whats happening now leaves a lot of room for speculation

the timing clearly is not a coincidence, big daddy russia is busy in ukraine, other assad allies got hit by israel

the crippling sanctions remained since the civil war was considered a win for assad so they could never rebuild, the US continued to invade and steal syrian resources and turkey made sure idlib would remain a base for islamic extremists

with a possible solution in ukraine on the horizon the time to strike was now

also whats interesting is how efficient these so called rebels are this time, clearly this operation is well planned by actual professionals and not these cavemen

after over 10 years and hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees the goal is finally near

regime change in syria to make sure they cant threaten israel and western oil/gas deals in the region anymore

Assad regime falls in Syria as rebels in Damascus claim victory on state TV

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell on Sunday morning as state television proclaimed the end of his rule and the country’s prime minister promised to cooperate with rebels. The armed Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham pushed into the capital, Damascus, on Sunday, marking the culmination of an advance that unfolded in less than two weeks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/12/07/syria-war-news-israel-hamas-gaza-lebanon/

Well that was fast.

It is fairly obvious at this point that some back room horse trading was done to make this transition so bloodless. If i had to guess, Russia, Turkey, Israel, US, maybe even Iran sat down and decided on a transition, mostly out of necessity as the losing parties knew it was over. Assad knew he was fucked in the first few days so instead of having this be bloody, his army was told to stand down as the rebels marched through Hama, Homs, all over really. There's now reports coming out that SAA soldiers were told not to engage the rebels even there was a sizable build up in Hama that could potentially rolled back the gains. HTS militants weren't this unstoppable force, I've heard that their numbers were around ~20k, mostly armed with light arms, some had drones and more sophisticated weapons but really they saw little to no opposition after the first couple of days.

Assad gets to exit left and probably has set himself up and his inner circle in UAE/Russia with hundreds of millions. Turkey will get to push the Kurds off its border and we're already seeing this with Manbij being taken. Kurds are likely to be pushed all the way east with the Euphrates being the natural barrier. Israel is bombing Syrian weapons caches to prevent them from falling into rebel hands. They win in a big way because Lebanon's Hezbollah had it's routes severed through which it got weapons/support from Iran. Russia is actually likely to retain their Syrian naval base in all of this but their influence in Syria will be significantly diminished. US gets to finally get rid of Assad and probably will hold the oil fields in the east of the country.

So in all of this biggest winners are

Israel
US
Turkey
Sunni rebels/Islamic fundamentalists

Biggest losers by far:

Syrian government
Iran
Hezbollah
Shia militias
Stability in Syria--get ready for a lot of Libya-esque fragmentation. You're about to see the SNA/HTS/FSA/ISIS/SAA remnants/SDF/ whoever else all jockeying for power for years IMO.


Losers but not critically:

Kurds
Russians

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Dec 8 2024 09:26am

Israel already announced they do not honor the 1974 ceasefire line and has now conquered 250 kms into Syria.

Gona have to disagree with this one. If Russia loses it naval port and air field, it would be the biggest loser in this ordeal by far (obviously besides assad). The entirety of their middle east/ africa re-supply route goes kupputz. They staked alot on being able to defend syria and they just got obliterated in 2 weeks.

Theres also a rumor going around that Russia had to ask turkey for safe passage out of syria, im not sure if thats true, but it would be embarrassing to ask a member of nato to retreat.

Yes emphasis on the 'IF'. There's no indication that they will revoke right to the naval base atm. Russian planes are still landing in an out and the naval base as of right now has not had rebels go into it. You have to remember Turkey is Russia's neighbor and that isn't going to change for the next millenia, they have a strong incentive to have good relationship with Russia. Turkey doesn't really care about Russia's naval base, it poses no risk to Turkey but it can be leveraged to buy goodwill with Russia. Turkey's goal right now is preventing the Kurds from solidifying their gains and will back the SNA as they move on Manbij and north eastern Syria, pissing on the Russians serve what purpose exactly?

Iran/Hezbollah is by far the biggest loser, even if Russia lost its naval base, it's not even close. But if Russia losses naval base they would move to bigger losers list for sure.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Dec 8 2024 11:24am

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Libya and Iraq did not do so well after Gaddafi and Saddam got ousted.

Nope, both Russia and Iran are the clear losers in this one. Turkyie is really suffering under the refugee wave (2.7 million Syrian refugees alone). If they can go back home, it'll be a huge win for Erdogan.

The reason i put Iran above all is because prior to October 7th many thought Iran had enough power to actually threaten Israel. People referenced Hamas/Hezbollah and Syrian government as the axis of resistance. Syrian government is basically the last of these 3 and now is non-existent. It's a serious blow to Iranian influence happening in the span of what a year and a half? For Russia, the naval base and influence is nice to have but IMO not critical because inherently they aren't a ME power unlike Iran.

Russia and the US don't belong to the middle east. They'll be ousted long-term. Iran will come back, the pushback is temporary. If Russia loses that base, they'll never be able to reclaim it in the future. Iran would rather build their own base there. Israel should build really tight relationship with Turks by then because that's the only other 80 million population other there who can suppress Iran (Saudis and co. are a joke without the US).

This post was edited by babun1024 on Dec 8 2024 12:13pm