Washington Celebrates Al-Qaeda Victory in Syria
Kyle Anzalone / Antiwar.com
(December 9, 2024) — Washington finally completed its dirty war in Syria. What started as a CIA covert operation to smuggle weapons and jihadists from Libya to Syria has resulted in Syria leader Bashar al-Assad being deposed and replaced by Abu Mohammad al-Julani.
Julani found his way to Damascus by rising through the ranks of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Inspired by the 9/11 attack, he joined AQI to fight against the US during the Iraq war. Julani was a close associate of both AQI leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and founded the al-Qaeda affiliate group Syria in coordination with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
As more Americans became aware of the CIA’s covert operation in Syria to back jihadists, Julani changed his organization’s name from Al Nusra to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, then Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) to obscure his group’s al-Qaeda links. However, HTS was no moderate group and focused on bringing ISIS forces under Julani’s control following the collapse of Bagadadi’s caliphate.
Even the US State Department was not fooled by Julani’s rebrands. In 2017, the State Department issued a $10 million reward for the capture of Julani.
For most of the past decade, Julani has ruled over northwestern Syria under the protection of Washington’s NATO ally, Turkey. Had Turkish troops not set up outposts surrounding Julani’s territory, Syria, and its Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah allies may have eliminated the lingering jihadist threat. During this period, Julani’s Idlib province was the largest safe haven for jihadists on the planet.
Since the ISIS caliphate was defeated, the frontlines in the Syrian War largely froze. Still, Washington and its allies engaged in a relentless assault on Damascus.
Turkey protected jihadists on Syria’s northern border, allowing them to terrorize the Kurds that lived there.
Israel engaged in weekly strikes on Assad and his allied forces. Over the past year, those strikes have escalated to hit civilian and diplomatic targets in downtown Damascus. Tel Aviv even bombed the Aleppo Airport following a major earthquake, preventing aid from reaching the desperate citizens.
The US illegally occupied the eastern quarter of Syria, exploiting and stealing some of Damasus’s most valuable resources [massive Syrian oil fields seized by US troops—EAW]. In this region, the US allowed the Kurds to lord power over the local Arabs. The Kurdish SDF runs a massive torture prison known as the al-Hol camp, and local citizens protest the Kurds conscripting their children as young as 15.
Washington waged an economic war on Syria, deliberately meant to prevent Damascus from rebuilding its war-destroyed infrastructure. The US also bombed Assad’s allied forces near the Iraq-Syria border.
Additionally, Turkey and Ukraine used this period to bolster the HTS forces.
The long-frozen conflict thawed rapidly over the past two weeks. Seemingly in coordination with the announcement of a truce in Lebanon, Julani’s forces went on the march, first seizing Aleppo. Reported to be aided by advanced drones, HTS made quick work of any Syria forces that resisted, and on Sunday, Julani arrived in Damascus and declared the “mujahideen” won the war. And Washington celebrated.
“Syria is free. The rebels won. The people liberated themselves from tyranny. Freedom won,” the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin wrote on X. “Russia, Iran, Hezbollah & Assad lost. Historic. The road ahead for Syria won’t be easy. But it will be better than the past. The world should celebrate Syria’s liberation & help it succeed.”
Post columnist Max Boot wrote, “Assad – after a quarter-century of ruthless rule – had fled the country. Syria was free at last.”
“The fall of Assad. On some days, one can believe that while the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice,” neocon Bill Krystol wrote on X.
Of course, what happened to Syria is not about the Syrians. The real goal of Washington was to weaken Damascus because they believed it would weaken Moscow, Tehran, and Hezbollah.
What happens next in Syria is unlikely to be good for many of the minority groups that enjoyed some level of protection under Assad. However, Washington and its allies are swooping in like hungry vultures to feast on the remains of Syria.
Shortly after Assad left Damascus, in Tel Aviv Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel would be seizing a “buffer zone” in southwestern Syria. Turkey also launched airstrikes on a Kurdish-held city in northern Syria.
No doubt, in the coming days, we will hear crowing from the hawks in Washington about their triumph in Syria by severing Tehran’s land connection to Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. In the White House, Biden’s staff is no doubt discussing how to exploit Assad’s downfall as far as possible; this includes attempts to remove Russia from its military bases along Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
The biggest losers in Syria are the Syrian people, who, for nearly a decade and a half, have been subject to a brutal and complex war that shows no signs of ending. They have been bombed by a seemingly unending number of countries, all with their unique geopolitical interests. The Syrian people have been intentionally starved and impoverished by the US to bring about Assad’s downfall. While Assad was a tyrant, no doubt Julani will come with his own, and likely more oppressive, tyranny.
Among the other losers are the American people. More American lives and treasure were wasted on a project to dispose of another Middle East dictator. In Iraq and Libya, this policy caused unimaginable suffering for the locals.
The top threat is that our government has empowered the only true enemies of the American people. Iran, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Assad’s Syria, etc. all present no threat to the American homeland. However, now an al-Qaeda terrorist sits on the throne in Damascus, and Washington’s support for Tel Aviv’s genocide in Gaza has given him an endless supply of anti-American hatred.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute. He hosts The Kyle Anzalone Show and is co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Connor Freeman.
The Pentagon’s Global Hit List;
“Starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon.
Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”
