Irakischer Kleriker: Keine Hilfe für Assad

Will Assad nach dem Fall Hamas überleben, braucht er dringen Unterstützung von seinen Verbündeten. Nun hat Muqtada al Sadr im Irak abgewunken.

Dass es um die syrische Armee (SAA) nicht besonders gut bestellt ist, weiß, wer es wissen will, seit langem. Seit der Offensive auf Aleppo ist klar, dass sie ohne Unterstützung nicht in der Lage ist, auch nur eine größere Stadt zu verteidigen. In der Vergangenheit halfen da vor allem Truppen der Hizbollah, aber die sind seit dem Krieg gegen Israel sowohl geschwächt als auch mit sich selbst beschäftigt.

So hoffte man in Damaskus wohl, dass Einheiten der mit dem Iran verbündeten schiitischen Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) einem zur Hilfe eilen würden. Einige sind schon in Syrien stationiert, andere machten in den letzten Tagen viel Lärm, dass sie Assad zur Hilfe eilen wollten.

Nur hat nun ausgerechnet Muqtada al Sadr, der 2014 maßgeblich an Schaffung dieser Milizen mitgeholfen hat, recht klar und deutlich gesagt, dass er gegen einen solchen Einsatz sei. Und sein Wort hat in schiitischen Kreisen im Irak Gewicht:

 Iraq's powerful cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Thursday called on the Iraqi government to prevent any “interference” from its territories in the escalating Syrian conflict, as the nation ramps up security on its western border.

“We still maintain our position of non-interference in Syrian affairs and refrain from standing against the decisions of the [Syrian] people, as they are the only ones concerned with determining their fate,” said Sadr in a statement.

“It must also be noted that it is necessary for Iraq, its government and people; and all parties, militias and security forces, not to interfere in Syria affairs, as some of them have done in the past. Rather, the government must prevent them from doing so,” he added.

The Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, whose forces have defeated the Syrian army, which enjoys strong ties with Iraq, in Aleppo and Hama provinces in recent days, on Thursday called on Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani not to allow Iraqi armed groups to get involved in their ongoing war against the Syrian regime, claiming that his fighters will not pose a threat to Iraq’s national security.

Auch die irakische Regierung scheint wenig Interesse zu haben, sich in den Konflikt im Nachbarland hineinziehen zu lassen. Sie fürchtet vor allem ein erneutes Erstarken des Islamischen Staates im syrisch-irakischen Grenzgebiet, der das Chaos in Syrien für seine Zwecke ausnutzen könnte.

Derweil wendete sich der Führer von HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani , nachdem er die Einnahme von Hama offiziell bestätigte, direkt an den irakischen Premier:

Jolani, in a video message published on Telegram and addressing Sudani, urged the Iraqi prime minister to “prevent Iraq from getting involved” in the conflict and “to do what is required to prevent the Popular Mobilization Forces [PMF] of Iraq from supporting this vanishing regime,” referring to Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Sollte sich der Irak zurückhalten, wird es end für Assads angeschlagene Armee, denn andere Bodentruppen stehen momentan nicht zur Verfügung. Und nachdem die SAA, darunter auch Eliteeinheiten, in den letzten Tagen Hals über Kopf vor den anrückenden Rebellen geflohen ist und dabei Unmengen an militärischem Material zurückließ, scheint kaum wahrscheinlich, dass sie alleine in der Lage ist, die vorrückenden Rebellen aufzuhalten. Zwar greift die russische Luftwaffe auf Seiten der SAA ein - was vor allem heißt, dass erneut Krankenhäuser und andere zivile Ziele bombardiert werden - aber bislang hält auch sie sich zurück.

Syrien: kaputt

Wie kaputt Assads Syrien inzwischen ist und wie blauäugig der Glaube vieler westlicher Politiker,  dass Assad in Syrien irgendwie gewonnen hätte, beschreibt eindrücklich Charles Lister für den Economist:

Syria’s economy has been in shambles for years. When a cease-fire agreed to by Turkey and Russia—which back opposing sides—froze conflict lines in early 2020, $1 was worth approximately 1,150 Syrian pounds. As the opposition offensive began a week ago, it was worth 14,750 Syrian pounds. On December 4, after a week of renewed hostilities, it was 17,500.

Rather than stabilizing the country and offering Syria’s civilians some respite after more than a decade of war, Syria’s humanitarian crisis has spiraled since the agreement was reached in 2020, with the United Nations reporting that at least 90 percent of Syrians now live under the poverty line. While the regime’s embrace of organized crime brings in at least $2.4 billion in profit each year from the sale of just one type of synthetic stimulant, none of that has helped the Syrian people. In fact, state subsidies on fuel and food have been cut drastically in recent years.

But Assad no longer has anybody to rescue him from state bankruptcy. Russia’s economy has been hit hard by the effects of its war in Ukraine, and Iran’s economy is in poor shape, too.
It did not necessarily have to be this way. If Assad had constructively engaged with the regional governments that normalized their ties with Syria in 2023, and if he had embraced Turkey’s openness to normalization earlier this year, Syria would be in a markedly different place today.

With the nation’s humanitarian crisis worse than ever before, and the world’s will and ability to assist lower than ever, the Syrian people have been suffering. Realizing that there is no light at the end of the tunnel, Syrians started taking back to the streets and calling for Assad’s downfall. (...)

Recent events have also demonstrated that Russia’s eight years of investment in rebuilding the Assad regime’s military have had little effect upon its ability to fight effectively under pressure. Though Russia’s efforts have consolidated some effective capacity within select military units, such as the 25th Special Tasks Division, the Syrian Armed Forces as a whole remain disunited and poorly coordinated. In almost all respects, the regime’s military apparatus has stagnated in recent years, decaying from within and fragmenting on the outside. An amorphous network of loyalist militias arguably presents a greater military capability that the army itself. The only qualitative capability that Russia has added to Assad’s military in recent years is the use of first-person view suicide drones—yet that has been wildly outclassed in terms of scale and effect by HTS’s newly revealed Kataib Shaheen (or Falcons Brigade) drone unit, which has launched hundreds of devices into regime front-line posts, tanks, artillery pieces, and senior commanders over the past week.