This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – Events in the Middle East are moving so fast it's almost impossible to keep on top of them.
This could not be more true of the country formerly known as Syria, which stands at the precipice of potential Balkanization, as competing forces try to take stock of the political landscape following the massive power vacuum created by President Bashar al-Assad's rapid demise.
Initially, the most obvious "winner" from Assad's fall seemed to be Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, its increasingly Islamist long-standing leader. However, events in the last day or so, have highlighted how a more nuanced approach is called for in determining where each piece might fit on this highly charged Middle Eastern chessboard.
The bald facts seemed to be these: Turkey's Erdogan viewed Syria's Assad, once a friend and ally, as an enemy to be gotten rid of (fighting a civil war in which millions of refugees are externally displaced across your border will do that); and he thought he possessed the means to do so. Step forward Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, a Turkish-armed jihadist group whose stronghold was in the Idlib area of northwestern Syria, abutting the border with Turkey, and the so-called rebel Syrian National Army, or SNA.
Erdogan's government is reported to have made overtures to the Assad regime as recently as late November, suggesting it should make some concessions to the opposition or risk the somewhat dormant 13-year civil war erupting again. Assad did not heed the warning, and now he is a stateless guest of Russian President Vladiimr Putin in Moscow. For how long this is the case remains to be seen.
To be sure, Turkey does not back all the groups that have caused Assad's fall, some are also supported by another destabilizing influence in the Middle East, namely Qatar. It's a somewhat bitter irony Turkey is a full NATO ally and Qatar, which is by no means averse to playing both sides of the ball (as it were), has special ally status with the United States. For now, at least.
The presence of the SNA in particular has allowed Turkey to continue its war of ethnic cleansing against the Kurds, who have been fighting for an independent Kurdistan for generations. Greater Kurdistan encompasses northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northern Syria and northwestern Iran. In fact, Turkey has been fighting the Kurds and attempting to prevent the establishment of an independent state across this region for more than 100 years – barely a year after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922.
Both HTS and SNA have problematic histories, especially where atrocities are considered. HTS is an off-shoot of Islamic State, its leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani commanded the Al-Nusra Front. He broke with now-deceased ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over a dispute regarding subsuming Al-Nusra into the wider Islamic State tent, and not because of divergent ideology. Al-Jolani, whose wanted poster with a bounty of $10 million and shows him wearing a turban, did not want his autonomy curtailed, and struck out with his own organization.
He now stands as a potentially powerful nemesis against the machinations of a politician who British journalist and polemicist Douglas Murray terms, "Caliph" Erdogan. While Al-Jolani might be able to gull many in the West, who want to believe his message of toleration of religious differences and a smoothing of his formerly very rough edges – in much the same way the unreformed Taliban did in Afghanistan – it is doubtful Erdogan will fall for the same trick. Indeed, Anakara already designates HTS as a terrorist organization.
At the time of writing, reports are already appearing of Yazidi, Kurdish, and Christian women being abducted to presumably be used as sex slaves. There are other reports of fighters enforcing modesty laws for women, much like the Taliban in Afghanistan or those of the Islamic regime in Iran.
Did Erdogan overplay his hand with Russia?
Erdogan will also have to answer for what some in Russia consider his betrayal of them. The respective presidents of Russia and Turkey seem to have a solid working relationship. Both are Eurasian countries, and both were formerly possessors of mighty empires. They also share a wariness of the West, despite Turkey's membership of NATO. On Dec. 8, Erdogan said, "There are only two leaders left in the world: Putin and me."
Despite his warm words to his Russian ally, Putin adviser Alexander Dugin, reportedly called Syria "a trap for Turkey."
"He has made a strategic mistake. He has betrayed Russia. He had betrayed Iran. He is doomed. Now the end of Kemal's Turkey has begun; we have supported you until now, from now on you'll repent."
Dugin's use of Kemal is an interesting historical nod, for it was Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey's father-figure who preached a maxim of: "Peace at home; peace in the world."
While Erdogan has made little secret of his wish to return the Ottoman Empire to its former glory, it is an open question if Turkey has the clout – economic and military – to make that dream a reality. Was aiding the rebels to take over Syria the first step on that road? Or will it instead lead to destabilization and downfall?
