Like Iraq and Libya Before, Syria Enters The Darkness, A Blow to the Stomach of the Axis of Resistance – 2

“This is the end of the great history of Christians in Aleppo.” Syrian Catholic Archbishop Mourad

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Nearly a week after the collapse of the Syrian government, the situation in the country remains very murky. What can be said at this moment in time? The Syrian events are not a revolution from below as much as a foreign invasion organized, armed and financed by the United States, Israel and Turkey and carried out by foreign mercenary proxies from Central Asia and the broader Middle East, many of whom have no connection to Syria at all other than being invaders.

The decades of instability that the political vacuum in Syria has created will only intensify. Regardless of how all this plays out the Syrian collapse has given the Zionist state a new head of steam. Its head swollen with exaggerated claims of victory and a taste for more blood  U.S. neo-cons are now looking at their next target: Iran.

The most salient, undeniable point: we have witnessed the complete fragmentation and destruction of the Syrian state in less than 48 hours that includes the total destruction of the Syrian military apparatus and what is left of the Syrian Army. While the final military blow to Syria’s secular government came Islamic terrorists, armed, financed and trained by NATO and Arab reactionary governments, realizing  long term U.S.-Israeli-Turkish plans to overthrow

The collapse of the Syrian government has been accompanied with a massive Israeli/U.S. intensive bombing campaign. Syria was bombed at historic level Over the 48 hour period following the collapse 350 Israeli fighter jets – essentially its entire air force – carried out 320 strikes throughout Syria. Israeli radio called it “the largest attack by the Israeli Air Force” in its history. This air offensive targeted all of the (former) Syrian Army bases, its small naval fleet, and munition warehouses. “They basically spent 48 hours doing whatever they wanted throughout Syria”. The Israeli Air Force was joined in this operation by the United States that did the same thing. The U.S. Air Force carried out 75 strikes on Sunday (December 9) within hours of the rebel/terrorist group entering Damascus. Washington immediately set out with B-52 bombers which (they say) were on “ISIS operational capabilities”. Bottom line: in less than 48 hours more than 3/4 of Syria’s strategic weapons supply was wiped out.

Many Damascenes as well as Syrian ex-patriots, are greeting relabeled Al Qaeda, HTS and Co, as “liberators.” True some are “dancing in the streets” with joy because Assad is gone from Syria, scenes which cloud an increasingly sinister reality. But  few are as ecstatic about the Syrian collapse as the Netanyahu government in Israel or the Biden Administration in the USA.

Yesterday on this blog I wrote:

I have a hunch that their celebrations will be short lived and what is in store for Syria and the region remains nothing short of explosive. both domestically and regionally. If Syria follows in “the tradition” of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, chaos, mayhem and destruction are likely in the offing. All four of these countries had secular governments swept away by some kind of Islamic movement supported by “outside forces” (ie, the U.S., its NATO allies). Assad’s Syrian collapse is part and parcel of a more generalized receding of Western influence in the Middle East as country after country in the region moves from more secular to more theocratic influences.

As former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman noted:

… And indeed I think it’s important to realize that what we are seeing in, broadly speaking, West Asia,(1) Southwest Asia and maybe North Africa also is the demise of secular government, European style separation of Church and State, as it were Mosque and State in this case, has disappeared. Look at Libya it was secular,  not a very nice place in some ways,  but it had a secular government. Colonel Khadaffi was not religious, In fact he was quite opposed to Salafi Islam and now Libya is living under various legitimized tyrannies”

The Assad government’s loss of  legitimacy among the Syrian people is reminiscent of the collapse of the USSR back in 1991 in that however outside pressures contributed to their downfalls, that in both cases both the Syrian and Soviet governments had lost the support of their people. Still, as Danny Haiphong notes: “To downplay sanctions, occupation and 13+ years of war and foreign intervention is a rejection of reality.”

Despite U.S. (and other) media outlets trying to suggest that order is being restored, the current situation in the country is dire, almost beyond imagination as rebranded al Qaeda – now under the banner of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) along with its supported gangs of terrorists from MENA countries and Central Asia have seized power.

It is not so much that Syria was “conquered” by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its groupings of Islamic fundamentalist factions but that the entire structures of the former Syrian state had become dysfunctional – rotten to the core. It has been no secret that for decades Syria has been a police state in which its security forces and military ran the country with an iron hand. Extensive repression includes concentration camps, the terrorizing of all opposition – Islamic or secular – cannot be denied. State institutions were either entirely or partially paralyzed. The loss of confidence in the government was deep-seated and across class and ethnic boundaries. Increasingly the only glue keeping it all together was fear of something worse (an al Qaeda-like takeover) and the state’s repressive apparatus, the intelligence and military.  Nor can the profound corruption and lack of preparedness of the Syrian military be discounted. The military, had, in large measure, after 13 long years of intense struggle against foreign-based jihadist elements, lost its will to fight. It essentially collapsed.

Whatever good one can say about Assad’s Syria and the former USSR – and in both cases there is much that can be said on that score –  for whatever reason – the two governments had lost the support of their population resulting in both governments crashing down.

Still, if in Syria itself (and throughout the Arab World) there are those celebrating the Assad government demise, reports are beginning to accumulate of the terror unleashed by these Islamic jihadis against non Sunni Moslems, Syria’s 2000 year old Christian Community, the Alawis has begun.  Israel has not only stormed in S. Syria but launched hundreds of air strikes. Reports of large scale slaughter of entire Alawite villages have commenced as have the slaughter of the remnants of the Syrian military and anyone connected to the fallen Assad government. For the moment most of these reports are coming from social media and are downplayed by the mainstream media here in the USA, in Europe but regardless, they are about to intensify. The Syrian Central Bank has already been looted with looting expanding apace throughout the country.

All this is just the beginning of the horror that is just beginning.

In the vacuum created by the government’s collapse, already regional players are moving in, in an effort to get their piece of the Syrian pie. The most disgraceful actions are being committed by Israel, hoping to gobble up more of the Golan Heights and the border areas where S. Lebanon and S. Syria converge. Turkey is moving in on Aleppo in the North and the Syrian Kurds are active in consolidating their hold on northeast Syria. Will there even be “a Syria” over the course of the next few months? Then there are the geopolitical shift in the balance of forces. The United States, Israel and to some degree Turkey’s positions are strengthened; that of the Palestinian Resistance, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran are somewhat weakened; Russian influence in the region will shrink some and plans for  China’s Belt and Road Initiative to be constructed through the region to Europe have been complicated. I’ll explore that in greater detail in later blog entries but for now I will simply note that the regional balance of power has shifted dramatically.

(To follow: Background to the Syrian collapse and some thoughts on the geopolitical realignment taking place in the region.)

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1. Increasingly, especially throughout the region, it is referred to as West Asia and not “the Middle East’. It is accurate that the term “Middle East” is essentially a product of British imperial minds and is increasingly rejected by the peoples of the region itself.