In most capitals throughout the Middle East, the information of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fall sparked immense anxiousness. Ankara will not be one in every of them. Rather than worrying about Syria’s prospects after greater than a decade of battle, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees alternative in a post-Assad future. His optimism is effectively based: out of all of the area’s main gamers, Ankara has the strongest channels of communication and historical past of working with the Islamist group now in cost in Damascus, positioning it to reap the advantages of the Assad regime’s demise.
Chief among the many insurgent forces that ended Assad’s rule on Sunday is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a Sunni Muslim group that was beforehand affiliated with al Qaeda and is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States, and the United Nations. Despite these designations, Turkey has supplied oblique help to HTS. The Turkish navy presence within the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib largely shielded the group from assaults by Syrian authorities forces, permitting it to run the province undisturbed for years. Turkey managed the move of worldwide support into HTS-run areas, which elevated the group’s legitimacy amongst locals. Trade throughout the Turkish border has supplied HTS financial assist, too.
All this has given Turkey affect over HTS. In October, Erdogan quashed plans for a insurgent offensive in Aleppo; when insurgent forces launched their marketing campaign late final month, they seemingly did so with Erdogan’s approval. For years, Assad had been dragging his toes as Erdogan sought to fix ties with Damascus and repatriate the thousands and thousands of Syrian refugees whose presence in Turkey undermined assist for his ruling celebration. With Assad’s regional allies weakened by the Israeli marketing campaign in Gaza and Lebanon, and Russia distracted in Ukraine, Erdogan noticed a chance to pressure the Syrian chief to the desk.
The rebels’ whirlwind success got here as a shock. Now, Assad is out of the image altogether, and Erdogan is on the point of money in on his years-long funding within the Syrian opposition. Iran and Russia—Turkey’s fundamental rivals in Syria—are chastened; a pleasant authorities might quickly be arrange in Damascus, able to welcome again refugees; and Assad’s departure might even open a window for remaining U.S. troops to depart, fulfilling a long-sought aim of Ankara’s. If it might probably keep away from the potential risks forward, Turkey might find yourself a transparent winner in Syria’s civil battle.
ROUGH START
Erdogan’s path to affect in Syria has been rocky. After the rebellion within the nation started in 2011, Ankara grew to become a fervent supporter of the anti-Assad opposition, offering monetary and navy support to insurgent teams and even permitting them to make use of Turkish territory to arrange and launch assaults. Ankara hoped that with an Islamist-run authorities in Damascus, Turkey’s regional clout would develop. But because the Syrian civil battle dragged on, it created issues for Turkey. Ankara’s efforts to induce regime change strained its beforehand pleasant ties with regional autocrats. It fell out with Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, in addition to with Assad’s strongest backers, Iran and Russia. Such isolation led Ibrahim Kalin, on the time Erdogan’s chief coverage adviser, to refer in 2013 to Turkey’s dedication to the Syrian opposition and the Islamist trigger as a international coverage of “valuable loneliness.”
Critically, the Syrian battle additionally turned Turkey’s already fraught relations with the United States right into a strategic nightmare. The U.S. resolution in 2014 to airdrop weapons to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG)—a gaggle Ankara considers a terrorist group—was a turning level in bilateral relations. From the United States’ perspective, assist for the YPG grew to become a strategic crucial after months of failed efforts to persuade Turkey to do extra to subdue the Islamic State (also referred to as ISIS). Washington, more and more annoyed over Turkey’s seeming indifference to ISIS actions inside its borders, noticed no higher choice. Ankara, for its half, felt betrayed by its ally’s resolution to arm its enemy.
As Turkey’s issues with the United States worsened, Russia benefited. Moscow intervened in Syria in 2015 to avoid wasting the Assad regime, placing its pursuits in battle with Ankara’s. Russia had the clear higher hand in Syria, and Erdogan noticed no selection however to work with President Vladimir Putin. It was solely with Moscow’s inexperienced mild that Turkey was in a position to launch a navy incursion in 2019 into northern Syria to curb Kurdish advances there, a aim Erdogan noticed as essential to solidify his home alliance with Turkish nationalists. There is a few hypothesis that Erdogan’s resolution to buy S-400 Russian missile protection programs—a transfer that brought about a rift with the United States and NATO—was to safe this approval from Moscow.
BIG PAYOFF
Today, with Assad gone, this stability of energy has quickly shifted in Erdogan’s favor. Not solely does Russia’s loss give Turkey freer rein in Syria, however it can additionally harm Moscow’s standing elsewhere the place the 2 nations compete for affect. Africa is one such area. The intervention in Syria had helped Putin undertaking a picture of Russia as an amazing energy and a dependable backer. He leveraged that fame to domesticate shut ties with African autocrats, notably within the Sahel, whereas Turkey sought to place itself an alternative choice to Moscow. Assad’s collapse will tarnish Russia’s picture and threaten its partnerships. And and not using a navy footprint in Syria, Russia’s logistical assist for its operations in Africa, notably in Libya, might be compromised, probably leaving a void that Turkey can fill.
Assad’s collapse will strengthen Turkey’s hand in relations with Iran, as effectively. The two nations have lengthy been regional rivals. In Syria, Iranian-backed forces coordinated with the YPG in preventing ISIS, thus sidelining Turkish-backed forces in some areas. Iran-backed militias throughout the Popular Mobilization Forces, Iraq’s state-sponsored paramilitary models, have additionally difficult Turkey’s combat in opposition to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed separatist group energetic in Turkey that each Ankara and Washington have designated a terrorist group, in northern Iraq. And within the South Caucasus, Ankara and Tehran have pursued conflicting agendas: Turkey has tightened its cooperation with Azerbaijan in ways in which Iran sees as a risk, and Iran maintains pleasant ties with Armenia, which has a contentious relationship with Turkey.
Erdogan is on the point of money in on his funding within the Syrian opposition.
Iran, nonetheless, has been weakened, first by the Israeli battle in Gaza, which has dealt a blow to the Iranian-led “axis of resistance,” and now by the ouster of Assad, who had been Tehran’s stalwart ally. Syria performed an essential function in Iran’s technique of supporting militant teams and proxies throughout the area. It served as a land bridge over which Tehran might transport weapons and different provides to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Losing Syria will restrict Iran’s potential to undertaking energy, giving Turkey extra room to maneuver, from Iraq and Syria to the South Caucasus.
The fall of the Assad regime is prone to supply Erdogan one other profit: the possibility for reconciliation with Washington. The United States’ navy presence in Syria and cooperation with the YPG have strained bilateral ties and complex Turkish operations within the area. In 2019, days after President Donald Trump introduced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, Ankara ordered a navy marketing campaign in opposition to Washington’s Syrian Kurdish allies. An indignant Trump slapped sanctions on Turkey and pledged to maintain a “small quantity” of troops in elements of Syria to guard oil installations. Ankara has lengthy wished U.S. forces withdrawn, and Trump’s election to a second time period revived hopes that he would lastly carry the remaining troops dwelling. Assad’s departure might make this consequence extra seemingly. As the Syrian rebels reached the suburbs of Damascus to storm the bastion of Assad’s regime, Trump insisted that the United States “ought to don’t have anything to do with” their combat. When he takes workplace, Trump may conform to a deal by which Turkey commits to containing ISIS and the United States removes its troops from Syria, thus establishing Ankara for a productive relationship with the brand new administration.
CAUTION AHEAD
Although a post-Assad Syria affords alternatives for Ankara, there’s additionally an unignorable threat that the Islamist-led forces that toppled the dictator might foster instability and extremism. Power transitions of this sort are not often clean. Thirteen years after an rebellion in Libya, backed by NATO, led to the overthrow and demise of Muammar al-Qaddafi, that nation stays mired in battle and chaos, and its inhabitants is struggling regardless of its plentiful oil wealth. Following Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003, Iraq’s new leaders struggled to consolidate democracy and the nation endured brutal violence. Syria at this time faces challenges on an identical, maybe even better, scale, having suffered greater than a decade of civil battle that brought about widespread destruction and deepened social and political fractures.
Whether the teams that changed Assad can handle these issues is unsure. The rebels have introduced an interim prime minister, however the brand new authorities’s management will not be but absolutely established. If it is ready to transfer towards the huge reconstruction effort that Syria now wants, Turkey will definitely have a task to play. Its assist for the teams in cost, the lengthy border it shares with Syria, and its navy presence within the nation give it vital affect. Even so, Ankara won’t be able to dictate how the brand new leaders in Damascus will rule.
The HTS-led insurgent coalition has not supplied many particulars about its plans for governing Syria, however Western and Arab nations concern that it might attempt to set up a hard-line Islamist regime. In some respects, nonetheless, HTS has tried to current a average face. Its chief has publicly disavowed worldwide terrorism. After bringing down Assad, the group pledged to not destroy state establishments and promised to respect the nation’s ethnic and non secular variety.
There is a threat that the forces that toppled Assad might foster instability and extremism.
Yet there are good causes to be skeptical. HTS’s governance in Idlib has hardly been democratic. Ankara could push a brand new Syrian authorities to ensure rights for girls and minority teams, partly to assist it safe Western favor, however that doesn’t imply the rebels will hear. And Turkey, a rustic that refuses to grant its personal Kurdish inhabitants primary rights, is unlikely to hunt beneficiant phrases for Syria’s Kurds. An unresolved Kurdish downside would invite continued instability in northern Syria, with the potential to spill over into Turkey. And if the rebels fail to enshrine equal rights for all Syrians in regulation and apply, the brand new Syria may not look that completely different from the previous one. That consequence wouldn’t be good for Ankara. Erdogan desires the Syrian refugees now residing in Turkey to return to their nation voluntarily. Without assurances of a democratic future, many could not need to.
There can also be a threat of an ISIS resurgence. Syria’s new leaders may have lots on their plates within the 12 months to return. The Syrian Kurdish militia that’s now securing the prisons and detention facilities that home tens of hundreds of Islamic State fighters may even have its personal future to think about. Capitalizing on this era of chaos, the jihadi group might attempt to reestablish itself. Turkey is especially weak to terror assaults, as it’s dwelling to energetic ISIS networks. This 12 months alone, Turkish authorities have rounded up greater than 3,000 suspected ISIS members in operations concentrating on these networks.
Syria’s political growth within the close to time period will rely not solely on the brand new authorities’s intentions and capabilities but additionally on the actions of outdoor powers to assist stabilize and rebuild the nation. Syria will want international funding in infrastructure, humanitarian support, aid from sanctions, assist for refugee returns, and help with disarming militias and retraining the safety providers. But if the HTS-led coalition ignores worldwide strain to meet its promise to type an inclusive authorities and civil establishments, it will likely be shunned by the world, and an remoted Syria might simply fall again into violent disarray. Turkey will then need to cope with an economically devastated neighbor being torn aside by rival armed teams.
As the ability dealer whose actions led to the downfall of the Assad regime, Turkey will personal Syria’s issues. Many in Ankara had been fast to declare victory after Assad fled the nation. Having a pleasant authorities in Damascus could certainly open doorways for Erdogan. He desires refugees to return to Syria, and his allies in Turkey’s development sector need to participate in rebuilding the nation. This win in Syria has afforded him standing, which Erdogan will hope to make use of to his benefit in relations with the West and with nations within the area. But if Syria slides again into chaos, producing terrorism and instability that might ship extra refugees throughout the border, Turkey’s strongman could come to remorse the rebels’ catastrophic success.
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