The Many Mistakes of Assad

Over the last several days since the Syrian Arab Army melted away and Bashir al Assad fled a jihadist rebel conquest of Damascus for Moscow, there has been an ongoing blame game on social media and among Russia's Telegram voenkors (military correspondents) in particular for this debacle. Many Western "friends of Russia" as well as some of the noisy sixth column element have joined the online fracas in comment threads below alt-media sites such as Simplicius76, Moon of Alabama and on multiple Telegram feeds, declaring the defeat of the Russians in Syria and Moscow's imminent surrender to NATO in Ukraine.

Western analysts and Anglo-American neocons have been gloating about Assad's downfall, claiming it is a major blow to Russian influence in the Middle East and throughout the world. Many Western analysts claim that Russia's allies in the Global South particularly in Africa will no longer trust the Kremlin to provide security assistance or arms and turn back to their former colonialist masters in France, backed by the U.S. However, such smug declarations appear premature, as Russia's military presence in the Mediterranean is likely to continue in some form, either through a hosting agreement with the new Syrian government that's backed by Turkey, or quite plausibly relocating to the eastern Libya port of Tobruk, where a friendly Egyptian-backed Libyan National Army (LNA) remains in place.

Speaking of BRICS member Egypt, the Egyptians have mostly empty facilities at Port Suez that could be serviceable, officially non-permanent logistics and refueling station for the Russian fleet. Even longtime Russian arms customer Algiers, which eschews any foreign permanent military presence in Algeria, could provide at least part-time refueling stations for the Russian Navy when transiting toward Gibraltar and the Atlantic Ocean. As for showing the Russian flag along the Indo-Pacific sea lanes, Iran's modernized sea port of Chabahar along the Gulf of Oman is a prime candidate for a future Russian naval base, one that may prove a cohabitation with the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

As of this publication on Saturday, December 14, 2024, the close-in perimeter around Russia's military bases in coastal Latakia has not been breached. Turkish-backed jihadist rebel forces--despite some videos jeering the Russian convoys as they drive by--appear to be respecting the orders of their bosses in Ankara not to attack the Russians. Military cargoes including BUK and S400 surface-to-air missile batteries are permitted by the victorious rebels to pass unhindered. Meanwhile, Israel is methodically destroying the remnants of Syria's Russian-built air defenses and much of the SAA's remaining ammunition dumps, so there's no chance of those arms being handed over to Zelensky's wartime regime in Kiev.

Long Russian military convoys have been filmed headed for the port of Tartus with visible IL-76 transport flights reportedly evacuating many SAA loyalists and some Russian personnel out of the Kheimmim air base. But it remains unclear as of this hour how many Russians will stay in Syria or if the Kremlin has decided to only maintain skeletal crews to evacuate the Tartus and Kheimmim bases.

With the Israeli Defense Forces' tanks seizing not only the entire remaining portion of the Golan Heights and Quneitra province on the highway to Damascus plus the Turkish President openly declaring Ankara is ready to revise the Ottomans' loss of Syrian cities and territory after WW1, the 'direction of travel' is clear. All pretense that the Collective West cares about the sacred principle of territorial integrity it purports to uphold in Ukraine is gone, we are living in the time of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci's monsters.

– James Smith

Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, ExitStrategy.World

December 14, 2024

Now that the smoke has cleared somewhat from the fall of the Assad government and a temporary truce has supposedly been reached between the Turkish-backed jihadi rebels and the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds, we can review what led up to the fall of Assad's government the melting away of his forces in Aleppo, Homs and Damascus. What strategic mistakes did Bashir al-Assad or his reportedly pro-Iranian brother Maher make and why? All of these events unfolded between 2018 and December 2024. We will see a long parade of crucial mistakes, missed opportunities and ignored dangers. Let us review:

The Syrian Economy Was Bled-White by War, Occupation and Sanctions...and Yet Assad Missed Opportunities for Russian and Chinese Investment

In 2018, the Russian government sent a mission to Assad proposing to him to upgrade the equipment of the Syrian army to modern standards, to train the younger officers and troops and fully reorganize and equip the SAA into a truly modern fighting force. In exchange, since Syria under western sanctions was low on cash, the Russian government asked that Syria be opened fully for Russian business. Considering the sorry state of the Syrian economy, this investment would've created thousands of new jobs and brought in desperately needed FDI. And yet...Assad turned the offer down. No answer regarding why was given, not in 2018, and not again in 2020, when the Russian offer was presented a third time. A smile and a polite NO.

Later in 2020, the Chinese sent a trade mission to Syria and offered various projects and an expansion of the Syrian infrastructure as part of the One Road One Belt Initiative (BRI). They were also turned down and not given any reason why. Things went similarly for the Iranians, who to put it mildly were not pleased about such rejection from a close ally after they sacrificed thousands of IRGC soldiers to save Damascus from the jihadists. Perhaps Assad thought U.S. and EU secondary sanctions would scare Chinese investors off, even with Russia providing security guarantees for Beijing's investment into the Tartus port.

Perhaps Assad imagined a better deal was in the offing from the Saudis and Emiratis, who were normalizing relations with Damascus in the months leading up to his government's dissolution. But Assad rejected a bird in a hand for two in the bush that never materialized. To put it plainly: Syria’s economy has been in dire straits for over a decade, poverty had soared above 80%. The Americans were and still are turning the screws with their Caesar Act sanctions while stealing Syria's oil, and the barrels left to be pumped were valued at over $100 billion. Idlib was effectively annexed to an emerging Neo-Ottoman Empire, ruled by blood red crescent flag waving Turkish proxies. In 2020 Ankara made plain its willingness to go to war with the SAA in defense of the occupied territory.

Due to zero foreign investment and the city's proximity to jihadist front lines, Aleppo was never restored to its pre-2011 status as the northern manufacturing center of the country, after parts of the city had been left in ruins from its liberation. Syria's wheat fields were regularly bombed by the US Air Force while it was “fighting” remnants of the Islamic State in the countryside. Desperation had taken hold, but Assad and his extended clan--including Tehran's supposed man in Damascus, Maher Assad--ultimately refused the investments of Russia, China and Iran. They also refused to constructively negotiate with Assad's adversaries in Ankara, particularly after Russia reduced its military commitment in Syria and launched the SMO in February 2022.

The Road to Dissolution of the SAA: Spectacular Rise of ISIS Used to Justify American Occupation in Order to Steal Syria's Oil and Protect 'Moderate Rebel' Enclaves With GI Human Shields

The SAA, which was on the ropes by the time parts of Damascus were occupied by various jihadist gangs in late 2015, rallied after Russia's intervention that Assad and the Iranians' had requested. With heavy Russian air and artillery support backing a Wagner PMC and Iranian/Hezbollah ground campaign, the ISIS terrorists were routed. So were many assorted 'moderate' jihadist rebels, as their Qatari-funded supporters whined in the Collective West. Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell let the Langley rage over Russia's military intervention out of the bag, when he declared the Agency's policy should be to "kill Russians, kill Iranians" by covertly arming the jihadists. But the AlCIAeda terrorists, many of whom had been avowed members of Al-Qaeda targeting American troops in Iraq just a few years before (as then Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard pointed out), proved unable to withstand Russian bombing. Hence the need for a Plan B, the sudden rise of the Islamic State terrorist movement across the border in Iraq, to justify deploying American troops to block Russian-SAA progress.

The Euphrates River became a demarcation line between the Russians, who had been legally invited into the country by the legitimate government, and the Americans, who were an uninvited occupying power. The mostly mythologized Battle of Khasham, in which the Americans supposedly slaughtered hundreds of Wagner PMCs (when only a dozen or so Russian combatant deaths could be verified by Der Spiegel and the Associated Press, and the rest of the dead were pro-SAA local tribal fighters), was used by the Anglo-American deep state to sell the U.S. military and public on the notion of illegally occupying a chunk of Syria indefinitely. President Donald Trump's previous calls for declaring victory over ISIS and a full U.S. withdrawal from Syria, which only resulted in a partial pullout from the northern Kurdish areas under Turkish pressure several months later in 2019, were effectively stiff-armed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the D.C. Congressional-MIC Blob. The deep state Swamp and the Israel Lobby both rejoiced at forcing Trump to back down. But without cooperation from NATO member Turkey, the Atlanticist/Globalist campaign to bleed the Syrian Arab Republic to death would've proven impossible.

Brief, Violent Turkish Interventions and Turkey's Occupation Set the Stage for the Hollowing Out of the Syrian Arab Army

By 2020, Assad was preparing to finish off the jihadistan that Turkey had spent years and billions of lira cultivating in Idlib province and the regional capital. Following the early 2020 Balyun air strikes attributed to the Syrian Arab Air Force killing over fifty Turkish servicemen (soldiers who had foolishly tried to shoot down Russian Sukhoi jets with MANPADs to protect their jihadis) the SAA was beaten back by Turkish drone and artillery strikes. Although several of the vaunted TB2 drones manufactured by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's son-in-law Selçuk Bayraktar were shot down by the SAA's Russian-made air defenses, the SAA could not effectively fight the second largest army in NATO.

In a preview of the Turkish-Azeri drone blitz that would fall on the Armenians in Ngorno Karabakh several months later, scores of SAA tanks and armored vehicles were destroyed. Hundreds of Syrian soldiers were killed or wounded in Turkey's Operation Spring Shield before Russian-Turkish negotiations halted the fighting. Moscow blamed the fighting on Ankara's refusal to distance Turkish troops from the jihadists that Syrian jets had been striking, but the damage was done. Members of the Trump Administration bragged about standing with NATO ally Turkey and the losses of the SAA. Assad would not attempt another northern offensive toward Idlib city.

By 2024, after years of Israeli air strikes taking their toll on bases, munitions warehouses and personnel, the 'peacetime' SAA had degraded into a very sorry state. Arabic leaders have a tendency to fear their own generals just as much so if not more than any foreign enemy. As such, the batch of generals that Assad inherited from his tough and highly intelligent father Hafez Al Assad, loyal old professionals who built the modern Syrian state and who had given him victory over the foreign Islamists by 2020, were cashiered or fired. The military formations that had been elevated by the Russians and IRGC were disbanded or became hollowed out shells of their former selves. These hard men were replaced by new generals who were deemed loyal to Assad himself and new greenhorn units were raised, leaving only the elite Tiger Forces as a small remnant of the old SAA armored corps.

When the jihadist tide rushed in and some FPV drones provided by the Ukrainians struck, some units panicked and their generals fled. The strongest remaining loyalist brigade the Tiger Forces stood their ground and handed the Neo-Ottoman forces far more losses than they suffered. Unfortunately, a single brigade of 2,000 men was simply not enough to stop the tide. The jihadis simply flowed around the Tigers, until they retreated to the mountains near the Lebanese border, vowing to fight on for a sovereign Syria.

In the final analysis, while Syrian generals taking bribes to skip out on their men was plain treason, can you blame the ordinary soldiers for stripping off their uniforms and fleeing to Iraq or Lebanon? The average Syrian conscript was being paid $9 per month, while the generals were receiving $40. Of course, prices are lower in Syria than in the U.S. but not so low as to make living off $9 per month feasible. The advancing Islamists, flush with Qatari cash, offered the princely sum of $400 to each soldier and officer of the Assad army who need not surrender to their custody, just lay down his arms and just leave. The offer was go back to your family alive and with three year’s salary for each soldier. Is it any surprise in hindsight that mass desertion set in like sepsis in a sucking chest wound?

Was Assad a Member of the Axis of Resistance? Kinda-sorta

It is interesting that both Hamas and the Yemeni Ansarallah movement better known as the Houthis congratulated the Turkish-backed Hayat Tahir Al Sham (HTS) for overthrowing Assad. Why would Assad's nominal allies in the Resistance Axis say that? The hard truth, as reported by Elijah J. Magnier, one of the longest serving journalists during the last twenty years of wars in the Levant with insider sources from Beirut to Damascus, is that Assad had placed his bets, and they were not on the Shi'a Crescent. And Moscow certainly could not be more committed to the Resistance than Assad himself.

In 2022, Assad commanded the AA-run Yemeni embassy to close and in exchange, he allowed the Saudis to reopen their embassy. But Assad's normalizing relations with the GCC did not save his government. Assad did nothing to hamper the Israeli air-raids on Hezbollah-Iranian logistics routes, while his Axis of Resistance fans blamed the Russians for refusing to shoot down Israeli planes (something Moscow never promised anyone it would do). Assad also sent nothing to help the Palestinians in their fight with Israel. Assad seems to have bet on the Gulf Arab kingdoms, but it was a bad bet. The Gulf nations in the end did little or nothing to help him.

Moscow Says Make Peace With Turkey, Please to Assad

The final blows was Assad’s refusal to make peace. The Russians and Turks had tried to get him to extend a hand and make peace of some sorts with the non-terrorist Islamists in Idlib. This was very important for the Turks, as it would allow Turkey to send the over four million Syrian Arab refugees home, or to the buffer zone the Turks had carved out of northern Syria to ethnically displace their Kurdish adversaries. If Erdoğan's ruling AKP has one Achilles heel, it's growing Turkish discontent, especially in AKP's working class base, with the flood of cheap Syrian labor and methamphetamines from the Syrian border. Of course, many of these refugees had supported Assad’s overthrow, so Assad was less than thrilled at having them return.

Additionally, Assad refused to meet with Erdoğan, which Erdoğan took as a personal insult. The last visible chance to save the situation was in Kazan, during the BRICS+ Summit. Here to Assad refused to attend, never saying why, but more than likely because Erdoğan would be there. As Moscow-based analyst and RT.com regular contributor Andrew Korbyko has written on his Substack, Moscow was never going to directly fight Washington, West Jerusalem or Ankara's occupation forces for him. By contrast, 'doomer' voices like longtime Aussie independent journalist John Helmer claim that Korbyko is a mouthpiece for supposed appeasement factions in the Kremlin and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Clearly with the benefit of hindsight Assad, who never wanted to rule Syria before his older brother Basil died in a car wreck in 1994, should've accepted the post-2020 and especially post-2022 reality and voluntarily ceded power. There could have been as Moscow, Tehran and Ankara discussed during the Astana, Kazakhstan peace talks a transition to a new Syrian constitution. Then Syria could've had a Russian-Iranian backed government which actually could welcome Chinese investors and maintain its rule over a territorially reduced state sans Idlib, while waiting out the American occupation in the Euphrates Valley and border region with Jordan. Israel would've continued to strike Syria in this scenario but at least the new regime would've had a fighting chance.

Assad Can't Say He Wasn't Warned

As for the upcoming assault, while there was an intelligence failure in not anticipating how rapidly the SAA would come apart, regarding preparations of Islamic jihadists by the Turks and by the French and Americans, Assad received several warnings. The warnings came from within his own government, from Russian intelligence, and from the Iranians. He would listen but do nothing, more than likely assuming that he was safe with his new loyal generals and could buy more time with his GCC negotiations with the Saudis and Emiratis. The last time the Iranians sent a delegation to warn him, in early November 2024, he refused to meet with them. There were even public hints from the Ukrainians, eager to avenge their crumbling fronts in the Donbass and Kursk, that in addition to supporting terrorists targeting Russian-friendly governments in Africa, they would also be aiding the rebels against Assad.

All these things combined showed Assad's allies that his time was up and that it would be smart to prepare to deal with whomever and whatever came to power next. Hence the present live and let live arrangement in Latakia between the Russians and the Turkish-directed rebels. But how long this truce can last before Russia either reaches a new status of forces agreement to maintain Tartus and Kheimmim with Ankara's vassals, or permanently vacates her bases is an open question. Two things are certain: NATO has not seen the last of the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean, and the Collective West's allies Turkey and Israel are setting precedents for territorial expansion that will haunt the West in the years to come well beyond the Ukraine.