Idlib: three scenarios and three "component" parts
Nevertheless, the process, as they say, has gone. It is no coincidence that the military experts immediately compared the situation around Idlib with the situation on the eve of the First World War, when advisers to Nicholas II and Wilhelm II warned their sovereigns that "there can be no partial mobilization." So, after a long mobilization of the armed forces on the borders of Idlib, it was not worth counting on the fact that the concentrated troops would not be put into action.
Today, almost all the information from this map is outdated - perhaps this is what should be returned to.
Today, UN officials are surprisingly quickly leading Syria to a new constitution in which the emergence of autonomous entities in the country is almost inevitable. Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General Staffan de Mistura 11 September received in the promotion of the constitutional process direct support from the guarantor countries of the armistice and also has no direct objections from members of the UN Security Council.
Despite these “successes”, the country is still doomed to rake the rubble of a protracted civil war, which, it must be recalled, began precisely in Idlib. At that time, no more than one and a half million inhabitants lived in Idlib, and now there are from 2,5 to 3 millions. And this included not only refugees, but all the terrorists, and, as a rule, left the other provinces together with their family members, from where the Syrian, Iranian and Turkish forces forced them out.
It is characteristic that almost the majority among them are by no means Syrians, this is a whole terrorist international. The number of only armed individuals - non-Syrian citizens, Western experts estimate at least 10 thousands of people. But now they are not only in Idlib. All criminals who escaped during the conflict from the Syrian prisons, as well as other antisocial elements, moved there.
The current state of affairs again and again reminds the assessment made from Damascus several years ago: "If Syria had no border in the north with Turkey, and in the south with Jordan, the terrorists would have been finished long ago." However, according to Russian experts, who took part in the round table at the Russia Today International Atomic Energy Agency the current extremely difficult situation in Idlib is not a dead end. It is rather a knot, which is already called in the media - “idlib knot”. And for the beginning it will still have to be cut, then to untie it long and hard.
It would be naive to believe, as many people are doing today, especially, by the way, in Russia, that Idlib will be the final point of a large-scale confrontation in Syria, after which it will be possible, as they say, to exhale. Withdraw Russian specialists, perhaps yes, but to finish dismantling with terrorists is definitely not.
Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Forecasts of the RUDN University Dmitry Egorchenkov assesses the current situation in Idlib as extremely difficult. According to him, there are three options for solving the problem of Idlib. The first is hard, the so-called Iranian. In accordance with it, it is assumed that in the provinces the military of all countries will walk literally with a skating rink, disregarding losses and literally cleaning everything.
The Turkish version means a long-term presence in Idlib of precisely the Turkish troops and the actual abandonment of the opened northern border of Syria. What kind of sovereignty and territorial integrity? And you can immediately assume that such a scenario is unreal, and not only because of the position of Turkey. The Syrian military itself will not go to him - they don’t fight in their own country, and no one wants to single out Idlib from Syria.
The second option is much softer, and now it is often called "Turkish." According to it, it is planned to disarm the militants, offering them the transition to the status of oppositionists, and subsequently resettlement in Syria. In addition to serious doubts about the feasibility of such a scenario, there are concerns about the consequences of its implementation. The fact is that resettlement will inevitably entail, according to the imaginative armament of one of the Syrian journalists, a kind of pollination of the territory of his native country with war.
The third scenario, which is characterized as Damascus - Moscow, provides for the smooth and slow entry of the military into the province and the gradual building of a new relationship with its population. In Idlib, even now, those who are ready for dialogue with Damascus have a great influence. Moreover, they are ready to somehow alleviate the situation, freeing Idlib not so much from refugees, as from unwanted aliens.
As many observers have noted, in favor of the implementation of the third option says that not the largest forces of the Syrian army are concentrated on the borders of Idlib. At the same time, the strength of the Turkish army on the borders of Idlib is really evaluated by few people, let alone the assessment of the forces of the Kurdish militias. It is possible that the Turkish side will even try to somehow use their activity in an effort to liberate one of the "native provinces".
It is impossible to exclude the creation in Idlib, although probably not for long, of two or even three occupation zones, Turkish, Syrian and international, but not at all American. Well, of course, not Russian. But any kind of prompt and effective solution to the problem of Idlib does not in any way contribute to the constant buildup of the military presence in Syria by the United States. One gets the impression that the Americans simply do not need a quick victory in Syria.
The situation around Idlib, according to Mr. Egorchenkov, develops according to a scheme already tested by the Americans in Iraq after the liquidation of the regime of Saddam Hussein. It provides for the permanent presence of the American military in the region, allowing it to manipulate the conflicting parties and extract political and economic dividends. After Iraqi Kurdistan, the United States is not averse to organizing something like Syrian Kurdistan, which in many ways caused divorce from Turkey, which could well become a long-term one.
Commenting on the current vectors in the development of Turkey’s relations with the United States, Alexander Kuznetsov, deputy director of the Institute for Forecasting and Political Settlement, conducted an analogy with the situation in Kosovo, where the Americans organized the largest military base in Europe. The now possible outcome of the American military from Turkey practically forces the United States to prepare an alternate aerodrome.
So why not organize it in Idlib? This question was asked by an expert. Moreover, out of this potential enclave, the United States can put pressure on almost all countries of the region, and above all on Iran. The Iranian presence in Syria is almost the main irritant of the United States, as well as of Israel. To put up with the presence in Syria of Russians and those, and others, by the way, is much easier. And in complex relations with Turkey, it will be possible to use the strong positions that the Syrian Kurdish political organization Democratic Union (branch of the PKK, the Kurdish Workers' Party) has in Idlib and its environs. The latter, as is known, is banned in Turkey as a terrorist organization.
But do not forget that one of the main representatives of organized Islamic terrorism in Syria, the notorious “Dzhebhat-en-Nusra” (banned in the Russian Federation), has lately almost completely lost the role of some kind of asset that someone else would like to hold on to. According to Nikolai Surkov, a senior researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO), you shouldn’t be deceived and wait for someone to pull in with the start of stripping of Idlib.
The expert believes that in a situation of gradually weakening resistance of the militants, the three most realistic directions are those along which the operation in Idlib will continue to develop. The first is from Latakia, the second is from the southeast, from where the Syrians and Kurds have already moved, and the third from Aleppo. The expert does not exclude that the province will turn into an enclave, in fact, under the control of Turkey, which can survive for a very, very long time.
But in the future, according to a unanimous assessment of experts, even in the event of a victory in Idlib, the civil war will not stop, because attempts to resist the regime of Bashar al-Assad or his successors will not cease. And also the extrusion of Kurdish militants from the same Idlib will not stop, and it is also difficult to count on complete calm in the south of Syria. The experts, however, excluded the possibility of a repetition of the Kosovo variant in Idlib due to completely different initial positions. Nikolai Surkov does not believe in the creation of Kurdish autonomy in Syria, since the demands of the Kurds can be satisfied with something like cultural autonomy.
Apparently, the Turkish president, conditionally accepting the third of the options cited by Dmitry Yegorchenkov, has by no means accidentally repeatedly emphasized that Turkey has the strength to deal with the militants in Idlib. Moreover, the province is now almost equally divided among themselves "Dzhebhat-en-Nusra", fed by money from Riyadh, and almost openly pro-Turkish "Ahra ash-Sham" (banned in Russia), which, if necessary, probably add up weapon just right away.
However, it is clear that in this case, a full return of Idlib to Syria, even as an autonomy, is out of the question. And we must understand that in exchange for the fact that Turkey did not actively “enter” into Idlib, we can offer very, very little. First, the withdrawal of all or most of the Syrian immigrants from Turkey. And secondly, guarantees of wide participation of Turkish business in the upcoming reconstruction of Syria.
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