What will a “European Armenia” bring?
By Erkin Oncan | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 14, 2025
The Armenian government has approved a draft law to initiate the country’s accession process to the European Union (EU). This proposal will be discussed in parliament before being put to a referendum.
European Parliament rapporteur Miriam Lexmann celebrated this development, stating, “I wholeheartedly welcome the Armenian government’s decision to begin the EU accession process.”
However, the Russian side has reacted negatively to this decision. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declared that Armenia cannot simultaneously be a member of both the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk also commented, “We interpret this as the beginning of Armenia’s withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union. The Russian Federation will shape its economic policy toward Armenia accordingly,” comparing EU membership to “purchasing a ticket for the Titanic.”
Armenia’s Journey Towards Europe
Armenia and the EU have a long history of interaction.
In 1996, Armenia signed a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the EU, and in 2001 it became a member of the Council of Europe. Moreover, Armenia has benefited from the TACIS program, a European Commission initiative that provided technical assistance to former Soviet states to adapt to market-oriented economic systems.
In 2004, Armenia strengthened its ties with the EU under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), joined the Eastern Partnership initiative in 2009, and, despite joining the Eurasian Economic Union in 2013, approved the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the EU in 2017. In 2018, the Velvet Revolution brought Nikol Pashinyan to power, accelerating democratic reforms.
Armenia has now become the seventh former Soviet country to initiate European integration. This political shift mirrors the tug-of-war between the EU and EAEU, as well as NATO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Can Armenia Join the EU?
Although Armenia is not geographically part of Europe, like Georgia, it strives to align itself with “European values and cooperation processes.” From a European perspective, Armenia’s significance stems not from its adherence to these values but from its geographic proximity to Russia and Iran.
EU membership is a challenging and lengthy process—a path that only three former Soviet states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) have successfully completed. Other countries like Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia have long been politically shaped by their EU aspirations, experiencing intense internal conflicts between pro-Russian and pro-EU factions, often tied to so-called “color revolutions.” These parallels suggest that Armenia’s membership process could also stretch over many years. Furthermore, Armenia’s economic ties with Russia present significant challenges.
According to data from the Armenian Statistical Committee covering January-April 2024, trade between Armenia and Russia increased 3.1 times, while trade with EU countries decreased by 24.3%. During this period, Armenia’s trade volume with Russia reached $6.3 billion, whereas its trade volume with the EU was $695.5 million—making trade with Russia nearly nine times greater than that with the EU. Military ties between Armenia and Russia also remain a major topic of public debate.
For Armenia to fully “Europeanize,” it must entirely overhaul its economic system. However, the insistence of both the EU and Pashinyan’s administration on this path could lead to a deep economic crisis and political instability. This might result in Armenia entering the EU as a weakened state, perceived as a burden by EU leadership.
The EU’s primary objective appears to be not Armenia’s full membership but the continuation of the accession process, using it to advance strategic interests. A “European” Armenia would serve as a geopolitical defeat for Russia.
Broader Implications
Discussions around Armenia’s regional and international dynamics are often shaped in Turkey by nationalist narratives sown by imperialist forces, perpetuating historical prejudices that undermine solidarity among neighboring peoples. However, developments in Armenia carry significant clues about the future of the broader region.
Erkin Öncan, Turkish journalist focusing on war zones and social movements around the world.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/erknoncn Telegram: https://t.me/erknoncn
Ukraine attempted drone strike on Russian gas supply to NATO states – Moscow
RT | January 13, 2025
Ukraine has launched an unsuccessful drone attack on Russian energy infrastructure which delivers natural gas to Türkiye , the Defense Ministry in Moscow reported on Monday.
The attempted sabotage took place on Saturday and involved nine kamikaze drones, which Ukrainian forces launched at the Russkaya gas compressor station near the village of Gaikodzor in Russia’s Krasnodar Region, according to a statement from the ministry.
The site is crucial for the operation of the TurkStream pipeline, which delivers natural gas from Russia to Türkiye under the Black Sea. Several nations in southern Europe, including EU member Hungary, use the Turkish route to receive supplies. Kiev’s attack was “aimed at stopping the supply of gas to European nations” through the neutral intermediary, the Russian Defense Ministry stated.
The Ukrainian attack against the Russkaya station was largely thwarted, the military added. One fixed-wing drone crashed close to a gas meter and caused minor damage, which was swiftly fixed by the facility’s personnel, it said. The incident caused no interruption in supplies, the statement stressed.
Kiev has refused to renew a transit contract with Russia which expired at the start of this year, and which had involved Russian gas being supplied to EU countries through Ukrainian territory. Slovakia, one of the nations affected by the decision, has accused Ukraine of causing an energy crisis.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has described Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky as someone who “roams Europe begging and blackmailing” Western nations in the hope of extracting more military assistance to fight Russia.
Zelensky previously accused Fico of striking “shady deals” with Moscow and of undermining the EU’s “unity” in the confrontation with Russia. He also claimed the Slovak secret services should investigate Fico for corruption.
The TurkStream pipeline was launched in January 2020 and has an annual capacity of 31.5 billion cubic meters. Its underwater section extends for around 930km, while the Russkaya station serves as the point of exit on Russian soil. One of the pipeline’s two strings serves Turkish customers, while the other leads to consumers in Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece. Russian officials have accused Kiev of attempts to sabotage the energy link on multiple occasions in recent years.
How the West Destroyed Syria
By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | January 11, 2025
Peter Ford served in the UK Foreign Ministry for many years including being UK Ambassador to Bahrein (1999-2003) and then Syria (2003-2006). Following that, he was representative to the Arab world for the Commissioner General of United Nations Relief and Works Agency. He was interviewed by Rick Stering on Jan 6, 2025.
Rick Sterling: Why do you think the Syrian military and government collapsed so rapidly?
Peter Ford: Everybody was surprised but with hindsight, we shouldn’t have been. Over more than a decade, the Syrian army had been hollowed out by the extremely dire economic situation in Syria, mainly caused by western sanctions. Syria only had a few hours of electricity a day, no money to buy weapons and no ability to use the international banking system to buy anything whatsoever. It’s no surprise that the Army was run down. With hindsight, you might say the surprise is that the Syrian government and Army were successful in driving back the Islamists. The Syrian Army forced them into the redoubt of Idlib four or five years ago.But after that point, the Syrian army deteriorated, became less battle ready on the technical level and also morale.
Syrian soldiers are mainly conscripts and they suffer as much as any ordinary Syrian from the really dreadful economic situation in Syria. I hesitate to admit it, but the Western sanctions were extremely effectively in doing what they were designed to do: to bring the Syrian economy down to its knees. So we have to say, and I say this with deep regret, the sanctions worked. The sanctions did exactly what they were designed to do to make the Syrian people suffer, and thereby to bring about discontent with what they call the regime.
Ordinary Syrians didn’t understand the complexities of geopolitics, and they blamed the Syrian government for everything: not having electricity, not having food, not having gas, oil, high inflation. Everything that came from being cut off from the world economy and not having supporters with bottomless pockets.
Syria was being attacked and occupied by major military powers (Turkey, USA, Israel). Plus thousands of foreign jihadis. The Syrian army was so demoralized that they really were a paper tiger by the end of the day.
RS: Do you think the UK and the US were involved in training the jihadis prior to the December attack on Aleppo?
PF: Absolutely. The Israelis also. The leader of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), Ahmed Hussein al Sharaa (formerly known as Mohammad abu Jolani) almost certainly has British advisors in the background. In fact, I detected the hand of such advisors in some of the statements made in impeccable English. The statements had Americanized spelling, so the CIA are in there too. Jolani is a puppet, a marionette saying what they want him to say.
RS: What’s the current situation, a month after the collapse?
PF: There are skirmishes here and there, but broadly, the Islamists and foreign fighters are ruling the roost. There are pockets of resistance in Latakia where the Alawite are literally fighting for their lives. Much of the fighting is about the attempts by HTF, the present rulers to confiscate weapons. The Alawites are resisting and there are pockets of resistance in the South where there are local Druze militias.
HTS is spread thinly on the ground. They are facing problems in asserting themselves. Although they had a walkover against the Syrian army, they never actually had to do much fighting. I would guess they only have about 30,000 fighting men and spread across Syria, that is not a lot. There’s an important pocket of resistance in the Northeast where the Kurds are. The Kurdish American allies are resisting. The so-called Syrian National Army, which is a front for the Turkish army, may go into a fully fledged war against the Kurdish forces. But that’s going to depend partly on what happens after the inauguration of the new US president, how Trump deals with the situation.
RS: What are you hearing from people in Syria?
It is not a pretty story. HTS and their allies have been parading showing their dominance, flying ISIS and Al-Qaeda flags. They have been bullying, intimidating, confiscating and looting. Surrendering Christian as well as Alawite soldiers have been given summary justice, roadside executions being the norm. Christians in their towns and villages are just trying to hunker down and pray. Literally. I’m sorry to say the senior Christian clerics, with one or two noble exceptions, have opted for appeasement and effectively betrayed their communities. The senior leadership at the Orthodox Church, in particular Greek Catholic church, have had themselves photographed with dignitaries of the jihadi regime.
They are turning the other cheek. It’s quite a contrast with the Alawite. But they have no choice. You may remember that the slogan of the jihadi armies during the conflict was, “Christians to Beirut, Alawite to the grave.” HTS is going through the motions of having meetings with clerics and making soothing noises. All the while their henchmen are driving around in trucks flying ISIS flags. What I’m hearing is very depressing.
The regime is leaving the Alawites totally abandoned. You barely read a word in the west in media about the plight of the Alawite and not much more about the Christians.
RS: Western media have demonized Bashar al Assad and even Asma Assad. What was your impression of Bashar and Asma when you met them? What do you think of accusations they accumulated billions of dollars?
PF: The accusations are completely spurious. I know some members of the Assad family, some of them have lived for many years in Britain. They lived in very modest personal circumstances. If Assad had been a billionaire, like they’re saying, some of that would’ve trickled down. I can guarantee you that has not been the case. These accusations also go against the impressions that I picked up when I was seeing the Assads when I was an ambassador there. They appreciated the good things of life the same as everybody else, but they didn’t come across as the Marcos type. Nothing at all like that. It is all lies, made up to serve the deeper agenda.
The media kicking of Bashar and Asma is really distasteful. It’s pointless. He’s disappointed his few remaining followers, although it was unrealistic, I believe, for them to expect more. But the fact is that he ran when others were not able to run, and many of those have been killed, or they’re hiding or they’ve escaped to Lebanon in some cases where they’re also hiding. He did get out with his skin, but to beat up on him as the media are doing is really distasteful and pointless. It is akin to this new genre of political pornography, Assad porn, the torture stories, the hyped up narrative about prison and graves being opened up. Actually, by the way, most of those graves are war dead. They were not people who’d been tortured to death as the media pretends. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the conflict over more than a decade, and many of them were buried in unmarked graves. But the western media are reveling in this new genre of Assad porn.
This is all being whipped up to make Western audiences more accepting of the way the West is getting into bed with Al-Qaeda. The more they demonize Assad and harp on the misdeeds of the Assad regime, and the more likely we are to swallow and be distracted away from the hideous atrocities being carried out right now.
Western leaders are kissing the feet of a guy who’s still a wanted terrorist and who has been a founder member of ISIS for God’s sake, as well as a founder member of Al-Qaeda in Syria. It is morally distasteful and shaming.
Joulani needs the west desperately now. Otherwise, he will face the same fate as Bashar Asad. If the economy continues on its trajectory of the years, then Joulani will be dead meat in fairly short order. He has to deliver massive rapid economic improvement to survive as leader. And this is what it’s all about. His strategy, obviously, is to milk his status as a puppet of the West in order to secure not just reconstruction aid, but that’s for the long term, but more immediately sanctions relief, the electricity flowing again, the oil.
Let’s not forget that the oil and gas of Syria is still effectively in the hands of the United States, which through its Kurdish puppets, controls a segment of the economy, which used to be worth, I think, 20% of serious GDP and provide essential oil for fuel, cooking, everything. He’s got to get his hands on that and get sanctions lifted. That’s what so much of it is about. But he has one major problem: Israel. Israel’s not buying it. Israel is the exception. All the western front is tumbling over itself to go and kiss the feet of the sultan of Damascus. But the Israelis are sucking their teeth, saying they don’t trust the guy.
Israel is destroying the remnants of the Syrian army and its infrastructure. Meanwhile they grab more Syrian land. They want to keep Syria on its knees indefinitely by insisting that Western sanctions not be lifted. I sense there’s a battle royal going on in Washington between what we might call the deep state, which would favor lifting sanctions and the Israel lobby, which is resisting that for selfish Israeli reasons. Given that the Israeli lobby wins these tussles nine times out of 10, the outlook may not be that great for the Jolani regime.
RS: What are your hopes and fears for Syria? What’s the nightmare scenario and what’s the best possible?
PF: I’m very pessimistic. It is very hard to see a silver lining in what has happened. Syria has been taken off the table as a Middle East player. The old Syria has died effectively. Syria was the last man standing among the Arab countries that supported the Palestinians. There was no other. There were militias like Hezbollah plus Yemen but there were no states other than Syria. Syria is now gone, and the jihadis are saying, telling the world they don’t care. By the way, this is an example of how the Israelis will not take yes for an answer. The jihadis keep telling the world, “We love Israel. We don’t care about the Palestinians. Please accept us. We love you.” And the Israelis won’t take yes for an answer.
The best hope for the Syrian people is that they may get some respite. It is possible to imagine a scenario where the Syrian people are able to recover, at least economically a scenario under which sanctions are lifted, under which Syria, the central government recovers control of its oil and grain, where fighting has stopped, where it doesn’t have to pay anything to keep up an army because it’s not trying. They might be able to put everything into reconstruction.
So it is possible to imagine a scenario where Syria loses its soul, but gains more hours of electricity. That is possibly the most likely scenario. But there are major obstacles as we discussed, Israel standing in the way of sanctions, lifting pockets of resistance in discipline among the jihadi ranks, Turkey rampaging against the Kurds and ISIS which is still not a completely spent force. So the outlook is obviously cloudy. We should take stock in a month’s time when we see the early days of the new regime in Washington on which so much will depend.
RS: In Trump’s first term he tried to remove all US troops from east Syria but his efforts were ignored. Perhaps that could have made a big difference?
PF: Yes, it could have been a total game changer. If Syria had access to its oil, it wouldn’t have had the fuel problem, the electricity problem. It could have changed the history of the region.
Now, the US is increasing the number of soldiers and bases in Syria. And they recently assassinated an ISIS leader which might have played a role in sparking the recent terrorist attack in the US. All of this makes it much harder now for Trump to withdraw US forces because it will be seen as a retreat, a reward for ISIS.
I argued for years that the sanctions were manifestly not working. But in the end they did. It’s like a bridge. It gets undermined and then suddenly it breaks. There was no single cause. It was just the culmination and things reached a tipping point.
Countdown to the European Collapse
By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 4, 2025
Finally, energy cooperation between Russia and Europe is (almost) completely over. After nearly three years of sanctions and sabotage, the bilateral Moscow-EU energy partnership suffered its greatest historical blow. Kiev fulfilled its promise not to extend its contract with Gazprom, which was allowing the arrival of Russian gas to Europe, then creating an extremely uncomfortable energy insecurity situation for its own “partners” in the European Union.
On the morning of the first day of 2025, the Russian Federation stopped supplying gas to European buyers via Ukraine. Even amidst the conflict, the Russian Gazprom and Ukrainian Naftogaz had kept in operation an energy transit agreement signed in 2020, which expired on the last day of 2024. Previously, Kiev had already announced it was unwilling to renew the contract with Gazprom, although some European countries repeatedly asked Ukraine to do so.
Despite the sanctions imposed on Russia since 2022, some European countries continued benefiting from the import of Russian gas, particularly Slovakia and Hungary – nations that refused to participate in the Western-sponsored anti-Russian boycott – as well as Austria, a country historically neutral in Europe’s geopolitical and military disputes. Other nations, even adhering to the sanctions, continued hypocritically receiving Russian gas, such as Italy, Poland, Romania, and Moldova. There were also cases of gas resale, with receiving nations re-exporting the commodity to countries seeking to bypass the sanctions.
With the end of the Ukrainian route, all these states lost any guarantee of a safe energy source – precisely during winter, the time of year when gas consumption in Europe is at its highest. Obviously, there are currently energy reserves that may be enough to cope with the challenges of the current season, but the situation will progressively become more critical over time. European nations will have to find new sources of gas or expand the use of the only two remaining routes for Russian gas (via Turkey and the Black Sea). Recent indicators show a substantial rise in gas prices among Asian exporters. Ankara is also expected to take the opportunity to gain more profits from its pipeline.
There is currently hope among Europeans for a cheap gas supply through the long-awaited Qatari-Turkish pipeline project via Syria. With the fall of Bashar al Assad’s legitimate government, energy giants from Turkey and the Gulf have revived the proposal, although they are waiting for domestic pacification in Syria by the Al-Qaeda junta to begin the construction. Some optimistic analysts in Europe believe this would be the antidote to Europe’s dependency on Russian gas – or Asian and American, as in the current circumstances.
The main problem with this hope is believing in the goodwill of the Western hawks to “pacify Syria.” Without Assad, Damascus became a “failed state,” with territory divided between different factions in constant hostilities. It is unlikely this will change – simply because, despite the tactical operators of the Syrian crisis (Turkey and Qatar) wanting pacification, the strategic mentors (Israel and the USA) are not interested. Tel Aviv prefers a polarized and war-torn Syria, unable to do anything to prevent territorial progress in the Golan and beyond. Washington, which is subservient to Israeli interests through the international Zionist lobby, is interested in the same – along with, of course, fostering Kurdish terrorists to worsen the internal Syrian situation even further.
In other words, Western analysts still do not understand that the decision-makers of the unipolar axis simply do not want to solve Europe’s problems. It is not in the US’ interest that its “partners” in Europe regain cheap energy and a strong industrial base. For Washington, the collapse of Europe is not a tragedy but a strategic goal, whose roots lie in the science of geopolitics itself. According to the fundamentals of Western geopolitics, Russian-European integration would be disastrous for the US-UK Atlantic axis. Therefore, in the face of Russia’s imminent military victory and Moscow’s rehabilitation as a Eurasian geopolitical power, the Americans and the British have adopted a “scorched earth” strategy in Europe.
Sanctions, the terrorist attack on Nord Stream, and the closure of the Ukrainian route to Europe are events that are part of the same strategic context: in all these cases, Anglo-American strategists want to provoke an energy collapse in Europe to enable deindustrialization and the subsequent economic and social crisis. The final goal is a ruined Europe, not only unwilling but also incapable of establishing any future strategic ties with Moscow.
With the fall of the Ukrainian gas route, it can be said that the US won an important battle in its economic war against Europe. The total collapse is merely a matter of time.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
Imperial hubris (and its consequences) in Syria
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 1, 2025
The Syria story, it seems, is not so simple as ‘President Assad fell’ and the ‘technocratic Salafists’ rose to power.
At one level, the collapse was predictable. Assad was known to have been influenced by Egypt and UAE for some years past. They had been urging him to break with Iran and Russia, and to shift to the West. For some 3-4 years he had been incrementally signalling and implementing such a move. Iran especially faced increasing obstacles over operational matters in which they were co-operating with Syrian forces. His shift was meant as a message to Iran.
The financial situation of Syria – after years of U.S. Caesar sanctions, plus the loss of all agricultural and energy revenues seized by the U.S. in occupied north-east Syria – was catastrophic. Syria simply had no economy.
No doubt, reaching out to Israel and Washington was presented to Assad as the only practical exit to his dilemma. ‘Normalisation’ could lead to the lifting of sanctions, they implored him. And Assad, according to those in touch with him, (even at the eleventh hour before the HTS ‘invasion’) was believing that Arab States close to Washington would have opted for his continued leadership, rather than see Syria fall prey to Salafist zealots.
To be clear: Moscow and Tehran had warned Assad that his army (as a whole) was too fragile, too underpaid, and too penetrated and bribed by foreign intelligence services, to be expected to defend the state effectively. Assad also was warned repeatedly about the threat from Idlib jihadists planning to take Aleppo, but the President not only ignored the warnings – he rebutted them.
He was offered a very large external military force not once, but twice, even in ‘the last days’, as Jolani’s militia were advancing. Assad refused. “We are strong”, he told an interlocutor on the first occasion; yet shortly afterwards, on a second occasion, he admitted: “My army is running away”.
Assad was not abandoned by his allies. It was by then too late. He had flip-flopped once too often. Two of the principal actors (Russia and Iran) were frustrated and rendered unable to help – absent Assad’s consent.
A Syrian who knew the Assad family, and who spoke with the President at some length just prior the Aleppo invasion, had found him surprisingly sanguine and unflustered – assuring his friend that there were forces enough (2,500) in Aleppo to deal with Jolani’s threats, and hinting that President Sissi might be ready to step in with aid for Syria. (Egypt of course feared Muslim Brotherhood Islamists taking power in a former secular Ba’athist state).
Ibrahim Al-Amine, editor of Al-Akhbar, noted a similar perception by Assad:
“Assad seemed to have become more confident that Abu Dhabi was capable of resolving his problem with the Americans and some Europeans, and he heard a lot about economic temptations if he agreed to the strategy of exiting the alliance with the resistance forces. One of Assad’s workers, who stayed with him until the last hours before he left Damascus, says that the man was still hoping for something big to happen to stop the armed factions’ attack. He believed that “the Arab and international community” would prefer that he remain in power, rather than Islamists take over the administration of Syria”.
Yet, even as the Jolani forces were on the M5 highway linking to Damascus, the wider Assad family and key officials were making no efforts to prepare for a departure, or to warn close friends to think about such contingencies, the interlocutor said. Even as Assad was heading to Hmeimin en route to Moscow, no advice to ‘get out’ was sent to friends.
The latter said that they did not know after Assad’s silent departure to Moscow who exactly, or when, ordered the Syria army to stand down and to prepare for transition.
Assad briefly visited Moscow on 28 November – a day after the HTS attacks in Aleppo province and their swift advance south (and a day after the ceasefire in Lebanon). The Russian authorities have said nothing about the content of the President’s meetings in Moscow, and the Assad family said that the President had returned tight-lipped from Russia, too.
Subsequently, Assad departed finally to Moscow (either on 7 December, after despatching a private plane on multiple flights to Dubai, or on 8 December) – again telling virtually nobody in his immediate and family circle that he was departing for good.
What caused this out-of-character mindset? No one knows; but family members have speculated that Bashar Al-Assad had been seriously disorientated emotionally by the grave illness of his wife, Asma, to whom he is devoted.
Put frankly, whilst the three main players could see clearly the direction events were heading (the fragility of the state was no surprise), nevertheless, Assad’s denial mindset and the consequent speed of the military dénouement was the surprise. That was the true ‘black swan’.
What triggered events? Erdogan has for several years demanded that Assad firstly negotiate with the ‘legitimate Syrian opposition’; secondly that he re-draft the Constitution; and thirdly that he meet face-to-face with President Erdogan (something Assad consistently refused to do). All three powers pressed Assad to negotiate with the ‘opposition’, but he would not, and nor would he meet with Erdogan. (Both loathe each other). Frustration on these counts was high.
Erdogan now indisputably ‘owns’ ‘former-Syria’. Ottoman irredentist sentiment is ecstatic and demanding more Turkish revanchism. Others – the more secular city dwellers of Turkey however – are less enthused by the display of Turkish religious nationalism.
Erdogan however, may well be (or may soon be) experiencing buyer’s remorse: Yes, Turkey stands tall as Syria’s new landlord, but he is now ‘the responsible’ party for what happens next. (HTS is plainly exposed as a Turkish proxy). Minorities are being killed; brutal sectarian executions are accelerating; sectarianism becoming more extreme. There is still no Syrian economy in sight; no revenues, and no fuel for the gasoline refinery (previously supplied by Iran).
Erdogan’s espousal of a re-branded and westernised al-Qaeda always risked proving to be paper-thin (as the sectarian killings are cruelly demonstrating). Will Jolani manage to impose his al-Qaeda-in-a suit makeover across his heterodox followers? Abu Ali al-Anbari, al-Baghdadi’s top aide at the time (2012-2013), gave this scathing appraisal of Jolani:
“He is a cunning person; two-faced; adores himself; does not care about his soldiers; is willing to sacrifice their blood in order to make a name for himself in the media – glows when he hears his name mentioned on satellite channels”.
In any event, one clear outcome is that Erdogan’s ploy has re-ignited formerly (and mostly) quiescent Sunni sectarianism and Ottoman imperialism. The consequences will be many and will ripple across the region. Egypt is already anxious – as is King Abdullah in Jordan.
Many Israelis see themselves as the ‘winners’ from the Syrian up-ending – since the Axis of Resistance supply line has been severed at its middle. Israeli security chief Ronan Bar was most likely briefed by Ibrahim Kalin, Turkish Head of Intelligence, when they met in Istanbul on 19 November on the expected Idlib invasion – in time for Israel to institute the Lebanon ceasefire, and to obstruct the passage of Hizbullah forces into Syria (Israel immediately bombed all the border crossings between Lebanon and Syria).
Nonetheless Israelis may discover that a re-kindled Salafist zealotry is not their friend – nor ultimately to their benefit.
Iran will sign the long-awaited defence accord with Russia on 17 January 2025.
Russia will concentrate on the war in Ukraine and stay aloof from the Middle East quagmire – to focus on the slow global restructuring that has been happening, and on the Big Picture attempt to have Trump in due course come to acknowledge Asian ‘Heartland’ and BRICS security interests, and to agree on some frontier to the Rimland (Atlanticist) security sphere, such that cooperation on issues of global strategic stability and European security can be agreed.
(Part One of this piece can be viewed on Conflicts Forum’s Substack).
Manufacturing rebels: How the UK and US empowered HTS
By Kit Klarenberg | The Cradle | December 26, 2024
On 18 December, The Telegraph published an extraordinary investigation into how the UK and US trained and “prepared” fighters in the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA), a “rebel” force that collaborated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the mass offensive toppling of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad weeks earlier.
In an unprecedented disclosure, the outlet revealed that Washington not only “knew about the offensive” well in advance, but also had “precise intelligence about its scale.” Washington’s now-confirmed “effective alliance” with HTS was described as “one of many ironies” emerging from the decade-and-a-half-long proxy war.
The Telegraph suggested this collaboration was inadvertent – simply a symptom of how Syria’s grinding, protracted civil war gave birth to “a bewildering array of militias and alliances, most of them backed by foreign powers.”
US support of HTS: A ‘necessary’ alliance
Alliances were fluid, with groups often splintering, merging, and shifting allegiances. Fighters frequently found themselves switching sides, blurring lines between factions. Yet, ample evidence indicates the UK and the US maintained deliberate, long-standing ties with the dominant rebels of HTS.
For instance, in March 2021, President-elect Donald Trump’s former lead Syria envoy, James Jeffrey, gave a revealing interview to PBS, during which he disclosed that Washington secured a specific “waiver” from then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo to assist HTS.
While this did not permit direct funding or arming of the UN/US-designated terrorist organization, the waiver ensured that if US-supplied resources “somehow” ended up with HTS, western actors “[could not] be blamed.”
The fungibility of weapons on the Syrian battlefield was something Washington counted on heavily. In a 2015 interview, CENTCOM spokesman Lieutenant Commander Kyle Raines was quizzed about why Pentagon-vetted fighters’ weapons were showing up in the hands of the Nusra Front (precursor to HTS). Raines responded: “We don’t ‘command and control’ these forces – we only ‘train and enable’ them. Who they say they’re allying with, that’s their business.”
This legal loophole enabled Washington to “indirectly” support HTS, ensuring the group did not collapse while maintaining its designation as a terrorist organization – a status complete with a now-rescinded $10 million bounty on leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who now goes by his real name Ahmad al-Sharaa.
Jeffrey rationalized this strategy, calling HTS “the least bad option” for preserving “a US-managed security system in the region,” and thus worth “[leaving] alone.” HTS’s dominance, in turn, gave Turkiye a platform to operate in Idlib. Meanwhile, HTS sent unmistakable messages to their US patrons, pleading:
“We want to be your friend. We’re not terrorists. We’re just fighting Assad.”
‘Safe haven’
Since Assad’s fall, officials in London have markedly taken the lead in legitimizing the HTS-led interim administration as Syria’s new government. The group was added to the UK’s list of proscribed terrorist organizations in 2017, its entry stating HTS should be considered among “alternative names” for the long-banned Al-Qaeda.
While UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared it “too early” to rescind the group’s designation, British officials met HTS representatives on 16 December – despite the illegality of such meetings.
This likely signals an impending, highly politicized western rehabilitation of HTS. Throughout Syria’s dirty war, UK intelligence waged extensive psychological operations to promote “moderate rebels,” crafting atrocity propaganda and human-interest stories.
These efforts were ostensibly aimed at undermining groups like HTS, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda. Yet leaked documents from UK intelligence reveal how HTS remained intertwined with Al-Qaeda post-2016, directly contradicting media narratives.
In other words, throughout the decade-and-a-half-long crisis, HTS was officially considered on par with the most fundamentalist, genocidal elements in the country.
British documents also make a total mockery of the common refrain that HTS severed all ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016. A 2020 file described how Al-Qaeda “co-exists” with HTS in occupied Syrian territory, using it as a launchpad for transnational attacks.
The document warned that HTS’s domination created a “safe haven” for Al-Qaeda to train and expand, fueled by instability. British psyops against HTS spanned years but ultimately failed. Instead, leaked files lament HTS’s growing influence, territorial gains, and rebranding as an alternative government.
“[Al-Qaeda] remains an explicitly Salafi-Jihadist transnational group with objectives and targets which extend outside Syria’s borders. [Al-Qaeda’s] priority is to maintain an instability fuelled safe haven in Syria, from which they are able to train and prepare for future expansion. HTS domination of north west Syria provides space for [Al-Qaeda] aligned groups and individuals to exist.”
British-backed propaganda benefiting HTS
British intelligence psyops attempting to hinder HTS were in operation from the group’s founding until recently. Yet, they appear to have achieved nothing. Numerous leaked files reviewed by The Cradle bemoan how HTS’s “influence and territorial control” had “dramatically grown” over the years.
Its successes allowed the extremist group “to consolidate its position, neutralize opponents, and position itself as a key actor in northern Syria.” But HTS’s “domination” was secured in part by the group rebranding itself as an alternative government.
HTS-occupied territory was home to a variety of parallel service providers and institutions, including hospitals, law enforcement, schools, and courts. The group’s domestic and international propaganda specifically promoted these resources as a demonstration of an “alternative” Syria awaiting rollout across the entire country.
Ironically, many of these structures and organizations – such as the infamous White Helmets, who also operated in ISIS-run territories – were direct products of British intelligence, created for regime change propaganda purposes. Moreover, they were aggressively promoted by London at enormous expense.
Repeated references are made in leaked UK intelligence documents to the importance of “[raising] awareness of moderate opposition service provision,” and providing domestic and international audiences with “compelling narratives and demonstrations of a credible alternative to the [Assad] regime.” There is no consideration evident in the files that these efforts might be assisting HTS greatly in its own efforts to present itself as a “credible alternative” to Assad.
Nonetheless, it is acknowledged that Syrians in occupied territory would accommodate HTS “particularly if [they are] receiving services from it.” Even more eerily, the documents note, “HTS and other extremist armed groups are significantly less likely to attack opposition entities that are receiving support” from the UK government’s Conflict, Stability, and Security Fund (CSSF).
This was the mechanism through which Britain’s Syrian propaganda war and organizations like the White Helmets and extremist-linked Free Syrian Police were financed.
These UK-run governance structures and opposition elements, which were allegedly intended to “undermine” HTS, operated in areas controlled by the group safe from violent reprisals for their foreign-funded work, as they “demonstrably provide key services” to residents of occupied territory.
There is also the darker prospect that HTS was well aware these “opposition entities” were bankrolled by British intelligence, and they were unmolested on that very basis.
Coordinated offensive
As The Telegraph‘s report explains, “the first indication that Washington had prior knowledge” of HTS’s offensive was when its RCA proxies were given a rousing pep talk by their US handlers three weeks prior.
At a secret meeting at the US-controlled Al-Tanf air base close to the borders of Jordan and Iraq, the militants were told to scale up their forces and “be ready” for an attack that “could lead to the end” of Assad. A quoted RCA captain told the outlet:
“They did not tell us how it would happen. We were just told: ‘Everything is about to change. This is your moment. Either Assad will fall, or you will fall.’ But they did not say when or where, they just told us to be ready.”
This followed US officers at the base, swelling the RCA’s ranks by unifying the group with other UK/US-trained, funded, and directed Sunni desert units and rebel units operating out of Al-Tanf under joint command.
According to The Telegraph, “RCA and the fighters of HTS … were cooperating, and communication between the two forces was being coordinated by the Americans.” This collaboration proved to be of devastating effect in the “lightning offensive,” with RCA rapidly seizing key territory across the country upon explicit US orders.
RCA even joined forces with another rebel faction in the southern city of Deraa, which reached Damascus before HTS. RCA now occupies roughly one-fifth of the country, pockets of territory in Damascus, and the ancient city of Palmyra.
Hitherto “heavily defended” by Russia and Hezbollah, Moscow’s local base has now been taken over by RCA. “All members of the force continued to be armed by the US,” receiving salaries of $400 monthly, nearly 12 times what Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers were paid.
It is uncertain whether this direct financing of the RCA and other extremist militias that toppled the Assad government continues today. What is clear, though, is that the UK and US supported HTS from the group’s inception, even if “indirectly.” In turn, this covert backing played a pivotal role in positioning HTS financially, geopolitically, materially, and militarily for its “lightning” swoop on Damascus and assumption of government today.
Reinforcing the interpretation that this was the objective of London and Washington all along, following Assad’s ouster, Starmer promptly declared that the UK would “play a more present and consistent role” in West Asia as a result.
While western and certain regional capitals may celebrate the apparent success of their lavishly funded, blood-soaked campaign to dismantle decades of Baathism, British intelligence had long cautioned that the outcome would grant Al-Qaeda an even larger “instability-fueled safe haven” for “future expansion.”
The fall of Syria: A NATO, Zionist and Gulf state operation
By David Miller | Al Mayadeen | December 21, 2024
The day after the ceasefire with Hezbollah was announced on 26 November the so-called Syrian rebels launched their offensive.
But this was not just an isolated coincidence. Not only were fighters attacking Syria from the North, but two other fronts were opened at the same time showing clear co-ordination.
From the North East the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (or SDF) attacked.
And from the South, there is a relatively new grouping called the Southern Operations Room.
Who were these groups and who is backing them?
First, in the North, were two groups. The first is the Syrian National Army the rebranded name for former constituents of the Free Syria Army, a collection of militias most of which have been supported directly in the past by the US.
Then there is Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham the rebranded name of the Nusra Front, the former Al Qaeda franchise. It is reportedly the strongest and largest so-called rebel group in Syria. Its leader Abou Mohammed al Jolani, has been successively the deputy leader of Islamic State in Iraq, the founder of the Nusra Front in Syria, a defector to Al-Qaeda who then rebranded HTS as something separate from Al-Qaeda. This is even admitted by the mainstream media as in this report from NBC:
When Syria’s vicious civil war erupted in 2011, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), sent Jolani to Syria to establish the Al-Nusra Front, a branch of Al Qaeda. Their conflict escalated two years later. Jolani rejected Baghdadi’s calls to dissolve the Nusra Front and merge it with ISI to form ISIS. Instead, he pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, which later disassociated itself from ISIS. The Nusra Front then became Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate and later battled ISIS for supremacy in the battle against Assad.
Both HTS and the SNA are being supported directly by Turkiye.
Turkiye obviously has its own interests but as a NATO member, it is under the leadership of the US. Jolani is himself effectively a US asset as well. Here is Aaron Zelin the chronicler of Takfiri groups for Zionist regime asset WINEP:
HTS and its leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, have sought to garner support from the United States and other Western governments over the past years in a bid to get themselves removed from terrorist lists. Although that has yet to occur, their overtures did not fall on deaf ears, at least during the Trump administration.
Zelin quotes a spring 2021 interview with Frontline by former US special representative James Jeffrey, which noted that he had “engaged with the group via backchannels while serving in President Trump’s State Department. He also noted that Washington had stopped targeting Jolani in August 2018.” In his view, “HTS was the least bad option of the various options on Idlib, and Idlib is one of the most important places in Syria, which is one of the most important places right now in the Middle East.”
In his long interview, Jeffrey also noted that
- We got Mike Pompeo to issue a waiver to allow us to give aid to HTS
- I received and sent messages to HTS
- Messages from HTS: “We want to be your friend. We’re not terrorists. We’re just fighting Assad.”
- The US was “supporting indirectly the armed opposition”
- “It was important to us that HTS not disintegrate”
- It was important “to ensure that nobody somewhere in the terrorist bureaucracy would decide to take a shot at [Jolani]… that would have been bad.”
- “Our policy was, … to leave HTS alone.”
- “Syria, … is the pivot point for whether [there can be] an American-managed security system in the region.”
- [The] Abraham Accords, … was, … encouraged by what we were doing in Syria and elsewhere.”
- And the fact that we haven’t targeted [HTS] ever, the fact that we have never raised our voice to the Turks about their cohabitation with them … “It’s just like [Turkiye] in Idlib. We want [Turkiye] to be in Idlib, but you can’t be in Idlib without having a platform, and that platform is largely HTS. Now, … HTS is a U.N.-designated official terrorist organization. Have I ever or has any American official ever complained to [Turkiye] about what [they’re] doing there with HTS? No.”
- HTS “are the least bad option”
In the North East of Syria, Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces are a proxy for the US, which is in occupation of Syrian oil fields there. US officials refer to this part of Syria as being “owned” by the US with its “local partner” the SDF. The US has a smallish number of troops there and appears to depend on the roughly 100,000 Kurdish forces who enable them to steal almost all of Syria’s oil.
In the south of Syria, a seemingly new grouping emerged. The Southern Operations Room, reportedly a merger of a coalition of Sunni and Druze groups, announced its creation on December 6. Staggeringly they were reportedly the first to reach Damascus. According to reports, these fighters would appear to be related to the previous Southern Operations groupings created by Jordanian & US intelligence agencies.
The CIA covert operation Timber Sycamore was run out of Amman in Jordan and involved the transfer of weapons, including from Saudi Arabia to the Jordanian intelligence agency for onward transmission to Syrian rebel groups. The agency is known as the General Intelligence Directorate. In fact, as Salon reported in 2016, “the CIA essentially created the GID to help shield the Jordanian monarchy from internal and external threats.” Fighters from the Southern Operations Room were the first to reach Damascus on the 7th of December and may have been involved in the widely seen footage of armed rebels removing large numbers of boxes from the Syrian Central Bank.
So, all four of the supposedly disparate “rebel” forces would appear to be backed directly or indirectly, by the US, even though some (especially HTS/SNA and the Kurdish SDF) seem to have contending interests in some areas.
The HTS forces are famously murderously sectarian, and more evidence of this quickly emerged. At a geopolitical level, they are directly helping the Zionists to continue the genocide. Let’s remember that the Zionists have been undertaking continuous strikes on Syria over the last year. The “rebels” even appeared to credit the Zionists with successfully supporting their march on Damascus, In advance of the ceasefire announcement they carried out further attacks, which are continuing. The Zionists themselves were quite open about how useful the alleged ‘uprising’ is.
“From Israel’s perspective, the rebel advance in northern Syria further isolates Iran and Hezbollah”, said Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official and Arab affairs adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Many of the weapons Hezbollah used against “Israel” in the recent war were transferred to them via Syria, according to Marco Moreno, a former senior officer in the IOF’s Human Intelligence Unit 504.
The rapid advance of HTS and the SNA has been enabled by Israeli strikes against Resistance groups that support the Syrian government.
According to Melamed: “This ongoing Israeli pressure, coupled with the rebel offensive, weakens the ‘Axis of Resistance’ and challenges Iran’s hegemonic ambitions.”
The extraordinary speed of the ending of the Assad government begs all sorts of questions about what happened and the significance of the events.
It is no surprise that “Israel”, the US, Turkiye and other supporters of Western power should celebrate, but the significant outpouring of positive sentiment from Muslims was perhaps more surprising.
The failure to appreciate the geopolitics of it all and to apparently blithely accept the victory of takfiri terrorists is disturbing for those who see the importance of Muslim unity.
More will likely become clear in the future, but for now, we can say that it appears that an agreement was reached between Russia, Iran, some Gulf states and the US. This allowed the Assad family to exit with some apparent guarantees on an orderly transition, including an order from the Syrian government side for the Army to stand down, and commitments from some of the opposition about avoiding looting and attacks on minorities, desecration of religious shrines and the like. The deal will also reportedly allow Russia to maintain its air and Naval base in Syria, but it is not clear how that will turn out.
The apparent support for the so called “revolution” in sections of the Muslim community in the UK and elsewhere is an indication of the success of propaganda and misinformation much of it from the West and the Zionist entity.
Despite myriad assertions, it is not true that the Palestinian armed factions opposed Assad. With the exception of the Hamas Political Bureau between 2012 and 2020, every Palestinian Resistance faction supported Assad including the PFLP, PFLP-GC, DFLP, PIJ, PLA, Liwa Al Quds, and Fatah al-Intifada. It is true that elements of the Hamas politburo (in Qatar – particularly Khaled Mesh’aal), was always closer to the Qatari/Turkish line and broke with Assad from 2012-20.
However, the targeting of Hamas leaders by the Zionist entity has been based particularly on those who support the Axis of Resistance, because they are the ones perceived as a threat. The most obvious example is Yahya Sinwar. Some of them still remain. Those at the sharp end of confronting the Zionist genocide knew more than anyone, how much their supplies of weapons and other equipment depended on Assad’s support.
From the other side, it’s also true that Bashar al-Assad, was made repeated offers by King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia and others to accrue huge personal benefits if he gave up on Palestine and Lebanon, and cut ties with the Resistance. He refused. Even up until the last days of his rule, the UAE’s Islamophobic Zionist dictator Mohammed bin Zayed made Bashar an offer on behalf of the US to cut the Axis of Resistance in return for the US keeping him in power. He refused.
He was made such offers because Syria was the backbone of Palestine and the Lebanese Resistance, without which both will find it very difficult to recover from a logistical perspective. The arms, money, and intelligence that are essential to fighting guerrilla warfare on a serious scale require state support, and Syria under Bashar was the land bridge for all of those supplies reaching Lebanon and Palestine. Which is why they were assiduously bombed by the Zionists.
David Miller is an investigative researcher, broadcaster, and academic. He is the founder and co-director of the lobbying watchdog Spinwatch and editor of Powerbase.info.
Syrian ‘end-game’ will change the Middle East
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – December 20, 2024
The fall of the Assad regime in Syria may have been a geopolitical loss for Iran (and Russia), but the fact that Islamists have overthrown the regime threatens both Iran and Arab states, creating prospects for their cooperation in the near future and minimising whatever gains the ‘winners’ of this ‘end-game’ may have made.
The ‘Winners’ and the ‘losers’
There are clear ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. But geopolitics is a very dynamic field in which gains and losses are hardly one-sided. In some ways, the fall of the Assad regime – and the inability of Iran to rescue its key ally in the region – may have been an outcome of Israel’s war on Palestine and Hezbollah, but it does not necessarily mean a permanent weakness of Iran and a permanent gain for Israel. For now, Israel is consolidating this gain by a) seizing Syrian territory, and b) bombarding the Syrian military positions to decimate its ability to launch any counter-offensive at all.
In other words, Israel’s steps show a clear direction. First, it weakened Hezbollah by engaging it in a brutal war. Second, it is now supporting the Islamist takeover of Syria. The Islamists have declared that they have no problem with Israel as their neighbour. Israel’s Netanyahu, on the other hand, has already claimed the credit for “reshaping” the Middle East.
Another clear ‘winner’ is Turkey, which had long wanted Assad to go. For years, the Turkish military had been maintaining a direct presence in Syria’s Idlib province, which also happened to be the main province under (partial) control of the so-called “rebel” Islamists. For years, Turkish forces shielded these groups from the Syrian (and Iranian and Russian) strikes and offensives. In addition, the fact that Turkey allowed these groups to conduct trade across the Turkish border provided these groups with economic support too. Now that Assad is gone, Turkey finds itself in a much better position than it was earlier to counter Kurdish groups.
But there are no ‘losers’
All of this apparently translates into crucial geopolitical gains for Israel (Washington) and Ankara, except there are no permanent ‘losers’ here. The fall of the Assad regime has brought to power a well-known Islamist group globally designated as terrorist. It is said to be only previously allied with al-Qaeda, but the way it controlled Idlib for years provides a sufficiently sound snapshot of where the group stands as an ultra-orthodox network, with serious questions remaining about whether the group was ever able to shun its ideological past.
Still, there is little denying that the ability of armed Islamists to overthrow Assad and capture power has upset not only Tehran but also Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, and even Cairo. All of these states previously faced actual, or prospects, of popular discontent during the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. All of these states are Muslim-majority states, which makes them vulnerable to groups operating both regionally and domestically to overthrow monarchies and/or existing regimes. Can any of them face similar prospects as Syrians did? Let’s not forget that the “rebels” first emerged in Syria in the wake of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. If the end of the Asad regime is the continuation of the same ‘movement’, there is no denying that it can reach other states too. A clear logic for these states to cooperate with each other against this Islamist threat, backed as it is by Turkey and Israel, exists.
Therefore, while Iran may have become ‘isolated’ and the fall of the Assad regime may have blocked its ability to support Hezbollah via Syria, Iran’s prospects of developing new – and deeper – relations with the Arab world have also increased manifold. Therefore, while Netanyahu might be right in claiming that he is “reshaping” the Middle East, the new shape might not be exactly to his liking. The coming together of Iran and Arab states would directly undermine Israeli ability to defeat Iran in the short and long run.
Iran and the Arab world
They are already cooperating. Iran, Saudia, Qatar, and Iraq were all quick to oppose Israeli incursions into Syrian territory. A Saudi official statement called the Golan Heights “occupied” territory. This is not an isolated development triggered by Israeli actions. It is an outcome of an ongoing policy convergence between Riyadh and Tehran vis-à-vis Israel. On Nov. 11 at a summit of Islamic nations in Riyadh, the Saudi crown prince called on the international community, i.e., the US mainly, to compel Israel to “respect the sovereignty of the sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran and not to violate its lands.” At the same gathering, he described the Israeli war on Palestine as “collective genocide.”
In Egypt, the fall of the Assad regime has brought back echoes of the fall of the Mubarak regime more than a decade ago. When the present Egyptian ruler overthrew the government of Mohammad Morsi, a Turkish ally, Erdoğan said he would never talk to Sisi. Yet, he met Sisi twice in 2024. The fact that Turkey is now backing Islamists – and it has always supported the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood – there is yet again every reason for Egypt to align its policies in ways that might help keep the Islamists at bay. This way includes closer ties with the rest of the Arab world, plus Tehran.
Quoting senior Western diplomats, a recent report in Middle East Eye described the situation as particularly unravelling for the UAE, which has “been unnerved by the US’s manoeuvring to open backchannels of communication to HTS via Turkey”. The report also mentions the UAE’s efforts to “broker talks between the government of Bashar al-Assad and the US. The UAE wanted to strike a grand bargain to keep the Assad family in power”. The only reason why the UAE wanted Assad to stay in power was that the alternative to Assad would cause more damage to Emirati interests than any potential benefits. The Islamists are that alternative now that no one, except the Turks and the Israelis, wants.
Therefore, a logical response of these states (Arab and Iran) is to develop coordinated action to thwart any prospects of an Islamist revival, including the revival of the Islamist State, which has a sizable presence in Afghanistan. This is probably the only way that the Arab states can collectively outmanoeuvre Turkey and Israel. There is also little denying that any effort to deepen Gulf-Iran cooperation will be squarely seen as a welcome development in Moscow and Beijing, both of which have vital interests in the region.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
West shamelessly whitewashes barbarism in Syria
Strategic Culture Foundation | December 13, 2024
One week after the dramatic collapse of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, it is too early to give a precise prognostication of how the Arab country and the wider region will emerge politically.
But already, there are grim signs of the nation surging in bloody conflict and barbarism. Predictably, the West is covering up its guilt for creating another epic horror, with its news media shamelessly propagandizing and denying the reality of Syria’s new rulers as terrorist factions.
Syria is facing a fate similar to Libya in 2011. The North African country was turned into a killing field by a NATO regime-change aggression under the cynical guise of “liberation.” NATO-backed jihadists brutally murdered Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and the former oil-rich country has been wrecked as a failed state, riven by warlordism ever since without a functioning national government.
Syria’s former president Assad escaped to Moscow and has been granted asylum by his Russian ally. Apart from that difference, Syria’s future looks ominously like Libya’s. Cruelly, that is rather fitting. The overthrow of Libya in 2011 was used by the United States and its Western allies to mount the regime-change war on Syria that also began in 2011, as recounted in our SCF editorial last week.
Thirteen years on, the takeover of Damascus by the terror group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is unleashing murderous reprisals, internecine warlordism, and sectarian hatred. The U.S. and its Western allies are strenuously covering up the huge imperial crime that has befallen Syria, as with Libya before.
In an audacious denial of reality, Washington and its European partners are talking up a “new beginning” for Syria. It’s a charade of optimism aimed at lulling the world into acceptance of heinous Western criminality.
This outpouring of Western optimism is while the Western-backed Israeli regime immediately launched a blitzkrieg on its northern neighbor, viewing the chaotic events in Syria as an opportunity to annex more land. The Israeli military extended its illegal occupation of the Golan Heights and carried out a massive bombing campaign across Syria.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a hurried tour of the region this week, no doubt to ensure an orderly carving up of Syrian territory and resources between Washington and its allies Turkey and Israel – all of whom have worked for years to pursue regime change in Damascus.
While Washington is urging the formation of a non-sectarian government in Syria that “respects religious minorities and women’s rights” – the cringemaking rhetoric of public relations – the reality on the ground told a different story.
The black flags of Wahhabi Islamism supported by HTS and its other al Qaeda-type associates were hoisted in Damascus and other cities. There are palpable fears among Syrian Shia and Alawite Muslims, as well as Christians, that they will be subjected to a reign of terror, as was seen during the years of U.S.-led proxy war from 2011 onwards with beheadings of infidels and apostates, among other atrocities.
Credible videos have shown HTS supporters executing unarmed captives and shouting obscenities about their victims’ perceived religious affiliation. There have been appalling scenes of barbarism where corpses are dragged through streets tied to trucks. Mothers holding the bodies of their slaughtered sons have been abused by jostling crowds in deranged bloodlust.
In an incredible wave of psyops, Western news media organizations have been whitewashing the events in Syria as a kind of “liberation from the tyranny of Assad rule.”
There have been multiple reports of crowds celebrating in the streets of Damascus and Aleppo, tearing down symbols of Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez. However, the Western media have omitted or downplayed any reports that might indicate a descent into barbarism and sectarian killings.
If there was a prize for propaganda, the British state-owned BBC might have won it with this article headlined: “From Syrian jihadist leader to rebel politician. How Abu Mohammed al-Jolani reinvented himself.”
The truth is it is the Western media, like the BBC and CNN, that have “reinvented” al-Jolani.
The years of al-Jolani carrying out mass killings as a commander in Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Al Nusra as well as HTS have suddenly been shoved down the memory hole, and he is now presented as a statesman supposedly leading Syria to a brighter future.
His belated words about respecting religious minorities and pluralism are reported with cloying gullibility by the Western media. Washington and other Western governments are moving to recognize the new Syrian regime by delisting HTS as a terrorist group and indulging al-Jolani’s rhetoric about reconciliation and tolerance as somehow plausible.
Of course, Washington is euphoric about its apparent success in Syria. Damascus has long been a target for regime change, going back to the Eisenhower administration more than 70 years ago when the Arab state was perceived as being too independent.
More recently, as former U.S. Senator Richard Black explained in this 2016 article, Syria became a renewed target for Washington’s regime change in 2007 when then-President GW Bush’s administration decided Bashar al-Assad had to go. To achieve that illegal result, the U.S. and its regional allies deployed murderous proxies, one of which was Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – the new ruler in Damascus.
The covert proxy war continued under Obama, Trump, and Biden. Russia and Iran’s intervention to defend their Syrian ally managed to impede the regime-change objective, but, in the end, they did not succeed for various reasons, as adduced in a SCF commentary this week.
For over a decade, the Western media have systematically and blatantly lied about Syria to cover up for the U.S.-led imperial aggression against that country. They lied about Assad’s alleged despotism when, in reality, Syrians enjoyed religious and social freedoms. They lied about Assad using chemical weapons when it was the Western-backed jihadist terrorists who used them in false-flag provocations, as Seymour Hersh reported.
The overthrow of Assad appears to be a great victory for the Western imperialist agenda and a blow to Russia and Iran. Washington and its allies are in a celebratory mood over the spoils of victory.
But the signs of bloody disintegration are impossible to conceal even for the lying Western media. In the short term, the Western powers and their propaganda media are trying to present the new rulers of Syria as somehow reformed and benign. This is while Israel annexes territory and U.S. and Turkish-backed factions begin fighting over strongholds.
Syria’s descent into untold mayhem has begun, and in the usual Orwellian fashion, the Western culprits are trying to sell the infernal outcome as a liberation. This is typical of the whitewashing deception that comes as a matter of routine following every imperial regime-change operation. It never ends well.
The people of Syria and the region are facing more turmoil, chaos, conflict, and suffering. The criminal Western imperialist axis is emboldened, but lies are never a sound foundation for the future.
Events in Syria and Future Prospects
By Mikhail Gamandiy-Egorov – New Eastern Outlook – December 12, 2024
The tragic events in Syria have clearly demonstrated that internal betrayal is one of the greatest challenges for any sovereign state. This is particularly true when such betrayal serves the interests of those seeking to destroy sovereign nations.
Terrorist groups
Terrorist groups, following a brief advance across several fronts and battles in which the government army effectively refused to engage, managed to capture the Syrian capital, Damascus. Initially, it seemed that this was merely a temporary disarray caused by years of complacency. However, it soon became evident that a large-scale betrayal had occurred within Syria’s political and military apparatus, favouring forces long intent on dismantling the country as a unified state.
Events in Syria as a Lesson
The recent takeover of power in Syria by overt Salafist terrorists is undoubtedly a tragedy, both for Syria itself and for all advocates of a multipolar world. However, it is likely that many representatives of Syria and other Arab nations have not yet fully grasped the far-reaching consequences of what has happened. These consequences are likely to be deeply tragic, both for Syria and for the broader region.
In reality, an undeniable fact remains: an outright terrorist affiliated with ISIL or al-Qaeda—no matter how his true masters might now attempt to portray him—has seized power in one of the world’s oldest nations. This was achieved, of course, not without the involvement of various regimes and intelligence agencies, ranging from the United States and Britain to Israel and Turkey. Furthermore, given the presence of sleeper cells linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL in nearly every Arab country, the future implications for Arab states could be catastrophic. Yet even now, many seem either unaware of this or, like the terrorists themselves, are merely executing the orders of their Western and Israeli patrons.
Nevertheless, no matter how certain hostile forces attempt to discredit Russia and Iran for their alleged failure to assist their ally, the reality lies elsewhere: when internal traitors in a given country gain the upper hand with the tacit approval of part of the population, external intervention becomes utterly futile.
This became clear to Russia—whose Aerospace Forces continued striking advancing terrorist positions—to Iran, which was reportedly ready to deploy a significant military contingent to Syria, and to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, whose fighters performed admirably in battles, including those near the Syrian city of Homs. Meanwhile, Syrian troops abandoned their positions and retreated in haste, despite Hezbollah still recovering from intensive clashes with the Israeli regime, which could reignite at any moment. In such circumstances, it became increasingly apparent that it would be entirely illogical for Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah to continue fighting terrorist forces if the Syrians themselves no longer wished to resist.
Necessary Conclusions and Prospects
There were, of course, evident mistakes at the level of Syria’s leadership. Mistakes that Moscow and Tehran had repeatedly pointed out in private discussions. The necessary reforms were not implemented in recent years, even though the opportunity was certainly there — thanks to the relative peace in Syria and the lull in hostilities. Notably, this peace was largely achieved through the efforts and support of Russia, Iran, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. These reforms were essential in the military sphere and many other areas, but they never materialised.
That said, despite these significant unresolved problems, the situation could not have unfolded as it did without mass betrayal. This is clearly evidenced by footage taken by Russian forces stationed in Syria, which not only confirm the lack of proper preparation among Syrian troops at the onset of the terrorist offensive but also highlight the betrayal by certain members of Syria’s political and military elite.
Who were the external players involved? It is almost certain that the Anglo-Saxons, the Israeli regime, Erdogan’s Turkey, and possibly some Arab states played a role. However, this has become a secondary issue. What truly matters now is that advocates of a multipolar world must closely monitor any attempts at betrayal within their own countries and eliminate them at the very earliest stages of destabilisation attempts—by the harshest means necessary. Furthermore, all necessary reforms across key sectors must be implemented without delay.
As for the enemies and rivals of a multipolar world order, their problems are only beginning. Engaging in a multi-front conflict against Russia across different parts of the globe, the representatives of the Western planetary minority and their agents aimed to provoke a new hot front for our country. They failed — the plans were clearly understood by Russian leadership. Consequently, all new Syrian problems now fall squarely on the enemies of multipolarity. The reemergence of al-Qaeda and ISIL terrorists will likely lead to another massive wave of refugees, increasing security threats. The West and several other nations still fail to understand that controlling terrorists indefinitely is impossible. Eventually, these groups slip out of control, bringing with them inevitable consequences.
So, to all the initiators of this campaign: best of luck in your “successes”, especially as former allies are already turning on each other. Pro-Turkish militants are clashing with pro-American Kurds from the so-called “SDF”, with the direct involvement of al-Qaeda, ISIL, and the US and Israeli regimes. Meanwhile, we will calmly observe from our side. Particularly as Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, is now in Russia and has avoided the fate of Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi. As for those Syrians who are pleased with the “improvements”, they can fully immerse themselves in a world of total chaos and lawlessness — or, excuse me, democracy, freedom, and progress. Finally, regarding internal traitors: they always meet a grim end.
Eyewitness Syria, the Last 12 Days
By Rick Sterling | Global Research | December 11, 2024
My friend lives in Damascus. I will call him Qusay to protect his identity. Qusay was born and grew up in Aleppo and still has family there. He is a high-level translator and university professor. From his family he learned what unfolded in Aleppo following the invasion beginning November 27. He personally witnessed events in Damascus where he still is. The following is what Qusay told me about events in Syria over the past 12 days.
Overthrow of Aleppo
The march and overthrow of Aleppo was done by Syrian and many foreign fighters supplied and backed by Turkish intelligence and military. Syrian military communications were jammed using electronic warfare. The invaders used drones for surveilling and attacking Syria forces. The jihadists were trained in the use of drones by NATO-funded Ukrainians. Turkey and other NATO forces supplied the drones and all sorts of other advanced weaponry. They had tanks in addition to machine gun mounted trucks and other vehicles.
The jihadists were carefully prepared by Turkish / US forces. They sent individuals to talk with influential people in the Aleppo community, promising payments of hundreds of dollars and other rewards in exchange for complicity or no opposition. Doctors, engineers and public officials were contacted personally. It is highly likely that military officials were also contacted. When the invasion supported by the Turkish military happened starting November 27, the Syrian defense of Aleppo collapsed.
Qusay thinks the Syrian army was exhausted from 13 years of war plus constant attacks from Israeli jets they have been helpless to stop. They, like all Syrian society, have been impoverished by intense sanctions from the West coupled with the theft of essential national resources. The primary wheat growing and oil and gas producing regions have been occupied by US forces and their Kurdish proxies since 2016. As a result, most Syrians only have electricity a few hours per day and have trouble putting food on the table. Before the “dirty war” began in 2011, Syria was self sufficient in food and energy. Syria had no national debt and Syrians enjoyed free health care and education.
The invaders in Aleppo tried to assuage the public that they are not like the “rebels” of old who persecuted and killed Christians and Alawi and enforced sharia law. In Aleppo, they provided free bread for families and quickly set up electronic communications hubs so that everyone might have internet and also so they could broadcast their messages.
Collapse in Damascus
While the northern invading army went on to central Syria, a different attacking group worked from the south. First they attacked and took over Deraa on the Jordan border, then Suweida. Then they advanced to Damascus. It seems there were agreements in advance because there was little military defense of the capital of Syria. President Assad relinquished power and departed for Moscow.
On Day One (Sunday) after the collapse of Bashar’s government, looting and chaos erupted immediately. People were terrified and afraid to go out of their homes. Government and other buildings were looted and ransacked. Universities were broken into and computers and lab equipment stolen. The Central Bank of Syria and other institutions were vandalized.
Many people have replaced the flag of Syria with the “revolution” flag out of fear.
Now, on Day Two, the situation is better. There is more security. Many stores are still closed but they are opening one by one. The former PM and cabinet have urged people to go back to work.
The titular head of the new government is Abu Mohammed al Jolani. He has publicly stated women are free to wear what they want and there will be no retaliation or revenge attacks. The Syrian Prime Minister has been replaced with Mohamad al Bashir. The Jolani government seems to be in control throughout most of the country, including Latakia.
A huge concern now is the ongoing Israeli attacks and bombings. Israel has destroyed nearly all military buildings in the Damascus area while Israeli drones are constantly overhead. Queneitra in the far south has been occupied by the Zionist army. Netanyahu and Biden have both taken “credit” for the long dirty war in Syria.
Qusay says,
“Suddenly everything is lost… Syrians are used to relying on the army to defend our country. But there is no more defense. Israel is taking overy Syrian land. Turkey is taking over another part of Syria. … We don’t know where Syria is going.”
Some Syrians think they will have a better life. Others believe this is an illusion and there are dark days ahead. Last weekend Qusay’s family had their bags packed and were ready to leave. But there is no place to go. Both Jordan and Lebanon have closed their borders.
Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in norther California. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com
Israeli forces reach Damascus outskirts as chaos grips Syria
The Cradle | December 10, 2024
Israeli forces have continued to expand their occupation in Syria and are now around 20 kilometers from the capital, Damascus – coming as Tel Aviv is simultaneously waging a massive bombing campaign across the country.
The Israeli army reached the city of Qatana in the southern Damascus countryside on 10 December, according to Al Mayadeen and Reuters.
Tel Aviv has denied moving past the now expanded UN-monitored buffer zone near Quneitra, which Israeli forces invaded on 8 December after the collapse of the deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government and the storming of Damascus by extremists.
Israeli jets continued destructive airstrikes early on Tuesday, hitting Syrian army facilities in Aleppo, Damascus, and the western port city of Latakia.
“The Israeli Navy carried out a large-scale operation last night to destroy the Syrian army fleet, where several ships belonging to the Syrian naval fleet were destroyed, which were carrying dozens of naval missiles, in the area of the Bayda port and the Latakia port,” Israeli Army Radio reported on 10 December.
Over 250 Israeli airstrikes have targeted Syria since the fall of Damascus. Meanwhile, violence and instability have prevailed across post-Assad Syria.
According to reports on 10 December, Syrian chemist Dr Hamdi Ismail has been found killed inside his home.
Several executions of Syrian army soldiers have been reported since Damascus fell.
The new leadership in Damascus, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) commander Abu Mohammed al-Julani, has kept quiet about the Israeli occupation of southern Syria and the relentless attacks across the country.
HTS – formerly known as Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the Nusra Front – has been implicated in numerous atrocities, including kidnapping, public executions, indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, and other war crimes over the years.
The extremist organization appointed Mohammad Bashir as the new Syrian prime minister on 9 December.
Bashir was the prime minister of the HTS-led Salvation Government, which was formed in 2017 and ruled Syria’s northern province of Idlib – where HTS was based before the massive Turkish-backed assault against Syria that began late last month.
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