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Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe. He covered Syria’s civil war from 2013 to 2016 for Voice of America and the Daily Beast.
As Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s forces turned tail and fled Aleppo in the face of a long-planned and stunning offensive by an alliance of Islamist militias in the country’s northwest, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was left fulminating, casting around for an explanation.
The fall of Syria’s second-largest city to the alliance led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — an al Qaeda breakaway — isn’t just a humiliation for Assad. It’s also a humiliation of his allies Iran and, to some extent, Russia.
In 2016, Iran-commanded Shiite militias — aided by a scorched-earth bombing campaign from Russia — had helped the Syrian autocrat grab Aleppo back from insurgents who had controlled around half the city for four years. After that, it was meant to be safe in Assad’s hands. But last week, it took all of 72 hours to overrun Aleppo, reigniting the long-running Syrian civil war initially sparked by Assad’s brutal repression of pro-democracy protests.
Why?
Upon his arrival in Damascus for urgent talks, Araghchi offered the most damning explanation he could think of — it was all a “plot by the Israeli regime to destabilize the region.” But while it’s convenient for Tehran to blame the Zionists — Israeli missiles and airstrikes may have marginally helped the insurgents — Aleppo’s fall has little to do with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aspirations to reshape the Middle East and much more to do with the state of Assad’s armed forces.
It also has much to do with the geopolitical maneuverings of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his determination to curtail any real or imagined threats from Syria’s U.S.-backed Kurds, as well as his irritation with Assad for spurning a long-standing offer of reconciliation.
First things first: Aleppo fell so easily because of the implosion of Assad’s forces. They turned out to be just as demoralized, weak and unmotivated as the Afghan forces the U.S. spent years training and funding, only to fail to put up any real fight against the Taliban.
“The Syrian Arab Army is a hollowed-out shell, far weaker than its ostensible numbers and weapons would indicate,” said former U.S. diplomat Alberto M. Fernandez. “Syria is an economic basket case. Officers supplement their meager salaries by taking bribes for soldiers to take extended leave and work at other jobs back home. Some units seem to have broken and fled after losing their officers.”
Tehran, of course, has no wish to advertise the weakness of yet another ally after Israel’s rapid decapitation of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah movement — Iran’s most important regional partner.
But it can’t highlight the role of the real éminence grise behind what’s unfolding in northern Syria either, as it will likely need to reach some sort of agreement with the wily Erdoğan to ensure the offensive now bearing down on Hama, 90 miles south of Aleppo, stops there.
Weakened as they have been by Israel, neither Iran nor Hezbollah is in a position to offer Assad the kind of manpower and military muscle they did to help turn the tide of the Syrian civil war in 2015. And according to Lebanese sources who spoke to Reuters, Hezbollah has no plans to send detachments to join the hundreds of Iran-sponsored Iraqi fighters who crossed into Syria this week to bolster Assad’s army.
Erdoğan, for his part, has sought to distance himself from what’s unfolding over the border, coyly presenting himself as a spectator lamenting developments beyond his control. “We are following events very closely,” he said on Monday. “For a long time, we have been warning that the spiral of violence in the Middle East could also impact Syria. Recent events have confirmed that Turkey was right.”
But few observers believe the offensive could have gone ahead without Ankara’s knowledge and endorsement. According to Hadi al-Bahra, the head of a Syrian rebel opposition group recognized by the international community, preparations for an assault on Aleppo had been in the making since last year — preparations that involved HTS, as well as more than a dozen militias in the Turkey-sponsored Syrian National Army, which is largely targeted against Syria’s Kurds.
It thus stretches credulity to think that Turkish officials weren’t apprised of this planning. And, according to an intelligence briefing released by the Soufan Center, a research group founded by former U.S. and U.K. intelligence officers and diplomats, “the Aleppo offensive … was delayed when Turkey intervened, altering the timing.”
Overall, the front lines of Syria’s civil war have been stagnant since 2020, although there have been fierce episodic clashes. For the past four years, Assad has controlled much of the country and its largest cities; a Turkey-tolerated, HTS-led alliance of mostly Islamist rebels have remained squeezed in an enclave in Idlib and parts of the countryside west of Aleppo, while Turkish troops and Turkish-sponsored militias have been overseeing a strip of what was once Kurdish territory along the border north of Aleppo. And in Syria’s northeast, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — a U.S. ally against the jihadist Islamic State — have largely been left to their own devices.
The offensive has dramatically shifted all that, but the consequences are difficult to predict. Erdoğan now holds many of the strings, but whether they slip from his hands is another matter. He certainly doesn’t want things to spin out of control and Assad to fall, but that may partly depend on whether HTS keeps to the script, consolidates in Aleppo and focuses on establishing an Islamist-style government there, much as it has in Idlib. If it charges off and pushes south of Hama because Assad’s defenses crumble, then Erdoğan may find he sparked more than he bargained for.
The Turkish leader has been pressing Assad to agree to reconcile for the past few months, but the Syrian leader has shunned the offer, insisting Turkey first withdraw thousands of its troops and its sponsored militias from Syrian territory. Thus, some observers see the offensive as part of Ankara’s effort to pressure Assad into normalizing relations and negotiating a political solution to the civil war — which would give Erdoğan the opportunity to repatriate 4.7 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey.
The reconciliation would likely come at considerable cost to the Kurds and involve the curtailment of their semi-autonomy in the northeast as well. Turkey and its proxies are already expanding their control of Kurdish-controlled towns and villages adjacent to the border. And over the weekend, the Turkish-sponsored Syrian National Army seized the Kurdish stronghold of Tal Rifaat, along with other SDF towns and villages east of Aleppo.
So, where does this leave Russia Like Assad’s other key allies Iran and Hezbollah, Moscow is focused on other priorities — namely, Ukraine. And so far, Russian warplanes have only flown limited bombing sorties in support of Assad’s forces, adding to speculation that the Kremlin knew about the coming offensive and isn’t unhappy seeing pressure on Assad mount.
Moscow too has been pushing Assad to reconcile with Erdoğan and explore political solutions to end the civil war, which would open Syria up for lucrative trade for Russian businesses, and presumably ensure there are no risks to its strategic air and naval bases in Syria. Over the summer, the Kremlin repeatedly sought to arrange face-to-face meetings between the Syrian and Turkish leaders to no avail.
But that endeavor may now bear fruit. For all the talk of an Israeli plot, Araghchi quickly headed to Ankara this week to meet his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan. And the pair agreed that Turkey, Iran and Russia should convene a new three-way negotiation to address the conflict. “We have decided to hold closer consultations and dialogue, and with God’s permission, we will cooperate to further improve the situation toward peace and stability in our region,” Araghchi said.
Fidan, meanwhile, pointedly blamed the flare-up on Damascus’ refusal to talk with opposition forces. “Recent developments show once again that Damascus must reconcile with its own people and the legitimate opposition,” he said.
Left unsaid was the importance of reconciling with Erdoğan.
