With the Fall of the Assad Regime in Syria, Let the Chaos Spread Holiday Joy Across the Land

After going on fourteen years of civil war in Syria with neither the Bashar al-Assad regime or any of the rebel factions making any significant headway, all of a sudden and right before Donald Trump assumes the presidency, the al-Qaeda-linked Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) swept across the country in roughly ten days, first capturing the second largest city of Aleppo and then moving onto the capital of Damascus. Now, the Joe Biden administration, Israel, and Turkey are taking advantage of the chaos and uncertainty to bomb the country and seize territory, and this should make one wonder if this was a planned and orchestrated move by the United States government and its allies to strip away Russian and Iranian influence and turn Syria into a country compliant with American interests.

Officially, the Biden administration is ecstatic about the fall of Assad, which was backed by Russia and Iran, but had nothing to do with the rise of the al-Qaeda-linked group; and Turkey, which assists other dissident factions that are opposed to the United States’ rebel allies, also did not take part in allowing HTS to take control. The complex web of fighting and infighting has caused a power vacuum that has led to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL) being able to seize land, and this is the reason utilized by the United States government to justify having had 900 American troops stationed in the northeast section of the country for the last several years (you never know when those pesky ISIS’ will come back, so you need to have an army there just in case). Although the United States has been attempting to keep ISIS at bay, it may have allowed (and even given the greenlight) for HTS to push through the country and fill that vacuum.

HTS is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, but yet, the Biden administration is more than happy to welcome it in as the new ruling class in Syria (what could go wrong?). Do not worry, though, because the United States is considering revoking the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation, because, you know, al-Qaeda, which has worked with the United States government in the past, is sometimes good and sometimes bad. It just depends on the situation and how everyone is feeling in the moment. Just wait until the United States military has to be deployed to topple HTS several years down the line because it did not build the inclusive and secular government that it said that it would, as that is what often happens in American foreign policy (best friends become enemies).

So, where did HTS come from, you may ask? Well, the founder of the organization, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, started his terrorist/freedom fighter career by resisting the American occupation of Iraq when he joined al-Qaeda, and he was later imprisoned at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca. Of course, he also had an ax to grind with Israel, and although he was born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Syria, his parents were from the Golan Heights, which is a fertile territory that Israel stole from Syria in 1967 during the Six-Day War. Furthermore, HTS stemmed from Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front), which formed as an al-Qaeda affiliate group to oppose the Assad regime in 2011, and when Al-Nusra Front disbanded in 2016, HTS replaced it by forming a coalition with other rebel groups. Although HTS no longer officially has links to al-Qaeda and has tried to distance itself from its past, that is not just something that you believe because they say that it is the case. Really, the United States should not be involved in these local issues, and then, we would not have to worry about which groups were once our enemies but have now been reformed. The new transitional prime minister of Syria, Mohammad al-Bashir, will really have to prove that he is ready to normalize relations with other countries and not support groups that will then kill American troops.

How did we get to where we are? In order to understand the full picture, you have to take a brief trip down memory lane. Back in 2014 (and through the Central Intelligence Agency in 2013, and perhaps as early as 2012), the Barack Obama administration, with bipartisan support from Congress, began “funding, training, and arming” (and conducting airstrikes in support of) the “moderate” rebels in Syria to both assist in the takedown of the Assad regime and to prevent the expansion of ISIS, which had been able to form partially because of the vacuum of power left over from the United States invasion and overthrow of the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein (both Hussein and Assad, love or hate them, were strong leaders who were able to keep these Islamist threats at bay, so once the regimes were weakened, ISIS could take advantage of the situation). During the process of supporting the anti-Assad rebels, American weapons made it to al-Qaeda and affiliated groups (and ISIS), so the United States was indirectly (whether inadvertently or intentionally) supporting its enemies in order to try to eliminate an ally of Russia and Iran (Assad), though both Russia and Iran oppose ISIS as well (again, the situation is complex). Some of the rebel groups that the Obama administration armed ended up surrendering their weapons to or voluntarily joining ISIS, which further strengthened our supposed enemy and allowed it to capture roughly one-third of Syria (could covert operations have been conducted to form and arm ISIS intentionally so that there would be justification to have a presence in Syria?).

Throughout the years, the United States government has partnered with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), officially to fight against ISIS, but in reality, American foreign policy always favored regime change. SDF was the main anti-Assad rebel group controlling the northeast section of the country along the border with Turkey, which supported the Syrian National Army (SNA was previously the Free Syrian Army, or FSA). Both the SDF and SNA, although waging war against the Assad regime, are enemies of each other too, meaning that the United States and Turkey, which is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally, have been engaging in a proxy war with each other (two allies fighting). The main reason that Turkey is fighting against SDF is that the organization contains Kurdish fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey regards as a terrorist organization that has worked to carve out part of Turkish territory to form an independent Kurdistan (parts of Iraq and Syria, and perhaps Iran, could become part of this new nation too). In fact, even after the fall of the Assad regime, Turkey continues to bomb parts of Syria and assist the SNA in capturing territory in order to keep Kurdish fighters from advancing. Since Turkey has wanted the downfall of the Assad regime for years, it is suspected that Turkey directly or indirectly assisted HTS in the capture of the entirety of Syria (Turkey considers HTS a terrorist group but has partnered with it over the years). At the very least, Turkey helped spark new fighting between the SDF and SNA, which potentially allowed HTS to mobilize and move around without being detected (or, maybe the SDF and SNA made a deal with the United States and Turkey and looked the other way while HTS was advancing). The question now is: will Turkey abide by the consolidation of power formed under a new Syrian government, or will it attempt to seize Kurdish lands and occupy them under Ankara’s control?

Turkey is hardly the only outside power taking advantage of the situation. In fact, Israel, which also wanted to see the Assad regime toppled, has claimed some responsibility for HTS’ rise because it took “forceful” actions against and distracted Iran and Hezbollah (which has used Syria as a supply route to and from Lebanon) and has been striking targets throughout Syria for years. Since Assad’s fall, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has bombarded Syria with hundreds of airstrikes (480 and counting), including in Damascus (which was off limits for over fifty years due to a peace deal, but now that Assad is gone, everything is on the table), and it has also destroyed Syria’s naval fleet and sent ground troops deep into the country to capture as much territory as can be stomached by the rest of the world (since it is Israel doing it, most people justify the theft of territory, because God apparently gives this particular secular state the authority to torment people in faraway lands, or something). Initially, it was argued that Israeli troops needed to occupy the buffer zone in an unprecedented move to protect the Golan Heights (which was Syrian territory stolen in 1967) from radical forces moving across the border, but the argument now is that since Israel does not know who or what will control Syria in the future, the Benjamin Netanyahu regime needs to be proactive and steal land beyond the buffer zone just in case Islamist forces “embed” themselves next to Israel’s territory. So, let me get this straight. You helped to overthrow the Assad regime knowing that it would lead to destabilization, but after you did that, you cried that it was a national security risk not to seize territory? It almost seems like the plan all along was to take land that did not belong to you.

Do not worry, though, as the United States will take the moral high ground here, right? Well, I guess if you consider that the Biden administration has only (so far) authorized dozens of airstrikes and not hundreds (I suppose killing dozens of people is better than killing hundreds, if that makes one sleep better at night), that is absolutely the case. Wait a minute, I thought the war was over and everyone was happy that the brutal Assad thug was gone? No, no, no, my naïve friend, we must ramp up the war effort because you never know when the ISIS resurgence will rear its ugly head (there could be ISIS around that corner in Syria, or maybe under that bed, or it could be lurking across the hallway and down the stairs). Now that the uncertainty of the country has raised concerns that ISIS will come out from its bat cave and spread like a coronavirus across the land, the Biden administration is “protecting” Americans thousands of miles away from a weakened group in Syria (in the name of freedom, democracy, and security, of course). Here is an idea, if you do not want ISIS to spread, stop meddling in other countries’ affairs and causing uncertain situations that would give your enemies the ability to gain a foothold. But no, we would not want to do something so childish. Where is the money in that?

Of course, we would never support the terrorist group HTS and its rise to conquer all of Syria, right? No, HTS just suddenly and out of the blue had the money, soldiers, and resources to do something that no rebel group had been able to do in almost fourteen years of fighting. There was absolutely no support from the Biden administration, whatsoever (though, as alluded to before, the funding and arming may have been funneled through NATO ally Turkey). It was just a coincidence that HTS could capture all of Syria within ten days.

Although we have no proof (at this time) that the United States government was directly involved, we know that there was intent (the United States has been attempting to rid the country of Assad since the Obama administration), opportunity (Russia and Iran were being distracted by Ukraine, Gaza, and Lebanon, and therefore, they could not put significant resources into keeping Assad in power), and capability (this should be obvious because HTS was able to take over the country). We also know the history of the United States’ support for rebel groups and how there is a complex web of entangling alliances and loose associations that cause chaos and infighting, so there were several ways that covert American support could reach HTS without it being made public or appearing to be intentional.

Additionally, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claims to have evidence that the United States, Israel, and Turkey conspired (in command rooms) to plot the downfall of Assad, and although we may be able to take this with a grain of salt (considering the source), we also should consider that it is true. As outlined above, all three countries had something to gain by replacing the governing authorities in Syria, and covert operations and collusion between the United States and Israel for foreign policy objectives is not unprecedented (actually, the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, specializes in underground overthrows of governments). If you think outside of the box, it seems obvious that the United States had a hand in HTS’ rise to power. The fact that the Biden administration is very willing to overlook the concerns of an al-Qaeda-linked group taking over the country and throw its support (most likely of the financial and weaponry variety) behind HTS sort of indicates that it may have also partnered with the group in an operation to overthrow Assad (it is very likely that the Biden administration is lying about this).

Is Syria just another front to transition us over from Cold War II into World War III, or is the Biden administration attempting to sabotage incoming President Donald Trump and force him to clean up the mess that has now been made (securing the profits to the military-industrial complex before they are threatened)? It is unclear what will transpire in Syria in the future, but one thing is for certain: the American Empire will be there every step of the way meddling as it always does.

Thank you for reading, and please check out my book, The Global Bully, and website.