WILL AL-JULANI BECOME A PUPPET OF ERDOGAN?

The day after in Syria

Curb your enthusiasm. 

 

JNS

Dec 18, 2024

 

 

 

Syrian Kurds gather around a destroyed statue of Hafez al-Assad in the northeastern city of Qamishli as they celebrate news of the fall of his son Bashar al-Assad

 

Following revolutions, we Americans have a touching inclination to ask: “Are the new leaders like us? Are they moderates who believe in tolerance and peaceful coexistence?”

Generally, the answer is no.

Take the revolution that just occurred in Syria. It was led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Julani. He runs Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebel group with roots in both Al Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS). He and HTS have been officially designated as terrorists by the U.S. government.

Al-Julani is no moderate. Could he be a pragmatist? It’s not impossible that, at this very moment, he’s asking himself: “Should I climb into a Toyota pickup with a few of my jihadi buddies, drive up to the Golan Heights and kill some Jews? Or would I rather take a long, hot bath in the presidential palace?”

If I were in his shoes, I know what my answer would be. But my ideology, theology and psychology likely differ from his.

Inclining Abu Mohammad al-Julani.toward pragmatism could be the fact that, over recent days, the Israelis have carried out more than 450 aerial strikes against Syrian military targets

 

Inclining him toward pragmatism, however, could be the fact that, over recent days, the Israelis have carried out more than 450 aerial strikes against Syrian fighter jets, combat helicopters, ballistic missiles, precision-guided missiles, warships, air defense systems, and—importantly—chemical-weapons stockpiles.

Those weapons, mostly supplied by Moscow and Tehran, had belonged to Bashar al-Assad, the mass-murdering dictator overthrown by al-Julani and associates. So, he and HTS inherit none of that hardware.

Al-Julani’s most important backer is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president—presumably for life—of Turkey.

Though Turkey is a member of NATO, Erdogan is neither moderate nor tolerant. He is a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. He despises Israel.

He also despises the Kurds, an ancient people of the Middle East whose historic homeland spans southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, northern Iraq and northwestern Iran. The Kurds have never had their own nation-state, and no one on American campuses is demonstrating for their right to self-determination.

In the Kurdish regions of Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have long partnered with the American military. That was key to depriving ISIS of the caliphate it declared in 2014 and killing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the terrorist organization’s founder and leader, in 2019.

Since then, American and SDF cooperation has prevented ISIS from reviving in the region. The SDF also guards detention centers holding tens of thousands of ISIS fighters.

Rebel groups backed by Erdoğan—particularly the Syrian National Army—have been attacking the SDF. The Biden administration should exert whatever pressure is necessary to halt these assaults on an American ally participating in a vital mission.

Trump has pledged to pursue “peace through strength.” I’m hopeful that he also recognizes that for America to be great again, its reputation must again become: “No better friend, no worse enemy.”

The fall of the Assad regime represents a huge loss for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who intervened militarily to prop up Assad in 2015 and, in exchange, was given naval and air bases in Syria.

From these bases, Putin has been projecting power into Africa, where the Wagner Group, a barbarous proxy military force, protects local strongmen and exploits natural resources—the worst forms of imperialism.

An even bigger loser in this game of thrones is Ali Khamenei, the longtime dictator of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Khamenei had utilized Hezbollah, his foreign legion, to defend Assad, his dutiful client. He maintained military bases in Syria and shipped arms across Iraq and through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon,

Khamenei has spent billions of dollars on Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthi rebels in Yemen—a “ring of fire” that was intended to incinerate Israel.

Over the past year, however, following Hamas’s invasion of Israel and the pogrom it carried out there, the Israelis have—to an extent few thought possible—reduced most of those fires to embers.

The danger, of course, is that Khamenei may now be more determined than ever to produce nuclear warheads and affix them to his missiles.

I expect President Joe Biden to do nothing about that.

President-elect Donald Trump, by contrast, is devising what his transition team calls a “Maximum Pressure 2.0” economic strategy. He’s also been discussing with his transition team the possibility of surgical military strikes to prevent Khamenei’s Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear-armed enemy in an increasingly close alliance with nuclear-armed Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang.

The Israelis—who recently wiped out Tehran’s air defenses—would undoubtedly be pleased to contribute to such a mission.

I’m going to conclude with a few words about the day after in Syria. 

As noted above, though it would be naive to expect al-Julani to be a moderate, he could prove to be pragmatic.

If so, he will avoid provoking the Israelis, protect Syria’s minorities and not forget the terrible crimes that the rulers of Iran and Russia have committed against the country’s peoples.

He will need aid—especially as millions of Syrian refugees stream back from Turkey. Good behavior could result in the removal of his terrorist designation and an end to U.S. sanctions. But that should come only as a reward—not as a bribe.

As for Erdoğan, he will insist on being influential in Damascus. Will that satisfy him, or will his goal be to make Syria a colony of an expanding neo-Ottoman empire?

Did I mention that Erdoğan is no moderate?