09.01.2025

Hitting the jackpot?

Esen Uslu takes down Erdoğan’s fantasy that, after successfully backing HTS, he can determine the future of the region

Since the Assad regime crumbled and Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (HTS) seemed to be running the show, first a whisper, then a loud thunder has risen: Turkey is the main beneficiary of the process. According to Trump, “Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost”.¹ In the international press there are many assessments that Turkey became the main force to be reckoned with in regards to the future of Syria.

Of course, Turkey’s neo-Ottomanists do have such fantasies, and the Erdoğan regime, bolstered with the firm support of the unimaginative army and security top brass, has been ready to jump in. The head of the National Intelligence Agency (MIT) was seen driving together with HTS leader Al-Jolani (Ahmad al-Sharaa) in Damascus. Hakan Fidan was the first foreign affairs minister to visit the business-suited Al-Jolani. A large group from Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Department (AFAD) was sent to search hidden cells in the Sednaya prison.² A delegation from Turkey’s energy ministry was sent to Damascus to assess Syria’s needs, and the condition of its infrastructure.³

Erdoğan’s media corps is pumping the success of his far-sighted calculations and the possible lucrative contracts to be won in the reconstruction of Syria. That and the never-ending story about how Syrian refugees are rushing to return home.

These are smoke and mirrors games, hiding the chaos that is still Syria. Turkey, like many other countries, was caught by surprise by the outcome of the HTS offensive. Initially it was designed to cut the M5 and M4 roads. Before the offensive started, Turkey was desperately seeking assistance from Russia and Iran to bring Assad to the negotiating table in order to reduce tensions in Syria, not least given Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon.

But the Assad regime suddenly crumbled. Turkey’s main aim had been to take on the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Kurdish resistance movement west of the Euphrates. However, when HTS met with quick success in Aleppo, Hama and Homs, it continued marching towards the south. In a coordinated action with the Southern Operation Room, Damascus was grabbed.

HTS and Al Jolani then sought a kind of accommodation with the SDF, and a tacit agreement was reached where SDF was to withdraw from Manbij to the east of the Euphrates, and further armed conflict was avoided. This agreement was kept, in general - except a brief fight in Deir az-Zor city on the banks of the Euphrates. SDF withdrew from the city.

Though Turkish armed forces are keen to take Kobane and other SDF controlled areas, they have been blocked by US involvement and support from European countries such as France and Germany. The long-awaited meeting of SDF commander Mazloom Abdi with Al-Jolani took place at Al-Dumayr air base under US auspices.

The base is about 40 km east of Damascus and Abdi and his team arrived in a US helicopter on December 30. In what was a preliminary meeting, the SDF offered integration into the new Syrian army as an independent corps … and Kurdish areas getting a fair share from the national resources, such as oil and natural gas. Before the meeting the SDF also offered to placate Turkey through the creation of an arms-free zone in the Kobane area. The new Syrian flag has been accepted and hoisted in SDF controlled areas. If an agreement is reached, internal customs and tariffs will be abolished.

These proposals won brownie points for SDF in the international arena for the time being. However, everybody is waiting for the start of the Trump administration. Jolani reiterates his position: the future of north eastern Syria is a Syrian problem. It should be settled by Syrians without foreign interference.

But internal divisions have not gone away. The Druze majority of Suwayda province have refused to accept the centrally appointed governor and police chief. Indeed they forced the security forces, sent from the centre without consultation, to pack up and leave. They demand autonomy or a federal solution. The Druze do not regard the present set-up as a state, and until a constitutional state is established, they refuse to disarm their local militia.

The Alawis in Homs were terrorised by HTS under the pretext of pursuing the criminals of the previous regime. While Alawi nerves were jingling, the HTS held a meeting with about 50 Alawi religious and civic leaders in Tartus. One of the demands raised by Alawis was to reactivate their local militia to secure their communities. Practically, what they were demanding was what the Druze were actually doing. They also demanded an end to the witch-hunt being carried out under the pretext of pursuing the former regime’s criminals, and an amnesty for those who were coerced into joining Assad’s forces.

The HTS and Jolani, as well as Turkey, are desperate to maintain the good graces of their international backers. They know that if they fail in the mission to keep them happy, a sanctions regime and isolation may follow and the powder keg may go off, bringing about a prolonged blood-bath.

The success of Erdoğan’s game will depend on gaining and maintaining the international legitimacy of the new Damascus regime. Otherwise, the massive loser of the process will be Turkey. And such an outcome would be regarded as a substantial loss, and may mean terminal failure for his government.

HTS has not got the manpower to run the whole of Syria, so Jolani needs to form alliances with others. Hence he is seeking to bring all al Qaida associated militia forces into his fold. Many of his generals and colonels have arrest warrants hanging over them in the international arena. The backbone of his new army will be formed by jihadist militias, including the foreign fighters.

He has appointed the same type of people to the governorships. He has entrusted the Intelligence Agency (Mukhabarat) to a former al Qaida and Isis fighter. The first act of the appointed education minister was to reshape the curriculum to the Salafi understanding of Islam. A video of the newly appointed minister of justice executing a woman prisoner for adultery is circulating on social media.

Western governments, in the public arena, initially provided conditional support to Jolani’s HTS. Their demands included respecting the rights of religious and ethnic minorities, bringing various strands of opposition into the future government, and maintaining a struggle against terrorism. However, as events progressed, nobody seems to mind the breaching of such conditions before bestowing full recognition on the regime. Things are, of course, highly unstable.

All the stuff about Turkey actually hides the real winner in Syria: Israel. It has managed to install a regime that is unable and unwilling to act against its interests, despite its Islamist rhetoric about the Palestinian people. It has also weakened Iranian connections to Shia forces in the region, including Hezbollah. To ensure that the HTS regime in the near future will be incapable of any military action against Israel, it bombed Syria’s military assets and infrastructure to smithereens. It has air supremacy over all HTS controlled areas. Moreover, it now occupies a large swathe of territory giving it control over important water resources.

The biblical concept of a ‘Promised Land’ has been extended to cover the Damascus area and any failure of HTS may bring about further incursions into Syria. The Israeli regime, as well as Turkey, seem to be considering such an eventuality seriously. Before the HTS offensive, Erdoğan said that war between Israel and Turkey was a possibility. At the time it was considered a speech for the domestic audience.

Now an Israeli commission under the leadership of former national security advisor general Jacob Nagel has issued its report. Only a portion of the report was made public: the commission warns that “Turkey’s ambitions to restore its Ottoman-era influence could lead to heightened tensions with Israel, possibly escalating into conflict.”⁴ Be warned.

Politico, December 16 2024: www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-says-turkey-orchestrated-bashar-assad-overthrow-in-syria.↩︎
Anatolian Agency, December 17 2024: www.aa.com.tr/en/turkiye/turkiyes-disaster-agency-continues-to-search-for-detainees-in-syrias-notorious-sednaya-prison/3426637.↩︎
Daily Sabah December 29 2024: www.dailysabah.com/business/energy/turkiyes-energy-ministry-sends-delegation-to-damascus.↩︎
Jerusalem Post January 6 2025: www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-836362.↩︎