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Analysis: A Syrian-Libyan Trade-off at The Russian-Turkish Table

Turkish soldiers walk together during a joint U.S.-Turkey patrol, near Tel Abyad, Syria September 8, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said
Turkish soldiers walk together during a joint U.S.-Turkey patrol, near Tel Abyad, Syria September 8, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said
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Analysis: A Syrian-Libyan Trade-off at The Russian-Turkish Table

Turkish soldiers walk together during a joint U.S.-Turkey patrol, near Tel Abyad, Syria September 8, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said
Turkish soldiers walk together during a joint U.S.-Turkey patrol, near Tel Abyad, Syria September 8, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said

It is no coincidence that Turkey announced the imminent conclusion of an agreement with Russia on a ceasefire in Libya after the two parties revealed a sudden crisis between them in northwestern Syria. It is not the first time that the two issues are intertwined.

Moscow supports President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the commander of the National Army, Khalifa Haftar, in eastern Libya, and brings them together. Ankara, for its part, backs opposition factions in northern Syria and the Government of National Accord forces in western Libya, and connects their elements together.

Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan often revolve around these two issues. Each of them reinforces his allies or proxies with arms, ammunition and political support, and then talks about a ceasefire. The Turkish side benefited from the quiet “understandings” in the Syrian north to transfer mercenaries to the Libyan north. The Russian side recruited its mercenaries from southern and eastern Syria to fight in eastern Libya. Since the spring of this year, a thread has become obvious between the battles of Tripoli and Idlib, and later between the Idlib “truce” and the “buffer zone” in Sirte.

Thanks to the Putin-Erdogan agreement at the beginning of March, Idlib witnessed a truce for more than six months, for the first time since 2011. It was believed that Moscow did not respond to Damascus’ demands over Idlib and restore areas in its south in compliance with agreements with Ankara. Rather, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has “praised”, during a press conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem in Damascus, the Russian-Turkish understandings because they “expanded” areas of control of the Syrian government forces. The Turkish and Russian armies also began joint maneuvers after their joint patrols in Idlib, to confirm the depth of their understandings.

The US side was convinced that the situation in Idlib had entered a “lengthy stalemate” and that there were no upcoming military developments. Its only concern was to “hunt for the extremists” with "drones" and “ninja swords”.

The people of Idlib were similarly convinced that the situation had stabilized in this way, so they began to prepare for coexistence with the Turkish military, civil and economic infrastructure there.

Two days ago, an unexpected development happened. Military and political talks took place in Ankara between the delegations of the two countries. The Turkish side was surprised by new Russian demands to shrink its presence: Dismantling of observation points located in government-held areas between Hama, Aleppo and Idlib, and withdrawing heavy weapons from points in the south of the Aleppo-Latakia road. In the field, Russian planes stepped up bombing areas in Idlib, while the Russian army halted the patrols with the Turkish side. Russian media also began to warn of “chemical provocative attacks by terrorists in Idlib.”

Russia explained that its demands stemmed from the necessity of adhering to the terms of the Moscow agreement concluded last March, and that the goal was to protect the Hmeimim base and reopen economic channels by operating trade routes.

The Turkish response was no less tenacious: The Ankara delegation reminded its guests of the need to implement an oral agreement between the two parties, which included the “handover” of Manbij and Tal Rifaat in northern Aleppo, meaning that the Russian army expels the Kurdish People’s Protection Units to the east of the Euphrates.

Ankara did not forget to point to the Turkish military deployment on the ground. There are more than 12,000 soldiers in Idlib and its countryside, in addition to thousands of Turkish vehicles and around 60 observation posts, some of which are more like military bases. There are also thousands of Syrian fighters who are undergoing training under the supervision of the Turkish army. And on the border, there are about 50,000 Turkish soldiers, ready to move in if fighting breaks out. There are hundreds of “drones” in the skies over the north.

Ankara wanted to say that there were two options: The first is that a trade-off could take place between the south of the Aleppo-Latakia road with Tal Rifaat and Manbij, as happened in previous bargains, when Syrian government forces with Russian support, restored east of Aleppo and other areas in exchange for the entry of pro-Turkish factions into the areas of the Euphrates Shield areas and the “Olive Branch”, thus allowing Ankara to achieve a “strategic objective ” to dismantle any possible Kurdish-Syrian entity.

The second is a direct military confrontation between the two sides that threatens bilateral relations, military cooperation, and the relationship with NATO, in addition to Libya and other issues.

Suddenly, a third option emerged from the Libyan door. The cease-fire in Idlib is under threat, so is the tripartite Syrian political process of the guarantors of the Astana process.

In Libya, the ceasefire and the activation of the political process are imminent. The statements of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu have indisputably expressed the extent of the interconnection between the two issues.

He said that the military and political meetings with the Russian side were “not very fruitful” with regards to Syria, which threatens the continuity of the ceasefire and calm in Idlib.

“If the ceasefire continues to be violated, the political process will be over,” he emphasized. But on the other hand, he revealed an understanding over Libya.

“We can say that we have come close to an agreement on the criteria for a ceasefire in Libya.”

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25 Years of Unanswered Questions in Iraq

A Saddam Hussein mural is seen in Baghdad in 1991. (Getty Images)
A Saddam Hussein mural is seen in Baghdad in 1991. (Getty Images)
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25 Years of Unanswered Questions in Iraq

A Saddam Hussein mural is seen in Baghdad in 1991. (Getty Images)
A Saddam Hussein mural is seen in Baghdad in 1991. (Getty Images)

People in Iraq often wonder dejectedly: What if Saddam Hussein were alive and ruling the country today? Many will reply with fantastical answers, but Saddam’s era would have responded: Iraq is isolated, either by siege or by a war that he launched or was being waged against him.

Many people cast doubt on whether actual change has been achieved in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003. The invasion ousted the Baath version of Iraq and Saddam was executed in December 2006, leaving questions to pile up over the years with no one having any answers.

After a quarter century, Iraq is accumulating questions. It casts them aside and forges ahead without addressing them. At best, it reviews itself and returns to that moment in April 2003 when the US launched its invasion. Or it asks new questions about the 2005 civil war, the armed alternatives that emerged in 2007, how ISIS swept through the country in 2014, or the wave of protests that erupted in 2019. It also asks new questions about Iran’s influence in the country that has persisted for decades.

The questions are many and none of the Iraqis have answered them.

A US marine wraps the American flag around the head of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad. (Reuters file)

Saddam and the alternative

The September 11, 2001, attacks shook the United States and the entire world. They struck fear in Baghdad. Saddam had that year claimed that he had written a book, “The Fortified Castle”, about an Iraqi soldier who is captured by Iran. He manages to escape and return to Iraq to “fortify the castle”.

The terrifying Saddam and the terrified Iraqis have long spun tales about escaping to and from Iraq. It is a journey between the question and the non-answers. That year, when Baghdad was accused of being complicit in the 9/11 attacks, Saddam’s son Uday was “elected” member of the Baath party’s leadership council. The move sparked debate about possible change in Iraq. Bashar al-Assad had a year earlier inherited the presidency of Syria and its Baath party from his father Hafez.

The US invaded Iraq two years later and a new Iraq was born. Twenty-five years later, the country is still not fully grown up. Twenty-one years ago, on April 9, 2003, a US marine wrapped the head of a Saddam statue in Baghdad with an American flag. The Iraqis asked: why didn’t you leave us this iconic image, but instead of an American flag, used an Iraqi one?

Baghdad’s question and Washington’s answer

As the Iraqis observe the developments unfold in Syris with the ouster of Bashar from power, they can’t help but ask how this rapid “change” could have been possible without US tanks and weapons. Why are the Syrians insisting on celebrating “freedom” every day? They are also astonished at the Syrians who scramble to greet Abu Mohammed al-Golani, who has not yet managed to put this image behind him and fully assume his original identity of Ahmed al-Sharaa. The Iraqis wonder how the Syrians are managing this transition so far without a bloodbath.

They ask these questions because the Iraqis view and judge the world based on their own memories. They keep asking questions and await answers from others instead of themselves.

The Iraqis recall how in August 2003, after four months of US occupation, that the Jordanian embassy and United Nations offices were attacked, leaving several staff dead, including head of the UN mission Sergio de Mello. The Americans arrested Ali Hassan al-Majid, or “chemical Ali”, Saddam’s cousin, and 125 people were killed in a bombing in al-Najaf, including Shiite cleric Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim.

During that bloody month, the Iraqis asked questions about security, forgetting about Saddam’s alternative, democracy and the promised western model. Later, the facts would answer that the question of security was a means to escape questions about transitional justice.

Sergio de Mello (r) and Paul Bremmer (second right) attend the inaugural meeting of the Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad on July 13, 2003. (Getty Images)

The question of civil war

Paul Bremer, the American ruler of Iraq, once escorted four opposition figures to Saddam’s prison cell. They flooded him with questions. Adnan al-Pachachi, a veteran diplomat, asked: “Why did you invade Kuwait?” Adel Abdul Mahdi, a former prime minister, asked: “Why did you kill the Kurds in the Anfal massacre?” Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a former national security adviser, asked: “Why did you kill your Baath comrades?” Ahmed al-Halabi simply insulted the former president. Saddam recoiled and then just smiled.

Saddam’s opponents left the prison cell with answers that should have helped them in running the transitional justice administration, but they failed.

The following year, Washington appointed Ayad Allawi to head the interim Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) that had limited jurisdiction so that it could be free to wage two fierce battles: one in Najaf against the “Mahdi Army”, headed by Moqtada al-Sadr, and the other against armed groups comprised of “resistance fighters” and “extremists” in Fallujah.

The opposition in the IGC got to work that was already prepared by the Americans. They outlined the distribution of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in the country, with historic questions about the majority and minority, and the “oppressed” now assuming rule after the ouster of the “oppressors”.

On the ground, the Ghazaliya neighborhood in western Baghdad with its Shiite and Sunni residents was in store for a bloodbath. On a winter night in 2005, an entire family was massacred and an enfant strangled to death. Soon after, lines drawing the Shiite and Sunni sections of the neighborhood emerged. The popular market became the tense border between the two halves. Two new rival “enemies” traded attacks, claiming several lives.

In Baghdad’s Green Zone, the IGC drew up a draft of the transitional rule. In January 2005, 8 million Iraqis voted for the establishment of a National Assembly.

Meanwhile, different “armies” kept on emerging in Baghdad. The media was filled with the death tolls of bloody relentless sectarian attacks. Checkpoints manned by masked gunmen popped up across the capital.

Those days seemed to answer the question of “who was the alternative to Saddam.” No one needed a concrete answer because the developments spoke for themselves.

Nouri al-Maliki came to power as prime minister in 2006. He famously declared: “I am the state of law” - in both the figurative and literal sense. Iraqis believed he had answers about the “state” and “law”, dismissing the very pointed “I” in his “manifesto”.

Nouri al-Maliki. (Getty Images)

The Maliki question

The American admired Maliki. Then Vice President Dick Cheney had repeatedly declared that he was committed to the establishment of a stable Iraq. Before that however, he had dispatched James Steele - who was once complicit in running dirty wars in El Salvador in the mid-1980s - to Baghdad to confront the “Sunni rebellion”. Steele set up the Shiite “death squads”. Steele was the man in the shadows behind Ahmed Kazim, then interior minister undersecretary, and behind him stood the new warlords.

In 2006, the political process was shaken by the bombing of the Al-Askari Shrine in Samarra. Questions were asked about the “need” to draw up new maps. Shiite high authority Ali al-Sistani said in February 2007 that the Sunnis were not involved in the attack. In July 2013, Maliki denied an American accusation that Tehran was behind it.

In those days, Maliki’s ego was growing ever bigger, and Steele’s death squads were rapidly growing greater in numbers.

The Iran and ISIS questions

Maliki tried to save himself as one city after another fell into the hands of ISIS. On June 9, 2014, as ISIS was waging battles in Mosul, Maliki met with senior Sunni tribal elders based on advice he had not heeded earlier and which could have averted the current disaster.

It was said that he made reluctant pledges to them and a third of Iraq later fell in ISIS’ hands. Sistani later issued a fatwa for “jihad” against the group, which later turned out not be aimed at saving the premier.

Maliki left the scene and Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, took over. Successive prime ministers would know from then on what it is like to be shackled by Tehran’s pressure as IRGC officials made regular visits to their offices.

Soleimani reaped what Steele sowed. By 2017, armed factions were the dominant force in Iraq. Running in their orbit were other factions that took turns in “rebelling” against the government or agreeing with its choices.

Today, and after 14 years, Iran has consolidated what can be described as the “resistance playground” in Iraq that is teeming with armed factions and massive budgets.

Protesters in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square in October 2019. (AFP)

The October question

The Iraqis were unable to answer the ISIS question and the armed factions claimed “victory” against the group. Many ignored Sistani’s “answer” about whether the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) was there to protect Iraq or just its Shiites.

Exhausted Iraqis asked: “What next?”

Next came Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government in October 2018. It was weighed down by unanswered questions and a year later, thousands of youths took to the streets to protest the state of affairs in Iraq, specifically the dominance of armed groups.

They were met with live bullets. Many were abducted and others were silenced. Abdul Mehdi acquitted the killers, saying instead that a “fifth column” had carried out the bloody crackdown on protesters.

After he left office, some Iraqi politicians were brave enough to tell the truth, dismissing former PM’s acquittal and pinning blame on the factions.

Sistani called for PMF members to quit their partisan affiliations. His demand was left unheeded. Mustafa al-Qadhimi became prime minister in May 2020. He left office months later, also failing in resolving the issue of the PMF and armed factions.

By 2022, everyone had left the scene, but Iran remained, claiming the Iraqi crown for itself, controlling everything from its finances to its weapons.

Question about post-Assad Syria

On December 8, Syria’s Bashar fled the country. Everyone in Iraq is asking what happens next. The whole system in Iraq is at a loss: Do we wait for how Tehran will deal with Ahmed al-Sharaa, or do we ask Abu Mohammed al-Golani about his memories in Iraq?

The Iraqi people’s memories are what’s ruling the country, more so than the constitution, political parties and civil society because they are burdened with questions they don’t want to answer.

And yet they ask: What if we weren’t part of the “Axis of Resistance”? Iraq’s history would reply that it has long been part of axes, or either awaiting a war or taking part in them.