In a lightning fast operation Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) officially overthrow the Baathist regime in Damascus. HTS burst out of their territory in Idlib province, while getting substantial support and a green light from the Turkish state, and marched on, with little to no resistance from the state and succeeded in a regime change operation.
Other Salafist and Western-backed forces also participated in the operation ranging from former FSA participants to ISIS.
Genocidal Zionist Leader Netanyahu declared triumphantly, “This collapse is the direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran.” While reports trickle in that the US was in touch with rebels before the seizing of Damascus.
The Assad regime was always an opportunistic project. His father, the former leader of the state, drifted the Syrian regime from a traditional socialist perspective, courted the bourgeoisie, stifled land reform, and implemented a dynastic state that became rife with corruption.
It was always the weakest link in every aspect of the pro-Palestinian camp in the region, but recent suggestions are hinting at a greater level of duplicity than was previous known.
Reports are suggesting that Assad refused to open a Golan front against the Zionist regime when the invasion of Lebanon was launched. Ansarallah and the Iraqis, very publicly, stated they wanted combat and Syria would have been the clear launching pad, but that evidently may have been stifled.
Assad also seemingly wanted to continue moving closer to the Gulf states and likely, foolishly, believed his acceptance by those parties would ensure a degree of stablity — clearly forgetting the lessons of Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi in Libya. When he refused to engage with Turkish offers of negotation (he demanded a full Turkish withdrawal from Syria) Erdogan launched a plan, that likely was coordinated with the West, and had clearly been organized for quite some time.
The change of unpopular regimes are often causes for celebration, but the context of this operation is very different.
The Palestinian Revolution and the Rojava Revolution are the most advanced revolutionary struggles in the region. The Palestinian Revolution is of particular note because the West, through its genocidal campaign has tried to exterminate the Resistance and the population, preferably while hiding its atrocities. The Zionist regime could not defeat Hezbollah or Hamas on the battlefield and was forced into a ceasefire. This action hides its crimes as the world moves away from Gaza, it severs the arms link to Hezbollah, and leaves the Resistance in an incredibly precarious position.
The Zionist regime immediately declared the collapse of the 1974 “disengagement agreement” with Syria, after “Syrian forces have abandoned their positions,” and have begun to occupy Syrian territory, in a process of expanding their greater “Israeli” colonial ambitions. The regime has also been on a prolonged bombing campaign, declaring Syria is the new forefront of their war. Meanwile, HTS made it clear, even in light of the aggression that the US and the Zionist regime will be partners.
HTS, formerly Al-qaeda has, for some time, been supported and endorsed by the Zionist regime and the US in Syria. US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, famously said in 2012, in a leaked memo released by Wikipedia, that “al-qaeda is on our side” in Syria.
In Rojava, or northeast Syria, the Kurdish revolutionary movement, having not allied with the Palestinian Revolution, has now found itself in equally as precarious terrain. Manbij city in the north is being besieged from Turkish backed fighters, and seems likely to fall imminently. In the south, in Dier ez-Zor, the Kurdish forces are being attacked as well.
Turkey has now become the kingmaker in Syria and the PKK has been his central concern militarily and now he has no obstacles in the war. The PKK, regionally, also has very limited allies now outside of the revolutionary left. In the Medya Defense Zones in Iraq, the PKK is fighting a revolutionary war against Turkey that has shown great success, but Syria may prove exceedingly difficult.
The overthrow of the Syrian regime then is a blessing in disguise: a reactionary Western-backed force that was previosuly defeated rose from the ashes with Turkish and Western support, and have put the two most triumphant revolutions in our time on the backfoot. Time will tell, and quickly, about the future prospects for Palestine, Kurdistan and Syria.