fighters,” retired Gen. Frank McKenzie told ABC News on March 31. For years, the camp was filled with resentment. If released, ISIS detainees and their relatives could be weeded out to strengthen other ISIS groups, increasing the risk of terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe, McKenzie said. To borrow a phrase, it is “a whole new chapter in ISIS violence.”
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What’s on my mind is the US military in Syria. A small but highly capable force, it is closely monitored by U.S. Central Command airpower as part of the persistent “defeat ISIS” mission. US Air Force A-10 Warthog conducts low-altitude flight “Display of power” flight In Syria on December 3, after a rocket and mortar attack near a military support facility in the Euphrates, the enemy was attacked while other forces (possibly special forces) destroyed mortars and armored personnel carriers. It was to drive them away. The US Air Force has consistently launched airstrikes against both Iranian-backed militia teams and the ISIS cluster in Syria throughout the year.
I hope that President Assad’s departure will be a new beginning. But Syria has a long way to go, and Trump’s team has a new crisis to solve.
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The United States President’s passion, which transcends party affiliation, is peace in the Middle East. No one since President Nixon has not gone the extra mile, from the Carter administration’s Camp David Accords to Biden’s desperate attempt at a ceasefire in Gaza. Trump also wants peace in the Middle East, but the difference is that given his first term’s success with the Abraham Accords, he can achieve it. However, that road now runs through Damascus.
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