December 2024 – Globalities

The above photo is from a meeting Pres. Putin had with PM Netanyahu in 2018, when they fine-tuned some arrangements for coordination (“deconfliction”) in Syria

On December 13, I made a first stab at analyzing some of the regional and global repercussions of the recent rapid disintegration of the Asad government in Syria– and indeed, also, of the Syrian state’s entire defensive capability, which Israel bombed to smithereens in the days (and hours) right after the collapse of Pres. Asad’s government on December 8.

Over the past week I have learned more, and I hope come to understand more, about the decision-making in Moscow that was a vital factor in Asad’s collapse– and also, about the possible effects of this collapse on the regional dynamics within West Asia, and on the worldwide balance of power in an era of rapid geopolitical change. In this essay I will sketch out some of my current thinking/understanding on these matters so crucial to the fate of humankind.

The above image shows some of the Syrian navy vessels destroyed by Israel this week.

Over the past 17 days, the system of (Baath Party + military) governance that the Asad family had maintained over Syria for 53 years underwent a catastrophic and complete collapse. This collapse had been many years in the making; and now, it has numerous implications for the regional balance in West Asia– not least for the serious blow it has delivered to “Axis of resistance”, the previously hardy alliance of regional forces working together to resist the cruel, expansionist assaults of the Israeli military. Asadist Syria had not been an active participant in those efforts, but it provided a key land bridge for interactions between the resistance forces in Iran/Iraq and those in Lebanon.

The severing of this land bridge will have significant, though almost certainly not fatal, effects on the capabilities of Hizbullah and its resistance allies in Lebanon. (We discussed some of these effects in the discussion I was part of in the Electronic Intifada livestream on Wednesday.)

A potentially much more serious effect on the anti-Israeli resistance may well turn out to be the re-emergence throughout West Asia of the same kind of harshly anti-Shi-ite sectarianism that has been publicly displayed by leaders (and rank-and-filers) of the victorious, al-Qaeda-style Hai’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) movement that rode into glory in Damascus on Sunday and Monday. (We discussed that, too, in the livestream. An imperfectly edited version of the transcript of our convo can be downloaded here.)

But even far beyond West Asia, the collapse of Asadist Syria, and indeed of the Syrian state itself in any recognizable form, and the manner in which that collapse transpired, will have stark– and as of now, only dimly predictable– repercussions on a global balance that has anyway been in an increasing degree of flux over recent years.

Month: December 2024

Setbacks for the Axis of Resistance and for progress to a multi-polar world

Syria’s collapse and the global balance