Who Truly Occupies Syria?

Loran Ibrahim



After 2015 the destiny of Syrians had been no longer in their hands at the moment, they were on verge of toppling “al-Baath regime”, the turning point was the Russian intervention by pouring al-Assad regime with more than 350 types of devastating weapons which some of them have not been experienced practically yet.
The Russian defense minister has acknowledged that Syria has provided to Russia the opportunity to take these types of weapons in a free test helping to sell them globally.

Meanwhile, ISIS was on its last legs in the war between them and the Kurdish forces in Kobani the aligned Turkish-Syrian border city. Following the international Alliance intervention alongside the Kurdish forces to fight the terrorism in Syria, lying many bases in the east of Euphrates, that left turkey, one of the prominent countries that condemned of backing-ISIS, and collusion with ISIS first-class leaders Hiding the movement of terrorist leaders in other organizations and their transition from ISIS to the Turkish-backed militias, within Ahrar al-Sharqiya, the Sultan Murad Brigade and other Turkish-run jihadist organizations.
Consequently, spheres of influence began to be distributed in Syria with clear borders between regional powers such as Turkey and Iran, and great powers represented by Russia and America. Later, these boundaries were reinforced by agreements independent of the Geneva No. 2118 of 2013 and Security Council Resolution 2425 of 2015. It stipulated the need to form a transitional government that represents all components of the Syrian people, is keen to end the conflict in Syria, and ensures a democratic transition of power. However, this decision had failed before it began, as Turkey, with Qatari and European funds, established an interim government in Istanbul in 2013. a government that follows the orders of Turkish intelligence and dominated by the “Muslim Brotherhood”. Then, of course, the States that have intensified their proxy military presence participated. Iran through its Iraqi and Lebanese proxies. And Turkey through the Syrian jihadist factions organized by the SADAT military consulting company in what is known as the Syrian National Army . In cooperation with Russia, in the 2017 Astana talks, which reiterated the content of the Russian proposal at the 2016 Security Council, Resolution2336.
That resolution: “CALL FOR A CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES IN SYRIA AND THE REVIVAL OF TALKS BETWEEN THE SYRIAN REGIME AND ARMED TURKISH-BACKED GROUPS”, in order to create conditions for the implementation of the Geneva decisions on Syria.
Thus, the fighting fronts calmed down, and the military forces were assured of temporary borders to share spheres of influence. The Russian area linked to the Hmeimim military base in Latakia province and extended through its supervision of the sectors of the Syrian army of the Baath regime, overlapped with the military bases of the Iranian militias targeted by Israeli raids in the Russian-controlled Syrian airspace. Thus, Russia illuminates to Israelis the Iranian points that it wants to destroy with a weapon other than its own. The Syrian Interim Government of Turkey and the jihadist organizations under its control have delegated the process of supervising organized plundering, destruction of natural resources, and cultural genocide in the Kurdish cities that these groups have received and wreaked havoc in them that ISIS did not emulate.
And Idlib province, which is al-Qaeda-controlled area with its Syrian progeny Jabhat al-Nusra. which is surrounded by Turkish guard posts, in order to avoid any possible clash between the Baath regime's army and Al-Nusra Front, which is compatible with Turkish tendencies in the region. America, with its 900 troops, has maintained fragile stability east of the Euphrates, ruled by the Autonomous Administration and the Syrian Democratic Forces, which Turkey accuses of including an ideological extension and organization of the PKK. This administration denies, but always in contradictory terms, its association with this party.

Within this chaos that Syrian political talks are taking place in the most farcical form possible. Russia has made up its mind about considering Syria purely a logical protectorate of their shared history, from the time of the Soviet Union until the Russian intervention with weapons and saving the regime of Bashar al-Assad from imminent collapse.
The Turkish intervention in Cyprus in 1974, occupied it and attached it to its ethnic sphere of influence. And invest that in every point in the Turkmen component. The experience of Kirkuk in Iraq and its absolute control of the Turkmen front, whose extremist leader, Arshad al-Salhi, travels through Ankara to Baghdad to participate in a political event. Meanwhile, the issue of Turkey's annexation to the Syrian Alexandretta Brigade has become a closed issue for it. With its project to Turkify northern Syria, and bring about demographic change by uprooting the indigenous people of the Syrian Kurds from their lands, and replacing Arab settlers and Turkmens are in their place, and the new school generation in these areas is raised in Turkish and Turkish ethnic education curricula. This will not only be an occupation, but also the obliterate of the identity of civil groups in a state of internal war, and therefore in their most vulnerable and needy cases, in order to melt them into the Turkification project consistent with the idea of the Ottoman borders that Erdogan demands through the so-called Milli Charter.

With regard to Iran, it does not leave the place it has occupied. Like Turkey, it exploits sectarian tendencies and recruits them into its own militias. Such as the Yemeni Houthi movement and the Lebanese Hezbollah. Iran has bought almost all the important properties in the Sayyeda Zeinab area of Damascus countryside. As wellas its bases, which Qassem Suleiman used to move between before his assassination, as he moved between the military sectors of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran.

In contrast, since Obama raised his slogan "No shoes on the ground" and worked to reduce the number of American troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan. He was followed by, Donald Trump, who said “we are not the world's police”. He granted Turkey free license to occupy the cities of Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad in Syria in 2019. He has reduced the number of troops in Syria to just about 900. Joe Biden then completed the mission and withdrew from Afghanistan, which the Taliban had received with nearly $800 billion in military equipment. As soon as Turkey bombed the military bases of the SDF forces in the vicinity of Al-Hasakah governorate in the city of Al-Shaddadi (28/11/2022), the Pentagon quickly announced the reduction of the number of their joint patrols with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

ISIS benefits from every Turkish military strike on the Autonomous Administration areas, and continues to organize its sleeper cells more effectively. The survival of the US-led international coalition to fight ISIS in the east of the Euphrates remains coupled with this unstable circumstance, not to mention the indefinite postponement of the political resolution of the political transition of power in Syria. As long as the main actor Russia is preoccupied with its biggest war in Ukraine.
Therefore, the situation in northeastern Syria will remain tense between the US position of its main ally in the war against terror, the Syrian Democratic Forces, and its other NATO ally, which has become known in international politics as a “blackmailing ally”, which can give Russia the green light to blackmail its NATO allies. And the issue of Sweden and Finland joining NATO is not the last issue.

Before 2011, Syria was internally occupied by the authoritarian Baath regime. At long last, the general desire for liberation and dignity emerged. But Syrians have failed to remain Syrians. The country has disintegrated and no longer has sovereign inviolability. What is worse is the entry of mercenary groups under the name of the Syrian National Army, to be the dirty hand of the Turkish occupier in killing other Syrians. This has exacerbated the identity divide and disrupted everything that can work to produce national cohesion in a war-ravaged country.