Erdogan gains political ground in Syria

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has emerged as the key external player in Syria following the sudden fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Baath Party. It ensured supremacy by supporting Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a defected branch of al-Qaeda, and merging armed opposition groups into the Syrian National Army (SNA).

To assert his credibility, Erdogan sent intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin to Damascus to speak with HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al Golani, and Syrian transitional government leader Mohammed al-Bashir.

After opposition factions took control of Syria's northwest Idlib province, Ankara armed and protected them. Over the past year, Turkey prepared them to launch the surprise 11-day campaign that toppled Assad's 54-year-old regime. This has become Erdogan's long-standing goal because Assad has refused to give in to his demands.

Erdogan began making these demands in 2009 by calling on Assad to amend the Syrian constitution which enshrines secularism as the basis of governance and to allow the Muslim Brotherhood to enter political life. After unrest erupted in 2011, Erdogan recruited defected Syrian army officers and men to form the Syrian National Army and supported the creation by Syrian expatriates of the Istanbul-based Syrian National Council. Erdogan was joined by Western powers in pressuring Assad's government to negotiate the transition to a new government that would share power with the expatriate opposition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Erdogan is ready to pursue three policy goals now that Assad is gone. First, he claims that he will stabilize Syria by achieving a political solution in accordance with the 2015 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254. This calls for the formation of an inclusive interim government that would hold elections allowing Syrians to choose their leaders. Erdogan is counting on HTS to manage not only the transition but also the elections.

Second, Erdogan is determined to repatriate most of the 2.9 million Syrian refugees living in Türkiye, who have become unpopular with many Turks. He is accused of welcoming them at the start of the Syrian civil conflict and of supporting the armed and political opposition's battle against Assad, which prolonged the refugees' stay in Turkey.

Third, Erdogan is determined to contain the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia, which has established an autonomous region in the northeast that covers 25 percent of Syrian territory. He views the SDF as a terrorist partner of Turkey's Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought Ankara on and off since 1978. Taking on the SDF is tricky because it is protected by 900 U.S. troops and U.S. air power. Washington came to rely on the SDF, the most effective local fighting force, during the 2017-2019 campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

Turkey's struggling economy could benefit, as Ankara's ties to HTS could allow Turkish companies to benefit from preferential treatment once Syria begins rebuilding war-ravaged cities, towns and infrastructure. Turkish exports of food, fuel and other supplies could flourish immediately and once stability is restored.

While Turkey gained political and military influence in Syria as well as a strengthening of its regional status, Iran suffered dramatic losses following the fall of Assad. Tehran was Damascus' closest ally and Syria was the only state in the “Axis of Resistance” founded by Iran against Israel and the United States, which included Palestinian Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah and the Houthis from Yemen.

However, before Assad was toppled, Axis membership had been reduced in Yemen. Israel crushed Hamas in Gaza and paralyzed Hezbollah in Lebanon. This has significantly reduced Iran's political-military reach in the region.

While Damascus maintained normal diplomatic relations with the US-backed pro-Israeli regime in Tehran, Syria and Iran developed close strategic ties following the overthrow of the Shah by the 1979 Iranian clerical revolution. feuds between rival branches of the Baath Party in Iraq and Syria, the latter supported Iran during the 1980-1988 war. The Gulf States armed and financed Iraq. As Baghdad enjoyed broad Arab political support, opting for Iran, Syria endured decades of Arab ostracism that lasted through the Syrian civil conflict and by proxy and only ended in 2023 .

After the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty deprived the Arab world of the military power needed to fight Israel, Iran encouraged the “Axis of Resistance” to oppose Israel and the United States. -United. After Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, Iran forged Hezbollah from various Shiite factions. Iran has also trained and armed Hamas fighters and provided weapons to the Houthis.

Before Assad's overthrow, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force provided the Syrian army with advice, logistical support, weapons and ground forces while Russia provided weapons and air cover. Armed opposition factions have been driven out of the areas around Damascus, Homs and Hama, as well as eastern Aleppo and confined to Syria's northwestern province of Idlib. Idlib being Turkey's neighbor, Erdogan was geographically well placed to carry out his plan. Tehran's role in Syria ended with the victory of HTS and its partners.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed Israel, the United States and a neighbor for Assad's fall, without naming Turkey. Although Khamenei is the main person responsible for Tehran's Syria policy, Tehran officials seek to avoid criticism by saying they predicted Assad's collapse because of his long-standing refusal to negotiate with the opposition . Syria's loss comes at a time of trials and tribulations for Iran's clerical leaders who face a struggling economy, growing internal dissent and Donald Trump's return to power in the United States in a month.

Trump has yet to comment on Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's call for a resumption of the 2015 deal lifting sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. Trump withdrew from the deal in May 2018 and imposed 1,500 sanctions on Iran, crippling its economy.

Iran responded by violating limits on uranium enrichment and stockpiles and reducing oversight by the International Atomic Energy Organization. If Trump rejects Pezeshkian's initiative and sticks to his “maximum pressure” hardline, Iran may decide to pursue the nuclear weapon option to deter the United States and others to attack Iran in order to bring about regime change.
Michael Jansen, political correspondent