Where does the Syrian Civil War go from here

George Monastiriakos

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For years, experts argued that President Bashar al-Assad had “won” the Syrian Civil War. Yet that couldn’t be further from the truth. Assad only survived the war, thanks to Russian airpower and Iranian mercenaries.

Now that his allies are distracted, the Assad dynasty is more fragile than ever. This is why a Turkish-backed militia launched its offensive last week.

So how did we get here? Years ago, Russia, Iran and Turkey aimed to end the Syrian Civil War through the Astana Process instead of enforcing United Nations Security Council 2254. Though three of the four main power brokers in Syria (the U.S. being the fourth) participated in at least twenty rounds of talks in Kazakhstan, the interests of ordinary Syrians — who suffered and sacrificed most to reform their country — were mostly an afterthought.

Why were Russia, Iran and Turkey involved in the Syrian Civil War?

Put simply, Moscow wanted to secure its naval facilities in Tartus and its air base in Latakia — to project power in the East Mediterranean and supply its mercenaries in Africa. Tehran sought strategic depth by arming its proxies to insulate itself from regional rivals, including Turkey and Israel. Ankara sought regime change in Damascus, then to stop the flow of Syrian refugees into Turkey, and finally, to prevent the formation of a Kurdish state in northeast Syria.

In May 2017, this troika agreed to establish four “de-escalation” zones to end the fighting in the non-Syrian Democratic Forces and then-Islamic State-held territory. In typical Russian fashion, this so-called “de-escalation” was one-sided.

Assad, Iran and Russia repeatedly violated the agreement, seizing three of the four zones and parts of the fourth. This eventually left most of the armed opposition and nearly 3 million Syrians — including some 2 million civilians displaced by Assad, Moscow and Tehran — besieged in tiny Idlib along Syria’s northwestern border with Turkey.