In the second half of
the 19th century, a “Great Game” was played out between the British
and the Russian empires seeking dominion of Central Asia. More than a century
and half later, a new “Great Game” is being played out in Syria for dominance
of the Middle East. The only difference is that there are multiple players in
this great game. While the United States and its European allies and Russia are
the primary actors in this game, the role played by the regional powers like Israel,
Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states as well as non-state actors/terrorist
outfits have added to the complexity. The Syrian civil war ceased to be an
internal conflict a long time ago. It has turned into a battle ground for
influence in the Middle East, a realignment of forces and the balance of power
that it accompanies.
The
Beginning
In 2011 successful uprisings that brought
about regime change in Egypt and Tunisia and came to be known as the Arab
Spring gave hope to Syrian pro-democracy activists. In the March of 2011
peaceful protests erupted in Syria’s southern city of Daraa after the arrest
and torture of fifteen teenagers who wrote graffiti and other revolutionary
slogans in support of the Arab Spring. One of the teenagers, thirteen year old
Hamza al-Khateeb was brutally tortured and later killed. The Assad government
responded to the protests by opening fire on demonstrators, killing many of
them.
Till the first week of
April, the main demand of the protesters was democratic reforms, release of
political prisoners, an increase in freedoms, abolition of emergency law and an
end to corruption. In the second week of April, there was a shift towards a
call to overthrow the Assad government. By 22nd April, the protests
had occurred in twenty cities. By the end of May 2011, nearly 1000 civilians
and about 150 security personnel had been killed and thousands detained.
Significant armed
resistance against the government took place in the first week of June 2011.
The protests led rapidly to an armed uprising. On 30th September
2015, Russia intervened in response to an official request from the Syrian
government. Russia began a sustained air campaign targeting the Islamic State
of Iraq and Syria (or Levant) ISIS and the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army – a
faction comprising of defectors of the Syrian military which was formed in July
2011.
The
Power Vacuum, US Policy and Russian Intervention
Nature abhors a vacuum.
The Iraq experience demonstrated that withdrawals created a vacuum that
inevitably may be filled by other players or powers. A hastened and unplanned
withdrawal of US forces from Iraq sowed the seeds for the growth of the Islamic
State. Eight years of Obama Administration transformed the strategic calculus
of the Middle East. It was once said that the U.S. was the guarantor of
security in the Middle East. The Obama years replete with intransigence and
indecisiveness, and in particular, its failure to act when the Assad regime
forces used chemical weapons against its own citizens in August 2013 gave a
fillip to the Kremlin to step in. President Obama, in fact reneged on his
self-imposed red line and decided against a military response to the use of
chemical weapons. Instead in a naïve and fool-hardy manner, he acquiesced with
Kremlin’s proposal to allow its client Syria to “surrender” its chemical
weapons stockpile. This summed up the US policy in Syria. With
the exception of Syria, Russia does not have much influence in the larger
Middle Eastern region. Moscow is aware that any change in the domestic
situation in Syria is bound to impact Russia and its policies.
There are three components
to Russia’s policy towards Syria and elsewhere: 1) in a kind of modern version
of the Brezhnev Doctrine, Putin will fight to ensure Russia does not lose
influence in Syria, and that influence is tied to the fate of the Assad regime;
2) Russia becomes unnerved when it sees states crumble from within with what it
believes to be the help of outside actors like the United States—e.g. what they
believed happened in Ukraine; and 3) Putin wants the world to know that Russia
is back; it is a power that must be reckoned with and cannot be ignored.
And the Americans did just that – IGNORE. Russia under Putin
was fast becoming a revanchist power and the US and the West simply failed to
comprehend this reality. The West was slow to recognize the dangers posed by the
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s revisionist policies. At the Wales Summit in
September of 2014, NATO identified the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL) as a “grave threat” to its members. While expressing great concern about
and condemning Russia’s aggressive policy in Ukraine—and noting the various
steps taken to deal with the challenges of that policy—the Alliance declined to
characterize Russia as even a threat. Indeed, although the Summit statement
spoke of the need to provide “assurances” to Allies in Eastern Europe, it did
not speak of deterring the Kremlin.
This same reluctance was evident nearly a year later, in the
summer of 2015, when General Joseph Dunford testified before Congress as
President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. General Dunford identified Russia
as an existential threat. Later that day, however, Josh Earnest, the Presidential
press spokesman, said that Dunford’s observation “reflects his own view and
doesn’t necessarily reflect the view—or the consensus—of the President’s
national security team.” This was further exacerbated when the next day
Secretary of State John Kerry also stepped in and made clear that he did not
view Russia as an existential threat. It was amateurish to say the least.
According to Col. Robert
E. Hamilton “Syria also figures prominently in Russia’s geopolitical calculus
for what it represents: a chance for Russia to take a stand against what it
sees as a U.S.-engineered series of regime changes that target the stability of
Russia itself. From the “Color Revolutions” in the former Soviet Union to the
Arab Spring uprisings, many Russians believe the U.S. is carrying out a
deliberate and comprehensive program of enforced democratization, with Russia
as its ultimate target.
In the Russian view a
western process of democratization is catastrophic and is a recipe for chaos
and renewed civil war. This apprehension is not entirely unfounded. After all,
voters in a country that has experienced years of conflict that morphed into a
bitter ethnic and sectarian civil war with considerable interference by outside
powers can hardly be expected to have sufficient trust in the democratic
process to refrain from casting their votes along those same ethnic and sectarian
lines. And the political institutions of a country riven by such ethnic and
sectarian violence can hardly be expected to contain the grievances this
violence has stoked, especially if those institutions themselves are divided
along ethnic and sectarian lines. So the Russian concern with democratization
imposed from without, in a country with deep divisions in identities has a potential
to plunge the country into renewed civil war.
A second Russian
concern, not expressed openly but deeply held, is that if a democratically
elected government in Syria does manage to hold itself and the country
together, it will turn Syria from a strategic partner of Russia into an
adversary. This is because any democratically elected government in Syria, a
country with a 74% Sunni majority, is likely to align itself with the other
Sunni regimes in the region and against Russia. In this case, Russia stands to
lose one of the two pillars of its regional strategy, along with its air base
at Latakia (Khmeimim or Hmeymim) and its naval base at Tartus. Russia’s air
base at Latakia and naval base at Tartus are extremely significant because they
serve as launch pads for possible Russian military operations in the region.
Kremlin’s military planners will try to secure these two vital pieces of real
estates.
On 18 January 2017,
Russia and Syria signed an agreement, wherein Russia was to be be allowed to
expand and use the naval facility at Tartus for 49 years on a free-of-charge
basis and enjoy sovereign jurisdiction over the base. The treaty allowed Russia
to keep 11 warships at Tartus, including nuclear vessels; it stipulated
privileges and full immunity from Syria′s jurisdiction for Russia′s personnel
and material at the facility.
According to Jane’s
Defence Weekly, there exists within Syria two secret signals intelligence ‘spy
posts’ operated jointly by Russia and Syria. The biggest Russian electronic
‘eavesdropping post’ outside Russian territory was established in Latakia in
2012. Another signals intelligence post, “Center S” ("Центр С" in
Cyrillic script), operated jointly by Russian OSNAC GRU radio intelligence
agency and a Syrian intelligence agency, situated near Al-Harra close to the
Golan Heights on the Israeli border was captured by rebels belonging to the
Free Syrian Army[i]
in October 2014 during the Daraa offensive. Russian Main Intelligence Directorate’s OSNAC unit – its signals
intelligence unit, much like the American NSA or Unit 8200 in Israel– had been
operating from within a Syrian regime base near the border with Israel. Russian
troops had been collecting intelligence against Syrian rebels. This makes
sense: Russia is deeply involved in the Syrian civil war and has often filled
the role of international bodyguard for Bashar Assad. But the video also
revealed that OSNAC officers had been collecting operational intelligence on
Israel.
Iranian
interests and game plan
Since the Syrian civil
war started in 2011, Iran has been dispatching soldiers, militias, money and
weapons to support the Assad regime. The result has been the transformation of
Syria from an authoritarian military dictatorship friendly to Iran to an
Iranian proxy in desperate need of Iranian support just to stay alive. Syria is
vital to Iran’s strategic interests in the Middle East and has long been its
closest ally. Some believe Tehran has been backing the Assad regime in Damascus
because of their shared religious roots. Both ruling cliques claim affinity
with the heterodox Shia, who is a minority in an Islamic world populated by
orthodox Sunnis.
Little binds the Iranian
Shia, known as Twelvers, with the Alawi Shia who rule Syria. The ninth-century
founder of the Alawi sect was an adherent of the eleventh of the Twelvers’
religious leaders. He promoted doctrines that were incompatible with Twelverism
and was declared an infidel by medieval Twelver scholars. Later Alawi
theologians went even farther, abrogating many of Islamic laws such as fasting
during the month of Ramadan while advocating the non-Islamic concept of the
transmigration of souls. They went so far as to deify Muhammad’s cousin Ali,
claiming that he was the true recipient of the prophetic message. They adopted
Christian and pagan holidays.
These teachings did not
sit well with medieval Twelver scholars. The tenth-century Twelver
heresiographer Abu Muhammad al-Hassan ibn Musa al-Nawbakhti claimed the Alawi
founder propagated the un-Islamic belief of the transmigration of souls and
permitted homosexual relations. Jurists such as the eleventh-century scholar
Muhammad bin al-Hassan al-Tusi accused the Alawis of heresy and cursed them for
permitting what was forbidden.
This suited the Alawis.
They believed they were the true holders of the original Islamic message, and
had little affection for Muslims who refused to follow them. The Twelvers
viewed them as enemies, and in 1834 raised troops for the Ottomans to quash an
Alawi revolt.
Sometimes Alawis did not
even identify as Muslims. When European travelers began visiting Syria in the
eighteenth century, Alawis informed them they were Christians. Isolated in
their mountain strongholds, they had little interaction with Muslims. But
modernity shattered these walls. To prevent missionaries from claiming them as
lost Christians, the Ottomans asserted they were Muslims. Mosques were built.
But the Alawis rejected these attempts of integration into the Islamic
community. When the French ruled Syria, they too tried to incorporate them into
the Islamic fold. Twelver judges were imported to establish courts. But the
Alawis rebuffed them as well. In 1948, Alawi students went to the Twelver
center of Najaf, Iraq to learn their doctrines. But after being ridiculed and
scorned, most quickly returned home.
In the 1960s, Alawis
officers took power in Syria. But they did not establish cordial ties with
Iran. Instead, it was the Iran-Iraq war that proved a turning point. Tehran was
an international pariah, rejected by the West and fearful of Soviet communism.
It was desperate for allies. The Syrian president detested his Iraqi
counterpart and saw the war as an opportunity to weaken him. Iran bolstered a
flailing Syrian economy in 1982 by providing free oil. But religious ties
between the Alawis and Twelvers were as strained as ever. A 1985 American
diplomatic cable noted that Twelver scholars “view the Alawis as heretical and
despicable.” Indicative of the abyss between them, Twelvers sought to
proselytize among the Alawis. Six preachers were arrested for doing so in 1996.
But Iran’s Syrian
strategy derives less from spurious religious ties than it does from
geopolitical factors. Surrounded by hostile pro-Western nations, Iran needs all
the allies it can find to ensure that its regional interests are protected.
Iran and Syria built a
defensive alliance based on mutual adversaries and fears. Historically
apprehensive of American and Israeli designs in the Middle East, they share
limited interests beyond their anti-Western ideology. But even this was not
enough to persuade Syria to put both feet in the Iranian camp. Damascus always
tried to keep Tehran at a comfortable distance, so as to not alienate Saudi
Arabia and the other Gulf countries.
Today, Iran fears the
fall of the Alawi regime would result in a Sunni government, which would ally
with its rival Saudi Arabia. It worries about the regional isolation that would
ensue. A regime change in Damascus would wipe out the regional gains that it
has carefully cultivated for almost forty years. Since the onset of the civil
war, Iran has provided the Assad government with financial, technical and
military support, including training and some combat troops. According to some
unconfirmed estimates approximately 10,000 Iranian operatives were thought to
have been in Syria. But according to an assistant professor and researcher at Webster
University, Iran had aided Syria with limited number of deployed units and
personnel. The Gatestone Institute
estimated that as of late 2016, Iran controlled over 70,000 troops deployed in
Syria (15,000 soldiers of the Iranian military, 20,000 members of the Iran controlled over 70,000 troops deployed in
Syria (15,000 soldiers of the Iranian military, 20,000 members of Liwa
Fatemiyoun, an Afghan Shia militia formed in 2014 to fight in Syria and funded
by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps - IRGC, 20,000
Iraqi militiamen ten different groups, 10,000 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, and
5,000 to 7,000 Pakistani and Palestinian militiamen), while also paying monthly
salaries to 250,000 "militia and agents" supporting the Assad
government.
Iran’s
primary foreign military arm, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Quds Force
(IRGC-QF), appeared to be leading this effort. The U.S. Department of the
Treasury (USDOT) designated IRGC-QF Commander Major General Qassem Suleimani
and Operations and Training Commander Mohsen Chizari in May 2011 for their role
in “the violent repression against the Syrian people.”The extent of IRGC-QF
involvement in Syria became clearer in February 2013 when Iranian Brigadier
General Hassan Shateri was assassinated in the Damascus countryside while
traveling to Beirut, after having travelled to Aleppo. The
Quds Force is responsible for Iran’s external operations, and Commander
Suleimani played a prominent role managing Iranian activity in Iraq, and hence
was given a role in Iran’s Syria policy. The
extent of IRGC-QF involvement in Syria became clearer in February 2013 when
Iranian Brigadier General Hassan Shateri was assassinated in the Damascus
countryside while traveling to Beirut, after having travelled to Aleppo. Shateri
was a senior Quds Force commander who had been operating covertly in Lebanon
since 2006 as the head of Iran’s Committee for the Reconstruction of Southern Lebanon
under the alias Hessam Khoshnevis. Prior
to his time in Lebanon, Shateri had operated in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The presence of such a high-ranking commander
inside Syria highlights Tehran’s commitment to achieving its objectives in the
country, as well as its potential vulnerabilities should Assad fall.
Israel’s
limited intervention in the conflict
Israel is surrounded by
a host of state and non-state actors inimical to its security and national
interests. Throughout the Syrian civil war, Israel avoided taking sides and had
largely limited its role in the conflict to targeting weapons shipments en
route to Hezbollah. As the conflict dragged on and with Iran entrenching in
Syria, Israel started broadening the scope of its action to prevent its key
adversaries from producing or acquiring advanced weaponry in the first place.
This was essentially an extension of the Begin Doctrine, pioneered by Prime
Minister Menachem Begin in 1981, which insisted that Israel carry out
preemptive strikes to stop its enemies from constructing nuclear-enrichment
plants as well as production facilities for advanced conventional weapons.
Israel has, since the
eighties post the Islamic revolution in Iran, considered nuclear Iran as its
foremost adversary and a threat to its existence. Given the complexity of the
Syrian conflict, any Iranian entrenchment in Syria was intolerable from an
Israeli perspective. With the Assad regime being propped up by Kremlin’s
assistance and direct Iranian involvement, Israel has perceived and continues
to see a major threat to its security emanating from Iran’s Quds force
personnel and the Iranian proxy, the Shiite terror outfit the Hezbollah. At
first Israel had spelt out three red lines, with a fourth added shortly
thereafter. The first two pertained to Hezbollah. Israel made clear it would
prevent the Shiite group from bringing into Lebanon “game-changing” weaponry, the
definition of which has shifted over time, and from building or seizing control
of offensive infrastructure across the armistice line in Syria’s south west,
including Syrian army bunkers and bases presently under opposition control.
This red line extends to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) advisers,
other Iran-backed Shiite militias or anyone else.
Second, Israel also
declared its intention to block the establishment of offensive infrastructure
east of the occupied Golan, whether by Hezbollah fighters and Iranian proxies
or by forces linked to al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (ISIS). Israel feared that
Iran and its partner forces would entrench themselves adjacent to the armistice
line, enabling the opening of a new front – one where Lebanese civilians
(especially Hezbollah’s constituents) would be out of the line of fire; Israel
would have insufficient justification, its officials fear, to readily reply in
Lebanon. An Israeli official described the strikes in January 2015 (killing a
prominent Hezbollah figure, Jihad Mughniyeh, along with several other members
of the organisation and an Iranian officer) and December 2015 (killing Samir
Quntar, who had been released in a 2008 prisoner exchange with Hezbollah and
subsequently became a senior figure in the organisation) as the most salient
instances of enforcing this red line. From the onset of the fighting until
Russia’s September 2015 military intervention, Israeli officials sought a
buffer zone – free of any hostile forces, including Assad’s army, which they
saw as an extension of Tehran’s – of about 20km; after Russia deployed, and
when Iran and its allies later gained the upper hand in the war, Israeli
officials began to demand a 60-km buffer, though they grudgingly came to terms
with a Syrian military presence within that area.
Israel’s third red line
was enemy fire into territory it controlled: Israel threatened to respond in
every instance, regardless of the perpetrator or intent. Until September 2016,
Israel’s policy was to retaliate against the regime in reaction to any and all
stray fire based on the fact that it was the sovereign power. But when rebels,
under pressure, began to fire into Israel to provoke a response against the
regime, Israel started firing back at them as well.
The fourth red line was
never announced as such. In mid-2015, when a coalition of Syrian rebels moved
toward Sweida and Jabal Druze on the south west border with Jordan, and Jabhat
al-Nusra, then the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate, moved northward from Quneitra,
Israel cautioned Syrian rebels against attacking the Druze population of the
area, particularly in the village of Hader, near the armistice line. The prime
minister announced he had instructed the military “to take all the necessary
actions” to protect the village’s residents. This de facto red line never attained the same prominence as the others
because the risk of carnage in the village quickly faded, reemerging only in
November 2017. Israel’s leadership felt forced to commit to this course of
action because it faces strong pressures from its own Druze population, who
serve in the Israeli army and therefore are linked with Israel’s Jewish
population in what they call a “blood pact”, which many Israeli Druze claim
extends to defending their relatives in Syria.
Israel is reported to
have carried out strikes deep inside Syria, many of which it has not admitted
to. On Feb. 10, 2018, an Iranian drone crossed into Israeli territory and was
shot down. Israel responded to the Iranian incursion by dispatching fighter
jets to attack targets in Syria, including the T4 also known as Tiyas air base,
near Palmyra, where the Iranian drone reportedly took off from. Syrian anti-air
systems retaliated, striking an Israeli F-16, which crashed after making it
back to Israeli territory. This prompted Israel to hit several Syrian targets
and four Iranian positions, according to the Israel Defense Forces. The attack
on the T4 airbase falls within the context of the last red line that Israel
drew, whereby it cannot accept Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria. This is
another stage in the accelerated clash between Iran’s determination to entrench
itself in the northern theater and Israel’s declared determination to prevent
it. In operational terms, Iran’s expected response will be an attack, not necessarily
immediate, either with a clear Iranian signature or by proxy, Iran’s preferred
modus operandi. The action in all likelihood will not be launched from Iranian
territory, but rather from Syria or from other operational theaters, such as
Yemen (which is adjacent to the navigation lanes in the Red Sea) or from
Lebanon, although an attack from Lebanon would pose a risk of wide-scale
escalation. There is also the possibility of attacks against Israeli and Jewish
targets worldwide, as occurred in the past. Any retaliatory attack against
Israeli or Jewish targets worldwide will invite a punishing reprisal from
Israel. And Iran should be aware of it.
Ankara’s
intermeddling
Turkey considers armed
Kurdish nationalist groups as major threats to its security. Though it
officially considers the Islamic State to be a terrorist organization and a
threat, its military operation in Syria has primarily been aimed at Kurdish
groups. The latter part of Operation Euphrates Shield in 2016 and Operation
Olive Branch in January 2018 which saw the Turkish forces’ offensive in Afrin,
were focused on the Kurdish YPG and the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan, Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK).
Since the spring of 2015,
Turkey suffered a wave of high-profile terror attacks linked to the
self-pro-claimed Islamic State and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In
response, Turkey deployed ground combat forces across the border into Syria,
with the aim of pushing the Islamic State and Kurdish forces from a small
self-declared “safe zone.” This military operation, dubbed Euphrates Shield, was
part of a new Turkish security strategy to attack terrorists in their safe
havens, rather than wait for them to infiltrate Turkey.
The regional dynamics of
the Syrian civil war were further complicated on August 24, 2016, when Turkey
sent an armored battalion and supporting ground forces into northern Syria to
fight alongside nearly three thousand allied insurgents. This operation, dubbed
Euphrates Shield, faced no resistance when Turkish forces entered Jarabulus, a
strategic city that the Islamic State relied upon to move weapons, foreign
fighters, and materials across the border. The intervention was carried out in
part in Jarabulus to check the advance of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) linked
to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Shortly thereafter, Turkey sent forces
across the border to al-Rai; together, these forces turned west toward Sawran
and then Dabiq, a symbolic city for the Islamic State. Turkey. Turkey continues
to be in illegal occupation of 3,460 square kilometer area comprising towns
such as Afrin, al-Bab, Azaz, Dabiq, Jarabulus, Jindires, Raco and Shaykh
al-Hadid. Turkey also threatened to attack Manbij where the US is present
alongside the SDF. Rising tensions between Washington and Ankara over the coup
attempt and the detention of the US pastor Andrew Brunson have not improved
matters.
The Turkish army’s
incursion is likely to worsen Ankara’s Kurdish problems – no longer can the
Kurds be played against other Kurds. Turkish Kurds increasingly radicalized and
Syrian Kurds have an active hatred of the common enemy –Turkey.
The Turkish aggression
against Syria has also increased Moscow and Tehran’s leverage with Syrian Kurds.
If Erdogan decides to occupy parts of Syria to prevent the Kurds from
developing further cross border supply lines with the Turkish Kurds, the PKK
there is likelihood that Damascus will extend support to the Kurds to bleed the
Turks on both sides of the border. In a battle of wills the Moscow – Damascus
alliance has the upper hand.
Russia, today, is the
predominant power in the Levant. And Russia is trying to broker an
understanding between the various players and obviate an escalation of the
conflict in the interests of its client state and in its own interests. On the
other hand, the Trump Administration has not shown any explicit interest in
countering the growing Russian influence in the region. The Trump
Administration has not made any new policy pronouncements in respect of Eastern
Syria. When it committed forces to Syria to fight ISIS the US had allied with
the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). However the support seems to have wavered. The
SDF also has begun having doubts about the US role especially after Turkish
forces took over Afrin which was under the control of Kurdish YPG. According to
Shalom Lipner if Pax Americana is
dead in the Middle East, it is only because the US has euthanized it. The US
needs to reverse the trend in order to play a meaningful role in Syria and the entire
region.
[i]
Free Syrian Army (FSA) emerged in the early stages of the anti-government
insurgency in 2011 and comprised partly of former members of the Syrian armed
forces.
