Timothy Birdnow

Damascus has fallen

Assad has had to flee his capital after rebels took the city.

What will Russia do? Russia can ill-afford to let Syria turn into a Western satellite, nor even a neutral state. It is their primary Mediterranean port.

The rebel groups consist of theocratic Islamists and moderate forces (such as Kurds) and who will wind up in control of this key Middle Eastern state is unclear. Turkey will no doubt be backing the Islamists (like the Syrian Liberation Front) and that is not really in Russia's interest,but it will work fine for Erdogen.

If Syria turns theocratic it will pose an existential threat to peace in the Middle East and most especially to Israel. Israel can no longer not worry about their northern borders.

If the moderates take power (and when has that ever happened when faced by aggressive Islamists?) then Russia will face a very difficult choice. Do they take action to help install the radicals or do they back a counter-insurgency to reinstate Assad?

It will be hard for Russia to take military action there, but they are conducting a major naval exercise in the region and it wouldn't be hard for them to use that to assist the baathists.

Also, what will Iran do?

This is a volatile, explosive situation. Syria hac chemical weapons at least as late as 2013, and possibly other weapons of mass destruction. Maybe biological. Probably not nuclear, as their reactor was destroyed by Israel and the international community believes they have adhered to the treaty they signed. But then they clearly received SOMETHING from Iraq when the U.S. invaded. Who knows what they are sitting on? Quite possibly nothing. One would think they would have used them on the insurgents if they did, but that would have made them anathema to all other nations plus killed a lot of innocents.

One thing is clear; this greatly complicates an already unstable situation.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:22 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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