I'm not really aware of what's going on in Syria, and not really sure who's worse - Assad or the rebels, but it seems clear that Iran & Russia, which were main backers of Assad regime, appears extremely weak.
That's understandable for Iran which may want to avoid to overextend itself following the recent events, but it's hard to comprehend why Russia was unable to do anything at all.
In any case, it seems like there are several very important events happening recently that may reshape the world for the years to come.
Russia is putting everything it has to the Ukrainian front since 2.5 years and signs of exhaustion are clearly visible. They have lived up their Soviet tank reserves, are offering astronomical amounts of money for soldiers, are using north Korean ammunition, huge inflation etc
> it means Ukraine has a real fighting chance to put them on their knees.
Yes, and this point has been obvious to many for the last two years.
The problem has been the west drip feeding aid into the largest war since WW2. We actually have to define the objective as reclaiming all Ukranian territory (at least to the pre-2022 borders) and supply them appropriately. It might be expensive in the short-term but we can afford it, can seize the $300B of Russian assets, and will be able to reduce our defensive forces in the future use to the reduced Russian threat.
The problem now is that we may have run out of time with Ukraine experiencing significant manpower issues. They could mobilise a lot more people, but that will mean women and younger men (currently only 25+) from a generation that is already very thin.
We can ask Ukraine to do this, but we they will need an ironclad commitment that we will supply them with everything they ask for.
The purpose of the drip feeding is, unfortunately, to get Russia closer to a total collapse rather than a quick loss for them to retreat and build up their strength again for the next 20ish years to repeat it.
I have heard this argument before, but I'm not particularly convinced.
Either way pretty much all their pre-war modern equipment has already been destroyed. Now they're fighting with really old stuff like T-55s pulled from storage, newly manufactured equipment, or whatever North Korea thinks it can spare.
Your impression of Russia's war capabilities is vastly mistaken.
"According to Joseph Fitsanakis, professor of intelligence and security studies at Coastal Carolina University, “Russian military production is currently outpacing that of the US and all of NATO member states combined. This may be hard to believe, but Russia is obligated to do it if it is going to outpace the support given to Ukraine."
It shouldn’t be surprising that a country with a war economy has a higher first derivative at producing material, the question of import is
1. What is the difference between absolute quantities comparing against all relevant players,
2. How long would it take to bridge the gap at current production rates, and
3. Can that rate of production be sustained long enough for it to alter any fundamentals?
The point to rebut isn’t that Russia is making more, it’s whether they can continue to do so ongoingly before Ukrainian advances, regime falter or economic collapse, US/China step-in, or internal unrest will dramatically weaken or make the current Russian negotiating position untenable.
Love the "first derivative" view! One can take a snapshot of a good day, but if russia really was producing more weapons than USA + NATO for a prolonged time, having also more people, Ukraine would fall a long time ago.
It didn't. As we say in Poland "paper will accept everything". And russia is known for shameless propaganda.
So far, Russia is still making gains on the battlefield though, not Ukraine. At some point, that momentum would have to reverse.
Also, I don't think it's an "until" about China stepping in, they seem to be squarely on Russia's side, just presenting themselves slightly more moderate in public to appear suitable as a mediator. (Maybe sort of like the US does with Israel)
Finally, there is BRICS and some massive shifts of attitude in Africa that seem to work in Russia's favor.
> So far, Russia is still making gains on the battlefield though, not Ukraine.
This is again first derivative. Russia annexed Crimea, sent unofficial troops to Donbas, in 2022 moved rapidly and captured a lot of territory... But later was pushed back severely. And after that, it was gaining terrain in a truly snail pace.
BTW India and China are in an ongoing border conflict, the hostilities don't end there, with India banning many Chinese apps for example. They're nowhere near as united as EU or NATO, it's more like the Visegrád Group.
Do Americans have the technical expertise for a higher curvature? The American primary/secondary schooling system sucks, and most of the top STEM students at university are not interested in working for the military.
Both sides are aching (very badly) for this thing to be over, or at least taken off the stove.
One can quibble further as to the details -- which are a matter of metrics, wildcards, politics. And (as recent events have shown) there are still many cards to be played.
But that's the fundamental equation we need to keep in mind.
Yes, by pushing to reduce the drafting age, which the Ukrainian don't want to, because someone needs to raise families and Ukraine has a way lower population, while Putin brings in north koreans already. And can also escalate by general mobilisation at some point if cornered. So I don't see the outcome as clear.
Their "production" includes restoring stuff from the soviet equipment bases. When they make stuff from scratch, they are as much drip-feeding as west is, or even less - for example they make 6-8 Su-34s a year, while Lockmart is making 156 F-35s a year.
I partly agree, in that by drip feeding Ukraine supplies we have given Russia time to build up their production rates. And my earlier comment was disputing the idea that drip feeing the supplies was some kind of intentional strategy.
With regards to the broader claim that Russian production is outpacing that of the west. Yes, with artillery shells that's probably true, though we are continuing to ramp production. There aren't really any other areas though where a combination of western production + stock drawdowns couldn't supply Ukraine with greater quantities of material.
That doesn't make sense. The minerals don't disappear just because Putin fails invading Ukraine. The minerals will be waiting in the ground no matter what.
I don't think US and friends would have any problem with them having a successful economy if they didn't use it to attack and threaten other countries.
Yes. Given their fall in Syria one might assume they are getting close to a breaking point. But it’s difficult to know for sure as they lie at every step of the process, even to themselves.
Syria is Russia's backyard! It is not culturally close like Ukraine, but Syria has been an ally of the Soviet Union and Russia for decades through the Assad family.
Nevertheless, Russia clearly chose to stop their support; the Assad regime was cooked.
Things are not based on history anymore. It atleast as much as we might think. Russia just took a trip to Afghanistan to try build relations and encoporate a way to utilize Afghanistan. Historically this would make no sense since they have a bad history between each other out of all the countries in the region Afghanistan was the own Russia couldn't possess or influence in the past. That being said Russian lost many battles against Afghanistan against the very same government today "taliban".
>Syria has been an ally of the Soviet Union and Russia for decades through the Assad family
I realize that and I realize that this outcome is bad for Moscow, but the Nazis (and others, e.g., the Turks) went through Ukraine to invade Russia whereas no one has ever gone through Syria to get at Russia, so I would expect Moscow to care less about whether the government of Syria is aligned with Moscow than whether the government of Ukraine is aligned with Moscow.
This is giving too much credit to the competence of the same political leadership that has spent the last 30 years dismantling the European war machine(that was pretty solid up until the mid 90s) while Russia and China has been arming themselves to the teeth.
I concur, the slow drip feeding is adequately explained by coming from a place of war ineptitude and domestic priorities rather than a conscious strategy.
I agree with this. russia is being lured into continued commitment by giving it a chance. I'm unusually impressed with how American intelligence played russia in this conflict. Of course there's another reason: russia is a nuclear power, and even though everyone seems used to its threats and makes nothing of it, a nuclear war is an absolutely terrible threat, possibly wiping entire humanity if it fails to endure nuclear winter. As a result, America/NATO is doing a dance, where it waits for russia to do something morally wrong, then respond to it with escalation, ready to criticize and sanction on moral grounds all russia's allies if they decide to respond with (political) support to russia. We're quite successful in my opinion, the escalation of the west is validated throughout the world, and the response to it on the russia's side wouldn't be, and would result in stronger sanctions.
Had all the escalations of the recent 2 years be condensed to the first month of war, BRICS (and not only, e.g. the pope was quite supportive of russia, not sure if he still is) could unite and coordinate a response, and the west could possibly lose the war in the political sense, kind of like Israel lost it. I'm not putting an equal sign between Israel and Ukraine, but who would predict a few years ago common harsh criticisms against Israel in mainstream TV?
Israel and Ukraine are rather different in that it is hard to have much sympathy for Russia as they are the ones who chose to invade and they could go home any time they get fed up. The palestinians don't have that option.
Personally I think the west should have been firmer early on that the Russian invasion was unacceptable and they should go or be forced out. Instead they were kind of wishy washy.
> The purpose of the drip feeding is, unfortunately,
Absolutely not, it's not intentional.
- Suddenly, the world defense base needed to get on up to a level to match the world's 5th largest army, with all its stockpiles -- regardless of if its just lil ol Ukraine, Russia is putting its full effort in.
- Politics in US delayed it several months, I can't recall the exact number, but it was at least 6.
The war has been going on for a bit more than a thousand days now.
Your points would have been valid maybe one year into the war. Unless you’re suggesting the US military industrial complex takes three years to respond.
Quick reminder that Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, before that they invaded Georgia and before that they took Chechnia. And yet even now the popular belief in the West is that the war in Ukraine will be the end of it and that some sort of a peace deal can hold.
One report from early in the first Trump administration (possibly apocryphal) was when Trump was being briefed about NATO commitments to defend all member countries. Trump supposedly was surprised that the US was committed to going to war with Russia if they invaded Latvia. The Baltic countries are very exposed and could be reached by land only through a narrow gap with Poland.
Something I've always been confused about is where are these Russian assets to seize? Are there just yachts sitting off the coast of Ukraine? Russian investments in businesses? Or, would it come after a peace deal where the Russian government pays reparations for the war?
In terms of manpower, weapon types, domains of warfare, quantity of equipment, global impact, and national security implications-Ukraine is the largest.
In total violent deaths, 2nd Congo is worse. Let’s hope the war ends before that happens again
But Trump winning means Zelenskyy can scale down his ambitions (about reclaiming all of Ukranian territory) and not lose face, "well, the #####s reelected that Putin-fan in USA, so this is the best we can get now.", and conveniently for Putin it's also a way to get out of the expected walk into the Kyiv-Park that turned out into 3 years of quagmire: he can say "The goal all along was to secure Crimea and access to the Black Sea, get out the миссия выполнена banner!".
So your answer is that we in the west “solve” the problem of Ukrainians dying defending their home by letting them be tortured, raped and murdered by Russians, unimpeded, in “peacetime” instead?
I would buy you munitions and send you personally on the battlefield, that would be a proper answer to support your cause that wouldn't violate anyone else's preference.
what were the options given? Boris Johnson didn’t allow ukraine to negotiate with russia but at the time everybody thought it would be a walk in the park for NATO
Please don't do flamewars on HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. You both broke the site guidelines badly in this thread.
Please don't do flamewars on HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. You both broke the site guidelines badly in this thread.
> are you saying that CNN knows about the conditions and preferences of Ukrainians better than Ukrainians in Kiyv?
I'm saying CNN knows more about the conditions and preferences of the Ukrainian people than you do. I've yet to see a shred of evidence for any of your insinuations.
> When you prove to me that Ukraine wants a peace agreement that involves Russia annexing the entire country to be their personal torture chamber.
Try again. Your post only suggests a slight majority of Kyiv residents want a "ceasefire." That's not "capitulation."
I'll let you know that I'm British so I'm familiar with news papers/sites putting up polls that tell the reader what they want the reader to hear so, just like you disregard sources, I disregarded this straw poll.
guess what, your post suggests nothing but cnn and Zelensky opinions, the latter is legally expired as a president, by the way.
> I'm British so I'm familiar with news papers/sites putting up polls that tell the reader what they want
Exactly my point, you're a delusional member of the delusional society that somehow believes that the poll in Kiyv isn't indicative of the people's preference not to exchange their lives for land anymore.
Are you sure about that? When Russia annexed Crimea firing a couple of shots in 2014, we couldn't see all that horror you talk about, so I don't think it would be what would happen. In fact, there's a lot of people in Eastern Ukraine that has been hoping for Russia to start this military operation.
OTOH, we have records of killings and rapes by American military personnel in Iraq when the US invaded the country back in 2003. And they did that unimpeded. Maybe you supported that invasion.
> No, you're not sure. You don't know what happened there, as it was not possible to conduct a serious investigation, and I'm not sure we will ever know.
Yes, I am 100% sure because the reporting was widespread, accurately conducted, and the Russians were widely condemned.
It's time to double down and hope Russia gives up Crimea like they just abandoned Syria. Even Donald Trump is not stupid enough to miss an opportunity to play his enemies against one another.
This is the result of allies helping Ukraine I don’t think they have any interest in Ukraine, but the alternative is Russia seizing Ukraine. This would have been possible 6 months after the war started. Remember that more than half of Ukrainians are not technically supporting zelensky. This conflict like many others is over complicated yet it's simplified in the west.
> Remember that more than half of Ukrainians are not technically supporting zelensky.
This is normal in any political system, even during times of war. The UK during WWII still had many Labour MPs, meaning a significant portion of the British electorate did NOT support Churchill by definition. However, most people were united in their opposition to the Nazis.
That didn’t stop them voting out Churchill the first chance they got once the war was over.
I don’t think anyone is seriously naive enough to think the entirety of Ukraine loves Zelenskyy without reservation, however its clear that the Ukrainian people have no desire to let the Russians expand their campaign of torture, rape and murder throughout the country.
What do you mean with not technically supporting Zelensky? Do they not want to resist Russia like he does? Or do they prefer someone else to do it instead?
The Ukrainian "Losses of the Russian military" figures are quite impressive. Currently showing 750,000 personnel, 9500 tanks, 21000 artillery systems. Obviously the numbers are something of a guess but it's a lot. A recent update: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1h9c3dt/losses_of_...
I really have hopes that they can reach a ceasefire and that Ukraine can come into NATO to prevent further Russian aggression. Ideally let those Ukrainians who want to enter the “new” Ukraine. I think Putin is of the mind that he has to win something or his role as Russian dictator has a very short life expectancy, and he is quite desperate. I don’t think he will give up any of the land that Russia has acquired though.
> but it's hard to comprehend why Russia was unable to do anything at all.
Is it really? Russia literally has to rely on North Korean soldiers to continue their own "special operation" a few miles away. Their power projection ability is now zero.
I was too young at the time, but the perspective here in Tennessee at least is that the wmd allegations were seen as an American and british boondoggle. Were France, Germany, Spain all aboard that train? I thought "the west" had a half hearted push back against the idiocy. Would love to be informed before my Google searches if anyone has their 2¢.
The intelligence assessment agencies largely saw through the bullshit and said as much, but it was politically expedient for Bush, Blair and Howard to go with the lie.
They haven't yet forced conscription. There's plenty of manpower available to Russia through this very unpopular measure. If pressed they'll do it, the question will be whether Putin survives the young people of Moscow and St Petersburg joining the meat waves.
They critically lack the manpower in the economy, and have to replace all the imports that closed due to sanction. And inflation is already running rampant.
They maybe can do the good old Goebbels "total war" and stop producing consumer goods, but not sure if that's something they want to do.
They haven't because this might actually finally wake up at least part of the people and cause problems for Dear leader. Let's hope Trump doesn't fold immediately and give the situation more time to develop.
> but it's hard to comprehend why Russia was unable to do anything at all.
The dust hasn't settled, but my assumption is that the Russians had a sort-of working plan that the Syrian army would do the heavy lifting and Russia would be funnelling in supplies and providing power for key points - following a proxy-war style defensive model. Given the speed and totality of the Syrian army's collapse they didn't really have anything to do that wouldn't be hideously draining on resources that they don't really have.
The collapse of the Syrians may be related to the Russian military being distracted by the Ukraine war in an indirect or direct way. My base case guess is the Turks/Turk-backed faction spotted an opportunity while the Russians were distracted and went for it, and the Syrian forces were complacent because they hadn't really prepared for the situation where Russia is in a war elsewhere.
I also fall into the not fully understanding the dynamics at play here. What happens it the Assad family loses? Who would likely take control? Would this be better or worse for the regular Syrian person?
There is no regular Syrian person. Like most other Middle Eastern countries, Syrian is a random collection of different tribes, sects, and ethnicities forced together by historical accident. Most of those groups don't particularly like each other. So the outcome will be good for some Syrians and terrible for others. Expect another wave of refugees heading to Europe.
> but it's hard to comprehend why Russia was unable to do anything at all.
Russia is a country with a modest GDP. They are very close to Mexico or Brazil both in GDP and population. We wouldn't be surprised that Mexico couldn't hold multiple wars
GDP is almost irrelevant when it comes to Russia's true strength and persistence.
It's true however that winning a war is incredibly difficult, and the outcome could still be the same for Russia, if their GDP was increased by an order of magnitude.
Russia also has a unique ability to turn the entire economy into a sort of "war economy". That hasn't really been done yet.
Russia’s ability to implement a war economy isn’t unique - the last time they did it (WWII) so did the UK, Germany, and the US.
More recent examples include the both sides of the Iran-Iraq war and Armenia in its war with Azerbaijan.
GDP has implications for the productivity of an economy and the budget of the government.
41% of Russia’s government spending at the minute is on the war which means they have to either cut spending on other things weakening the state or drive massive debt and inflation.
There’s a reason you can only run a war economy for so long - eventually you win the war or bleed your economy dry. Russia’s had the advantage of huge legacy reserves of equipment from the USSR days and a larger population. We’ll see how long they can last tapping the well.
But GDP is measured in dollars and not in amount of things produced. If everything is expensive in your country it will have larger GDP even producing less things.
Russia can turn into a war economy - which means GDP is nearly irrelevant. Right now they're doing warfare while still keeping the lights on at little inconvenience for the public. They can change that around.
You don’t just press a button that says “war economy” and then everything turns out fine. You drive massive inflation, weaken consumer markets, take on
massive debts and eventually run out of young men.
Pretty much every nation bar the US was on the verge of economic collapse by the end of WWI (and Russia’s did). The financial burden of two world wars killed the French and British empires. Germany’s WWII war economy was totally unstainable and the USSR’s was bankrolled by the US lend-lease program.
It’s not a panacea - it’s just what you have to do to drive enough military production to sustain a near-peer conflict.
They can shift production from consumer goods to war goods, but total productive capacity won't grow dramatically. Productive capacity will likely decline due to the large number of able bodied men sent to their deaths or to be maimed.
The most valuable company in Europe is Louis Vitton. Forgive me, I don't think Putin's quaking in his boots about when they'll weigh in.
GDP was a good war metric for an industrial economy, and fucking terrible for a services based one. There's never one metric that describes all. You know it, Goodhart knew it, anyone was worked with metrics ever knows it. This is rather important and frankly I don't get the glibness. Russia's not an unstoppable force but it's not a joke either.
In the previous active phase of war in Syria Hezbollah was one of the main Assad supporters that provided manpower. They are extremely weakened right now, so in a way rebels can thank Israel for indirect help.
I remember reading an analysis a few months ago that Biden (or the US foreign policy in general) was letting Israel continue its conflicts in order to weaken Iran and Russia.
From the cold-blooded point of view, it makes sense, somehow "It's fine" when the US bombs are being dropped by the IDF, and screwing Russia helps Ukraine and Europe too. But probably that's a myopic point of view, a lot of the world has burning hatred against Israel and the USA now.
Russia is fighting a war of attrition in Ukraine, I think they might have worried about over extending too or just logistically been unable to devote significant resources
> but it's hard to comprehend why Russia was unable to do anything at all
Did you miss that Russia has to import cannon fodder, artillery grenades and missiles from North Korea and attack drones from Iran? I don't think they have any resources to spare in Syria at the moment.
There hasn't been a single scrap of evidence to support the claims of Russia using North Korean... there have however been several cases of the media getting caught lying about it, doctoring photos etc:
I believe NK soldiers are there, by I'd trust even Putin more than US sources. After all, they only state what is in their interest. Exactly like Putin.
Maybe NK will use Saddam's nukes against Ukraine...
Nonsense, the claims are trivial to verify for yourself - the Daily Mail did post false claims about NK soldiers in the Ukraine and then dissappear the article once it had done its work.
Yeah, the Daily Mail is tepid bin juice. It's extremely likely they fell for something they found online rather than them being the originators of the images -- they're still scum, but they aren't spending enough time or money on their "content" to be doing anything that sophisticated.
All of this to say, pointing out the Daily Mail's crap doesn't really indict "the media" as a whole. I don't think that one story is what American big general guy is referring to as "reports".
Russia definitely does look bad though, and that is no accident -- but I don't think it's the fake stories doing the heavy lifting.
I'm well aware that it's a vile hate rag, but unfortunately many people in the UK use it as a real source of "news".
Most of the MSM in the UK has made false claims about NK soldiers in the Ukraine, but the Daily Mail was the most overt and easily debunked that I saw.
> Assad was so bad for using chemical weapons on citizens, the US couldn't conceive of worse? But is that true?
I never doubt in ability of US to snatch defeat from jaws of victory. I'm starting to think they do it on purpose. I mean chaos is good for Raytheon stocks.
What trusted sources do you have on middle eastern conflicts? The Council on Foreign Relations, The Atlantic Council? Foreign Affairs magazine? These institutions are stocked with neocon stooges whose advice have only invaded half the middle east (always under false pretenses), killed countless innocence, displaced millions, brought "democracy", etc. Scott Horton and antiwar.com have been pumping out real journalism for 20+ years.
My friend, you posted a tweet-rant from a random conspiracy theorist. I think the better question, then, is: What reliable sources do you have? Because this is not one.
They're spilling a lot of blood right now because they felt the Ukraine was intolerable. You can accuse them of a lot of things (war crimes and disastrous stupidity among them) but "all talk and no do" is bizarre. On the military front they are responsible for something close to the most doing in Europe since WWII and their pain tolerance in doing has been demonstrated to be remarkably high.
I would love to hear what the Syrian hacker news community has to say about this. I’m reading so many comments here but not sure how many are from actual Syrians who probably have a deeper understanding and hope/fears about what comes next.
Made an account for this. Like another commenter said, you certainly won't get a cross section of "Syrians" here, and even I as a diaspora born in America to Syrian Christian parents can only loosely proxy the "Syrian Response." It's split -- some relatives and family friends have hated Assad for ages before the war (e.g. someone they knew was "arrested", they got property essentially taken from them, etc.)
Overall, though, there's a lot of fear. Just recently family of mine were going to visit for medical/humanitarian reasons, but now won't any time soon. We all know people there who've been struggling economically for years with the sanctions, but there's a different feel when this sort of ambiguous future violence looms. I'd disagree with other commenters stereotyping "most Syrians are celebrating", it does vary with a spectrum of wanting "stability" and wanting "freedom". farkanoid's stuff about torture and the mukhabaraat (never seen that mentioned in English!), can somewhat confirm, but am personally further away from that since I haven't been to Syria since the war started. The most definitive thing to say is the variance in Sryians' responses is not completely explained by their ethnicity or religion, and that just like any political people, their feelings come less from geopolitical simulations and staring at battle maps, more from their history and connections.
I'm not qualified to give predictions. I mostly wrote this comment to demonstrate that there are sort of Syrians on this website, not to give detailed political analysis. And finally, the sample you see here ARE sort of the "elite" that aprilthird2021 mentioned -- my people are Christian doctors, and farkanoid's Alawite relatives I'm guessing are more well off than the median.
And those different (or similar) views are what would be important and what I would be interested to read. Because the views of the people from that land are what matter the most during these events.
Talking to actual people is the magical, indispendible ingredient you need in your analysis.
Of course they're quite often biased. That's not the point. But at least you get a human perspective. And even when they're biased, it turns out that "actual people" are usually far less intellectualized and rigidly ideological than the stuff you'll read online. And when they do have an axe to grind, usually there's at least a story behind it ("my family went through this") that you can at least incorporate into your dataset.
And the more actual people you talk to, the more you get to triangulate. Plus, they sometimes invite you into their house for really awesome food.
But if all one does is soak up online narratives and analysis (and worst off all, the crap that thinktanks typically put out, even when they're mostly on the right side) -- one basically becomes a language model.
Statistically most would be. Assad's regime were Shiites (~13% of the population) and the HTS are Sunni (74% of the population).
This doesn't necessarily mean they are better but at the very least of two very theistic groups, the latter better represents the population than the former.
And of course while this means Russia and Assad are finally out of the equation, the governments in North and East Syria aren't exactly stoked about the HTS' explosive growth in power.
Syrian here, born, raised, and finished my studies in Syrian.
Been to many countries like UAE, Saudi, and finally Germany.
I can tell that the joy is immense. Most druze and alawite are not too happy and fearing, mainly because of the feare built into them throughtout the war years.
Incertanitiy is very big, but the joy of seeing a north-korean-like system collapse in few days is unimaginable.
I have seen too many nk documentaries, I can say that it applies 100% to Syria, with many many more complexities in the region.
Honestly, my Sunni relatives from Tartus, Homs and Dimashq are elated. My alawite and druz relatives from Tartus and Latakia are almost distraught.
There is a massive disparity between the treatment of Alawites/Shiites/Druz and Sunnis in Syria (Re: employment opportunities, etc)
I've always heard horror stories about starvation and torture from my father (Sunni) who served over a decade in Hafiz Assads military, as well as constant fear of the "Mukhabaraat" (government informants), leading to huge amounts of self-censorship when speaking on the phone or in public.
My alawite/druz relatives are generally well off and would tell me "eh, it wasn't so bad", despite having the same informant fears and self-censoring
It's not uncommon in Tartus, but far less common in Homs and Dimashq. Oddly enough it's usually Sunni husband and 'x' wife.
For example we have Sunni/Shia, Sunni/Druz, Sunni/Christian and most recently Sunni/Alawite in our extended family, all from Tartus.
Our relatives from Homs/Dimashq are almost exclusively Sunni, religious, and tend to marry from their own sect and even city.
There are irreconcilable differences between (for example) Sunnis and Shiites that would usually prevent marriage if the husband is 'stricter' in faith, not to mention the rift caused during family gatherings by the politics behind each sect (ie: Alawites are generally pro-Assad, Shiites are usually pro Hezbollah, Sunnis are usually against both)
Edit: This is obviously a gross oversimplification, basically less religeous more intermixing.
Most Syrians don't speak English and aren't here. Only a very small elite of Syrians will ever really be accessible to you. But even that perspective can be valuabl
It's interesting that everywhere, the government forces simply abandoned their posts, and none of Syria's allies appear to be willing to intervene in any way. Maybe there's something else going on we don't know yet.
> Maybe there's something else going on we don't know yet.
We know whats going on, the world was just focused elsewhere when this all started and suddenly spiraled.
Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham launched a run of the mill offensive on November 27 in retaliation to SAA attacks and it turned out to be so successful that the Kurdish SDF launched its own offensive on November 29 to take advantage of the situation. Within a week almost every rebel group joined in, the SAA lines of defense broke down, and Russian/Iranian/Hezbollah support disintegrated and evacuated from the country.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some intelligence agencies greased the wheels here but this was mostly dominoes suddenly falling thanks to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East sapping military resources and a single spark lighting the powder keg.
Plus Hezbollah has been beheaded and Iran attacked by Israel and Russia over-extended by its invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey has also been involved in this because they don't want the Kurds to have a state, but HTS seems to have managed to form a coalition for now.
There was also reports of US strafing attacks on columns of some SAA forces (and possibly IRGC) but that seems to have disappeared in the rapid events.
The existing government is trying to stay relevant, the current PM is in Damascus and is promising to work with whoever forms the new leadership. That might just be because he didn't escape and wants to stay out of jail.
Israel (and Russia) have been rumoured to have tried to destroy all the stocks of chemical and other weapons.
Russia will be desperate to hang on to its naval base at Tartus, but that seems to be wishful thinking, but maybe it can make a deal.
My first thought was can't they just send a couple or so aircraft carrier groups into the Mediterranean and adequately project power into Africa from them...then I looked up Russia's aircraft carriers.
They only have one, which has been having problems and has been out of service since around 2018, with repair being hampered by accidents and embezzlement. It was supposed to finally get back in service this year but that doesn't seem likely.
Maybe if your leader is a dictator and it looks like you are losing, defecting might be a better option than fighting to the death for a leader who doesn't care about you.
I’m very interested in reading the book but it certainly seems like Russia and Iran propped up a zombie admin that is actually totally hollow when push comes to shove and the benefactors are busy elsewhere
Except Syria has a completely different history and population, being Arab, is nothing like Afghani people.
Assad was an evil dictator and his father before him, but Syria had a stable government and bureaucracy etc until the civil war. It was a functioning state.
There are sects and regional populations in Syria, the Kurds, Alawites (Assad's group), Sunni, Christian. It's more that they will have to accommodate the regional and religious groups in their government.
Musk sells more Teslas and makes more batteries in China than everywhere else except US. So thinking that Trump will be "anti-China" is wishful thinking. Last time, China didn't suffer, but US farmers had to be bailed out.
Russia is the bad actor here, and Trump has never had a bad word to say about Putin.
Oh and the BRICS trying to get off the USD is just wishful thinking as well. Ask Russia what its like trying to sell oil to India and getting paid in INR.
Russia is already a vassal state to either CN or IN, they'll fight over the resources.
I think the timeline of failures was something like this:
1. Russia, being too entrenched in Ukraine, wanted some global focus shifted away from Ukraine, and managed to get Hamas (probably via Iran) to attack Israel last October. This would predictably become a very hot issue - especially in the US - and make the world "forget" Ukraine. There's been a lot of writing that the support for the Ukraine war will only last as long as there's mainstream focus on it, and that no new wars pop up.
2. The Gaza plan failed. Israel attacks Hezbollah and Iran, which means neither of those can help Syria. The retaliation from Israel was too strong.
3. Vital support from Russia, Iran, Hezbollah is now severely limited.
And that's pretty much that. The rebels in Syria saw their opportunity, and seized it.
What's more, is that Syria has long been an important supply route for Iran and Hezbollah. With rebel control, which is anti-Iran and anti-Hezbollah, this will have much wider-reaching impact.
Hamas attacked Israel the day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war. While the October 7th attack may have benefitted Russia indirectly (temporarily at least), it's not particularly likely that Russia played any role in making it happen.
There's nothing in there that particularly suggests that they promted the attack. But of course they capitalized as best they could off of the distraction.
I mean, plausible deniability is a cornerstone of Russia's hybrid warfare against the west... They want us to feel and "know" they did it while not being able to 100% prove it...
Assad dynasty was just a symptom of the problems in Syria.
Syria is a Sunni majority country. During the Assad dynasty Alawite minority (population 2-3 million) was the ruling ethnic class in Syria. They have their own sect of Islam (Alawism).
Alawites were stuck with Assad family even if they came from competing factions. If Assad falls, they get massacred.
The insurgents fight under the flag of Syrian National Army, backed by Turkey, but the fighting has been mostly led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS).
The "good guys" are the citizens, who were unjustly imprisoned for protesting against a blatantly oppressive government. These prisoners have been released by the rebels, which is a "good" enough cause that people can celebrate for the rest of the week.
If we look at what happened in Tunisia or Libya after they got rid of their secular dictators (Gadaffi an Ben Ali), it doesn't have to be that way. They were also fears of them becoming islamic states, yet they didn't.
If we look at Egypt, they could become again a dictatorship.
Arguably not, but once revolution and civil war break out you don’t really have the option of just going back to how things were. It’s certainly better than if the civil war had gone on for 13 years as it has in Syria. We also don’t know how brutal Gadaffi’s crackdown and reprisals would have been had he won.
Libya’s been at peace for 4 years now, but it’s politically a mess. Syria has seen 18 times as many deaths as Libya with only 3 times the population.
Anyways the question wasn’t “will Syria be better than 13 years ago” it was “will a Syria become an Islamic state” - and it’s a fact that Libya hasn’t ended up that bad in that regard.
Libya is pretty much an Islamist and borderline slaver nation now. It’s much, much worse than it was under gaddafi. Tunisia is the only place the Arab spring might have been tentatively “successful”.
Maybe it's as worse as with Gadaffi. "Much, much worse", I don't think so. They are going through changes, far from stable, so it's hard to say what are they or what they will become. But they are not the theocracy some announced when Gadaffi fell.
Still too early to tell. My guess is that this will degenerate into a new war between the friends who allied against Assad. So some mutant like ISIS will probably prop up.
I think there is a good chance that reasonably fair elections get held. The government will likely take a moderate Islamic tone, with other religious groups coexisting. For now all the main players seem fairly chill.
I think it's too good to be true that after 13 years of civil war fought by multiple factions, suddenly everyone becomes friends with each other and then they happily live thereafter in a democratic utopia. We can expect a string of coups as various groups attempt to seize power.
Turkey is relatively liberal (for an islamic country) and they backed the "revolutionaries". I'm kind of wondering what Jordan is going to do in the coming weeks/months.
> However, Turkey to the north is really not keen on the Kurds having any territory, so they'll do whatever they can to frustrate this.
Could it work that if the Kurds have their own 'official' region (either country, or province with-in another country) Turkey (Türkiye) would simply throw money at people to move to it?
If there aren't any Kurds living with Turkey's borders, would that be a win for Turkey?
Somewhere between 0 and None, which is a good thing for literally everyone. Unless we’re now cheering for ethnostates and a full blown Turkish invasion. Even the Syrian Kurds don’t want independence, rather just autonomy as part of a multiethnic Northern region.
Even the Syrian Kurds don’t want independence, rather just autonomy as part of a multiethnic Northern region.
Doesn't have to be full-scale independence. I think "stable, legal regional autonomy" was probably included in what the commenter meant by "their own land".
As opposed to the halfway / fully isolated / unstable situation they've had up until now.
Virtually every country in this region was drawn up by the British and French with little regard for ethnic or religious boundaries. What are you talking about?
Biggest strategy for any government is not to resolve a conflict immediate but to post pone a the conflict for a better time. "Well come up with a solution later but for now slow down or stop". Conflict is essential for some of these countries it's part of how they change and form to something else. We can relate in the U.S. Becuase we have a different history and different threats. But if history tells us anything we've already had our conflicts and civil wars that brought us to today. As you can see the country Is yet again confused with what it wants. Regulations are crippling companies and the very sectors that made America what it is or used to be. So we have our fair share of problems but for now we'll deal with It
I’m shocked that the ruling dynasty fell as quickly as it did, along with the military being ineffective and unwilling to stop the rebels given how long the civil war has been going on for. Incredible.
Looks similar to USA withdrawal from Afghanistan. When big power withdrew support, whoever they were protecting just got run over in a week. Same here.
Is a 14 years long process (the Syrian civil war) quick? Just Wikipedia the civil war article. Did people forget about ISIS uprising as well? Look at the map: the regime haven't controlled most of the territory since the start of the civil war. The regime has become a failed state struggling to make ends meet.
Assad was backed by Iran & Iran has been bad news for that region for some decades. the new coalition is backed by Turkey, and since they share a border it makes a lot more sense than Iran ever did.
way too early to say much more right now. next few weeks/months should be interesting though.
This is an absurd oversimplification. Turkey backs two powerful factions. Another powerful faction is one that Turkey wants to eliminate permanently. A third powerful faction is supported by the US, Jordan and others. Then you have the fact that a lot of who Turkey helped are elite salafists who would gladly go to war with them if they had the power to do so.
This is a huge blow for the russian regime. Things are really starting to look bad over there. We might see a second collapse in 2026. Putin has destroyed a country.
Look at Lebanon next door, they have elections, constitutional consensus to power share among sect diverse population. Syrian is just a large Lebanon. Doubt elections are the solution
50 years is honestly not that long. When you look at historical dynasties even the shorter ones tend to be ~100 years, if they don't immediately implode.
That was a lot of suffering and chaos of what's actually a fairly trifling dynasty in the grand scheme of things.
Much though I want to view this as good news I keep finding myself steelmanning that it's actually bad news
* destabilising a region already in flames
* replacing a secular evil government by.. jihadists in a loose coalition. WCGW?
* Russia used port and airfields to maintain a presence in the Med and for nefarious purposes in Africa. What do they do now, to replace them because I doubt "nothing" is the answer.
* does Iran feel a need to do "stupid things" now to prop up regional Shia politics?
* could this be bad for Ukraine?
* how will Turkey negotiate with this facing the pkk and Kurdish nationalism?
Assad wasn’t really a stabilizing force holding back worse players, he was a desperate despot just barely holding on to power thanks to a proxy war. Now the rest of the parties have a real chance to establishing a governing coalition. Syria has always been relatively secular and the rhetoric coming from the rebel side is in marked contrast to the usual pattern in the region. The most extremist group involved HTS has been surpsingly moderate in its stewardship of the Idlib governate.
There are reasons to interpret this as very good news: Iran and Russia no longer have enough resources to project power. Even with a warm water port and strategic position in the Mediterranean at stake, they just can’t prop up the regime anymore. I can’t help but think that two fewer regional powers meddling in Syrian affairs is nothing but a stabilizing force.
Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have the chance to return home and rebuild now. That’s great news.
>It didn’t turn out well when we took him off the board.
No? The post-invasion process turned into a simmering insurgency followed by a loose civil war, but since then and so far, Iraq has stabilized into a more or less functional state in which investment is growing and living standards are again moving upwards. I don't see how the automatic response of "it didn't turn out well" applies. The shaky morality of a historical decision (invasion and toppling Saddam in this case) doesn't necessarily translate to a bad outcome in the long run.
Same could be argued about the last 100 years of the region. West doesn't give a shit about these countries as long as they keep selling oil (in dollars).
West propped and props up Islamism (and other tyrannies) to prevent nationalisations of oil resources. Seems to be mostly working as intended.
It's naive to think that peace and stability will suddenly prevail in Syria. The situation will likely follow the Libya model: total chaos, worse than when Gaddafi ruled. HTS are wolves in sheep's clothing, and they wear this disguise only to convince the world that there is no need to form another anti-terrorist coalition. They learned lessons from the collapse of ISIS. All the organizations that once had a common enemy in Assad will now seek to seize power and begin fighting one another.
It’s equally cynical to presume that it won’t. People can only tolerate so much violence and this civil war has been propped up by external powers for over a decade.
Regardless, HTS isn’t the group that captured the capital so I don’t know why everyone is so focused on them right now. They got the ball rolling with their November 27 offensive and captured Hama but they’re still restricted to the northern provinces.
While on the topic of ISIS, I don’t think it’s the rebels we should be worried about. ISIS would never have become what it was without the former Ba’athist officers from Saddam’s regime building out its command structure and military. It’s the disaffected Ba’athists from Assad’s regime that we should be worried about.
Any regime change that involves freeing many thousands of women and children from prisons notorious for torture and mass-executions seems like a decent one! The future is uncertain, but it's not like "everyone chills out and gets into their hobbies" was an option -- it's gotta be one of the most war-ravaged places to exist in human history.
Have you heard of a thing called, Islamic State? They had a thing for creative murder. Aside from the usual behadings, they came up with things like pushing homosexuals from buildings in the public and alike. They are also now free again.
How is this an answer to the op's statement?. Assad was a war criminal just like his father. Remember the Hama 1982. Son followed dad by killing thousands, torturing and displaced millions. West will support and try a rosy picture of so called secular totalitarians as long as it fits to their agenda.
What are you trying to state? There's a small number of citizen IS supporters and they're now free, along with all others who showed opposition to the regime. Ok. So what?
Please don't use a general understanding of the patterns in the region to extrapolate wild takes when you don't know the specifics of each country and their people. Syrians are not Afghans are not Libyans are not whatever, as much as the west would like to portray them.
Ah, so you claim they were a american controlled group?
While the US spend lots of effort on hunting them?
Keeping the flames high, to play firemen?
I don't think that there was a need of more flames, for that theory to be plausible. Occasionally some western weapons likely did found their ways towards IS as well, but they rather captured the bulk of it. Or do you have other sources?
Afghanistan is the obvious example, among many. Beyond that, American interventionism has fueled extremism in the region for decades. This is not a wild take, but one agreed upon by scholars.
I mean, they've literally gone to war against both ISIS and Al-Qaeda. You don't have to trust them exactly but it's not like there's no grounds to believe they're at least not going to be ISIS.
I'm not sure why you think that means they aren't terrorists. Al-qaeda and ISIS have also been at war for a decade. Does that make one of them any less terrible than they have always been?
It's not about trust. We have enormous amounts of evidence from all human rights organizations monitoring the situation. You may not understand this but the entire war was filmed. You can just go look up who they are, what they believe and what they have done to people. They advertised it themselves for the majority of their career.
I said no such thing. I also wouldn't dispute that the PKK are also "terrorists".
I still think it's pretty clear that there can be some hierarchy within that category. HTS and the Kurds are less evil than the Taliban, which is less evil than Al-Qaeda, which is less evil than ISIS.
Like you said, there is plenty of history to look at here. HTS has run Idlib for years and they have done nothing that compares to the likes of ISIS. Maybe that will change if they consolidate total power, but neither of us have any evidence to state definitively what will happen. There are plenty of reasons to be either pessimistic or optimistic.
> I still think it's pretty clear that there can be some hierarchy within that category. HTS and the Kurds are less evil than the Taliban, which is less evil than Al-Qaeda, which is less evil than ISIS.
This I can agree with for sure. There are lesser evils and a hierarchy. I think the hierarchy also depends on the situation on the ground for who it's tolerable to support at a specific time. If it would have taken HTS as much bloodshed to get to where they are today as it did Assad to originally regain control, then I think it would less favorable than what actually happened, for example.
"Soviet Union" means the Union of (16) Soviet Socialistic Republics. It's an abbreviation. The republics originally were parts of Russian Empire, so their status was raised, at least nominally (because revolutioners, including Lenin, condemned imperializm and conquesting other nations - something that was considered perfectly normal in the West at the time).
I mean, unlike another nation south of them, at least for now, they didn't destroy Christian churches (the opposite in fact, rebel-controled territory rebuilt Christian churches), and let Christian orphanage/school stand without expropriation under false pretense.
How it will develop has yet to be seen, but I'm hopeful.
> Homosexuality is not a capital offence in the Gaza Strip or elsewhere in Palestine.[54][55] The laws against homosexual behavior in Palestine[d] are a relic of the British and Ottoman rule in Palestine; they specify prison sentences of 10 to 14 years.[54][55] There is no evidence that these British colonial-era laws are actually enforced in Gaza.[54]
> Reports of extra-judicial killings of LGBT people in Palestine have circulated, without being confirmed. Sources such as the news agency Reuters, the news outlet The New Arab, and the NGO Human Rights Watch, characterise many of these reports as misinformation: the stories are exaggerated, oversimplified, or misattributions of events that occurred elsewhere.[56] Examples of this include:
> Two members of Palestinian nationalist militant groups were accused of espionage and killed by their comrades in situations that included rumours about homosexuality or bisexuality.[57][58]
> During the Israel–Hamas war, a video described as "Hamas executes people by throwing them off a roof of a building!" circulated on social media. Some derivatives of the meme claimed the men were executed for being gay.[56] The video, however, was from 2015 and not from Palestine.[56] A July 2015 report from Al Arabiya, included identical images and states that they were originally shared by the so-called Islamic State, and showed the execution of four gay men in Fallujah, Iraq.[56]
> In February 2016, the Al-Qassam Brigades (the militant wing of the Hamas movement) executed Mahmoud Ishtiwi, the commander of Al-Qassam's Zeitoun Battalion.[59] The alleged offences were described evasively, the stated reason was Arabic: تجاوزاته السلوكية والأخلاقية التي أقر بها, lit. 'for behavioral and moral violations, to which he confessed',[58] which some western news media interpreted as a euphemism for homosexual activity.[60][61] Local sources clarified that Shteiwi was convicted of spying for Israel.[62] The Qassam Brigades alleged that Ishtiwi had been executed by firing squad,[63][58] but people who saw his body before burial alleged that he might have died in custody and been shot after death.[64][58]
It is curious that you don't mention the fact that the Sha was in power due to an American/British coup that deposed a democratic government to protect oil interests.
Please don't use the word "liberal" to refer to something outside the US, because the concept of "liberal" only exist there.
This concept of neoMarxist sympathies of educated people(white collar workers) in urban areas and Ivy Leagues, that focus extremely on sex and wokeism, that concept only exist in the US.
In Europe "liberal" means he who follows economic liberalism, that is being part of the "right".
In Asia and Middle East is even weirder. Iran is probably the place of Earth that had more Empires in its History. Nationalism, ethnic identity and religion is way more important than anything else, specially on Sha's time. If you call communists people you are referring to Chinese land type of communism instead of industrial, very different from Europe or the US one.
I had a great time skiing on Iran back on the day.
Sednaya wasn’t a regular civilian prison. It was run by the military to house and torture political prisoners and anyone the government considered a “rebel.” Its notoriety long predates the civil war.
Just to be clear, you're talking about prisons like Sednaya, the infamous "Human Slaughterhouse?" The one where Assad imprisoned thousands of political opponents, journalists, military deserters, Muslim minorities and civilians, and then systematically tortured and executed those people?
I do remember the same shit promoted when Gaddafi was toppled.
And then Western mass media stopped showing news from "freed" Libya. Because, you know, public executions and human slave markets kinda not something, their population should know about, unless it's done by "bad guys".
>Any regime change that involves freeing many thousands of women and children from prisons notorious for torture and mass-executions seems like a decent one!
Overthrowing Gaddafi didn't make Libya a better place. Now it has open air slave markets, amongst other loveliness.
American education tends to concentrate on American history of slavery, so many American are ignorant about just how widespread slavery was/is in the Islamic world and how many Muslims until today consider it a regular institution explicitly endorsed by God.
I certainly wouldn't like to be a black manual worker in any Arab country. Even if you aren't a formally legally enslaved person, you will be treated as one.
Or any other place from Asia, ie nepalis or philippinos are treated absolutely horribly in many rich middle east places. That culture, barring exceptional ethical individuals, has nothing in common with modern western values.
The vast majority of Syrian refugees are going to try their best to stay in Europe because why would they want to leave to return to devastation and ruin (aside from forced deportation).
Plus a lot of people who tried to pass themselves off as Syrians aren't Syrians at all.
The asylum claim processing authorities were a bit overwhelmed, but soon learned to ask questions such as "can you tell me in which city you used to live, what was the name of the mayor, what was the closest mosque/church, your address, your school" etc. Few of the fake ones could answer such probing in a satisfying way.
Most Syrians I know have unbounded love for their country and their people. You'd be surprised by the number of people who are not motivated purely by financial gain.
Syria has (had) a secular government that allowed Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Druze Muslims, twelvers, and Kurds to live there. The status quo for the region is theocratic iron fist of a particular Islamic denomination, with all others persecuted.
Not to mention, Assad is a Ba’athist (as was Sadam) which by definition is all about Arab unity.
Which Sunni warlord group should we hand the country to now? Do you think things will be better? Can you name a single Syrian political figure or interest group (don’t Google!) that you would propose lead the country? Be honest with yourself.
>Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have he chance to return home and rebuild now
It was under a repressive dictatorship with crumbling infrastructure. Sure, it can always be worse, but the people deserve and are capable of so much better.
Yes, I would argue the islamic state was indeed worse. And so far I see nothing preventing them or a similar force taking hold again. I mean turkey is the moderating factor here and turkey under Erdogan has gone the authorian islamic way since a while.
Well his son made hundreds of millions / billions from selling directly oil from ISIS held lands, since nobody else wanted to deal with them. His daughter personally built and supervised hospitals in Turkey specifically built to treat wounded ISIS fighters. These are verified public informations, although they obviously deny it.
Erdogan is as much pro-ISIS as one can be. Maybe just a political game during complex conflict to fight against US-supported kurds at all costs, maybe not. We don't know.
I was giving you the benefit of doubt all this time, but your comments about my country confirms to me that you're misinformed. For all I hate Erdoğan and his attempts to undermine democracy, and I want to see him gone sooner or later, Turkey is as much an Islamic authoritarian state as USA is a Christian authoritarian one under the rule of Trump. There seems to be a tendency to exaggerate the realities on the ground for some reason, and I suspect this is fueled by bots.
I said going the authorian islamic way, not that you are already a califat. Sorry for the missunderstanding, I am aware that turkey is all in all still quite democratic and secular and we seem to both not like the direction Erdogan is heading. My point was, Erdogans influence over the SNA is not comforting me.
Why are you relating authoritarianism with "Islamic way" or even the Caliphates? I've never seen anyone make this claim before, which is, to be honest, quite absurd.
Edit: Also your linked article no longer reflects the current stance of Russia.
That link I gave is propaganda BS. It claims the syrian army gave the terrorists( SDF) control over the new areas, while in reality they fought with US support against iranian and syrian regime militias. So that iran could not send support without fighting their way through it, maybe a turning point in this war.
It was just to illustrate that Erdogans goals are not peace, after Assad is gone.
The sentence "I said going the authorian islamic way,", implies that there is an "authoritarian Islamic" way. What is that? Because it sounds like you're implying that the religion has intrinsic authoritarian aspects to it.
The issue is that in the West people hear one of Erdogan's pep-talk speeches against Israel on CNN and assume that he means everything.
They don't know that Turkey has been delivering oil to Israel all the time and that Israel is in favor of the current events in Syria.
If all of Turkey, the U.S. and Israel support the Syrian rebels, we may assume that the goal is to install a U.S. friendly government (perhaps supervised by Turkey) and have more buffer states against Iran.
What experts expect Syria to get better? The rebels are led by a rebranding of al-Nusra Front which is widely designated as an islamist terrorist organization.
The rebels aren’t led by any one group and HTS only has control over some northern provinces. There’s at least four major alliances in play between dozens of rebel groups at the moment, and there’s no one frontrunner to take over.
Why do you insist that it will go the way of Libya? The rebels are calling for a peaceful and democratic transition of the government and the protection of all minorities. They've stopped using Islamist rhetoric for almost 10 years. This is as good of a regime change in Syria as it gets.
There is no counter-example of thriving democracies developed after western regime change projects. On the other hand, there’s Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
If the examples springing to mind were in 1945 then that says a lot about how US efforts are going in the modern era. There is no real comparison to how the US handled defeated powers in WWII and how the State Department handles regime changes from ... I want to say the 60s onwards. All the people involved in Germany or Japan's reconstitution are dead (Ed Deming, we miss you; heros of the peace are the most impressive ones).
Which is a shame because the 1950s strategy of investment and prosperity made the world much better and the modern strategy of destabilisation tends to make it worse.
>Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have the chance to return home and rebuild now. That’s great news.
Just because they might have chance to return home and rebuild doesn't mean that they will. Somalis arrived in the 90's, and they never returned back there except for vacations.
I don't know that "what kind of news is it" is the right way to look at this. Things happen, without a reckoning of whether they are convenient or inconvenient to the most powerful military forces in the world. The people who just overthrew the Ba'athists are Salafists; their leader has (had?) a $10MM price on his head from the US for leading the al-Nusra front, which was (is?) al-Qaeda in Syria, and was almost a component of ISIS (HTS => IS-Ish). It's not who most people on HN would pick to overthrow Assad! But then again: why would any of us have a say in who overthrew Assad?
> The people who just overthrew the Ba'athists are Salafists; their leader has (had?) a $10MM price on his head from the US for leading the al-Nusra front, which was (is?) al-Qaeda in Syria, and was almost a component of ISIS (HTS => IS-Ish).
The Salafists (HTS) sparked this series of events with the November 27 offensive and cut off Hama but the Southern Front and US backed SFA forces were the ones to actually capture Damascus.
Who overthrew Assad is debatable but the former Al Qaeda affiliate isn’t in control of the capitol. Between the SFA and SDF, they’re only one voice at the table.
HTS was at some point related to al-Qaeda. This hasn't been the case for almost 10 years. The biggest sign that this isn't only appearances is that they've pivoted from religious rhetoric to that of liberation. I don't care who the US has a price on. It's not a sign of anything at this point.
Religious rhetoric is the rhetoric of liberation to the people who believe in that religion. Only to outsiders does it seem different, and that's partly why they do it. For the record, I think Assad gone is a win no matter who takes over. I think democracy ultimately is better than brutal suppression, even if it means a country aligns away from my own in the process.
> Religious rhetoric is the rhetoric of liberation to the people who believe in that religion.
That's a blanket statement that's simply untrue. There are plenty of Muslims (arguably the majority) who believe religion shouldn't play a role in politics. Syrians are considered generally leaning towards secularism.
It is indeed as if the Nazis were overrun by ISIS, but the ISIS people are saying they're reformed and they're not going to do all the crazy shit ISIS did. On the other hand: look what was there before. Right?
Possibly, but it also shows how weak Russia is and how limited their presence in Syria was (because they sent everything to Ukraine). Russia can be defeated in Ukraine, but the west will need to step up support.
Since the 2022 Russian invasion, the West has provided 200bn in aid to Ukraine [0]. And Russia has been winning on the ground lately. It seems the West is thinking more aid will not change the outcome, but only diplomacy will.
Russia has not been winning on the ground. It's two and a half years into the war and Russia is still stuck contesting edge territories. Russia has overwhelmingly larger numbers, but with as high as 7:1 casualties to Ukraine and with a significant increase in casualties over the last eight months.
The frontline is stabilized and the ruble is collapsing. What exactly is being won here?
The western aid was an important lesson on the importance of proper timing for investments: it was always too little to win, but too much to loose outright. Had Ukraine been able to strike with full force from the beginning, the world could look very different right now.
Russia has been gaining tiny amounts of ground while suffering massive losses. Latest estimates say casualties are currently averaging 1,500 a day.
Total casualties since the start of the war (less than 3 years ago) are 600,000+. That's about 200,000 more than more than the US sustained in Korea, Vitnam, First Gulf War, Afghanistan, and The Second Gulf War combine.
Heh, if you call few meaningless villages per day winning. Whats really happening is decimation of russian armed and naval forces (and young population) dramatically to the point where russia is regional power at best, not any form of superpower anymore and its weapons are often considered as subpar. They almost emptied massive cold war stockpikes of more sophisticated technology.
Which seems to be US plan since beginning, give enough support to make them bleed but not really corner them existentially to trigger nuclear strikes.
We can see a massive success here, mostly due to very predictable russian stupidity and primitive emotions at controlling positions. Well done CIA, well done indeed, hopefully this will make world a better place in the future. But it can easily backfire too.
This Russian losses are primarily not young people actually. There’s been somewhere in the ballpark of 600-800k casualties (I believe the latter) which has been a huge struggle for the labor force. But, in fairness, it hasn’t been the young folks.
Anything that weakens Iran and its proxies is good news. They‘ve been the main reason for instability in the region. The cutting of supply routes to Hezbollah is another nail in the coffin for a militia that‘s kept Lebanon from eventually becoming a functional state, instead keeping it in perpetual war or near-war with Israel, which only serves Iran and the people Iran supports financially. Iran has torpedoed any attempts at normalizing relationships between Arabs and Israel even though most in the region just want to move on and prosper. It also weakens Russian influence in the region, who’ve had the same aim as Iran: Sow chaos and destruction to weaken US allies and prevent anyone aligned with the US from taking the lead in the region.
> Iran has torpedoed any attempts at normalizing relationships between Arabs and Israel
What about the recent peace/trade deals between Israel and UAE and Qatar? The Qatar one was most surprising to me because Qatar has excellent relations with Iran, partly due to their sharing of one of the world's largest natural gas fields.
So far it's been one step forward, one step back, due to Iran, see the now frozen rapprochement between Saudi and Israel. But thankfully all signs point to Iran's influence waning, which is now accelerating in part thanks to Israel ignoring the Biden administration's calls for another premature ceasefire that would only allow Iran to rearm their proxies and keep the untenable status quo that ultimately harms everybody in the area alike.
> see the now frozen rapprochement between Saudi and Israel.
As I understand, this has nothing to do with Iran, and everything to do with the Saudis want a promise for two state solution before they will agree to a treaty with Israel.
How do people here think an Islamist government will be also anti-Iran? They have 99% of the same goals with Assad out of the picture.
There's a ton of other wrong in your comment (as if Hezbollah, alone, hindered Lebanon from being a functional state and not the decades of war and brutal massacres of their civilians), but let's focus on the main thing.
Basic psychology. Iran has tried to kill these rebel forces since the Arab Spring, and now you think they will suddenly become friends of Iran once in power? Not going to happen.
As far as Lebanon goes, decades of wars are mainly a result of Lebanon's dysfunctional sectarian political system. But having Hezbollah run around and exchange fire with Israel doesn't improve the already bad situation.
But basically psychology vs the core of their foundational ideology? Idk, their ultimate goals are clearly similar to Iran's. Former enemies have become allies many times in this region.
Decades of wars have nothing to do with Israel invading the country and installing the extreme right wing Fascist inspired Phalange party into power after 1982? The very event which led to the founding of Hezbollah? Okay
Hamas is Sunni and Iran is Shia. Sunni and Shia don't really matter in these contexts. And if you think Islamist rebels hate Shias more than they hate Israel and the USA, it's a toss-up, imo
If it didn't matter then all the arab nation would all be aligned, but it matters and they aren't. The Saudis vs Iran is still driving a lot of the faction movement in the region.
The Sunni world is mostly fine with Israel, other than Hamas of course, which is why Hamas had to work with Iran (although it seems like it backfired on Iran)
I feel like you are intentionally saying ridiculous things, so really no point in talking. The idea that "the Sunni world is mostly fine with Israel" is such a ridiculous idea it's not worth discussing further with you.
I am aware of the history. But your assertion that only Iran wishes to attack Israel is untrue. Al-Qaedas very foundational idea was to hurt the Saudi government for allying with the US (and by extension Israel). And these rebels are all former Al-Qaeda or worse.
You think they will be pro-Western before they will be anti-Israel? It's a very risky gamble to make.
They don‘t have to be pro anything. Al Julani’s family themselves had to flee the Golan heights due to Israel’s occupation, so I doubt they‘ll become best friends. All I‘m saying is it weakens Iran and that‘s a good thing. Few in the area are enthusiastic about Israel, but most of them are at a point where they just want to move on and the biggest hindrance has been Iran and its proxies.
But most of the countries in the area are dictatorships, where they don't need to abide by public sentiment. Public sentiment in almost all these countries is that they want to stop what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Egypt's one and only election was to elect a leader who promised to change that, and he was of course deposed by the military (with Israeli help). If the rebels do set up a government where the voices of the people are heard, it will be bad for Israel (and vis a vis, good for Iran, presumably).
"how will Turkey negotiate with this facing the pkk and Kurdish nationalism?"
Aside from the coming back of ISIS, that is the major unresolved conflict potential I see.
I see no compromise, the fight between the PKK and Turkey has been too long and bloody. Best case kurdish autonomy is becoming stable and established a bit away from the turkish borders, but the SDF won't give up their weapons to Islamists, if they should become the new government. And why would they?
But I am open for miracles. Like turkey releasing Öcalan to become local president in the kurdish areas in Syria, to start a serious peace process. In the sense of - you get this land, but stop the fight for secession in Turkey. The PKK would likely take that deal.
But turkey wouldn't. Öcalan and the PKK are terrorists and that's it.
> replacing a secular evil government by.. jihadists in a loose coalition. WCGW?
that's what strikes me the most. All the newspapers have rebranded "ISIS" "the rebels". The headline would be otherwise "ISIS milicia takes over Syria" and somehow that's good news. I don't know who coordonates the rebranding, but clearly there is coordination, almost every newspaper in every country I checked followed it. It's a spectacular exercise in opinion manipulation.
> When asked about al-Nusra's plans for a post-war Syria, al-Julani stated that after the war ended, all factions in the country would be consulted before anyone considered "establishing an Islamic state". He also mentioned that al-Nusra would not target the country's Alawite minority, despite their support for the Assad regime.
Idlib governance
> In response to the unrest, al-Julani made several concessions. He released hundreds of detainees from a previous summer's security operation, including his former deputy Abu Maria al-Qahtani, who had been arrested along with 300 others in a purge of his movement. He also promised local elections and increased employment opportunities for displaced persons, while warning protesters against what he termed treachery. [38]
I see his experience as governor of Idlib matching his moderate rhetoric. He has clearly evolved his views from his younger years of international jihadist towards syrian nationalism, including tolerance of minorities that make part of the syrian people, and economic development (christmas trees and free mass, or a more reliable electricity supply than Damascus for example)
I agree with the other commenter; I don't believe this language, which seems to be directed towards western audiences for self-serving reasons.
- "He also mentioned that al-Nusra would not target the country's Alawite minority, despite their support for the Assad regime"
In the past, al-Julani (or al-Golani) has explicitly demanded Alawites convert to Sunni Islam,
- "But any Allawite considering taking advantage of Golami’s kind offer must meet certain conditions. They must not only stop supporting Assad, but they must convert to Nusra’s brand of extreme Sunni Islam or, in other words, stop being Allawites. Christians will be given a grace period before they have to start pay jizya, a special tax, and Golani takes for granted that Sharia will be implemented. “The basics remain the same,” says Lund, “and they’re extreme enough to be borderline genocidal even when sugar-coated by Al Jazeera.”"
And the surrounding context of that quote is apropos, too: "They had earlier forcibly converted hundreds of Druze to their fundamentalist variant of Sunni Islam." These people have no intention of coexisting with different religious groups—they intend to violently convert them, and eradicate their religions.
I provided the link to hear it from the horses mouth. I'm not saying he's some wonderful person, but HTS's current agenda and recent actions are generally positive.
You mean what he tells CNN while he is trying to get US support?
Reminds me of what we were told of the talibans when Biden was trying to hand them over the country. "They are not the same talibans", "they want to be a good world citizen", etc. Well that didn't age well.
You are arguing between different flavours of jihadist groups, none of which I would refer simply as "rebels" or showing them taking over as a positive thing.
I don't know that I agree with this characterization. Was Assad particularly stable? Was he able to prevent rebel groups effectively?
HTS of today might be different from HTS of the past, but that's very much could be just their propaganda. We'll see. Given "guaranteed evil" vs "probably evil" I'd probably prefer the lesser evil.
I very much suspect Russia is fully focused on Ukraine and cannot or will not project force in the region.
Iran has been remarkably restrained over the past little while, and I suspect they want to keep things cool and not hot.
Looking at the speed with which the Syrian military now unraveled, the government was an empty shell of its former self.
Russia was in no position to intervene. First, the development was too quick. Second, the best units are on the Ukrainian front and redeploying them would certainly inspire the Ukrainian General Staff to probe the Russian defenses. Third, the Russian general (Kisel) tasked with leading the Syrian detachment was/is an incapable commander, sent there as a punishment.
> * how will Turkey negotiate with this facing the pkk and Kurdish nationalism?
Hopefully Turkey does the honorable thing, recognizes an independent Kurdish state and apologizes for decades of oppression, murder and state-sanction terror? Unlikely though.
Why would they? They can just steam-roll across all freely available western Syria until they encounter Israeli forces coming from south, and then roll across eastern Syria until United States starts dropping bombs on them, at which point they will likely stop and start thinking about more permanent borders.
It's surprising to me that many here in HN see Turkey as the state terrorists over the Kurds, when the main party of Kurdish independence from Turkey is a literal terrorist group who committed a terrorist attack killing innocent civilians in Turkey just over one month ago!
It feels to me that when HNers agree that a people should be sovereign (the Kurds), they ignore the terrorism. When they don't agree (the Palestinians), the terrorism takes center stage.
Some guys doing bad stuff, say other guys doing bad stuff are really bad - trust us - and thus have them added to the definitive naughty list. In case you're in any doubt, there are lots of bad people and folks out there, but believing there's one definitive list is pretty much Western chauvinism writ large.
I largely agree with you that "terrorism" is a designation solely used to denigrate ones enemies. That's the point I'm making. As soon as one group does what we call terrorism, but we agree with them, the label falls off
It is a sign that propaganda is getting to you if you find yourself seriously considering their talking points. Is it better if a million people die "in the name of stability" quietly being tortured to death in jails behind closed doors over a span of a decade all while further tens of millions live in misery or half that number die in a let's say 3 year war, but we see it all on TV and there is real chance of freedom and democracy thereafter? Also, it is a huge win for all the depots's propaganda efforts that today in many western countries people have been convinced "democracy doesn't work" because there are issues in their countries. If "it doesn't work" it's not that much different from a dictator, right? And if that is true, why are we helping in foreign wars that prevent the spread of the autocracy (Ukraine now, possibly Taiwan tomorrow). If democracy is a lie, there is no point to risk our wellbeing for Ukraine. Wrong. There is no more important cause in the world than stopping depots. Yes, democracy is not ideal, but it is as if comparing being angry you got a different topping on your pizza order vs starving to death. That is literally the difference. So my blood boils when I hear people online talk about "stability" (and by extension) "why are we spending money on Ukraine when the infrastructure is falling apart here". Because Ukraine is about the survival of our way of life, it is order of magnitude more important than local issues. Take an example from history.
When general Patton won over Germans in WW2 he wanted to continue to overthrow USSR and free countries like Poland and the rest Soviets took over when they colluded with Nazis to split Europe by half. But he was told no, Poland was sold to Stalin for "a pack of fa.s" so to speak alongside the rest of Central Europe. USSR had no nuclear weapon at the time and was a country in ruin. But with the coerced resourcefulness of all the countries like Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Czech and so on (all modern manufacturing was based in "Soviet republics" with few notable exceptions, rocketry and aviation - Ukraine, computing/electronics Poland and Belarus, advanced machinery - East Germany and so on, later Soviet planners started moving people around to "closed cities" and other special places within Russia, but that's where most of them came from). As a result USSR developed nuclear weapons in record time and was a match for the free world militarily for a long time which few times almost ended our civilisation. If Paton was allowed to continue back then? None of it would've happened. We still live the bad consequences of this decision today.
Democracies have also done irreversible errors. Hitler after all was elected. So was Trump. Twice.
Democracy is very fragile, it requires that the players respect the rules of the game. But in reality, some players use democratic processes to undermine democracy itself and establish their own regime with a democratic shell.
Nassim Taleb (in Lebanon not far from Homs right now):
"The strangest thing is that after 14 years of war, the Syrian rebels walked into the entire country faster than if they were on a tourist sightseeing tour. Except at the beginning, there was no fighting."
That could only be strange for him if he doesn't understand the structure of the war or he hasn't been following current events.
Assad was only able to take back Syria with air support from Russia, ground support from Hezbollah and re-enforcement by Iran and other Iranian aligned groups in Syria.
Russia is busy and drained of resources because of its misadventure in Ukraine, Hezbollah is reeling from it's shocking loss to Israel while Israel has been targeting Hezbollah and anything vaguely tainted by Iran in Syria for years now. Iran itself is being very careful with that it's doing after losing so much of the long-term strategic positioning it invested in.
All of that, that was what was holding back opposition. SAA couldn't have done it in the first place without that support and that support later became security while SAA had other things to do. When it was weakened, the opportunity began to exist.
My personal opinion is that it's been a while since that security actually existed and due to all of the above mentioned problems, it's been a bluff for longer than it has seemed. When the Aleppo lines collapsed, HTS figured this out and acted swiftly to take advantage of that fact. SDF and the southern front joined in when they say they were having so much success.
Taleb should know better, or not be commenting. It makes it sound like a conspiracy theory or something.
> That could only be strange for him if he doesn't understand the structure of the war or he hasn't been following current events.
Maybe he doesn't. There's nothing wrong with that. It feels surreal to me and like it came out of nowhere.
I'm also sort of frustrated that none of the coverage or comments I see go into how this happened or what lead to it. Nobody is trying to figure out or explain what's actually going on and why now.
Well, what I mean is it sounds like he's trying to insinuate something. Maybe he's just coming from your position, but in the position that he's in, I think he has far more responsibility than that and shouldn't be commenting on things he hasn't spent five minutes researching. While the timing is extremely surprising, all of the factors involved were covered non-stop in Western media for the last year or so. This is by no means a Black Swan event.
edit: It sounds like to wanted to know more. Check out r/syriancivilwar.
For me, Taleb is the Levante expert, I simply don't know anyone else.
His view that the interference of all possible powers has only brought disaster seems plausible to me. He has criticized the export of fanaticism from Saudi Arabia in particular for a while.
The downfall of a regime is perhaps simply difficult to predict.
I experienced this in the case of the GDR. Suddenly it was gone, everyone was astonished.
He is smart and independent. I trust him not having a geopolitical agenda, he cares for the people living in the region. And I think he is a true intellectual with a great interest in history.
Strangely enough, there is good Middle East reporting in Germany by academically educated journalists.
Kristin Helberg is great, she reminds me of Peter Scholl Latour in his good times.
My car-to-work radio is set to a rock-based station. Occasionally they will play a(n overtly) pop song, or two.
It's a great station (for me, as the infrequent "not of this genre" surprise keeps me interested.
The occasional not-tech story on HN is equally welcome for myself, as the level of comments, and opinions are so much 'higher' than other places.
There's always some comment/s that allow me to appreciate another pov, without getting too snarky.
Weird, there are places where political news can be discussed. You feel you need a variety, others might feel rightfully that it should stick to its purpose. Coming back to analogies, I don't send memes to work chats.
This is extremely reductive, the asaad regime ( current and previous ) had to go, they've caused immense pain to syrians since the 80s..
The idea that this is some consorted effort by global hegemony to topple them ignores the effort of the rebels themselves, and how much the war in ukraine have costed russia..
Syria became a proxy flexing ground for Russia. We are about to enter negotiations on a major war. We have all kinds of money and rockets moving around the world in deliberate subversive ways.
Yes, this worked out so well in the past. You people will definitely never learn. I honestly dread the times when your diplomats turn their gazes on my country.
I would love for someone to explain to me why there is a cheering section for Bashar al-Assad. I understand what Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is. I can read a Wikipedia page. HTS: not great. Got it. But why am I supposed to believe the Syrian Ba'athists are (sorry, were) a fulcrum of peace in west Asia? Someone give me the pitch. Is it really all a fiendish plot to eliminate the meal of dinner?
As someone who's been to Syria, I can't place it either. There's no way this is worse that what came before -- especially since the status quo was propped up by Russia. This is at worst neutral and has a full spectrum of better potential outcomes. Sometimes, occasionally, any change is good. This is one of those times.
Do you think someone pointing out how bad the uprising in Libya turned out is in "a cheering section" for Gaddafi?
You do not have to love or even like Assad's regime to be concerned about an organization with past ties to Al-Qaeda and ISIS taking the reins. Some people in here have a lot of faith in their newly claimed moderate stance. I do not think that a group like that changes its colors over night, but we shall see.
No. Assad has a cheering section. I'd like to hear its pitch. If you're just uneasy about what's happening, I'm not asking anything of you. That just makes sense. Boring! I want to hear from the people who think the Ba'athists were a good thing. That's interesting.
At best under Assad Syria is stuck in a shitty stasis. Sometimes a risky roll is better than things being stuck at terrible until the end of time - even if it’s “stable” which it clearly wasn’t
The reason Lybia turned to shit was French and US secret services battling through interposed assassinations and supporting people with army but not popular support.
Us secret services seems to have won (at least Hillary's leaked emails make it seems US services got what they wanted), but since their candidate was really bad,the country split (not saying that what the French did was any better by any mean, but at least their initial candidate,pre assassination, had grassroot support.)
Still, the original Sin was French, so they're the main culprit of what happened in Lybia. Especially since it's possible that the war was started to remove witnesses of illegal campaigns fonds transferred from Gaddafi to Sarkozy, but we only have circumstancial evidence. Mostly because Gaddafi died shortly after being captured alive in the hand of french-supported rebels, his finance minister unluckily drowned himself in Vienna, and one witness retracted himself after a weird assassination attempt.
You can blame other countries all you want, but the reality is that «Syria» is colonialist project that was always bound to fail.
There are very few muslim/arab countries that are also prosperous, successful and peaceful. They all seem to have good ties with the west, as a common factor (amongst others).
America supports the (mostly kurdish) SDF, has even ground forces there with them. The SDF is at constant war with the turkish backed opposition.
They are quite secular, too. Socialist or communist even.
But they took part in that they advanced and prevented new Iranian/Iraqui Militias to get into Syria, by taking a important highway. Likely because of hidden deals.
In other words, there are many ways to view this, it is really not a simple conflict as you make it. And I hope some stability will now come, but I don't see how.
I'm not sure there is any particular evidence for America or Israel aiding them.
Also while originally an offshoot of Al Qaeda they do appear to have moderated significantly, working with many different religious and ethnic groups. I'm cautiously optimistic.
The Syrian civil war started before any other country got involved, I think people tend to forget about that. And Assad was pretty much as bad as gets, he went as far as to gas his own population, secular wasn't exactly the first thing which comes to mind to describe him.
Syria’s longest-serving detainee, “Ragheed Al-Tatri,” has been released after 43 years of imprisonment. He was moved through several prisons, ending up in Tartous Central Prison, and was freed with the last group of detainees following the fall of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
People crying crocodile tears for the fall of this dictator and tyrant.
While I'm a firm atheist, Assad jettisoned all pretense of Baathist/secular ideology a decade if not longer ago in favor of simply doing whatever it takes to stay in power. The atrocities perpetrated by Assad's regime were far larger in scale than anything that ISIS ever managed, half a million people (on all sides) have died since 2013.
Yeah, I bet people of Aleppo really will really miss those secular bombs landing on them, just as political prisoners will miss those secular beatings.
>The commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, says all state institutions will remain under the supervision of al-Assad’s prime minister until they are handed over officially.
- It is strictly forbidden to fire bullets into the air under any circumstances, as it causes panic among civilians and endangers the lives of the innocent.
- It is forbidden to tamper with public institutions and property, as they are the rightful property of the people. It is our duty to protect and preserve them and help develop them.
- It is forbidden to encroach upon or harm any private property in any form
Yes, they annexed that after the last war with Syria. Do you think the US is going to abandon the southwest US back to Mexican cartels, or the UK will abandon Wales, or any of these other countries will abandon territory they won in war long ago?
Why are we cheering this? Is it because Russia supported Assad and now Russia has been defeated? Because we love Ukraine right? Also, Assad and Russia don't like LGBT persons? Can someone spell it out for me in plain words please, I'm on the spectrum.
I'd also note that HTS is a proscribed terror organisation in the UK - yet nobody is having their doors kicked in for supporting them, in stark contrast to those publishing the truth about Israel, Palestine and Lebanon.
HTS is not "literally" Al-Qaeda and ISIS because they've literally been at war against Al-Queda and ISIS. The dynamics here are incredibly complex.
That doesn't mean they're "good" guys necessarily. But they have not governed Idlib as extremists for the past several years. The future is open to the possiblity of improvement.
'Moderate' is in quotes. The full article[1] mentions the al-Qaeda and IS links, and expresses doubt over the 'moderate' image (which is why it's in quotes). That tweet is a misrepresentation. Never mind the ranting about "Israeli spies".
No such "western media manufacturing consent" here. Everyone is unsure of the future. Assad is practically universally hated, Idlib was been under HTS governance, relatively moderate for the region, for the past 4 years. The past Al-Qaeda ties are frequently noted. Few bigger western voices than the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan:
"The group at the vanguard of this rebel advance, HTS, is actually a terrorist organization designated by the United States. So we have real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organization. At the same time, of course, we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure. So it’s a complicated situation.”
It is a bit surreal to read people cheering for islamist head choppers who overthrew a secular government. Remember this 10 years from now when these same head choppers blow something up in NYC. The fundamental invariant of governance stands undefeated: religious head choppers, whether they are on "our side" or not, are always worse in the long run than the secular governments. See the "freedom fighter" Osama Bin Laden for a particularly vivid example.
I don't think people are cheering for the Islamists so much as they are celebrating the collapse of the Assad family's brutal half-century dictatorship.
Syria is a place where optimism goes to die, but this is the first time in generations that Syria has been given a chance to rebuild itself, so there's at least a tiny glimmer of hope.
"Chemical attack" was a lie, BTW. That came out in OPCW report shortly thereafter. You do need to read up on it. Same as "Iraqi WMDs" or "babies on bayonets" etc, a casus belli to give another few hundred billion to US MIC. But even if we assume that it wasn't, for the sake of argument, those "chemical weapons", if they ever existed, are in the hands of literal ISIS now.
That's understandable for Iran which may want to avoid to overextend itself following the recent events, but it's hard to comprehend why Russia was unable to do anything at all.
In any case, it seems like there are several very important events happening recently that may reshape the world for the years to come.