Syria falls to the Ottomans again, Israel perched on their shoulder

Pepe Escobar

The abrupt, swift end of Syria as we knew it should be headlined “Eretz Israel meets new-Ottomanism: a West win-win; a coup de grace for the Axis of Resistance”.
But, perhaps the owls are not what they seem.
Ending with Assad
Kicking off with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s surrender: Qatari diplomats, off the record, say Assad tried to negotiate a transfer of power with the armed opposition as it attacked Aleppo, then swiftly swallowed Hama, Homs, aiming for Damascus. That was the bulk of discussions between Russia, Iran, and Turkiye in Doha this past weekend, during the last sigh of the moribund “Astana process”.
The talks failed. Hence, Assad was offered asylum by Russian President Vladimir Putin. So, Iran and Russia instantly changed the terminology while still in Doha, and began to refer to the “legitimate opposition” in a bid to distinguish non-militant reformists from the armed extremists.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – his body language telling everything about his anger – insisted: “Assad must negotiate with the legitimate opposition, which is on the UN list.”
Importantly, Lavrov did not mean Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Salafi-jihadi, or Rent-a-Jihadi mob financed by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) with weapons funded by Qatar, and fully supported by NATO and Tel Aviv.
What happened after the Doha funeral is uncertain, suggesting a western intel remote-controlled coup, at lightning speed, complete with rumours of last-minute betrayals.
Empty promises
Astana was meant to keep Damascus safe while Ankara managed HTS. Yet Assad had already committed a serious strategic blunder – he chose to believe lofty promises by NATO messaged through his newfound friends in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
To his astonishment, Assad finally realized too-late how fragile his own position was, having turned down military assistance from his stalwart regional allies, Iran and Hezbollah: his new Arab allies would not be coming to assist.
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) was in shambles after 13 years of war and ruthless US sanctions. Logistics were prey to deplorable corruption. The rot was systemic. But importantly, while many were prepared to fight the foreign-backed terror groups yet again, insiders say Assad never bothered to fully deploy his army. Now, its a mangled wreck of twisted armour and smouldering hard drives after Israel chewed over their undefended remains Monday and Tuesday.
Tehran and Moscow tried everything – up to the last minute – to persuade Assad. He was already in deep trouble after his visit to Moscow on 29 November reaped no tangible results. So, the Damascus establishment regarded Russia’s insistence that Assad must negotiate a political settlement as a de facto signal pointing to the end.
Turkiye: ‘it wassan me’
Apart from doing nothing to prevent the collapse of his military, Assad did nothing to counter Israel, which had been bombing Syria non-stop for years.
Tehran claims it was willing to help to the end: two brigades were ready to go into Syria, but it would take at least two weeks to deploy them.
The Fars News Agency describes in detail the excruciating last moments – from the Syrian leadership’s inexorable lack of motivation to fight to Assad ignoring six months of serious warnings from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other Iranian officials warning HTS was preparing a blitzkrieg. According to the Iranians:
“After Aleppo fell, it became clear that Assad had no real intentions of staying in power, so we started to engage in diplomatic talks with the opposition, and arranged the safe exit of our troops from Syria. If the SAA does not fight, neither will we risk our soldiers’ lives. Russia and the UAE had managed to convince him to step down, so there was nothing we could do.”
Up to its Ankara elbows
Significantly, there is confirmation about Turkiye knowing everything about the HTS offensive as far back as six months ago.
Ankara’s version of its conflicted participation is predictably murky: HTS told them about it, but asked them not to intervene. President-Caliph Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried to warn Assad, but he failed to listen. Ankara via Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, firmly denies orchestrating or approving the Rent-a-Jihadi offensive … but they may regret this yet, with everyone from Washington to Tel Aviv jumping in to take credit for Assad’s fall.
Only the NATO propaganda machine believes Ankara’s version – as HTS was for years completely supported not only by Turkiye, but also, covertly, by Israel, which was outed for paying salaries to the extremists during the Syrian war, and famously helped rehabilitate Al-Qaeda fighters injured in battle, with ambulances routinely rushing to the Syrian border to pick up injured fighters for treatment in Israel’s top military hospitals.
All that leads to the unavoidable conclusion this was a carefully calculated, CIA/MI6/Mossad controlled demolition, complete with a non-stop arms flow, Ukrainian training of takfiris on the use of FPV kamikaze drones, and Samsonite suitcases full of cash bribing high-ranking Syrian officials.
Great Game reloaded
The Syrian collapse may be a classic case of “containing Russia” – and also Iran, when it comes to closing off the all-crucial land bridge that connects the two allies from their contacts in the Mediterranean (the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements).
It also sends a message to China, which, for all its lofty “community of a shared future” rhetoric, had done absolutely nothing to help in the reconstruction of Syria. As long as Beijing prefers to keep its hands clean in all these conflicts, it will remain a mere financier of world growth that is doomed to be gobbled up in future conflicts by the same CIA/MI6/Mossad squad.
On the geo-energy level, now there are no more obstacles to the resolution of the epic Pipelineistan saga – and one of the key sparks for the war on Syria: the Qatar–Turkiye gas pipeline through Syrian territory to provide Europe with an alternative to Russian gas.
Assad rejected that project, motivating Doha to fund the Syrian war to depose him.
Churning in the wake
This burning question connects to a pile-up of others, including, with the Syrian gateway to the Mediterranean all but gone: how will Hezbollah receive weapons supplies in the future, and how will the Arab world react to Turkiye going “full Neo-Ottoman” in Sham?
Then there’s the thorny case of BRICS partner-state Turkiye directly clashing with top BRICS members Russia, China, and Iran. Ankara’s new direction may see it ejected from BRICS, and not receiving favorable trade status by China.
While a case can certainly be made that losing Syria may be devastating for Russia and the Global Majority, hold those horses. Russia might lose the port of Tartous that Moscow has run since 1971, alongside the Hmeimim air base, but Russia has replacing options, with different measures of feasibility.
It has Algeria (a BRICS partner), Egypt (a BRICS member, but a staunch US ally), and bifurcated Libya. Even the Persian Gulf: it could become part of a Russia–Iran comprehensive strategic partnership, to be signed on January 25 in Moscow by Putin and his Iranian counterpart President Masoud Pezeshkian.
It would extremely naïve to assume that Moscow was caught by surprise by the HTS triumph. As if all Russia’s intel assets – bases, satellites, ground intel – would not have noticed Salafi-Jihadis assembling an army of tens of thousands over months in Greater Idlib, complete with a tank division.
Zero-sum game
So it’s quite plausible that it didn’t take long for Tehran and Moscow to do the math on what they would lose if they were stuck with supporting an enfeebled Assad in a protracted ground war. Still, Tehran offered military support, and Moscow, air support, and negotiations scenarios till the very end.
Now, the whole Syrian tragedy – including the possible emergence of a Caliphate of Sham led by reformed, minority-hugging jihadist -is firmly in the hands of the NATO/Tel Aviv/Ankara combo.
But they are not prepared to navigate the ultra-complex tribal, clannish, embedded-in-corruption Syrian matrix – not to mention the magma of 37 terror outfits only kept together, so far, by the tiny glue of ousting Assad. This volcano will certainly explode in their collective faces, potentially in the form of horrendous internal battles that may last years.
Syria’s northeast and east are already, instantly, mired in total anarchy, with a multitude of local tribes each bent on protecting their turf and alliances at all costs, refusing to be controlled by a US–Kurd composite out of Rojava that is largely communist and secular.
Picking through the pieces
Some of the tribes are already getting cozy with the Turk-supported Salafi-jihadis. Other Arab tribes this year joined forces with Damascus against the corporate jihadis and Kurdish secessionists.
Western Syria also has anarchic potential, as in Idlib: bloody rivalry between terror and bandit networks, between clans, tribes, ethnic groups, and religious groups regimented by Assad, the panorama is even more complex than in Libya under former President Muammar al-Gaddafi.
No one can foresee what will happen to the carcass of Assad-dynasty Syria. Millions of refugees want to return, especially from Turkiye, which Washington has for years tried to prevent to protect its “Kurdification” project in the north – but at the same time, millions may flee a renewed civil war.
Is there a possible ray of light amongst such gloom? The leader of the transition government will be Mohammad al-Bashir, who headed the “Syrian Salvation Government” in HTS-ruled Idlib for a few years. An electrical engineer by training, Bashir underwent an extended makeover in Idlib and added a further degree to his education in 2021: Sharia and law.
Losing Syria, losing Palestine
The Global Majority may be mourning what looks like a nearly lethal blow against the Axis of Resistance. Yet there’s no way Russia, Iran, Iraq – and even inscrutably silent China – will allow a NATO-Israel-Turkiye-backed Salafi-jihadi proxy army prevail.
Unlike the collective west, they are smarter, tougher, infinitely more patient, and consider the contours of the Big Picture ahead. Sooner or later they will have to start rollin’ to head off a western-backed jihadism that is threatening to spread into Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow.
Russian foreign intel agency Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki (SVR) now must be considering what will be the next target of the Salafi-jihadi brigade in Syria, overwhelmingly consisting of Uzbeks, Uighurs, Tajiks, and a sprinkle of Chechens.
Their strong transoxania roots indicate a strong likelihood they will be used to “extend” (US Think Tankland terminology) not only across Central Asia but to the doorstep of the Russian Federation.
Meanwhile, Israel will be overstretched in the Golan. The Americans will momentarily hunker down around the northern Syrian oil fields from which they will keep stealing oil and arming mercurial allies.
BRICS retaliation?
These are ideal latitudes that could measure a concerted BRICS retaliation against those who are unleashing the First BRICS War.
And then there’s the ultimate tragedy: Palestine. A massive plot twist that unfolded inside the venerable Umayyad masjid in Damascus. The NATO-Israeli-Turk Head-Chopping Army promised the Palestinians they are coming to liberate Gaza and Jerusalem.
Yet until this past Sunday, HTS was all “We love Israel”, promising cooperation and cooption.
As it stands, the new regime in Damascus will be, for all practical purposes, backed by those who have supported and engineered Eretz Israel and the genocide of Palestine.
It’s already out in the open, with Israeli cabinet officials saying openly Tel Aviv would love to expel the entire population of Gaza and the West Bank to Syria, though Jordan is the preferred destination.