September 24, 2024: Since 2012 Syria has been in turmoil, dealing with a civil war, Islamic terrorism, and Iranian efforts to launch attacks on Israel. Because of the threats coming from this region, Israel regularly carries out airstrikes on Syrian targets deemed a threat to Israel. In 2023 there were only three such airstrikes, all against Iranian weapons recently moved to Syria for use against Israel. This year there have been more airstrikes so far (as of August 2024) because of increased Iranian efforts to deliver guided missiles and guidance kits for unguided rockets already in Syria or Lebanon.

The degree of chaos in Syria can be monitored several different ways. One of the most useful is the annual Transparency International surveys of worldwide corruption. The corruption is measured on a 1 (most corrupt) to 100 (not corrupt) scale. The nations with the worst score are currently Syria (score of 14), South Sudan (12) and Somalia (12). As of 2023 the least corrupt nations were Denmark and New Zealand, each with a score of 88. Syria has had the worst corruption problem in the world for over a decade. Because of that Syria is less of a country than a war zone where Iranians, Americans, Russians, Israelis, and Turks battle real or perceived threats coming from Syria.

And then there is Lebanon, the Syrian neighbor that shares the chaos and violence present in Syria. Iran continues to have problems in Lebanon where its Shia Arab Hezbollah militia is currently having a difficult time. This is because of all the Sunni Arab Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The Lebanese government has been expelling Syrian Sunni Arab refugees. The nearly two million Sunni Arab Syrians that fled to Lebanon since 2012 radically changed the demography of Lebanon. Before 2011 the Lebanese population was only five million. Since nearly all those refugees are Sunni Moslems, it changed the religious mix of Lebanon from 27 percent Shia, 27 percent Sunni, and 46 percent other religions, mainly Christian, to a more volatile combination. With the refugee influx there were now seven million people in Lebanon and 47 percent were Sunni, 19 percent Shia and 34 percent others. This put the Iran-backed Shia Hezbollah militia in a bad situation. Their better armed and trained fighters have been able to dominate the other minorities since the 1980s. That was possible because of Iranian cash, weapons and advisors. But the Iranian help and better organization is no longer enough when the Sunnis are nearly half the population and out for blood because of the slaughter the Iran-backed Shia Syrian government inflicted on Syrian Sunnis. Not to mention that Iranian financial support has largely disappeared because the Iranian economy has been heavily sanctioned for decades and has exhausted all its cash reserves.

Lebanon does not want another civil war over this and it was becoming difficult to contain the anger. Hezbollah and Iran have had some success attracting non-Shia factions, especially Christians, to be part of the Shia coalition. This is traditional Lebanese politics, with the Christians surviving by forming a coalition with non-Christian groups. Now even these Christian factions are backing away from Hezbollah. The recent Israeli attacks on Hezbollah personnel with exploding pagers and portable radios, in addition to airstrikes, have killed or wounded thousands of Hezbollah members and left them unable to communicate effectively. The Iran-backed Shia Hezbollah is no longer a threat to Israel or the Lebanese government and people. This is especially true for the majority of Lebanese who are not Shia. Many are Christians, a group that Iran ordered Hezbollah to persecute at every opportunity.

By 2023 Lebanon felt itself capable of dealing with the refugee crisis, especially since large-scale violence in Syria has largely disappeared. During the Syrian war some 5.5 million Syrians fled to neighboring countries. Turkey has 3.6 million, Lebanon two million and there are 250,000 in Iraq. There are also several million Syrians in Saudi Arabia, who are considered part of the more than six million expatriate workforce. About a third of those workers are Syrians. While many fled to Saudi Arabia because of the war in Syria, they were not treated like refugees and have jobs and status in Saudi Arabia.

Countries bordering Syria want their refugees to go home. That cannot happen without the cooperation of the Syrian Assad government. Syria needs a lot of those refugees to revive the economy and the Arab League is willing to allow Syria to rejoin if they reduce their cooperation with Iran. That has always been a dangerous option for the Assads because the Iranians have enough armed operatives inside Syria to threaten the lives of key Assad clan members. Currently, Iranian power is unusually weak inside Iran and inside Syria. Now is a good time for the Assads to make a break from Iran, especially since with the support of the Arab League and assurances that the League will help, not hinder their use of force to maintain their rule in Syria. The Arab League looks after its members and Syria recently rejoined the Arab League. Turkey does not belong to the Arab League but is eager to send its Syrian refugee’s home. The Assad offer is acceptable if it will finally get those Syrians out of Turkey.

Israel remains involved in Syria because Iran has established a presence in Syria. The Iranians are there to carry out attacks on Israel. That effort generates a lot of frustration for the Iranians. The Israelis also regularly hit Iranian bases in Syria with airstrikes and occasional commando raids. Israel considers Syria and Lebanon a chaotic region where no one is really in control. That means Iranian cash and weapons can purchase enough cooperation to establish bases for attacks on Israeli

Israeli air strikes are often at locations near the Syrian capital Damascus. Iran prefers to ship its weapons via Damascus because of the large airport outside the city and lots of warehouses to store weapons awaiting eventual movement into Lebanon. The Israeli airstrikes regularly hits Iranian military and IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Corps) technicians teaching Hezbollah personnel how to use new types of guided missiles. Israel is generally successful in detecting and launching airstrikes on Iranian weapons shipments into Syria or moving through Syria to Lebanon. Iranian technology transfers to Syria or Hezbollah are more difficult to detect, which is why Israel launches air strikes in Syria against any site where new Iranian tech is being installed. Syria has several military bases where such work is carried out and Israel attacks these bases whenever they suspect something is going on.

The ruling Assad clan of Syria chose peace over religion in 2021 by quietly abandoning long-time ally Iran for new deals with Russia and the Arab League, as well as Israel. That’s how the Assads, who belong to the Shia minority of Syria, have survived; by changing alliances when necessary. This most recent shift began after the 2011 rebellion of the Sunni majority against the Shia minority. The Assads almost lost but by late 2018 it was clear they had won. The fighting persisted into 2024 because the main participants, like Russia, Turkey, Iran, the Assad government and several remaining rebel factions cannot agree on how to deal with the loose ends. Although initially considered likely to win, the rebels lost because of factionalism. So far over 500,000 have died and a third of the population has fled, mainly to Turkey and Lebanon. Meanwhile the Assads received over $16 billion worth of Iranian aid since 2012. That was joined by assistance from Russia (2015) and Turkey (2016).

The civil war also morphed into a proxy war between Iran and the Sunni Arab states and their Western allies. The major factor in the rebel defeat was ISIL, which began as one of many Sunni Arab Islamic terror groups, but mainly al Qaeda and ISIL, who wanted to turn Syria into a religious dictatorship. Most Syrians just wanted peace and prosperity. The Islamic terror groups, as was their custom, put a priority on determining which of them was the true savior of Islam. ISIL was definitely the most ruthless and best organized and many groups submitted to ISIL, if only temporarily. That weakened the rebel effort sufficiently for the Assads to hang on and become part of a larger anti-ISIL coalition. One thing everyone could agree on was that ISIL had to be destroyed first and by late 2017 that was accomplished. With ISIL reduced to small groups carrying out terror attacks, the remaining rebels were still not united. At the time ISIL was crushed the rebels controlled about a third of the country but were outnumbered by the Assad forces and most Syrians were increasingly war weary. Most of the deaths occurred after 2013. The killing diminished a bit in 2015 because of sheer exhaustion and picked up again in 2016 because of the Russian air and other support.

The stubborn Assad dictatorship had a chance to win after 2015, something some Western nations saw as preferable to Islamic terrorists taking over and requiring a Western invasion to remove such a threat. In August 2016 Turkish ground forces entered northern Syria to seal the border from ISIL and Turkish separatist PKK Kurds as well as to weaken the Syrian Kurds. The Turks were basically helping the Assads and hurting ISIL, and all that made an Assad victory more likely. Before the Assads could resume control of the country they had to deal with the fact that Israel, Jordan and the Sunni Arab oil states are opposed to the Iranian effort to establish a permanent military presence in Syria. The Assads were not happy with Iranian domination but had to keep quiet about that.

Turkey was opposed to any autonomous Syrian Kurdish area in the northeast as well as a permanent Iranian presence. Turkey and Russia are technically allies of Iran in Syria but the reality is that no one trusts Iran. The Russians have quietly made it clear they would side with Israel if it came down to that. The Turks are NATO members and traditional foes of Russia and Iran. The current Turkish government is unstable and increasingly unpopular with Turks as well as the neighbors. The recent unrest in Iran and its growing financial problems have reduced Iranian efforts in Syria. The Assads quietly patched things up with the Arab League, with help from Russia and, unexpectedly, Israel. At this point Iranian leaders were aware of what the Assads were going but were unsure of how to deal with it. Iran could probably kill the Assads, but that would be difficult because the key Assads tend to avoid joint meetings, the better to keep the clan alive, even if some key members get killed. This is how Middle Eastern politics has been conducted for thousands of years.