Gabriel Elefteriu
History is not merely on the move again – as we have become used to saying in response to the great succession of extraordinary political and military events since about 2014-16, that are shattering the old rules and geopolitical status quo – but it is racing forward at a gallop. Over the past couple of weeks it has been events in Syria that have provided the latest shock to the global system, with the swift and sudden implosion of Assad’s regime at the hands of rebels left over from a civil war that the Syrian president had, by all accounts, won four years ago.
It is perhaps too early to identify all the elements involved in this coup de main, and exactly how it was accomplished. One difficulty is that the Syrian rebels are split into a multitude of groups with overlapping loyalties, shifting affiliations and opaque interests; discerning who’s who at any one point, and what their game is, is hard even for the intelligence agencies. Nowhere than in Syria could the expression, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, apply with more reason and effect.
Another problem is tracking the involvement of foreign state actors within this maze of war and deceit. For over a decade Syria has been an arena of confrontation and occasionally (sometimes simultaneously) cooperation between different combinations of Turkish, Iranian, Russian, Israeli, Gulf Arab and American interests – to name but the most prominent players. Turkey and Israel are by far the biggest beneficiaries of the recent turn of events; any direct role they might have had in covertly enabling aspects of the rebel offensive remains, for now, a mystery.
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