Hollow victory unlikely to end conflict as rebels vow to fight on
DEFENCE EDITOR
When, as now seems inevitable, forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad reclaim control of Aleppo, it will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.
Ever since rebel forces attempted to seize control of Syria’s second city in the summer of 2012, Aleppo has been one of the main focal points of the bloody campaign to overthrow the Assad regime.
Initially Aleppo, an ancient city of 2.3 million people which was once Syria’s main industrial and financial centre, was unaffected by the antigovernment protests that swept the country as part of the so-called Arab Spring in 2011. But it soon became embroiled in the turmoil, mainly because of its proximity to Turkey, which from the outset lent its support to the Sunni groups seeking to overthrow Assad’s Alawite dictatorship, which has long been an indispensable ally of Iran, the region’s Shia superpower.
The rivalry with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan predates the Syrian conflict, to the extent that the two countries nearly came to blows on several occasions over Assad’s support for Kurdish PKK fighters, whom the Turks regard as terrorists. Thus Mr Erdogan lost no time exploiting the outbreak of anti-government protests in Syria in the hope of achieving his long-held ambition of toppling the Assad regime.
Turkish support for the rebels was therefore essential when they launched their 2012 offensive to force the withdrawal of government forces from Aleppo. Some of the rebel groups were backed by Western countries like Britain and America which, appalled at the Assad regime’s unrestrained use of violence against its own people, joined the call for regime change in Damascus. Major Sunni powers, such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, also provided help as they saw an opportunity to humiliate the ayatollahs, for whom Syria is a vital strategic asset.
The rebel assault on Aleppo, though, was not decisive, and left the city divided between the rival factions of pro-regime forces in the west and a large rebel enclave in the east. The city quickly came to symbolise the bitter conflict between the rebels and their Western and Sunni sponsors, and the embattled Assad regime with its backers in Tehran.
It was only after Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to involve Russian forces in the conflict in 2014 on behalf of Assad that the balance of power in Aleppo began to swing back towards pro-government forces.
Moscow’s military intervention in Syria came a year after America and Britain had, in August 2013, backed away from their promise to bomb the Assad regime if it continued to use chemical weapons against the Syrian people. President Barack Obama had warned the continued use of such weapons was a “red line” for Washington, but his failure to respond with force when Assad was accused of using chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus demonstrated that Western support for the rebel cause was, at best, lukewarm.
Sensing Western weakness, and fearing that Russia might lose an important strategic ally of its own if the Assad regime fell (Russia has maintained important military bases in Syria at Tartus and Latakia since the Soviet era), Mr Putin opted for military intervention in Syria, a move that has changed the course of the conflict decisively in Assad’s favour.
The deadly combination of Russian air power, combined with the ruthless fighting qualities of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Shia militias such as Hizbollah, has enabled the Assad regime to go on the offensive, to the extent that, when Aleppo falls, it can claim it has reclaimed control of all major cities.
But while it now seems only a matter of time before the remaining rebel areas of eastern Aleppo are reclaimed by pro-Assad forces, it is likely to prove a hollow victory.
To start with, the fact that many of the rebels have vowed to continue fighting even if they are forced to withdraw from Aleppo suggests this will not be the end of Syria’s civil war, which is about to enter its sixth year and has already claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people, while rendering millions more homeless.
If the rebels cannot control the main towns and cities, then they will simply adopt their tactics and revert to guerrilla warfare. The Russians know only too well from their experience in Afghanistan during the 1980s how effective such tactics can be, when the military might of the Soviet Union suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands of primitive Afghan fighters.
The Assad regime also needs to understand that the brutality it has visited upon civilians caught up in the fighting has only succeeded in radicalising further the men and women fighting for the rebel cause.
Long gone are the days when Western leaders could talk about supporting a moderate, secular Syrian opposition that would establish Western-style democracy and the rule of law in Damascus once Assad was no more. These days, the majority of those taking the fight to the Russians, Iranians and other assorted Assad loyalists are die-hard Sunni Islamists who seek to transform the political landscape of the Middle East to their own ends, as well as inflicting defeat on their Shia rivals in Tehran.
For this reason, countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia are unlikely to take the fall of Aleppo lightly. On the contrary they will continue to support those groups that they believe are capable of maintaining the fight against Assad and the Iranians.
All of which suggests that the fall of Aleppo will only signal the start of a new, and more bloody, phase in this barbaric conflict.