Israel must recognize Turkey as powerbroker in Syria

As Israel did the Syrian rebels' work for them in neutralizing Hezbollah, Turkish president Erdogan stood by rubbing his hands.

The final collapse this morning of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria puts a seal on a significant change in the balance of influence in the Middle East. Iran has been substantially weakened, while its place has been taken by Turkey.

The regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran is paying dearly for its proxies policy. When the commander of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Qasem Soleimani devised that policy, it was logical at the time. The Iranians in general, and Soleimani’s successor Esmail Qaani in particular, were not, however, perceptive enough to make the necessary adaptations. So although the Iranian axis of resistance looked threatening in the wake of Israel’s failure on October 7, it can now be understood that it was a house of cards.

In the ranking of Iran’s needs, Hamas was not a basis but a tool. At the top of Iran’s priorities stood Hezbollah, a terrorist organization with a country. That was also reflected in Iran’s policy in Syria. The Iranian regime did not rush to Assad’s aid in the previous decade because of concern for his welfare, but out of a desire to expand its influence in Syria in a way that would enable it to keep up a continuous supply of arms to Hezbollah.

The house of cards is tottering, however, because each card is shaking. The October 7 attack by Hamas upset the balance, and that is what led to the Assad regime’s fall. Fortunately, it was not a terrorist attack on two fronts like the coordinated Egyptian and Syrian attacks in 1973. The Iranians failed to understand the event in the Gaza Strip in every respect, and sent Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, late in the day from their point of view, to open another front with Israel.

Nasrallah and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei thought that Israel would go along with a war of attrition on the Lebanon border, but reality hit them in the face. Once the IDF had completed the destruction of most of Hamas’s military infrastructure, it switched to bringing to bear its much greater forces in Lebanon, and broke Hezbollah’s united front concept. Now, that powerful and threatening terrorist organization is in its worst position ever.

All the while, the rebels in Syria watched developments in the Swords of Iron war, and from their point of view let Israel do the work of weakening the Shi’ite crescent, especially Hezbollah, for them. So when the ceasefire happened, the Syrian rebel groups Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Syrian National Army, and especially the latter’s Turkish patrons, saw that this was an auspicious time that would not return to topple the Assad regime. And here we are: Bashar al-Assad was overthrown within twelve days, six days fewer than it took to remove Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in February 2011.

Perfect storm

It happened because of a perfect storm: a combination of the exceptional weakness of Iran, which was left without significant tools, and regional weakness of Russia, because the invasion of Ukraine monopolized attention and resources. That war is itself a serious failure as far as Russia is concerned, considering its haughty declarations in February 2022 and the situation today in which the president of Russia is forced to fawn on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un so that the latter will send him soldiers as gun fodder.

In the case of Syria, it is noticeable that Israel has learned from the mistakes of October 2023. First you bolster your forces, while carrying out constant situation assessment, until you understand which way the wind is blowing. The situation is Syria is very delicate. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is an offshoot of Al Qaida, full of extreme jihadists who come from everywhere from China to the Balkans. We saw how, in Egypt, Mohamed Morsi came to power in place of Mubarak, and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is more extreme than him.

What Morsi and the main rebel groups in Syria (apart from the Kurds) have in common is the link to Turkey. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan must be rubbing his hands with pleasure as he sees his ploy working and making him the main player in Syria. A former senior figure in the Al Quds Force related how Turkey bamboozled Iran. "We asked the Turks and several Arab states, and we received assurances that there would be no movements," he says. "Hakan Fidan told us that specifically." In other words, according to the Iranians, the Turkish foreign minister lied to them. The result was that when the escalation bust forth, Iran was left without a response.

More than ever before, Israel will now have to examine its ties with Turkey. It’s easy to say "they’re haters of Israel" and accuse them of supporting terrorism, but Israel has a relationship with Turkey, which of course can’t be said about Iran. A combination of Turkish and Israeli interests in which Erdogan obtains some kind of influence that he can wave in the Palestinian arena while Israel obtains useful influence in Syria is the only way in which the upset in Syria can bring some benefit to Israel, and not to the danger of a Syrian Sharia state aggressive towards Israel on the border on the Golan Heights.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 8, 2024.

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