According to The Moscow Times, “Russian troops have requested Turkey’s support for their safe exit from Syria.” This tells us a great deal about what just happened in Syria and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s role in it. The article goes on to explain that, although Russian troops are leaving, Moscow has not conceded control, of its airbases or seaport in Syria. That is to be negotiated with “whomever” turns out to be in control, following the ouster of Assad.
I was, quite frankly, asleep at the switch regarding the imminent removal of Bashar Assad. I had not thought deeply enough about the implications of Ukraine and Gaza/Lebanon regarding Russian and Iranian ability/willingness to continue to prop up Assad, nor did I understand the degree to which Radical Islamists had succeeded in convincing Syrian nationalists to cooperate militarily in the removal of Assad. I missed the timing, but I continue to believe that I have the fundamental relationships about right. Nothing that is happening on the ground, other than timing, is surprising, and the timing would not be surprising if we could have seen into the Idlib enclave. Turkey did a superb job, as did Hyatt Tahir al-Sham, in disguising their readiness to move on Baghdad.
Now, the question is how the new Syrian leadership will resolve their own internal differences and how that will impact regional relationships. My assessment, from afar, is that Hyatt Tahir al-Sham has not changed its Radical Islamist spots and that the other Syrian groups are not positioned to contest its leadership. I believe that Turkish president Erdogan will cooperate with Hyatt Tahir al-Sham’s policies inside Syria in an effort to control the political situation in the immediate region, particularly the threat that Ankara perceives from the Kurds. Erdogan will argue that Kurds represent a threat to both Baghdad and Ankara. An enormous question mark in my mind is what the more radical Islamists in the region can and will do and how they will relate to our various military outposts in the region. The newly elected American president is also something of a question mark, but I believe that the president elect would dearly like to get out of the argument, seeing Syria as none of our business as long as it does not do any immediate harm to any of our interests as he understands them.
If Baghdad agrees with Ankara to go after the Kurds, I see a very real possibility that the Kurds will have to give up their management of the rudimentary prison system housing a large number of people designated as radical Islamists that currently exists in the region. As I now understand it, most of the people in those “prisons” are women and children, but their release will be ballyhooed as another victory for Radical Islam, even as the internecine fighting between radical Islamist factions is every bit as intense as any of the other fights that are going on anywhere in the world. I will be surprised If the Trump Administration makes any major effort to influence the elimination of those prison camps, as long as there is no perceived immediate threat to our interests in Israel or Saudi Arabia. Washington will, however, bemoan any decision by the Kurds to walk away from the prison camps and use it to support their own desire to reduce our support of their fighters. I believe that the Trump Administration will basically see Syria as none of our business, even as they have serious doubts about Erdogan’s role in international affairs generally. This policy approach will enjoy immediate benefits in that it will reduce our involvement in fire fights, but it will also result in the continued growth of Radical Islam, which is, in my view, one of the most dangerous threats to our very existence.
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