The Scramble for Syria: A Scenario

Civil war, teetering economy, sporadic fuel and food crises, and a slowly imploding society, have overshadowed the lives of Syrians for more than a decade. Fighting insurrectionists and foreign agents over the course of 13 years have left the Syrian army enervated and its military capability depleted. Needless to mention of course, the colossal foreign debt which Syria has accrued throughout that period and the hefty bill to rebuild that hovers in the vicinity of $400 billion. In short, the country is barely withstanding the currents of time and is in no shape to fend off a foreign aggression, much less an invasion.

It is likewise obvious to the average spectator that Netanyahu has no intention to stop at the Lebanese south (See scenario 3 in “Middle-East: War Is at Hand, What Is Next?”). Recently, Israeli ground forces violated Syria’s territorial integrity and entered the city of Quneitra, bordering the occupied Golan Heights. “The group bulldozed agricultural land, including olive trees, over an area 500 meters long and 1,000 meters wide,” with the intent to establish a ‘security fence’ along the border with Syria (“After Incursion into Quneitra: Israel Announces Construction of Security Fence on Border with Syria”).

Israel-Syria border — After Incursion into Quneitra: Israel Announces Construction of Security Fence on Border with Syria

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after having made an account of empty bold threats to Israel vis-á-vis the war in Gaza [emphasis added]; such as sending “the NATO heavyweight’s troops into Israel to intervene on behalf of Palestinians,” (Starcevic); which Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz shunned in ridicule [emphasis added], promising the former a fate similar to Saddam Hussein’s should he pursue that heedless escapade (“War of Words As Erdogan Says Turkey Could Intervene in Israel’s War on Gaza”); has been unsettled by the Israeli move, sounding deep concerns as to the implications this might bear on the security of the region.

NATO support of Ukraine — (Creator: GONZALO FUENTES|
Credit: REUTERS)

In an interview with Turkish media, Erdoğan stated that “We will defend an urgent and permanent peace in Syria…Israel is the most concrete threat to regional and global peace,” (“Al Arabiya.Net العربية.نت”).

As dovish and Utopian his official narrative might sound, the Turkish president remains well-versed and slyly nuanced in past Ottoman glory. That is to say, he fools no one. For while he perfidiously puts on the guise of the savior, he never closed the tap of the Israel-Turkish energy corridor, nor disrupted steel imports to Israel via Turkey (See the map below).

With enemies like that, who needs friends? Wouldn’t you say?

Therefore, both conventional and historical wisdom suggest that Erdoğan is deviously proposing a scheme for Syria’s partition [emphasis added]. He is not going to send troops into neighboring Syria for the preservation of its territorial integrity and peace. To think so is sheer ignorance and pure naïveté. Rather, he means to mirror Israel’s maneuvering tactic—carving out a chunk of Syrian territory for himself under the false claim of ‘security’.

In which case, what will be the fate of Syria?

Notwithstanding Syria’s impotence in the face of incursion on multiple fronts, its neighbors are yet aware of the due respect owed to Russia’s interests in the country. Russia has time and again made it clear that the person of the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is off limits. Thus, no power, or any group of powers, regional or international for that matter, may occupy or annex Syria as a whole without running the risk of coming tête-à-tête with Russia.

Such being the case, Syria might be partitioned in the following order, while keeping in mind the 830 foreign military sites (en-القوى-الخارجية.jpg):

To begin with, Iranian forces are to be expelled from the country. President Assad will be forced to retreat to the coastal governorates of Tartus and Latakia; Turkey will annex the northwestern and central north regions (with the possibility of taking the entire north region on the basis of an U.S.-Russian accord); whilst Israel occupies the southern parts of the country. As for the rest, a new pro-West/Israel president will be installed in Damascus, and establish a government to preside over what is left of the country. In short, Syria will either be broken up into four autonomous states, or emerge as a confederation of four semi-autonomous states [emphasis added].

That, is the unmasked version of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s diabolical proposition; which is, in essence, a scramble for Syria.