Erdoğan’s Syria?

First published at NLR Sidecar.

Turkish pro-government circles are euphoric – not only because an Islamist-led coalition toppled the dictator they detested, but also because they believe that their president orchestrated the whole operation. In the earliest days of the Arab Spring, the AKP’s calculation was that the uprisings would produce a few governments that would adopt the ‘Turkish model’, combining conservative religion, formal democracy and neoliberal governance. Syria’s Islamists appeared to fit the bill. Yet after Assad’s violent crackdown against civilian protests made such a transition impossible, Turkey began to arm a series of rebel militias, joining Western powers, Russia and Iran in a race to militarize and sectarianize the conflict. This resulted in a de facto partitioning of the country into separate Shia, Sunni and Kurdish regions. At least four million Syrians crossed into Turkey, fueling anti-immigrant sentiment there. The stalemate appeared to be endless, until Islamist-led forces finally captured Damascus last week.

Since then, Islamist newspapers have hailed Erdoğan as the commander of the ‘Syrian Revolution’, ‘the Conqueror of Syria’ and ‘the greatest revolutionary of the 21st century’. While some on the Turkish right had begun to doubt the government’s Syria policy, holding it responsible for the refugee crisis, now the Erdoğanists seem vindicated. With Assad toppled, they are expecting both a domestic reconsolidation of power around the ruling AKP and a massive increase in Turkish influence across the region – with many announcing the effective end of Western control.

The opposition, by contrast, views the fall of Assad as the outcome of an American game in which Erdoğan and the jihadis were pawns. Whereas Erdoğanists anticipate a democratic and Islamic Syria under Turkish influence, Kemalists and other centrists fear its de jure partition and the emergence of a Kurdish state — for which they would blame Erdoğan. Over the past week, both sides have sought to amplify the evidence that supports their position and bury that which contradicts it. The real picture, however, is more complex. There is still significant uncertainty about who is calling the shots in Syria, and the most crucial information might take years to emerge. The following should therefore be read as an initial sketch of Turkey’s role in the events, subject to modification as new details come to light. But one thing is already certain at this early stage: though the balance of forces has shifted in Erdoğan’s favour for the time being, we can comfortably say that Erdoğanist fantasies about a Turkish imperial restructuring of the region are unfounded.

Turkey controls several armed factions in northern Syria, which are organized under the coalition known as the Syrian National Army (SNA, formerly the Free Syrian Army). Turkey’s hope is that the SNA will wipe out the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and subordinate the Syrian Kurds to an Islamic government in Damascus. Erdoğanists also wants to see SNA-affiliated officials in the post-Assad cabinet. However, Turkey’s impact on Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – the organization that led the advance on Damascus – is limited. During the first days of December, Turkey was having conversations with Russia and Iran with the apparent aim of ending hostilities rather than deposing Assad. Earlier, in mid-November, Erdoğan was making public calls for Assad to be included in some transitional regime. Far from masterminding the campaign, then, it looks as though Erdoğan was simply forced to give the greenlight after HTS took the initiative. SNA participated in the offensive but did not lead it. There are also reports of friction between the HTS and SNA, and even — tellingly — the arrest of some SNA cadres for abusing Kurdish civilians.

All this poses the question of what HTS really represents. With roots in the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, and a place on Washington’s official list of terrorist groups, it seems an unlikely darling of the West. Yet the US and EU have made relatively optimistic noises about its seizure of Damascus, which has further unravelled the ‘Axis of Resistance’, weakening Iran’s regional role. In Turkey, opinion about the group is divided. The opposition is adamant that HTS is a creation of the US and Israel, while Erdoğanists insist that Turkey has armed and trained them over the last several years. Another rumor is that HTS was trained by British intelligence. Some experts claim that the assault on Damascus couldn’t have been successful without the involvement of Western intelligence agencies; others argue that those agencies were tricked or outflanked by HTS. Salih Muslim, a prominent Kurdish leader from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), meanwhile describes HTS as simply ‘a part of Syria’, with whom the Kurds would like to co-exist.

At this point, there is no way to know which of these narratives holds more water. But we cannot ignore the fact that Islamists have gained sympathy among the region’s peoples, some of whom perceive them as the only effective opposition to the status quo. Many on the left are ready to recognize this when it comes to Hamas; indeed, there is a certain tendency to exaggerate Hamas’s anti-imperialist credentials (even though its origins are anything but) while downplaying the popular appeal of most other Islamist outfits. Whoever the exact sponsors of HTS might be, the group is clearly an expression of a long-term trend: the mainstreaming and partial taming of jihadi organizations, their infiltration or capture of institutions, and their popularization. These three dynamics sometimes undermine each other, but the latest twist in the Syrian drama has seen them combine in the form of HTS.

In other words, regardless of the exact chain of events, there is no question that Islamism — and more specifically, its jihadi strands — has gained ground regionally. The Turkish opposition, including the left, insists that this is an American-friendly Islamism. Yet the fluctuations of Erdoğanism itself over the years show that there are risks for the West when it plays with fire in this way. The AKP was initially the paragon of Americanist Islam: it appeared to combine individual liberties, family values and religious conservatism with an emphasis on free markets and pro-Western realignment in the Middle East. However, as the years went on, it increasingly suspended individual liberties while harnessing markets, family and religion in the service of a party-state developmental model with grand regional ambitions, occasionally at the expense of American influence.

Hundreds of Israeli air strikes have taken place across Syria since Assad’s dethronement, and Netanyahu says that he intends to turn the Golan Heights into permanent Israeli territory. Whether or not he succeeds, Israel is poised to have more sway over the region, given its destruction of the military capacities of its northern rival — putting paid to Erdoğanist assumptions that the triumph of HTS represents a blow to Western power or ‘the end of Israeli expansionism’. It would be wrong, though, to predict the rise of total US–Israeli hegemony, if by that we mean an effective combination of force and consent, rather than domination based on brute violence. It is dubious that any real hegemon will emerge from this chaotic turn of events. Nor are we likely to see a free, democratic state or a conclusive partition. The most plausible scenario for the coming years is a protracted but perhaps relatively contained conflict, with increased Islamist and Erdoğanist military strength, diplomatic leadership and business expansion. That outcome would still be a win for Turkey, but it would fall well short of the current Erdoğanist fantasies.

The main danger for Turkish imperialism would be the growing formalization of Kurdish power. Any stable peace will have to involve autonomy or independence for the Syrian Kurds, now officially recognized by Western states. For the Kurds themselves, the consequences of this formalization would be ambiguous. They would no longer be the heroes of the global left, but they would also break free from their isolation and become a ‘normal’ part of the decaying international state-system. Turkish Kurds would meanwhile be left to their fate, while also being emboldened by the process of normalization to their south. The AKP (along with its neo-fascist partner, the MHP) reached out to the imprisoned guerilla leader Öcalan shortly before HTS launched its Aleppo campaign, which many commentators see as evidence that Turkey already knew about the anti-Assad operation. Yet the government also followed up this opening with a severe crackdown on the legal Kurdish party and elected mayors, indicating that any deal with Öcalan would be on the government’s terms — and would involve great losses for the movement as a whole.

For now, the Gulf monarchies are sidelined. Their recent bid for the rehabilitation of Assad, finally accepting Syria into the Arab League, has failed. But they will eventually enter this power game too, further complicating the attempts of any single actor, be it Turkey or the United States, to assert clear leadership. China, silent so far, may also join the fray, at least as a soft power. As more countries vie for influence, trying to reshape the region in their image, Turkey will see its maximalist ambitions evaporate.

There is also an economic dimension to the unfolding inter-imperialist rivalry. Syria has been devastated by proxy wars between several countries, which have not only taken half a million lives and displaced more than ten million, but also destroyed the country’s infrastructure and finances. Now, the potential for investment — to rebuild from the ruins — has whet the appetite of entrepreneurs across the world. Back in 2018, when Turkey lost 56 soldiers in a military operation, one of Erdoğan’s chief advisors famously remarked that ‘We are giving martyrs, but Turkish contractors will get a bigger share of the pie.’ The markets seem to agree, with the stocks of construction-related businesses rising sharply over the last few days.

It is not clear whether this kind of infrastructural investment can really take off, however, given the uncertain trajectory of the military conflicts, especially in the north and south of the country. The US and its allies have been able to destroy many of their regional enemies, but they have not been able to build functional, long-lasting arrangements of their own. Will the fall of Assad be any different? This remains to be seen. But we can be certain that where American liberal imperialism has failed, Turkish-Islamic imperialism is even less likely to succeed.