Russia and Iran emerge as biggest losers of Syrian war

Syria will most likely collapse into several states. The beneficiaries of the disintegration of Syria are not as clear as it may seem.

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org by Vyacheslav Argenberg, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Damascus, Syria, Panorama at sunset

One may learn two lessons from the recent events in Syria. The first, to paraphrase a classic, is that each state is worth something only when it can defend itself. Russia often had to do this in a one against all situation as Russia was consolidating other nations around itself. It would be logical to expect this from Syria, but the Alawites, as it turned out, do not represent the core of the Syrian nation. Each of the 150 tribes in Syria eventually formed its own "army" sponsored by its master. As is common in the East, each tribal leader wanted to become the main one.

The second lesson is that one should only help the strong. Russia bet on President Bashar al-Assad and the Alawites, but did not took any advantage of it. The USSR had made a similar mistake in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Afghanistan is strong today, and so is North Korea. Assad turned out to be weak because he relied on external assistance from foreign countries (Iran and Russia), bred corruption and ruined the army.

Today, when there are no prerequisites for the crisis in Syria to stabilize, the country will most likely disintegrate into several states. Which forces are going to win and which ones are going to lose?

Iran and Russia as biggest losers of Syrian war

Iran will be the main loser. Tehran will lose a land corridor to Lebanon, to Hezbollah, which means that Israel will only grow stronger. A pro-Western president recently came to power in Iran, the former one was most likely killed. A conspiracy theory is emerging suggesting that these are links in the same chain — a US-Israeli plan to weaken Iran and Russia.

Russia is loser No. 2. Moscow has lost control of the situation. Russia should have finished terrorists off, but they were taken to Idlib instead when PMC Wagner was strong and capable.

Politics is the art of the possible. Russia was morally weak in 2012-2020. Suffice it to recall how long it took Russia to prepare the first Kalibr missile strike on terrorists in Syria. The missile attack from the waters of the Caspian Sea was presented as a super victory over the US and efforts to condemn the Assad regime. Today, when Assad is no longer a "butcher", but a person who brought Syria back to the League of Arab States, Russia has to deal with a very serious blow to its reputation.

Syria used to be the center of geostrategic confrontation that has now shifted to Ukraine. Moscow will lose its influence in the Middle East. The base in Tartus will be lost in the worst case too, but this is not a tragedy. One needs to look for strong allies in other places, preferably closer to US borders. Ground-based army bases do not play a decisive role in the era of long-range hypersonic missiles.

Turkey's Pyrrhic victory

Turkey, which allegedly manipulates its motivated proxies in Syria, appears to be the main beneficiary. Turkish President Recep Erdogan earlier said that the goal of the rebel offensive was to conquer "Idlib, Hama, Homs and, of course, Damascus."

However, Turkey will have to deal with a highly negative aftermath of the Syrian crisis. The collapse of Syria and the arrival of Islamists in Christian territories will displace thousands and thousands of Syrians, who will flee to Europe via Turkey as before. Most importantly, the Kurds will come to realise that they no longer have to be part of Syria, as Damascus and Moscow wanted them to be.

Donald Trump invited the leader of the Kurdish People's Self-Defense Units, Mazloum Kobani, to his inauguration ceremony in Washington. This suggests that the Kurds get a chance to create a Greater Kurdistan, which means the weakening of Turkey due to the Kurdish factor and its imminent collapse.

The Americans get a chance to control Turkey through the Kurds, and the oil-rich regions of Syria will remain theirs. Today, the US may celebrate. US media whitewash Islamists the best they can, but the triumph is not going to last long. The collapse of Turkey will trigger a critical situation within NATO, while millions of refugees — both Turks and Kurds — will be tormenting Europe.

Details

Syria is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. It is a republic comprising 14 governorates. Damascus is Syria's capital and largest city. With a population of 25 million across an area of 185,180 square kilometres (71,500 sq mi), it is the 57th most populous and 87th largest country. The name "Syria" historically referred to a wider region, broadly synonymous with the Levant, and known in Arabic as al-Sham. The modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Damascus and Aleppo are cities of great cultural significance. During the Islamic rule, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital for the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The modern Syrian state was established in the mid-20th century after centuries of Ottoman rule, as a French Mandate. The newly created state represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Syrian provinces. It gained de jure independence as a parliamentary republic in 1945 when the new Republic became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which legally ended the former French Mandate. French troops withdrew in April 1946, granting the nation de facto independence.