In Syria the battle for Idlib, the last “opposition” stronghold in Syria continues. Few doubt that it would have been over long ago but for the intervention and support of Turkey. At Al-Monitor Fehim Tastekin writes:
The Syrian regime wants Turkish troops to pull back. But the situation in the field is liable to get out of control. Russia’s role as a “guaranteeing power†to prevent clashes between Syria and Turkey is becoming more important. Although Russia continues its backing of Turkey — at least in part because of the sensitive S-400 arms deal between the two countries — it still doesn’t fully use its influence to rein in the Syrian regime.
So why are Syria and Turkey fighting, and why is the situation escalating? After clashes on April 29, the Syrian army imposed control over 20 locations including the Madik fortress in rural Hama, but Turkish-backed groups retook three areas: Tell Meleh, Jubbeyn and Zahra. In response, the Syrian army launched five offensives in June, trying to restore its control over those three locations. It failed.
The Assad government is fighting for its survival and for the survival of Syria’s Alawites. They are well aware what the Sunni opposition has in mind for them.
Iran is fighting to shore up its credentials as guarantor of the security of Shi’ite people. Nearly all of the countries of the Gulf and Mediterranean Middle East have Shi’ite populations including not just Iran and Syria but Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and others as well.
Ergogan’s neo-Ottoman Turkish government is irredentist. It is fighting to recover lands it belongs are Turkey’s. That extends not just to Syria but, as we have seen more recently, to Libya. The civil war in Libya, as I have noted before, is actually a war between two different Ottoman provinces. Coincidentally, seizing bases in Syria helps the Turks keep the Kurds down and fragmented.
The Free Syrian Army, a masterpiece of agitprop since it is not free, Syrian, or an army, is fighting for survival. They have nowhere else to go. No one wants them. Not the Syrians, the Iranians, the Saudis (their main supporters), or anyone else.
Russia fighting to preserve the Assad government and to preserve access to the warm water port the Assad government has given it. And to keep the Americans out.
So far we have managed to stay out of the battle for Idlib although some are encouraging a more active involvement. It remains unclear to me what our interest in the conflict in Syria is. I would think that preserving the Assad government was more in our interest than in having it replaced by a Sunni government with terrorist components. Their first official act would likely be to exterminate the Alawite population.
Chemical weapons? We have never reacted that way to chemical weapons use in the past. Not in the Iran-Iraq War, not when used by Saddam Hussein against his own people, and not in Angola. The case that the Assad government used chemical weapons is about equivalent to the case that various opposition factions have used them against the SAA.
