November 17, 2025
“Syrians are nasty people.”
This ancient Roman graffiti was found during World War II etched on a rock in Syria by a friend’s father who was soldiering in the British Army. Not much has changed since the 1st Century AD.
Syria continues to be a danger and headache to its own people and neighbours. Its only time of relative peace – if one discounts the murderous Mongols and Crusaders – was during the centuries of Ottoman rule when the Turks allowed Syria’s 20-odd different peoples to do their own thing and worship their preferred gods.
Modern Syria used to be the beating heart of the Arab world. A centre of deep cultures, dazzling architecture, bizarre cults, strange religions and rich farmlands. Damascus rivalled Cairo as the capital of the Mideast. Created by French imperialists after World War I, the modern state of Syria became very important due to its vital geographic importance. Syria bordered on newly created Iraq, Jordan and Palestine – which would later become, in part, the Jewish state of Israel. Syria and Egypt were historic rivals who have warred over Syria across the centuries. Napoleon saw Syria as the key to the Mideast.
The US has been trying to overthrow Syria’s various regimes since the late 1940’s. CIA agent Miles Copeland recounts in his witty book ‘The Game Player” Washington’s sometimes clumsy efforts to control the Syrian regime of Gen. Husni Zaim (possibly a distant relative of mine). Ever since, the US has overthrown or manipulated ensuing Syrian regimes.
The brutal and sinister regime of the Assad family that ruled Syria with an iron fist since 1971 was targeted by the US and Israel for overthrow. I happened to be in the important city of Homs in 2015 just when its Sunni Muslims were rebelling against the Assad regime and its Alawite supporters.
Very large numbers of rebels were killed, many by direct tank fire. Not until Israel’s destruction of Gaza would we see such a massacre of civilians. Hafez al-Assad’s army finally prevailed.
But in 2011 another US and Israeli-backed uprising erupted in Daraa, Syria, the town where Lawrence of Arabia was captured by the Turks. Since then, the US and Israel have tried to oust Assad by covert action, including fielding a so-called Free Syrian Army (US financed) and US-run Kurdish rebel forces.
None of these efforts worked until US ally Turkey finally took decisive action. Turkey had been ruling the NW Syrian province of Idlib. The powerful Turkish Army and local allies marched from Idlib to Damascus and overthrew Assad and his powerful army in days. Assad fled to exile in Moscow. Few lamented his departure.
The western media totally ignored Turkey’s role in ousting the Assad regime. A former Jihadist rebel named Ahmed al-Sharaa, who had been in a US prison in Iraq, emerged as the new leader of Syria. Sharaa was quickly blessed by Washington and invited to the White House. President Trump is apparently more flexible about Mideast politics than his predecessors. Syria has a little oil and some wheat. Trump and his pro-Israeli advisors want to see the post-Assad Syria drawn into a US-run regional alliance with Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and Israel. This would be a remarkable case of déjà vu back to the 1920’s and 1950’s Baghdad Pact.
Now it seems Syria is to be returned to Western tutelage, financed by the US and Saudi Arabia. The old alliance with Russia looks very fragile. Damascus is to be deprived of most of its military power. Damascus will be forced to behave and stop annoying Washington.
Welcome Syria’s new ‘good’ Jihadists. We have not seen their like since Ronald Reagan hailed Afghanistan’s jihadists, ‘Freedom fighters’.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2025
This post is in: Syria
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