On Syria
The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad on 8th December 2024 was a seismic rupture, shattering a regime that had stifled Syria for over five decades through its iron-fisted tyranny. By March 2025, Syria is a fractured husk, its transitional government under HTS staggering under the burden of violence, foreign exploitation, and a humanitarian abyss. This essay lays bare the wretched state of Syria post-Assad, wielding verified data and scathing analysis to expose a land ravaged by internal discord and exploited by external vultures. It delivers a blistering condemnation of Erdogan’s Turkey, the scheming US deep state, Israel’s belligerence, and the extremist rot within, forecasting a grim future unless these malign forces are defied.
Assad’s ouster ended a regime once propped up by Russia and Iran, only to crumble in ten days as HTS and Turkish-backed rebels seized Damascus. The transitional government, formalised in late January 2025 with al-Sharaa as interim president, issued a temporary constitution promising a five-year path to elections. Yet, this flimsy document is a mockery, its aspirations drowned by reality. The UN reports that 16.7 million Syrians—over 70% of the population—need humanitarian aid, a figure confirmed by Human Rights Watch in January 2025. In the first 100 days, violence flared in northern Aleppo, southern Daraa, and coastal Latakia, with a shaky ceasefire with Lebanon on 17 March barely stemming the tide. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) documented 803 deaths in coastal clashes from 6-10 March alone, a brutal testament to the regime’s lingering loyalists and the new government’s frailty.
Security is a grotesque illusion. Syria is a splintered battlefield, with HTS’s 50,000-strong force—per local estimates—struggling to subdue the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Turkish proxies, and a resurgent Islamic State (ISIS). The SDF safeguards 10,000 ISIS detainees in the northeast, a powder keg exacerbated by 900 US troops remaining under the pretext of counter-terrorism, as per the Council on Foreign Relations. This American presence reeks of deep-state cynicism—a liberal clique in Washington clinging to imperial ambitions, perpetuating chaos to secure oil fields and impede Russia, all whilst feigning concern for stability. The Biden administration’s refusal to lift HTS’s terrorist designation, despite its governance role, exposes a duplicity that strangles Syria’s sovereignty.
Turkey’s Erdogan is a venomous puppeteer in this debacle. His backing of the Syrian National Army (SNA) and tacit support for HTS’s victory were less about liberation than domination. With 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, per UNHCR figures, he schemes to offload them while Turkish firms eye £315 billion in reconstruction contracts, as estimated by the World Bank. Erdogan’s relentless assault on the SDF—over 50 airstrikes since January 2025, displacing 80,000 per UN reports—reveals his true aim: crushing Kurdish autonomy to bolster his neo-Ottoman delusions. This isn’t aid; it’s predation, a shameless bid to remake Syria as Ankara’s vassal, heedless of the ethnic carnage it ignites.
Israel’s role is equally vile. Since Assad’s fall, the IDF has launched over 300 airstrikes, per the Washington Institute, targeting Syrian military assets and Iranian remnants. By March 2025, Israel had seized 400 square kilometres beyond the Golan Heights, contravening the 1974 UN disengagement pact, as noted by the Security Council Report. Netanyahu crows about security, but this is naked opportunism—destroying Syria’s air force (70% incapacitated, per NPR) and expanding settlements while the UN tut-tuts and Western allies shrug. Israel’s aggression doesn’t stabilise; it inflames, risking a radical backlash from a populace already on its knees.
Within Syria, extremism is a festering wound. HTS, despite al-Sharaa’s polished pledges of inclusivity, carries the stench of its al-Qaeda past. The SNHR reports 420 civilian deaths by government-linked fighters in March, alongside revenge killings of Alawites—evidence of sectarian rot HTS can’t or won’t contain. ISIS, meanwhile, exploits the void, with a February Aleppo bombing killing 27, per Reuters.
The transitional government’s inability to disarm factions—only the SDF resists integration, per X posts—leaves Syria vulnerable to jihadist resurgence, a nightmare born of war’s unhealed scars.
Economically, Syria is a corpse. The World Bank confirms 90% of its 22 million people live in poverty, with half its hospitals ruined and electricity sporadic. The EU’s £2.1 billion pledge on 24 February, per the Middle East Institute, is a pittance against a £315 billion rebuilding cost. US sanctions, unyielded despite HTS’s pleas, choke recovery, a cruel relic of deep-state spite. Russia, hobbled by Ukraine, clings to Tartus but offers little; China dangles Belt and Road promises but hesitates. HTS’s economic vision—330 diplomatic engagements by February, per the Washington Institute—flounders as the Syrian pound stabilises at 9,000 to the dollar, a frail improvement from 15,000, yet still dire.
Short-term, Syria faces a descent into purgatory. The next year will bring relentless factional clashes, with Turkey’s SNA and Israel’s incursions deepening the mire. Winter looms over 1.3 million returnees and displaced, per X posts, in camps the UN calls underfunded. HTS’s grip on Damascus may hold, but its failure to deliver jobs or power—90% salary cuts reported on X—will spark fury. The US, whether under Biden’s vacillation or Trump’s indifference, will prolong the agony with half-measures, while Erdogan’s Kurdish vendetta risks a quagmire Ankara can’t escape. Israel’s provocations could ignite feeble reprisals, further destabilising the south.
Long-term, Syria’s fate teeters on a razor’s edge. If HTS somehow reins in its jihadist core and forges unity—a 230-school restoration by March, per X, hints at intent—it might limp to a £12 billion GDP by 2030, per speculative economic models. Yet, the odds favour collapse. Turkey’s imperialism, America’s meddling, Israel’s land grabs, and extremist resurgence could fracture Syria into warring fiefdoms, a failed state bleeding into the 2040s. The Assad era’s end was a hollow victory, usurped by predators who offer no reprieve—only a deeper abyss.
Syria in 2025 is a tableau of shattered dreams, its people crushed by Erdogan’s greed, Washington’s treachery, Israel’s brutality, and the jihadist plague. The transitional government is a frail reed, buckling under foreign and domestic wolves. For Syria to rise, it must defy this rogue’s gallery—a near-impossible feat for a nation so battered. The coming years will judge whether this ancient land can reclaim its soul or be devoured by the vultures circling its ruin.
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Rajeev Ahmed
The Editor of Geopolits.com and the Author of the book titled Bengal Nexus
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