Saudi Arabia’s Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman meets Syria’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 2, 2025. Photo: Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS
The main lesson of the surprise attack on the Assad regime by the rebels in Syria begins with an overall view of the strategic logic that drives the Middle East region. The lesson that many in the West refuse to accept is that the region is a perpetually unstable ecosystem.
An ecosystem is sensitive to any small change. The conceptual opposite of an ecosystem is a sophisticated railway system. In the railways, operational stability is planned and managed according to a linear engineering design. In an ecosystem, conversely, stability is the result of systemic equilibrium and is always both temporary and sensitive to changes.
Western culture, which aspires to establish a reality of sustainable stability in the region, finds it difficult to accept that the Middle East — which contains clans, tribes, and radical terrorist organizations — is a system that operates according to the dynamics of an ecological system.
The achievements of the Israeli war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against Hamas in the Gaza Strip created new conditions that marked an opportunity for the Sunni rebels in Syria. They took their chance and attacked the Assad army and the Iranian Shiite militias, toppling the Assad regime in less than two weeks.
The constant search by many Middle East actors for new fighting opportunities lies in their fundamental perception of all situations of calm, even prolonged periods of apparent peace, as temporary.
The Turks dream of returning to the expanses of the Ottoman Empire. Aleppo once played a central economic and symbolic role in connection with the cities of the Harran Valley in Turkey, including the city of Shelly-Orfa. After Napoleon’s retreat from Egypt and the Land of Israel, Muhammad Ali, the ruler of Egypt, sought to extend his control from Israel to Aleppo. In the years 1839-1841, the Second Egyptian-Ottoman War took place in the region. With the help of a British expeditionary force, the Ottomans defeated the Egyptian army and pushed it from the Aleppo region to the outskirts of Sinai. Greater Syria, which extended to the Land of Israel, returned to Ottoman control. Turkey aspires to restore this regional order. From their perspective, the struggle began in Aleppo with the pursuit of Damascus, which contains important Sunni mosques.
There is much more involved here than a longing for the past. The past in this region drives religious and national struggles. I learned this during a visit to the Iranian pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. Opposite the visitors’ entrance, a map of the Persian Empire from the time of Darius was displayed across the entire wall. This was a kind of declaration that Iran aspires to return to that glorious past.
This kind of thinking is the driving force in the region — even for borders that have gained international validity, such as the Sykes-Picot borders. In the Middle East, nothing outweighs religious and national dreams. Those dreams never fade; they rather await the right opportunity.
For Americans who continue to seek a stable and sustainable regional order, it is worth suggesting that they treat the Middle East as if it were prone to hurricanes that erupt from the oceans and strike the region from a system of forces beyond human control.
This is not to say that no capabilities exist with which to restrain and delay conflicts in the regional chaos that characterizes the Middle East. But even arrangements that seem to promise a degree of stability and calm must be sensitive to the possibility of unexpected factors arising within the system.
Tactical note
The rebel offensive in Syria also teaches an important tactical lesson about the characteristics of the new war. As on October 7, we saw the outbreak of rapid battle movement involving civilian vehicles, including motorcycles, SUVs and vans, in mobile and agile groups.
No one who promises a demilitarized Palestinian state will be able to stop the Palestinians from purchasing motorcycles and SUVs. Israelis should give thought to the image of a raiding party on motorcycles and jeeps breaking into Israel by surprise from Tulkarem-Qalqilya to cut through the coastal strip. They must understand that the IDF, with all its strength, cannot guarantee overwhelming superiority in any possible context.
The IDF’s operations in Syria
Even the best intelligence experts had difficulty predicting the tsunami of the rebel assault that so swiftly toppled the Syrian government and its army.
There is a great lesson here in recognizing the limitations of human knowledge. We cannot pretend to know or be able to control events that occur suddenly and unpredictably. Precisely for this reason, the speedy organization by the Israeli leadership and the IDF of a proper response to the Syrian rebel surprise deserves special appreciation.
The IDF’s rapid operational response to developments in Syria was guided by three objectives:
- To strengthen the defense effort on the Golan Heights. It is worth noting that preparations for strengthening and expanding Israel’s defense systems in the Golan — through proactive operations east of the border fence — began in the Golan Division, with the support of the Northern Command, several months ago. These preparations enabled a rapid response to expand Israel’s defensive hold on vital areas in the buffer zone defined in the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement between Israel and Syria. The IDF also took control of the peaks of the Hermon Range in a location that allows for influence deep inside Syria and southern Lebanon.
- To destroy the numerous weapons left behind by the Syrian army in Syria. In an unprecedented attack by the Israeli Air Force and Navy, weapons systems were destroyed that, had they remained operational, could have been used against the State of Israel. This effort was carried out with rapid momentum and precise management.
- To project power in the face of the chaos and make clear that the State of Israel has a security-strategic interest in the developing trends in Syria and will not be content to passively look on. Prime Minister Netanyahu wisely emphasized that Israel will try not to interfere in the institutionalization of the new order being organized in Syria. However, Israel has an interest in influencing developments in southern Syria in the Yarmouk Basin, where, until recently, Shiite militias took part in efforts to smuggle weapons to the Palestinian Authority and towards the Kingdom of Jordan. Looking north from the Hermon area, Israel has a primary interest in preserving Hezbollah’s isolation in Lebanon and preventing any possibility of reinforcements or new weapons arriving via Syria.
The first two objectives have been achieved in an astonishing manner. The third is complex and will require dynamic monitoring combined with an international effort emphasizing Israeli interests.
The situation in Syria continues to be unprecedented in its uncertainty.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served in the IDF for 42 years. He commanded troops in battles with Egypt and Syria. He was formerly a corps commander and commander of the IDF Military Colleges. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
The post The Future of Syria Is Uncertain; Here’s What Israel Should Be Doing (PART ONE) first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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