The rapid collapse of Syria's brutal Bashar al-Assad regime has shocked every geopolitical analyst and self-styled Middle East “expert.”
After 53 years of the Assad family's brutal rule and 13 years of bloody civil war, Syria's strongman suddenly fled to Moscow seeking asylum as rebels completed their siege of Damascus.
In the blink of an eye, one of the two Ba'athist Arab states disappeared, along with Saddam Hussein's Iraq before the US-led 2003 invasion.
Let's start with the obvious. Assad was a world-historic tyrant, even by the standards of the murky Arab world. He led with an iron fist, imprisoning political opponents and attacking his totalitarian security apparatus against all those he deemed a threat. Since Syria's civil war began in 2011, he has killed more than 500,000 people, the majority of them civilian non-combatants. He used chemical weapons against his own people on numerous occasions. He aligned himself with some of the worst figures on the world stage, and by the time he fled, his regime had become a satrapy jointly detained by two rogue states: Russia and Iran.
There are thus many reasons to rejoice that Assad, a minority Alawite in a Sunni country, is gone. From a Western geopolitical perspective, Russia losing easy access to Mediterranean ports and leaving a gaping hole in Iran's “Shia crescent” of influence is a clear positive. Its influence has spread from Iran in the not-so-distant past through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon, where Hezbollah has overrun it. And from a humanitarian point of view, one of the worst butchers in recent world history has been banished.
The question, as is often the case, is the difficult question of what happens next. And therein lies the friction.
The American foreign policy establishment is dominated by neoconservatives on the “right” and neoliberals on the left. Both sides seek above all to weaken and overthrow authoritarian regimes, and to replace them with leaders and forms of government that better fit the unique mold of Western liberal democracies. Therefore, some critics say: Josh Rogina neocon/neoliberal Washington Post columnist, who posted this thoughtless piece of crap on X last weekend: “Syria is free. The rebels have won. The people have been freed from tyranny. … The world should celebrate Syria's liberation and support its success.”
Will you come again? Apparently, “freedom” now means… sharia law. Have we forgotten about the Arab Spring? Don't let stubborn facts get in the way of a convenient one-size-fits-all narrative.
But it would be irresponsible to ignore Damascus's new boss. The rebels who overthrew Assad are led by Abu Mohammad al-Julani. He is a man who has spent most of his adult life as a jihadist mercenary. Al-Julani has previously worked with al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq, and al-Nusra Front. These are all Islamic extremist terrorist organizations, plain and simple. Al Julani is currently in first place Hyatt Tahrir Al ShamThis is, you guessed it, another foreign terrorist organization recognized by the United States. Al-Julani, who has ditched his trademark jihadist camouflage for more sophisticated Western-style clothing, says he has changed. “I think everyone goes through different stages and experiences in life,” he says. explained to CNN. This was followed by al-Julani's publication of the following document: statement We assert that “diversity is strength.”
Call him DEI Jihad.
If your antenna is broken, you are not alone. For a grizzled Recep Tayyip Erdoğan-backed jihadist to spout liberal platitudes about “diversity” right now is probably the least convincing political maneuver of my lifetime. The dunderheads of Foggy Bottom and Langley, Virginia must be happy, but only stupid people or ruling class neocons/neoliberal moralists are naive enough to believe this nonsense – I say it again and again That's probably the only thing.
Overall, it's probably a good thing that Assad is gone. It is significant that the United States' two major geopolitical adversaries, Russia and Iran, would suffer such heavy losses. For Iran in particular, this is the second major loss in two and a half months, following Israel's historic annihilation of Hezbollah.
But we should not act as if the rise of HTS and al-Julani is an obvious benefit. it's not. The risk of a complete ISIS/Taliban-style caliphate taking over Syria is very real. It would likely be a humanitarian disaster for the region's Kurds and Druze and a strategic disaster for Israel and the US's moderate Arab allies, activating jihadist sleeper cells across the Western world. It would be a more insidious disaster in terms of potential. And Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamist strongman and Hamas brat with terrifying ambitions for the neo-Ottoman Empire, is bolder than ever.
Of course, Al Julani and HTS could turn Syria into a giant Ivy League-style DEI bureaucracy. Perhaps Harvard University's faculty lounge will be voluntarily deported to Damascus. At least that sounds like a win.
To learn more about Josh Hammer and read features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website. www.creators.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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