By William Tucker
Senior Correspondent for In Homeland Security
The AP reported over the weekend that despite years of disagreement, leaders in Saudi Arabia and Turkey have agreed to cooperate in organizing the various Syrian rebel groups to bring down the Assad government.
The report comes on the heels of a dramatic turnaround in rebel combat capability in which the cities of Idlib and Jisr al-Shughour were recently seized by the opposition. The gains didn’t go unnoticed by Assad or his allies, however. On May 5, Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah took to the airwaves to claim his fighters were preparing an attack on al-Nursa Front positions near the Qalamoun Mountains. This was most likely in response to the rebel gains. These areas are of vital importance to the regime for logistical reasons, but the loss of this route also means cutting off overland contact from Damascus to the northern coastal province of Latakia where the bulk of Alawite community resides.
That the opposition forces were able to coordinate and effectively operate cohesively in a combat environment is a marked departure from past infighting. Officials in Turkey and Saudi Arabia cite these recent gains as evidence of efficacy of the recent pact between the two nations. Even with this agreement between the two nations in place, there is still an elephant in the room – what happens after Assad and his government fall?
One of the driving factors in forging this pact between Turkey and Saudi Arabia was a perceived lack of a coherent U.S. policy regarding Syria. Indeed, Washington has been criticized from nearly every angle for its lack of direction on the Syrian issue and the attempted rapprochement with Tehran has only served to unnerve regional allies.
Policy is difficult to craft, however, and a complex situation in Syria and blatant disagreements between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, among others, has served to undermine any path forward in stabilizing Syria. Granted, many have been looking to the U.S. for leadership on this and other issues, but Washington has been adamant that regional partners must play a role.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t worked out well especially when two regional powers – Turkey and Saudi Arabia – cannot agree on how to fight Assad let alone what they expect to replace his regime. For now it seems both nations have decided to forge a cooperative path that deals with the problems of removing Assad and have chosen to table the issue of new governance.
For the rebels on the ground the message from Turkey stating that safe zones may be implemented may come as a relief. This has been a constant request from the civilians in the crossfire of conflict, and go a long ways in alleviating the numerous humanitarian issues. Safe zones may also pave the way to addressing the elephant in the room – setting up local governance in these zones as an eventual replacement to the Assad regime. The problem that remains is the type of government and the ideological makeup. This is an area that hasn’t been adequately addressed, though to be fair the announcement of the Turkish-Saudi pact is still fairly recent.
All parties involved are set to meet in June to discuss a variety of issues and hopefully the form of government will be addressed. If not, the conflict in Syria could easily persist with or without Assad ruling in Damascus.
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