Word from Ed Driscoll this morning, that Syria’s Assad is now gone into hiding…. his family’s dictatorship has now ended.
Well, the first obviousness that pops up here is that nature abhors a vacuum. That’s already been mentioned and I doubt it will be the last time, even for this thread.
Look; No question that Assad was bad…(or is, if you’d like to assume that he’s still breathing) … but that does not equate to an improvement of the situation. There’s no question that the many years of civil war there have been problematic at least… but the guy who led the opposition, one Abu Mohammed al-Golani: is a former Al-Quieda chief. I doubt his taking over Syria is a positive development, for the whole world and particularly for the people of Syria and the surrounding countries.At best, this will be “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”…. but I have my doubts it will be even THAT good.
In what may be the only positive event surrounding this, I see that Israel, following the removal of Assad, has moved to take Mt Hermon, which, IIRC, gives them a decided advantage in their battles with Hezbollah. It also gives them a strategic advantage in protecting their border with Syria now that Syrian troops have abandoned their posts. One wonders if the Former Al-Quieda leader will try to attack Israel since AQ has a clear shot at the border.
But with that new situation for Israel, it strikes me as unlikely that Iran actually WANTED to overthrow Assad. They would never give Israel a tactical advantage, even if it worked in Iran’s favor, too. Their withdrawal was simple recognition that they couldn’t keep the defense of Assad much longer.
I also wonder what efforts Iran is making to establish a relationship with the new Junta.
Another point; I doubt it’s an accident that after so many years of standoff fighting, that the takeover happens mere weeks before the changing of the government here in the states. There’s a hand involved here that we’re not seeing, yet. We’ve been commenting for weeks that Biden looks to be leaving a number of traps for Trump, and it strikes me as likely this is but one more such. So, what did the Biden gang know, and what did they do about it?
Final point; The Iranian forces that were assigned to Assad’s security details have all disappeared. I wouldn’t put it past the Iranians to have deliberately withdrawn their support, to their own eventual advantage.
