"There is Damascus drinking the blood of its sons!
Oh Guardians of Glory, where are the righteous rulers?
The dogs have risen to the fount of life!"
- Hafez al-Assad, from Patrick Seale's 1988 biography called, "Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East" pg. 37.
The political history of post-colonial Syria is not too dissimilar from many post-colonial African states, with their constant warfare and authoritarian rule.
The extra element in the Syrian equation is the entrance of Israel into world history at the same time as Syria itself gained independence from French rule. This added religious and geopolitical dimensions that the newly constructed nation was never able to transcend. Geography cursed it to play a vital role in regional developments and world politics.
Syria under the Assad family was a conduit for arms, drugs, terrorists, revolutionary ideologies, and it will remain the same under its new leadership, which wasn't elected and has a history of violent repression.
The new Al-Qaeda Emir and his cadres of head choppers are playing coy with the international media and regional powers for now but there's no doubt they possess ambitions beyond Damascus. Their regional and international backers will insist on them not sitting back and counting their chickens.
Lebanon and Iraq will be their first targets. They're the easy prey since their armies will most likely not put up any kind of resistance. We all remember how the Iraqi army crumbled before ISIS a decade ago.
Nothing has changed apart from the names and costumes. The actors, the producers and the directors are back for a more violent sequel. ISIS now lays claim to a state under a new flag and a new image, and it will soon be flush with billions of dollars in aid.
The new regime's relationship with Israel, the West, and Turkey has already been made clear. Without Israel's devastating attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, the West's war on Russia in Ukraine, and Turkey's crucial logistical hubs along its Syrian border they would not have been able to roll through Syria. They are beneficiaries of much greater powers and they know it.
Assad was likewise a beneficiary of bigger players but he forgot that towards the end. His instincts betrayed him. He was not a resistance leader, a military general, or a remarkable stateman. He had no business leading a country. He was the product of fortune, not a conductor of it. He went out like a mouse in the middle of the night, not like a lion in the light of day.
As they say, fortune favours the bold. From the beginning of this global war Assad and his allies were on the backfoot, always reacting to events. Israel has always taken the initiative vis a vis the Palestinians and the few Arabs and Muslims who resist it.
Israel has been the aggressor and the winner going back to the formation of its state. It had to be. Land is taken, not given. The 9/11 attacks were the most brazen act of aggression, but that remains only one example among many. Its sudden and unexpected execution of Hezbollah's leadership was another bold and masterful stroke.
Israel's leaders, like the new foot soldiers who rule in Damascus, or the conniving Ayatollahs in Iran, have taken the path of the sword. Such fundamentalist creatures, whose foreign policies for their states are based on ancient biblical scripture, theocratic dogma, and religious sectarianism, don't leave any political space for dialogue. They want a total monopoly of violence in their lands and beyond.
Kyiv's illegal rulers acted the same way by refusing to reach a political compromise with the sizable Russian population in eastern Ukraine, but Russia under Putin has the bigger sword and intervened on their behalf.
Now that Putin has won the war decisively the Western backers of the criminals in Kyiv want to negotiate a peace with Russia. But that's not how it works. Russia won the peace of the sword in Ukraine, just as Israel is achieving the same in Gaza, although they're doing it in a far more primitive and barbaric fashion.
The situation in Damascus is more precarious because the new Al-Qaeda Emir did not win the peace of the sword. His bloodthirsty fighters did not win any battles. The red carpet was laid out before them. Blood needs to be spilled before his so-called victory can be deemed legitimate. There have already been attacks on his forces in the Alawite region, and the Kurds in the north will never lay down their arms.
So there will be war for the foreseeable future.
