A Turning Point in Aleppo
▻http://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/66314
The most interesting area is the rebel zone carved out thanks to Turkish military intervention northeast of Aleppo, in battles against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Here, the prospect of military backing from Turkey’s fiercely anti-Assad president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has raised the opposition’s hopes of breaking the siege of Aleppo. But that is unlikely, for three reasons.
First, the purpose of the Turkish intervention was to clear the area from Islamic State jihadis and ensure that the vacuum was not filled by Kurdish forces aligned with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. For all of Erdogan’s loathing of Assad, it doesn’t come close to his hatred of the PKK. Indeed, if Erdogan’s primary concern had been to overthrow the Syrian president, he wouldn’t have diverted thousands of Syrian rebel combatants to help him clean up the border region when they were so desperately needed in Aleppo.
Second, the Turkish intervention was based on an understanding with Russia, which is committed to protecting Assad. How Ankara and Moscow plan to divide the border area is unclear and may be up for renegotiation, and there may well be clashes between Turkish- and Russian-backed forces (perhaps even some friction between Russian and Turkish troops). But we know that neither Russia nor Turkey is interested in a major conflict, having spent so much time improving their relations—and also because Turkey’s NATO membership greatly raises the stakes of any confrontation.
Third, if Erdogan had any intention of breaking the siege of Aleppo, he would have done so long ago. It makes no sense for him to wait until Assad has virtually destroyed the rebel enclave to try saving it now.
After a long and telling silence, the Turkish president recently spoke out on Aleppo, saying his intervention in August had been to “end the rule of the cruel Assad.” Unsurprisingly, this met with immediate Russian pushback, as a Kremlin spokesperson said it would be in touch with Turkey to seek an explanation. The actual explanation? Most likely, Erdogan is simply trying to save face.
If Turkish intentions northeast of Aleppo are not what the opposition had hoped for, Ankara’s involvement in Idlib has so far been more clearly aligned with the rebel cause. The area, which fell completely to Syrian rebels in spring 2015, still receives strong support from across the Turkish border and has served as a staging ground for attacks in Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia.
The Idlib rebellion is strong and well implanted. It is a real threat to Assad. But though it contains many different groups, it is strategically dominated by hardline Islamists such as Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, the new incarnation of Jabhat al-Nusra that has links to Al-Qaeda and is riddled with international jihadis. These groups are formidable enemies of the regime, but they are also too toxic to gain Western endorsement. Policymakers in Doha and Ankara have shown a higher threshold of tolerance for jihadism than their colleagues in Washington, but Jabhat Fatah al-Sham is ultimately a step too far for everyone.
In other words, while it will remain a thorn in Assad’s side, the Idlib region is unlikely to serve as the springboard for a foreign-backed strategy to end Assad rule.