by Gavin O’Reilly, Strategic Culture:
In the early hours of last Sunday morning, a seismic geopolitical shift occurred when the 24-year Presidency of Syria by Bashar al-Assad came to an end in dramatic fashion.
Beginning just eleven days previously, an offensive led by the Western-backed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group resulted in the capture of vast swathes of government-controlled territory, including, perhaps most notably, the key city of Aleppo. One of the first major cities to be captured by opposition groups amidst the outset of the conflict, Aleppo would be liberated in December 2016 in an offensive by the Syrian Arab Army, with Russian air strikes playing a key role in support. Thus, for the city to once again fall into the hands of insurgents was a foreboding sign.
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As the militants subsequently began to close in on the capital Damascus, it soon became apparent that Assad’s fate was sealed. Leaving the country alongside his family on a chartered flight shortly afterwards, the former Syrian President would be granted asylum in Moscow, bringing to an end a 13-year coordinated attempt by various powers to topple his government.
In March 2011, following Assad’s refusal two years prior to allow U.S.-ally Qatar to build a pipeline through his country, citing his relationship with Russia as a factor, a plan was put into action to remove the Syrian President from power. Amidst the wider Arab Spring protests taking place at the time, the CIA and MI6 began a covert operation to arm and train Salafist militants opposed to Assad’s secular rule. Joining Washington and London in this endeavour would be Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who would have been the starting points for the proposed pipeline, Turkey, who would have been its entry point to Europe, and Israel, owing to Syria’s membership of the Axis of Resistance and its key role as a conduit between Iran and Hezbollah.
Indeed, two years into the proxy war on Syria, both Iran and Hezbollah would launch a requested intervention in the hopes of preserving Assad’s government, as would Russia another two years later, again at the request of Damascus. Though both interventions undoubtedly played a key role in extending Assad’s far longer than had he acted in isolation amidst the beginnings of the conflict, it would ultimately be the militants, centred in a stronghold in the northwest city of Idlib, who would claim victory last Sunday, leading to a situation that historically does not bode well for either Syria or the wider region.
In 2003, following the U.S.-Anglo invasion of Iraq and subsequent overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the country would be plunged into chaos, creating a power vacuum that, combined with the subsequent destabilisation of neighbouring Syria, would ultimately lead to the emergence of ISIS in 2013. In 2011, at the same time as the Syrian regime-change operation, a similar operation would occur in Libya, owing to Muammar Gaddafi’s proposed Gold Dinar currency. On top of the similar Western support for militant groups vying to remove Gadaffi’s rule, a No Fly Zone would also be imposed by NATO against Tripoli, causing the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, once the most prosperous nation in Africa, to collapse within eight months. Like Iraq, Libya would also be plunged into chaos, with the refugee crisis greatly exacerbated as a result. Syria, another Arab state now joining the list of having its ruler forcibly removed by Western interests, now looks set to suffer a similar fate of extreme instability and sectarian strife. The only noticeable difference being that Assad did not suffer a similar fate as his Iraqi and Libyan counterparts – Hussein being hanged in Baghdad in December 2006, and Gaddafi being lynched on a Libyan street in October 2011.
The removal of Assad from power now also signifies that a dramatic push from the West and Israel to enact regime-change in another long-time target may now be imminent – that target being Iran.
In a 2007 interview with independent media outlet Democracy Now! retired four-star General Wesley Clark would recount how on a visit to the Pentagon in the days following 9/11, an unnamed General informed him that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq in response, despite there being no evidence to link Saddam Hussein’s government to the attacks.
In a subsequent follow-up meeting a few weeks later, at which stage the United States had already begun bombing Afghanistan, the same official informed Clark that a plan had been put in place to take out “7 countries in 5 years”, which alongside Iraq, also included Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan, before “finishing it off with Iran”. A situation that, with the fall of Tehran’s Arab ally, now looks increasingly likely.
Indeed, a key donor to Donald Trump’s recent Presidential campaign would be Miriam Adelson, wife of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who donated $20mn to Trump’s 2016 campaign on condition that the U.S. Embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. A move that the Republican candidate duly followed through with upon his 2017 inauguration. With Sheldon Adelson subsequently passing away in 2021, his wife would donate an even greater amount of $100mn to Trump’s 2024 campaign, this time on condition that the U.S. endorses a Gaza-style land grab of the West Bank. A recent report in the Adelson-family owned Israel Hayom outlet, just over a week after Trump’s election, would subsequently outline how the incoming administration is planning on toppling the Islamic Republic also.
In order to implement such an event, two strategies seem the most likely.
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