Syria: is the former regime planning a comeback?

As in Iraq and Afghanistan, loyalists could become insurgents battling to regain power

There’s a popular saying that there’s no smoke without fire. It is from this perspective that one can view the spate of reports on satellite television and social media about meetings in northeastern Iraq involving Maher al-Asad, commander of the Syrian army’s Fourth Brigade, and Gen. Ali Mamluk, the former intelligence and national security chief described as the Asad regime’s ‘black box’. The pair are said to have conferred with officers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Lebanon’s Hezbollah at Jabal Qandeel near the Iranian border to draw up plans to confront the new regime in Damascus.

The accuracy or otherwise of this news is not the point. The Iraqi interior ministry issued a statement denying that either Asad or Mamluk were not in Iraqi territory. But that does not mean they did not enter the country at all, given that many parts of the north are not under central government control. The point is that such moves suggest the deposed Syrian regime has not conceded defeat and is planning a battlefield comeback to exact revenge and retake power.

Iraq would obviously be the main, if not only, launching pad for any such bid, given the country’s location as the land bridge between Iran and Syria and the presence of the IRGC-backed Hashd ash-Shaabi forces, a major component of the Axis of Resistance. That is what prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to make his unannounced visit to Baghdad right after Damascus fell into the hands of Hay’at Tahrir ash-Sham (HTS) and Bashar al-Asad fled to Moscow. Blinken met Prime Minister Muhammad Shayaa as-Sudani and demanded he and his government disarm the Hashd completely and keep out of developments Syria, or else they would have to bear the consequences of non-compliance.

It was noteworthy that when Bashar al-Asad posted his statement on social media (which disappeared less than ten hours later) justifying his flight from Damascus to Moscow, he signed it as President of the Syrian Arab Republic and did not announce he was relinquishing power. This implies that rejection of the current change in Syria and action to resist and reverse it cannot be ruled out in the coming days or months.

If that were to happen — the former regime regrouping its ranks and waging guerilla warfare with newly rebuilt military formations — it would amount to a role-swap with the new US-, Turkish-, and Israeli-backed regime in Damascus. Action to destabilise that regime could be coupled with the opening of a new front against Israel, legitimised as national resistance, in response to its occupation of the Golan Heights buffer zone and additional territory in southern Syria and its destruction of Syria’s military infrastructure and arsenals.

Syria remains a jungle of weapons, and there are many former regime supporters, from the army or security forces, who are highly trained and have military skills and cannot coexist with the new regime, whether for ideological, sectarian, or other reasons. The shock effect on this sector of the sudden collapse of the exhausted Syrian army and the easy takeover of Damascus and other major cities without resistance has already begun to dissipate.

It is worth recalling that Iraq did not concede defeat after the it was invaded and occupied by 32 countries led by the US and 160,000 American troops were deployed on its soil. Resistance began within less than two months, culminating in the evacuation of the US’ defeated forces from the country in 2001.

In Afghanistan, the ouster of the Taliban movement’s government after the October 2001 US invasion did not lead to its capitulation. It immediately commenced resistance, and managed to retake power 20 years later after putting the US’ forces to ignominious flight, as evidenced by the great escape from Kabul Airport.

So, will history repeat itself in Syria? It is impossible to predict. But those of us who know Syria and the region also know that nothing can be ruled out.

https://www.raialyoum.com/syria-is-the-former-regime-planning-a-comeback/