Jonathan Spyer

Targeting the jihadists. Source: TheAustralian

The Australian, 2/10

On Wednesday, Russian aircraft carried out the first bombings of rebel positions in Syria. The operation was not a surprise. It was the latest, most dramatic episode in a significant increase in Russian support for the beleaguered regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and has been under way since the beginning of last month.

This sharp increase in Moscow’s aid to Assad has brought the marines of Russia’s 810th Independent Naval Infantry Brigade to the port of Latakia, Syria’s principal port city.

At least 500 of these elite troops are assembled close to the Russian naval depot at Tartus, on Syria’s west coast, having arrived from their base with the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, on the disputed Crimean Peninsula, in the past month.

Moscow is sending hardware as well as troops: 28 combat aircraft at the last count — four Sukhoi Su-30 fighters, 12 Su-25 strike aircraft, 12 Su-24 attack fighters — along with numerous attack helicopters, seven state-of-the-art T-90 tanks, surface-to-air missile systems and advanced artillery.

Infrastructure work is under way, too. The focus is on the Bassel al-Assad air base outside Latakia city. But the naval depot at Tartus is also being expanded.

Satellite imagery recently published by IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review (in an article co-written by this reporter) shows additional infrastructure development at the Istamo weapons storage complex near al-Sanobar, also in Latakia province. Newly paved surfaces at Istamo were apparent. Temporary housing for up to 2000 personnel, of a type used by the Russians, also was visible near al-Sanobar.

All this represents a strategic move by President Vladimir Putin, of wide import and profound implications. The Assad regime is a longstanding ally of Moscow. This alliance goes back to the 1960s, when radical and pro-Soviet Arab nationalists first took power in Damascus. Putin has been backing the regime in its war with the rebellion against it since 2011.

Russia’s help has already proved invaluable. Moscow’s veto power at the UN Security Council made sure that no co-ordinated international action against the regime could take place in the early, optimistic days of the uprising. The continued supply of Russian weapons made sure that Assad’s armouries remained well-stocked.

Nevertheless, the present move is of an unprecedented scale. So why is it happening, why now, and what is Moscow seeking?

Saving an eroding regime
The most immediate reason for the sharp increase in Russian assistance to the Assad regime is that the dictator has been losing ground to the rebellion in recent months. Worse, from Moscow’s point of view, the rebels’ gains were bringing them close to the parts of Syria whose retention by the regime is essential for Russia.

Assad’s main problem, throughout the civil war, has been the shortage of men willing to take a bullet for him. This shortage of manpower was a product of the regime’s narrow support base. The Alawi sect, to which the Assads belong, comprises only about 12 per cent of the population of Syria.

The rebellion, meanwhile, was based among the country’s Sunni Arabs, comprising about 60 per cent of the population. (Kurds, Christians, Druze and Shia make up the bulk of the remainder.)

The increasingly Islamist rebellion found its ranks further strengthened by foreign volunteers. Assad had no similar line of support from young ideologues committed to his cause. But he did have assets and a strategy. His main asset was the loyalty of his allies. In contrast to Western countries that ostensibly supported the rebellion but did little practically, Assad’s Russian and Iranian allies did all in their power — diplomatically, politically and militarily — to keep their client in his seat.

The Iranians mobilised regional assets, including the capable Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, to join the fight and lessen the manpower problem. The Russians were there with weapons and diplomatic backing.

In terms of strategy, the dictator sought to lessen the problem of manpower by retreating from all areas not considered vital. The result of this strategy has been the emergence of the de facto partitioned Syria of today. Assad effectively has ceded huge swathes of eastern, northern and southern Syria to his enemies.

Today, Islamic State controls most of eastern Syria. The Kurdish PYD (Democratic Union Party) rules a large area in the northeast and a smaller enclave in the far northwest. Islamist rebels, including Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as al-Nusra Front, the local franchise of al-Qai’da, rule a swathe of the northwest. Western-backed rebels and al-Nusra control Quneitra province adjoining the Golan Heights and much of Dera’a province south of Damascus.

The regime still holds Damascus, the western coastal area and the line of cities to the capital’s north (Homs, Hama and part of contested Aleppo).

The problem with the regime’s strategy of retreat and consolidation is that it can be carried only so far. At a certain point, the erosion of the regime enclave will reach a point that makes Assad’s survival no longer viable. In recent months it has looked as if Assad was in danger of reaching this point. This is the immediate precipitating reason for the increased Russian intervention.

A new, more effective rebel coalition called the Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) declared its foundation on March 24. Backed by Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, this alliance achieved a string of battlefield successes against the regime in the vital northwest of the country this past northern spring and summer.

On April 25, this force took the strategic town of Jisr al-Shughur. This raised the possibility for the rebellion of moving the frontline into the populated areas of Latakia province. This would have brought the rebellion close to the Mediterranean, including to Russia’s naval depot at Tartus. It also would have called into question Assad’s ability to defend any of the remaining areas under his control.

This had to be stopped. The Russian deployment is part of a concerted effort to stop it. Moscow is set to shore up the regime’s crumbling defences.

In his speech at the UN General Assembly this week, Putin spoke of Assad’s armed forces as those who were fighting “terrorism face to face”. But it should be understood that the immediate danger to Assad’s regime in Syria’s west is represented not by Islamic State but by the rebel Jaysh al-Fatah coalition. Since Russia’s goal is the preservation of the regime, Moscow’s efforts to protect Assad are set to be directed against the Syrian rebels rather than Islamic State, whose main forces are located farther east. This was reflected in the choice of targets in the bombing raids on Wednesday.

So Russia’s intervention represents a sharp increase in the dimensions of a longstanding policy rather than a radically new departure for Moscow. Putin’s intention throughout has been to demonstrate the value of alliance with Moscow by showing how he protects his friends (and, while he’s doing it, to hold and expand Moscow’s only naval base outside of the former Soviet Union). 

How far will Putin go?
According to Sergey Ivanov, head of Russia’s presidential administration, the goal of the Russian deployment is “strictly to provide air support for the (Syrian) government forces in their fight against Islamic State”.

Putin undoubtedly is concerned about Islamic State’s rise and what its proliferation could mean for the restive Caucasus region and central Asia. One of Islamic State’s main military commanders, Abu Omar al-Shishani, is of Chechen-Georgian origin, and volunteers from the Caucasus are among the most brutal of the jihadi fighters in Syria.

But the deployment of the Russian forces in Syria indicates beyond doubt that the main concern of the Russians is to defend Assad against the rebels. The proclamations against Islamic State are a feint to add moral authority to the defence of the dictator.

In so far as Islamic State represents a threat to Assad, it does so in the Damascus area and in the Homs province. Islamic State ­forces are pushing across the desert, past Palmyra, nudging against Homs province and in some parts of Damascus, including Qadam and the Yarmouk camp.

But the Russians are not deploying in any strength in this area. Their deployment is on the western coast, a considerable distance from Islamic State but close to the lines of Jaysh al-Fatah (and taking in Russia’s naval assets in Tartus). The Russians have begun flights of Pchela-1t unmanned reconnaissance vehicles out of Latakia. These UAVs are conducting patrols over rebel-held territory to the immediate east of Latakia, not over Islamic State-held areas.

Given the scale of the deployment, there are no indications that Russia is set to take part in a major campaign to reconquer areas lost to the Assad regime. Rather, as it appears, the Russian intention is to prevent the rebels from pushing further into regime-held areas.

This will enable Moscow to preserve its assets in western Syria (it has little interest in or need for land farther east). No less important, it will enable the Russians to keep the Syrian war going.

Putin sees the eastern Mediterranean as the back yard of the West. In strategic terms, maintaining assets in an ongoing conflict in the West’s back yard is a natural goal as a means to offset the West’s holding of assets in Russia’s back yard: the former states of the western Soviet Union, most importantly Ukraine. So Russia’s determination to keep Assad in the game has a logic far beyond Syria. But almost certainly it does not include the costly and probably unachievable goal of winning complete victory for Assad.

The bear is back
The intervention is the latest bold move by a Russian President who perceives a strategic vacuum in the eastern Mediterranean, deriving from the US desire to avoid major commitments in the area. The failure to act following the regime’s use of chemical weapons in 2013 and half-hearted efforts by Western countries on behalf of the rebels reflect this Western determination to stay out as much as possible. In such a situation, Putin is likely to have calculated that a firm move on his part on the regime’s behalf in Syria would be without negative international consequence for Russia.

Framing the intervention in terms of the joint opposition to Islamic State would further contribute to lessening any chance of Western objection. As of now, this assessment seems to have paid off. The West appears to be backing off from its previously stated goal of demanding Assad’s departure. The result of Putin’s move and Western acquiescence to it is to introduce a new and powerful strategic player into the Middle East.

Russia appears to be making additional moves to consolidate its co-operation with other forces aligned with Syria. This week, Iraq announced an agreement with Moscow for sharing intelligence on Islamic State. Supporters of the so-called resistance axis in the region (which includes Iran, Iraq, Assad’s Syria, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad) are depicting the Russian intervention as part of a larger process in which Moscow is concluding an overall alliance with this axis. One of these, Ibrahim al-Amin, editor of pro-Hezbollah newspaper al-Akhbar , has named the new alliance as the 4+1 bloc (Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria plus Hezbollah).

Moscow certainly would deny the establishment of any such alliance. And it is notable that Russian diplomacy in the region has included an attempt to keep channels of communication and co-operation open with the enemies of Iran and Assad, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The precise contours and implications of Putin’s intervention into Syria are not yet clear. Russia’s economy is weak and this may well prevent Moscow doing much more than keeping its allies in the game. But what may be asserted with certainty is that Russia has returned as a determined and visible player on the ground in the Middle East for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Moscow looks poised to call the next round of shots in the contiguous area that once comprised the now collapsed states of Iraq and Syria. This represents a new strategic reality in the Middle East. For now, it’s Moscow rules in the eastern Mediterranean.

Jerusalem Post, 25/9

The latest moves on the regime side in the Syrian war suggest an effort by the regime’s allies including Russia to ‘freeze’ the conflict, rather than to continue it to victory.  This is because victory in the form originally conceived – of the reconquest of the entirety of the country by the Assads – is clearly no longer achievable.  To ‘freeze’ a conflict in this sense does not imply that the conflict will become inert or inactive, but only that it will continue to smolder on without resolution.

The newest statements by leaders and mouthpieces of the various elements supporting the dictator, meanwhile, offer clues as to how the ongoing conflict is to be presented by Assad’s allies – as a fight against ‘terrorism,’ as exemplified, they claim, by both the Islamic State and its rivals, Jabhat al-Nusra.

In terms of the situation on the ground, the arrival of Russian personnel and equipment to Latakia Province is intended to bolster the regime enclave in the western coastal area.  There are no indications, however, of a Russian strategy to take part in a ground campaign to claw back the large swathe of northern Syria lost to the rebels and IS.  Rather, the deployment suggests a limited ground component, with a greater focus on air capacity.

Images first published in an article by this author and Mark Galeotti in Janes’ Intelligence Review offered evidence of infrastructural improvements and ferrying of materiel by Russia to the Basel al-Assad International Airport in Latakia.  Russia is flying Pchela 1t unmanned aircraft from this site, and looks set to begin flights of fixed wing aircraft from there in the near future.  These air operations look set to back the beleaguered government forces, assisting them in their fight against the rebels and relieving pressure on Assad’s own overstretched air force.

Further south, the Beirut Daily Star reported this week that Hizballah is to end offensive operations in Syria, following the indecisive conclusion of the Qalamoun offensive, launched in July.  The purpose of this offensive was to clear the Sunni Islamist  rebels from the area north west of Damascus and just east of the Syria-Lebanon border.  The going was slower than expected, and Hizballah losses were high. The final stage of the offensive was the re-taking of the town of Zabadani.

However, it now looks as though Zabadani will be secured for the regime not through military conquest, but by a quid pro quo with the rebels.

Reuters reported this week on negotiations between representatives of the rebels via third parties with Iranian and Hizballah officials. The agreement concluded would allow for safe passage for remaining rebel fighters from the center of Zabadani. In return, the rebels would allow  the departure of remaining civilians from the Shia villages of al-Foua and Kefraya. These represent the last areas of government control in Idleb Province in the north west of the country.

Announced on Sunday, the ceasefire that accompanied the negotiations has so far held.  Having secured its objectives, albeit at a heavy cost and partly by negotiation, Hizballah now looks set to seek to hold these areas, as part of a larger effort on the part of the regime and its allies to consolidate control over the roughly 20% of Syria that remains to Assad.

The propagandists and spokespeople of the pro-Iranian regional bloc have already begun to frame this policy  as a  campaign against ‘terror.’ No doubt the increased use of air assets will be compared to the coalition air campaign against the Islamic State.  The latter in turn is likely to find itself also a target of increased regime attention, to make this comparison plausible.  But the real fight will be to defend the existing regime enclave against the rebels.

Ibrahim al-Amin, editor of the pro-Iran and pro-Hizballah al-Akhbar newspaper in Lebanon,  announced the arrival of a new bloc that he called the ‘4 + 1’ alliance against terror.  The ‘4’ are Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria.  The additional ‘1’ is Hizballah.  According to al-Amin, this new alliance constitutes a ‘strategic shift’ in the Syrian situation, and is set to include the ‘sending of Russian and Iranian special forces to the areas controlled by President Bashar Assad.’

Amin, whose writing has a slightly overheated style which recalls the Arab nationalist propaganda of earlier decades, also predicts a major  ground role for Russian forces on the Syrian battlefield. The Russians, he asserts, will  ‘“play a prominent role on the ground and will participate in combat on the battlefield with their advanced weaponry by leading operations and taking part in artillery shelling, air raids and otherwise, alongside the Syrian army and Hezbollah.”

A rival, and less sanguine interpretation of Russia’s activity in Syria was authored by  Abd al Rahman al-Rashed, in the pro-Saudi Sharq al Awsat newspaper (of which al-Rashid is a former editor).

Al-Rashed speculated that the Russian build up in Latakia might presage a decision by the Assad regime to pull out of Damascus, and finally establish the long discussed Alawi enclave in the western coastal area.  He referred to the Russian and Iranian doubling down on support for Assad as a ‘lost game.’

But if Ibrahim al-Amin errs in depicting the ‘4 +1’ initiative as a matter of grand historic import, al-Rashed is perhaps excessive in tentatively suggesting that a regime retreat from the capital may be imminent, and in depicting Assad’s cause as hopeless.

The most beleaguered area for the regime in recent months has been the western coastal area itself, rather than Damascus.  As of now, the most immediate task facing Russia, Iran and the other allies of the regime is to solidify the regime’s hold precisely on the western coast.  Damascus, by contrast, is witnessing clashes between rebels and regime forces, but appears somewhat more solidly in the regime’s hands.

In recent weeks, the most notable dynamic in the Syrian war has been the absence of major changes in possession of ground, along with a sharp uptick in regime air activity and shelling.  This, combined with the local ceasefire in Zabadani and the Idleb front, suggests that the immediate goal of Assad’s allies is the preservation of the regime enclave as currently constituted, rather than the grander ‘war on terror’ painted by regime and pro-Hizballah propaganda or the more desperate retreat depicted by al-Rashed.

If this goal is achieved, might this in turn lead to Syria becoming another of the ‘frozen conflicts’ which are the speciality of Russian strategy as presently constituted?  Given the balance of forces on the ground and the diplomatic deadlock, this possibility should by no means be ruled out.

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/09/21/israel-syria-russia-military-concerns-liebermann-pkg.cnn/video/playlists/intl-latest-world-videos/

Jerusalem Post, 11/9

Moscow doubles down on support for Assad with military buildup in northwest Syria

The current increase of the Russian military presence in northwest Syria is a function of the declining military fortunes of the Assad regime. It represents a quantitative, rather than qualitative, change in the nature of the Russian engagement in Syria.

Moscow’s goal throughout the conflict has been to keep Syrian President Bashar Assad in power by all means necessary. The ends remain the same. But as the situation on the ground changes, so the Russian means employed to achieve this goal must change with it.

Since the outset of the Syrian civil war, the key problem for Assad has been manpower. Against a Sunni Arab rebellion with a vast pool of potential fighters from Syria’s 60 percent Sunni Arab majority and from among foreign volunteers, the regime has been forced to draw ever deeper from a far shallower base.

At the outset of the conflict, the Syrian Arab Army was on paper a huge force – of 220,000 regular soldiers plus an additional 280,000 reserves. But the vast majority of this army was unusable by the dictator. This is because it consisted overwhelmingly of Sunni conscripts, whose trustworthiness from the regime’s point of view was seriously in doubt. Since then, the army has shrunk in size from attrition, desertion and draft dodging.

The story of the last four years has been the attempt by Assad and his allies to offset the reality of insufficient manpower for the task at hand. This has been achieved by two means.

First, the regime has chosen to retreat from large swathes of the country, in order to be able to more effectively hold the essential areas it has to maintain with its limited numbers.

The abandonment of the country’s east and north led to the emergence of the areas of control held by Kurdish, Sunni Arab rebel, and later al-Qaida and Islamic State forces in these areas.

But of course retreating in order to consolidate is a strategy that can be pursued only so far. At a certain point, the area remaining becomes no longer viable for the purpose intended – namely, the preservation of the regime in a form that can guarantee the needs of its Russian and Iranian backers, and the relative security of the ruling elite itself and to a lesser extent of the population which relies on it and upon which it relies.

To offset the arrival at this point, Assad and his friends have striven in ever more creative ways to put sufficient men in the field, and to maintain the edge in military equipment which could hold back the masses of the lightly armed rebels.

There were the hastily assembled Alawi irregulars of the “shabiha.” Then an increasing commitment of Iranian regional assets – including the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi’ite militia forces. Then there was the Iranian-trained National Defense Forces. In recent months, northwest Syria has witnessed the arrival of “volunteers” from as far afield as the Hazara Shi’ite communities of Afghanistan (paid for by Tehran).

Despite all this effort, the rebels have, since the spring, been pushing westward toward Latakia province.

If the rebels reach Latakia, there is nowhere left to retreat to. The regime and its allies must hold the province or face defeat. The appearance of apparently Russian-crewed BTR-82A APCs on the Latakia battlefield appears to be testimony to Russia’s awareness of this – and its willingness to dig deeper for Assad – even if this means the direct deployment of Russian personnel on the battlefield in a limited way.

The apparent deployment of a growing force of the Russian army’s 810th Independent Marine Brigade at and around the naval depot of Tartus in Latakia province offers further evidence of this commitment, as well as a pointer to the interests in Syria that Moscow regards as vital.

The bolder claims of Russian Pchela 1T UAVs and even Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jets over the skies of the Idlib battlefield are not yet confirmed. But the respected Ruslanleviev Russian investigative website found the evidence regarding the APCs and the marines around Tartus to be persuasive.

There is a reason why the rebel march toward Latakia cannot simply be absorbed by the regime as a further tactical withdrawal, analogous to earlier retreats from Hasakah, Quneitra, most of Deraa, Aleppo, Idlib and so on.

Latakia province is the heartland of the Syrian Alawi community. It is a place where regime supporters have been able to convince themselves for most of the last four years that here, at least, they were safe.

If the rebels break through on the al-Ghab Plain, and the front line moves decisively into the populated areas of Latakia, this will be over.

The loss of Latakia province would render the hope of keeping a regime enclave intact no longer viable. It will raise the possibility of the regime losing its control of Syria’s coastline (vital for Assad’s Russian and Iranian backers).

This, in turn, could mean rebel capture of the Tartus naval depot. Hence the deployment of the marines, who, according to information available, have not yet been placed in forward positions facing the rebels. Rather, they are gathered around Tartus for its defense.

So the steady rebel advance in the direction of Latakia is producing a Russian response of a volume and nature not before witnessed on the Syrian battlefield.

Russian weaponry and Russian diplomatic support have been the vital lifelines for Assad throughout the last four years. Previous levels of support are no longer enough. So more is being provided.

Still, the current indications do not appear to suggest or presage a major conventional deployment of Russian forces. That would go against the known pattern favored by President Vladimir Putin.

Rather, Russian assistance, while on the increase, is likely to be limited to an active support role, perhaps extending to the use of some air power, along with behind-the-scenes advisory and training roles and the use of some specialized personnel in combat or combat support roles.

Meanwhile, as the Russians arrive in Latakia, the rebel mopping up of remaining regime enclaves in Idlib province adjoining Latakia is continuing. A force of the Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) this week captured the last remaining regime air base in the province, at Abu Zuhour.

Jaysh al-Fatah is a union of the northwest’s most powerful rebel groups. Prominent among its components is Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaida. This coalition, supported by Turkey and Qatar and armed with advanced weapons by Saudi Arabia, is altering the military landscape of northwest Syria.

In the weeks ahead, the fighting in northwest Hama and Latakia provinces looks set to intensify, with the Sunni rebels seeking to push further toward the coast.

Assad’s benighted regime, aided by its Russian and Iranian friends, will be throwing everything into the effort to stop them. It remains to be seen if the Russian bear’s increased pressure on the scales will prove again sufficient to maintain the balance.

Jerusalem Post, 14/8

Iran and Saudi Arabia have tabled rival peace plans for Syria, but their aims are irreconcilable and no end to the conflict is in sight.

As the civil war over the ruins of Syria grinds on into its fifth year, the fighting seems nowhere near an end. Indeed, there is no longer a single war taking place in the country. Rather, as Syria physically divides into separate entities, so the conflict, too, further subdivides, spawning new conflicts.

There are today no less than five different conflicts taking place within the borders of the country: the contests between the Sunni Arab rebels and the Assad regime/Hezbollah/Iran (the original war which brought about the others); the Kurdish YPG’s fight against Islamic State; intermittent clashes between the Sunni Arab rebels and Islamic State; Islamic State’s own war against the Assad regime; and now also the renewed war between Turkey and the PKK, which is being played out partly on Syrian soil.

The presence of these five interlocking conflicts notwithstanding, efforts to make diplomatic progress toward some form of settlement, or at least freezing of the conflict, are under way.

Recent days have seen details emerge of two rival “peace plans” for Syria. One of these is sponsored by the Iranians, the main supporters of the Assad regime, the other is the handiwork of Saudi Arabia, which wants the removal of the regime and supports elements among the Sunni Arab rebellion against it.

Neither plan stands much chance of implementation. But the content of the plans and their very existence demonstrate that the Syrian situation is not static. They also indicate the extent to which the aims of the backers of the combatant sides are currently irreconcilable.

The Iranian proposal, according to a report in the Araby al-Jadid newspaper on Monday, constitutes a plan for the freezing of the conflict in place and the subsequent de facto partition of Syria. According to the newspaper, the plan is being promoted by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif during his current round of meetings with regional officials.

The plan proposes that each side would hold on to its current areas of control, except for the city of Aleppo, which would come under international supervision.

The regime and the rebels would then cooperate with the international coalition in the fight against Islamic State. Negotiations between the sides would continue, with the intention of forming a “national government, writing a new constitution and holding nationally monitored elections.”

The regime, according to the plan, would keep control of “Damascus, the Syrian-Lebanese border, Qalamoun, western Ghouta, Zabadani, Homs and the area to its west all the way to the Syrian coast, and Tartus Port.”

This is in essence the area controlled by the regime today. Yet the apparent willingness of the regime’s backers to “settle” for this area rather than to continue to hold out for the eventual reconquest of the entire country (Syrian President Bashar Assad’s aim throughout the war) reflects the declining military fortunes of the Assad regime.

The regime now controls only just over 20 percent of the area of Syria. In the north, it is reeling from the hammer blows inflicted by the Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) rebel coalition. This coalition includes some of the strongest Islamist rebel forces in Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaida, is a component part of it, as is Ahrar al-Sham, the most powerful of the “homegrown” Salafi groups on the Syrian battlefield.

It is supported by Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi provision of US Tow antitank missiles, transported across the border from Turkey, is playing a telling role in the fighting, reducing the regime’s advantage in heavy weaponry.

As of now, Jaysh al-Fatah is attempting to destroy the final regime positions on the Al-Ghab plain. Loss of these positions raises the frightening prospect for the regime of the front line moving into the populated parts of Latakia Province, the heartland of its support.

Already, the Alawi villages in Latakia are within range of the rebels’ missiles. Entry into Latakia would effectively end Assad’s hopes of preserving intact a safe area of the country for the members of his sect and other supporters of the regime.

Should the pivotal Joureen base in Ghab fall to the rebels, the regime would then face the possibility of its supply lines to the city of Hama further south being cut off.

The regime is therefore fighting desperately to hold its positions on the flat, barren Sahel al-Ghab. Hezbollah fighters are there, fighting alongside Shi’ite “volunteers” from as far afield as Afghanistan.

The motley collection of regime defenders in Ghab reflect the key difficulty which Assad has faced since the commencement of the war. The narrow base of support of his regime has meant that he has faced severe challenges in mustering sufficient manpower to defend the areas under his control.

The solution until now has been to reduce these areas. At a certain point, of course, the shrinking size of the regime’s domain raises the question of its continued viability. This point may now be approaching.

The Saudis, however, have made clear that the current Iranian proposals are unacceptable. The sticking point, as Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir outlined in a statement this week, is that Riyadh wants Assad’s immediate departure from power rather than a continued role for him in any transitional phase.

“There is no place for Assad in the future of Syria,” Jubeir said, speaking in Moscow after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “Assad is part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

Saudi counterproposals, as reported in the Al-Hayat newspaper this week, envisage the immediate cessation of Iranian and other outside support for the regime and the departure of Hezbollah fighters from Syria, followed by new, UN-supervised presidential and parliamentary elections, after the stepping down of Assad.

The differences are familiar and not yet close to being bridged. The diplomacy, as ever, mirrors the military situation on the ground. Assad’s fortunes have declined. This is leading to reduced ambitions and consequently increased flexibility on the part of his backers. But there are no signs yet that his allies are about to desert him, nor that their reduced demands are anywhere close to being acceptable to the forces behind the rebels. So the fight goes on.

More importantly, it should be remembered that the war between Assad and the Sunni rebels is now only one of the several conflict systems that have torn Syria apart. So even if Assad’s declining fortunes were to lead to his departing the scene, the war for Syria’s succession, and the suffering of its inhabitants, would almost certainly not be at an end.

PJMedia, 1/8

In late June, I traveled to Iraq with the purpose of investigating the role being played by the Iranian-supported Shia militias in that country.

Close observation of the militias, their activities, and their links to Tehran is invaluable in understanding what is likely to happen in the Middle East following the conclusion of the nuclear agreement between the P5 + 1 powers and Tehran.
An Iranian stealth takeover of Iraq is currently under way. Tehran’s actions in Iraq lay bare the nature of Iranian regional strategy. They show that Iran has no peers at present in the promotion of a very 21st century way of war, which combines the recruitment and manipulation of sectarian loyalties; the establishment and patient sponsoring of political and paramilitary front groups; and the engagement of these groups in irregular and clandestine warfare, all in tune with an Iran-led agenda. With the conclusion of the nuclear deal, and thanks to the cash about to flow into Iranian coffers, the stage is now set for an exponential increase in the scale and effect of these activities across the region. So what is going on in Iraq, and what may be learned from it?

Power in Baghdad today is effectively held by a gathering of Shia militias known as the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization). This initiative brings together tens of armed groups, including some very small and newly formed ones. However, its main components ought to be familiar to Americans who remember the Iraqi Shia insurgency against the U.S. in the middle of the last decade. They are: the Badr Organization, the Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the Kataeb Hizballah, and the Sarayat al-Salam (which is the new name for the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr). All of these are militias of long-standing. All of them are openly pro-Iranian in nature. All of them have their own well-documented links to the Iranian government and to the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The Hashed al-Shaabi was founded on June 15, 2014, following a fatwa by venerated Iraqi Shia cleric Ali al-Sistani a day earlier. Sistani called for a limited jihad at a time when the forces of ISIS were juggernauting toward Baghdad. The militias came together, under the auspices of Quds Force kingpin Qassem Suleimani and his Iraqi right-hand man Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Because of the parlous performance of the Iraqi Army, the Shia militias have become in effect the sole force standing between ISIS and the Iraqi capital.

Therein lies the source of their strength. Political power grows, as another master strategist of irregular warfare taught, from the barrel of a gun. In the case of Iraq, no instrument exists in the hands of the elected government to oppose the will of the militias.

The militias, meanwhile, in their political iteration, are also part of the government.

In the course of my visit, I travelled deep into Anbar Province with fighters of the Kataeb Hizballah, reaching just eight miles from Ramadi City. I also went to Baiji, the key front to the capital’s north, accompanying fighters from the Badr Corps.

In all areas, I observed close cooperation between the militias, the army, and the federal police.

The latter are essentially under the control of the militias. Mohammed Ghabban, of Badr, is the interior minister. The Interior Ministry controls the police. Badr’s leader, Hadi al-Ameri, serves as the transport minister.

In theory, the Hashd al-Shaabi committee answers to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi. In practice, no one views the committee as playing anything other than a liaison role.

The real decision-making structure for the militias’ alliance goes through Abu Mahdi al Muhandis and Hadi al-Ameri, to Qassem Suleimani, and directly on to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

No one in Iraq imagines that any of these men are taking orders from Abadi, who has no armed force of his own, whose political party (Dawa) remains dominated by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his associates, and whose government is dependent on the military protection of the Shia militias and their political support. When I interviewed al-Muhandis in Baiji, he was quite open regarding the source of the militias’ strength:

We rely on capacity and capabilities provided by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The genius of the Iranian method is that it is not possible to locate a precise point where the Iranian influence ends and the “government” begins. Everything is entwined. This pro-Iranian military and political activity depends at ground level on the successful employment and manipulation of religious fervor. This is what makes the Hashed fighters able to stand against the rival jihadis of ISIS. Says Major General Juma’a Enad, operational commander in Salah al-Din Province:

The Hashed strong point is the spiritual side, the jihad fatwa. Like ISIS.

So this is Tehran’s formula. The possession of a powerful state body (the IRGC’s Quds Force) whose sole raison d’etre is the creation and sponsorship of local political-military organizations to serve the Iranian interest. The existence of a population in a given country available for indoctrination and mobilization. The creation of proxy bodies and the subsequent shepherding of them to both political and military influence, with each element complementing the other. And finally, the reaping of the benefit of all this in terms of power and influence.

This formula has at the present time brought Iran domination of Lebanon and large parts of Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Current events in Iraq form a perfect study of the application of this method, and the results it can bring. Is Iran likely to change this winning formula as a result of the sudden provision of increased monies resulting from the nuclear deal? This is certainly the hope of the authors of the agreement. It is hard to see on what it is based.

The deal itself proves that Iran can continue to push down this road while paying only a minor price, so why change? Expect further manifestations of the Tehran formula in the Middle East in the period ahead.

Jerusalem Post, 31/7

The latest events in northern Syria constitute a bold move by the Turkish leadership to deal with a most pressing problem, from their point of view.

That problem is not the continued existence of the Assad regime, far to the south. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would certainly like to see the end of this regime. But its continued truncated existence between Damascus and the coast and in isolated spots elsewhere does not constitute an immediate danger for the Turkish leader.

The issue is also not Islamic State. Certainly the killing of a Turkish soldier in a firefight on the border near the town of Kielis with Islamic State terrorists last Thursday will have angered Erdogan. But this alone cannot explain the sudden dramatic series of moves in subsequent days. After all, until now, the Turkish government’s attitude toward Islamic State had been one of tolerance and at times cooperation. Recent revelations indicate a laissez-faire attitude toward Islamic State oil-trading across the border, and to the transport of fighters across the border.

The strikes against Islamic State by the Turkish air force, and the decision to grant the US Air Force permission to use the Incirlik base near Adana constitute a feint.

Ankara’s stated intention of using its air power to create a 90-km. wide area of control between Jarabulus and Marea along the Syrian-Turkish border is directed against the ambitions of the Kurds, not those of Islamic State.

Why, then, has Erdogan decided to move against the Syrian Kurds?

Since January, Kurdish political stock has been steadily rising in the West. In the Kurdish YPG (Peoples’ Protection Units), the US found a reliable, non-Islamist ally that was willing and capable to act as a ground force against Islamic State in northern Syria. The combination of the YPG on the ground, and the USAF in the skies proved sufficient to save the besieged town of Kobani, and then to push the jihadis back to Tel Abyad in the east and to the outskirts of Jarabulus in the west.

These victories, however, were worrying from the Turkish point of view. First, as a result of their eastern advance, the Kurds were able to unite two of the three cantons they have established along the long Syrian-Turkish border. The creation of a corridor linking the Jazira canton, which stretches from the Syria-Iraq border to the town of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain), with the reconstituted Kobani enclave gave the Kurds control over a long and contiguous stretch of border.

No less important, the favorable publicity accruing to the Kurds because of their fight against Islamic State, and the presence of women fighters and secular Western volunteers in their ranks, served to turn the Syrian Kurds from a forgotten minority into the recipient of favorable and growing Western attention.

Still worse, from the Turkish point of view, the entirety of the remaining border area not under Kurdish control (with the exception of a tiny enclave around the town of Azaz) was in the hands of Islamic State. The logic of the situation thus appeared to suggest that a Kurdish offensive west of the Euphrates to drive Islamic State from the region, with the help of US air power, might be in the offing.

An offensive of this kind would have driven Islamic State from the border in its entirety. But it would almost certainly have had the additional effect of enabling the YPG to unite the Kobani enclave with the third Kurdish canton in northern Syria, established around the town of Afrin.

This, in turn, would have given de facto control of the entirety of the 800-km. border between Syria and Turkey to a Kurdish autonomous entity ruled over by the PYD (Democratic Union Party). The PYD is the Syrian franchise of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). The PKK is (or was) engaged in a stalled peace process with the government of Turkey. Core issues remain unresolved. Erdogan could not tolerate the emergence of a de facto Kurdish sovereignty stretching along the entirety of this border.

Hence the evident decision to intervene in northern Syria using air power. This is an attempt to mimic the successful pairing of US air power with Kurdish ground force that has driven the Islamic State back to the east and south. Erdogan wants to pair his air force with Sunni Islamist rebels in Aleppo and Idleb provinces, in order to destroy the Islamic State stronghold between Jarabulus and Marea. At the same time, as seen this week in the town of Zor Maghar, force will also be employed to deter the YPG from making any move west of the Euphrates.

The Sunni rebels in question will almost certainly be the Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest). This is a Turkish-, Qatari- and Saudi-supported gathering of Sunni Islamist forces, which includes Jabhat al-Nusra (the Syrian franchise of al-Qaida) and Ahrar ash-Sham, a powerful Salafi armed group.

If this venture is successful, the end result will be the removal of Islamic State from the border in its entirety, and its replacement, between Kobani and Afrin, by other Islamist rebel groups supported by Turkey.

This is the mission on which Erdogan is now embarked. It appears to have dimensions beyond northern Syria. The attacks on the PKK in Qandil and the threats to strip HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) parliament members of immunity may point to a broader political logic. Erdogan may be seeking to leverage the crisis with the Kurds for political gain, fanning the fires of Turkish nationalist sentiment to mobilize votes in a renewed general election.

He may be hoping to achieve the sought for parliamentary majority, which eluded him in elections earlier this year, and which he needs to bring about constitutional reform and expanded powers for the presidency.

But most urgently, the Turkish move into Syria is directed against the advances – physical and political – made by Syria’s Kurds in the course of the past year. Just how far Erdogan will go in pursuit of the goal of turning back the clock in Syrian Kurdistan remains to be seen. But contrary to much Western reporting, Turkey’s entry into the war in Syria does not constitute a belated reconciling by Ankara of a Western-led agenda vis-à-vis the war. Rather, Erdogan is carrying out a bait-and-switch move, founded on partnering with Sunni Islamist groups in order to reduce or destroy Kurdish aspirations.

Sunni Arabs see deal as facilitating further Iranian regional subversion, confirming US withdrawal from the Middle East

Jerusalem Post, 18/7

The response in the Arabic-speaking world to the conclusion of a deal between the P5+1 countries and the Islamic Republic of Iran over the latter’s nuclear program has divided along familiar lines.

Among pro-Iranian elements, such as President Bashar Assad of Syria and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the news of the deal has, predictably, been met with jubilation. Assad described the agreement as a “historic achievement” and a “great victory.”

Among Sunni elements opposed to the advance of Iran, concerns have focused less on the nuclear elements of the deal – that is, whether it will effectively halt Iran’s march toward the bomb. Instead, attention has centered on the deal’s implications for Iran’s push for hegemony in the Middle East, and its interference in and subversion of regional states as part of this effort.

An editorial by Salman Aldosary, in the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, summed up these concerns in the following passage:

“Western governments will be under great pressure to make the deal succeed and therefore turn a blind eye to many of Iran’s destabilizing policies as well as Tehran’s blatant interference in the domestic affairs of its neighbors. Moreover, the West will also have to neglect Tehran’s support of extremist militias, such as Iraq’s Popular Mobilization forces, also known as the Hashd al-Shaabi, that have gradually become almost part of Iraq’s military. Iran has established a policy based on the equation of fighting terrorism with terrorism amid deafening silence from the West.

“Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states can only welcome the nuclear deal, which in itself is supposed to close the gates of evil that Iran had opened in the region. However, the real concern is that the deal will open other gates of evil, gates which Iran mastered knocking at for years even while Western sanctions were still in place.”

From this perspective a particularly notable and dismaying aspect of the deal is its removal of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Quds Force commander, Maj.-Gen. Qasem Soleimani, from the list of those subject to sanctions by the West.

The ending of sanctions on the IRGC, and more broadly the likely imminent freeing of up to $150 billion in frozen revenue, will enable Iran to massively increase its aid to its long list of regional clients and proxies. Iran today is heavily engaged in at least five conflict arenas in the region.

The Iranian creation and proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon is the dominant political and military force in that country. The organization depends on Iranian support, training and funding to maintain this position.

In Syria, beleaguered dictator and Iranian client Assad remains in control in the west and south largely because of Iranian support and assistance – up to $1b. per month, according to some estimates. For as long as Assad remains, the war remains, allowing such monstrous entities as Islamic State and al-Qaida to flourish.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are unmatched in clandestine and proxy warfare, having effectively created an alternative armed force for Assad when his own army became unreliable in 2012. This force, the National Defense Forces, has plugged the gap in manpower which is the regime’s greatest vulnerability. But in addition, Iran has channeled others of its proxies, including Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi’ite militias and lately increasing numbers of Afghan Hazara Shi’ite “volunteers,” toward the Syrian battlefield.

In Iraq, the Iranian-supported Shi’ite militias of the Hashd al-Shaabi are playing the key role in defending Baghdad from the advance of Islamic State. These militias are trained and financed by the Revolutionary Guards and organized by Soleimani and his Iraqi right-hand man, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, also thought to be an IRGC member.

In Yemen, the Iranians are offering arms and support to the Ansar Allah, or Houthi rebels, who are engaged in a bloody insurgency against the government of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Among the Palestinians, Tehran operates Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a client/proxy organization, and is in the process of rebuilding relations with the Izzadin Kassam, the powerful military wing of Hamas.

All this costs money. In a pattern familiar to the experience of totalitarian regimes under sanctions in the past, Iran has preferred to safeguard monies for use in service of its regional ambitions, while allowing its population – other than those connected to the regime – to suffer the consequent shortages.

Still, in recent months, things weren’t going so well. Assad has been losing ground to the Sunni rebels. Hezbollah has been hemorrhaging men in Syria. The Shi’ite militias were holding Islamic State in Iraq but not advancing. Saudi intervention was holding back further advances by the Houthis in Yemen. Hamas was looking poverty-stricken and beleaguered in its Gaza redoubt.

The sanctions, plus these many commitments, were bringing the Iranian regime close to an economic crisis that would have confronted the regime with the hard choice of lessening its regional interference or facing the consequences.

No longer. The deal over the nuclear program is set to enable Tehran to shore up its investments, providing more money and guns to all its friends across the Middle East, who will as a result grow stronger, bolder and more ambitious. This, from the point of view of the main powers in the Sunni Arab world, is the key fallout (so to speak) from the deal concluded in Vienna. IRGC “outreach” to Shi’ite minorities in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and to the Shi’ite majority in Bahrain, is also likely to increase as a result of the windfall.

It has been felt in recent years in Riyadh, Cairo, Amman and other Sunni Arab capitals that the United States is determined to withdraw from active involvement in the region, and in pursuit of this goal is currently pursuing a dangerous path of appeasement of Iran.

This impression is compounded not only by the stance toward the Iranian nuclear program but also by the US response to Iran’s activities across the Middle East. In Iraq, the US appears to be acting in tandem with Iranian goals, with no apparent awareness of the problems in this regard. Similarly, in Lebanon the West is supporting and equipping the Lebanese Armed Forces, without understanding that the Lebanese state is largely a shell, within which Hezbollah is the living and directing force. In Syria, the US is pursuing a half-hearted campaign against Islamic State, while leaving the rest of the country to its internal dynamics.

The nuclear deal compounds and completes the picture. From the perspective of the Saudis and other Sunni Arabs, Iranian ruthlessness, clarity and advance combined with the flailing, retreating US regional policy now so much in evidence spell potential disaster.

The Sunni Arabs, along with Israel and other regional opponents of Iran, will now develop strategies independent of the US to stem this advance and turn it back. The outcome of that struggle will determine the fate of the Middle East.