Israel grabs land in Syria, destroys the rest of its military

Israel has opportunistically taken advantage of Assad's ouster to destroy Syria's military. Now the process of establishing a new regime begins. Russia could emerge a winner from this.

As Syrian president Bashar al-Assad settles into his new digs in Moscow next door to ex-Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych and tech warrior Edward Snowden, things are still moving fast back at home.

The news of today is Israel has been very busy in the last few days efficiently destroying what was left of the Syrian military. Planes, tanks, and installations have been bombed in over 250 attacks and according to reports there is practically nothing left. It will take the new HTS team (assuming it hangs on to power) won’t be able to rebuild a military for years. Israel has also opportunistically grabbed more land in the Golan Heights – the top of Mount Hermon which is right at the end of its northern border with Syria and the highest mountain in the country. It’s a detail, but it’s also an intelligence coup as it will give Israel the unfettered ability to inspect the whole country, whereas before behind the mountain was a blind spot in Israel’s radar coverage of Syria.

Of course, all of this is completely illegal. As we have pointed out before, there are only three reasons you can attack another country: if it attacks you; if you are invited in by the regime; and if you get a UN mandate. Israel has none of these. (The US forces in northern Syria have none of these either.) The UN has just complained to Tel Aviv, but no one cares. The international rules-based-order book has long since been tossed out of the window. It’s fitting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes the stand in a corruption trial today, a few weeks after he ignored an International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment on war crimes charges.

But you can see why Israel is interested in defanging Syria as HTS is, after all, an ex-Al Qaida offshoot and not exactly Jew-friendly.

As an aside, a new narrative is emerging where HTS jihadi past is glossed over and they are being portrayed as having “moderated” as part of the “thank God Assad has gone” story. And impressively, HTS is playing into this with lots of moderate sounding statements, like a ban on forced wearing of the hijab by women and orders to its forces not to harass the international press or persecute other religions. We will see. HTS’ stated goal is to set up an Islamic caliphate in Syria.

But the pace seems to be slowing a bit, and everyone is turning to what comes next. We have a piece looking at the impact on Russia’s logistical support for its African business that largely runs through Syria’s ports and airports. But HTS is already going easy on Russia and clearly a deal is on the table. One of Russia’s alternatives is to ship via a port in Sudan, where there too, the Kremlin is negotiating with both sides in that conflict and wants to build a big new port. And the HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is well aware that Russia is a major player in the Middle East and can be a very useful and generous partner. It seems that cutting a new deal reflecting the "realities on the ground” between Damascus and Moscow will be pretty easy.

I’ve seen a lot of commentary that the ousting of Assad is a disaster for Putin, but I'm not so sure. Very embarrassing, yes. But disaster? The Kremlin is well entrenched in the Middle East in a way that the West very clearly is not, other than backing Israel. And that backing of Israel and its campaign against Gaza and then Lebanon has handed Putin a massive bag of political capital. At the same time Russia is streets ahead of the “colonialists” (as he calls them) in North Africa. Case in point is there are reports coming out now that the ousting of Assad was agreed by the main players in the region on December 7 including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt and that Russia was party to the deal and offered to host him. The West played no role in this conversation whatsoever.

This is actually good news as it means that the regional powers are going to work hard to avoid a Libya-style meltdown into civil or regional war. Currently the only one being really aggressive is Israel, but that is nothing new.

The Arab states have been working hard to build up a united regional front thanks to the geopolitical tensions – Assad was readmitted to the Arab League earlier this year – in the same way that the five Central Asian states have become the “C5” team. So, there is a good chance that the Syrian transfer of power will be relatively smooth. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will play a key role here as the main backer of HTS. But he is such a cynical realist that it’s a good bet that he will back a smooth process as the last thing that he wants is an unstable Syria in his backyard. If anything, Russia could benefit from the end of the Assad regime, simply because Assad, the eye doctor, was so incompetent as a president. If HTS can put the country back on its feet, with Russia’s willing help, that will only bolster the anti-American alliance in the Middle East and everyone, except Israel, seems to want that.