Yaroslav Trofimov
WSJ, Nov. 30, 2024
“The Russians are very, very busy in Ukraine, and that’s a big part of it,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a group that advocates for democracy in Syria. “Thank God for the Ukrainians.”
It had taken the Syrian regime and its backers—Iran, Russia and Hezbollah—more than four years to dislodge rebel forces from the country’s second-largest city of Aleppo. At the time, in 2016, they celebrated that victory as the turning point in Syria’s civil war.
Now, a surprise rebel offensive has recaptured Aleppo in just a few days, including parts of the city that the Syrian army had never surrendered before. This stunning feat is the direct consequence of new wars that have erupted outside Syria’s borders.
“It’s a tectonic shift,” said Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who served as Syria director in the Trump White House. “Regional and international powers intervened in Syria over a decade ago, and now the conflicts of Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon all come together and overlap in Aleppo.”
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Iranian ayatollahs’ regime are all currently embroiled in conflicts that threaten their very survival, and in which Syria is a sideshow at best. To a varying degree, all three have sustained strategic blows—while the Syrian rebels’ main backer, Turkey, has taken advantage of the turmoil. …SOURCE