Turkish Opportunism and Multipolarity In Syria

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria marks a turning point. Prior to the start of the 2011 civil war, Syrians were among the most highly educated people in the Arab world. Syria’s flourishing middle-class, high quality universities, and advanced pharmaceutical industry allowed them to punch above their weight class in influencing the Middle East. As a middle power, Assad’s Ba’athist social-nationalist government sought to retain good ties with all players, including the United States at one point, though its commitment to combating Zionist expansionism ultimately led to its targeting for destruction by the very United States it had sought to keep good terms with.

With Iran and Russia behind it, Syrian forces emerged victorious over Zionist backed Islamist forces in 2018, but this victory was incomplete and led to a period of stagnation in the country. Syria has been unable to recover from the brain drain wrought by the exodus of educated professionals — teachers, physicians, engineers, etc — to Europe and Turkey. The strict sanctions regiment imposed on Syria by the United States and other Zionist powers has made it difficult for the state to participate in global commerce, leading to economic isolation and stagnation. A culture of corruption and cynicism has flourished under the weakened and demoralized Assad, seen everywhere from organized crime groups recruiting the country’s unemployed chemists to become the region’s top producer of crystal meth and Captagon, to the sad display of Syrian Arab Army forces unable to move tanks and airplanes to confront rebels due to their commanders having stolen and sold all the fuel.

Both Russia and Iran have their own reasons for wanting to cut their losses with Assad. The two nations are distracted with their own existential wars against the American-Israeli Zionist order, which is why the Russian presence in Syria was small (a handful of jets) and the Iranian one was already withdrawing from strategic areas such as Idlib.

Hezbollah’s supply routes, which run through Homs and Palmyra, were highly surveilled and regularly targeted by Israel — sometimes attacked a dozen times a day — likely due to corrupt Syrian officers informing on them to the Zionists, making these routes increasingly difficult to use. In one instance, IRGC experts were killed by an Israeli airstrike just blocks away from Assad’s private residence, which Iranian intelligence traced to information obtained from bought off Syrian officials, yet Assad demonstrated a lack of will or capacity to root out the compromised operatives. Syria has gone out of its way to keep a low profile and stay out of the conflict over Gaza since October 7th, including cutting ties with the Houthis in Yemen, which has upset many of its Axis of Resistance allies who expended large amounts of blood and treasure keeping Assad in power.

On the Russian side of the equation, Moscow has been frustrated with Assad’s inability to combat corruption or make an effort to bring about an official end to the conflict. Both Russia and Iran have sought to reintegrate Syria in a post-American geopolitical environment, but Assad was intransigent despite being the weakest party in the alliance.

Following the 2023 Chinese brokered detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which whipped the rug from underneath Washington’s feet, an attempt was made by Beijing, Moscow and Tehran to organize a solution to conflicting Turkish and Syrian interests. Assad rejected this offer, stating that negotiations were off the table until Turkish troops withdrew from Syrian territory.

Turkey has emerged as a highly antagonistic but transactional actor, leveraging its massive army, network of terrorists, and intelligence apparatus at times to do the bidding of America and Israel when their interests intersect, while also carving out a sovereignist position that also deals with Russia and Iran when it benefits Ankara.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani war exemplifies this dynamic. The Armenian government, which had made its own bed by publicly insulting and seeking to distance itself from its Russian and Iranian allies in hopes of winning the favor of America, Israel and Western Europe, was instead caught isolated and alone when Turkish and Israeli backed Azeri forces launched a sudden invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh in late 2020.

Both Russia and Iran avoided a potential war with Turkey by staying out of its way. In exchange, they have reaped tangible benefits from allowing the Turks to achieve their objectives in what they see as their natura sphere of influence. In the aftermath of the Armenian conflict, Azerbaijan, under Turkish protection, has defied Washington by providing a trade corridor for Russia to transport goods to Iran as well as becoming a vital lifeline for Russian energy amidst Ukrainian sanctions.

Turkey has in the past defied Washington, largely because America increasingly needs Turkey more than Turkey needs America. Turkey has been regularly bombing Kurdish communist groups who have since 2018 served as the main American asset in Syria, such as the YPG, and have especially defied Washington in regards to their relations with Russia. Turkey’s emergence as a regional power is an issue neither the United States or Russia appear capable of combating, and both seek to get what they can out of this new reality.

In Syria, there appears to have been a similar arrangement to the one over Armenia behind closed doors between Assad’s government, Iran, Turkey and Russia, who are currently meeting in Doha without any official American, Western or Israeli presence. Hussein Ibish of The Atlantic believes a post-Assad Syria could be divided up among ethno-religious lines, with Russia being able to maintain its port in Tartus through an Alawite protectorate.

As for Iran, which media outlets and analysts are declaring the biggest loser from Assad’s fall, it would be more prudent to wait and see what happens. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist militia serving as Turkey’s proxy, has sought to distance itself from its al-Qaeda origins and so far avoided organized persecution of Christians and Shi’ites, as Iranian media has testified. Such a development suggests that they are under Turkish orders to behave in a restrained fashion, perhaps through an agreement with Russia and Iran. While HTS is unlikely to have launched its offensive with Hezbollah being forced to surge its material and men to South Lebanon, they have sent message to Shia fighters that they do not seek hostilities with them.

The status of the weapons transfer corridor to Hezbollah, however, could be in jeopardy and Israel has capitalized on this by pushing into Syrian territory, but ultimately both the United States and Israel appear to be in the passenger seat at the behest of Turkey. There is potential for Iran to convince Sunni militants in the new Syrian government to preserve their ability to support Hezbollah out of anti-Israel solidarity. Rather than a carefully calibrated Western-led regime change, the renewed Turkish aggression appears to be in the context of a vacuum in Central Asia and the Near East that a weakened Washington has no choice but to support on Ankara’s terms, which they prefer to Iranian or Russian influence, but which also introduces variables out of Washington’s control.

As NATO member, Turkey has long sought to utilize strategic agreements with America and Israel for its own morally ambiguous economic and geopolitical self-interest, including maintaining the financially lucrative oil pipeline to Israel, but they nevertheless reserve the right to retain a degree of independence. Turkey has been diligent in demanding the US break ties with its Kurdish fighters in Syria, and while HTS rebels have largely avoided major battles with Iran-backed Shia groups and Russian forces, both the Turkish military and HTS are currently eviscerating the positions long held by US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (who are Kurdish) in Northern Syria while Washington impotently tells them to stop.

It is unclear in the immediate aftermath if America and Israel are really the major winners or simply opportunistically getting their licks in amidst the chaos. Turkey has likely already agreed with the US to allow Israel to steal Syrian territory in exchange for a free hand, but this doesn’t mean Iran won’t also be allowed to develop an alternative way to aid its allies in Lebanon in a separate agreement. One can recall the aftermath of Saddam Hussein, overthrown by the US due to his stalwart opposition to Israel and replaced with a weak puppet regime that ultimately created an unforeseen vacuum, allowing Iran to cultivate a new and increasingly important branch of its Axis of Resistance via Popular Mobilization Units.

For Iran, which appears to be preparing for a war with the incoming Trump administration, avoiding an intervention in Syria preserves weapons and funds needed in Lebanon and at home, but also avoids reigniting cooling sectarian tensions by avoiding attacking Sunnis to preserve the rule of a Shia minority. The prospect of unchallenged American hegemony in Syria, which would’ve transpired without outside intervention in the 2011 civil war, is an acute threat to both Iran and Russia, so the decision to allow the rebels to take Damascus should be observed with this in mind. The truth of the matter is that the rebels, armed with Turkey’s state of the art drones and other new battlefield dynamics the Syrian army was unprepared to defend against, were easier to accommodate than fight.

The big picture mission for Iran in the new security landscape is to undercut American and Israeli machinations by uniting Shia and Sunni Muslims for the Palestinian cause, which appears to be bearing some fruit. Iran has successfully pitched a united front against Israel to win over unlikely Sunni militant allies, such as Hamas and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran seems to be taking the form of entente, as seen with the two country’s increased military cooperation. Last March, Hezbollah’s foreign minister Wafiq Safa was welcomed by officials in the Sunni United Arab Emirates, considered by many to be a pivot away from the United States. In Lebanon, Sunni militias once seen as rivals of Hezbollah have put aside their differences to fight alongside the Shia resistance group against Israel. The hard truth for Gulf States, who under the first Trump administration were being organized into a proxy army for Israel, is that the Yemen war, where Saudi oil refineries were destroyed, showed them the United States is unable or unwilling to provide them with the kind of security guarantees needed for them to fight Iran and its allies. It will remain to be seen what Trump’s second administration, which is directed almost exclusively by Israel’s well-being, will offer to bring the Saudis back to the negotiating tables.

The US and Israel unleashing the Turkish juggernaut could be interpreted as a recalibration and reaction to increased collaboration between Shia and Sunni nations elsewhere, who have been brought together by the genocide in Gaza as well as the rise of BRICS. Though Turkey is a Sunni nation, various Arab states from Egypt to Saudi Arabia fear the Muslim Brotherhood and other forms of political Islam backed by Ankara. One could argue that empowering Turkey, which has decent relations with Russia, could also drive a wedge between Moscow and Tehran in the long-run as most of the Middle East, including Iran, reject neo-Ottoman influence.

It is doubtful that relying on Turkey was Washington’s first choice in the Middle East. A comparison could be made with the Atlanticist embrace of Joseph Stalin during the Second World War. The Turks, both as a society and state, largely reject the liberal values America and its Jewish policy makers seek to impose on the world, especially in the realm of foreign policy. In the last two years, Turkey has sought to circumvent Western sanction on Iran and outright refuses to acknowledge their sanctions on Russia, seemingly unafraid of any Western retaliation.

The nightmare of trying to control Turkey is bound to cause the liberal West a major headache down the line. Recep Erdogan’s stated imperial ambitions do not stop at Armenia and Syria, he has also repeatedly called for increasing influence or outright invading his supposed NATO “allies” Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania. Turkey functions as a gangster state, extorting Europe out of billions of dollars by threatening to flood the continent with migrants. Whatever short-term benefits to their geopolitical infrastructure the US and Israel obtain from helping unleash Turkish savagery on the world is tantamount to running with scissors.

Though it is too early to tell, the largely bloodless and apparently consensual exit of Assad, with the US and Israel as beneficiaries but still secondary actors, could be looked back upon as a product of multipolarity, rather than a refutation of it.