US altering Middle East map at Israel’s behest

By Ahmed Nofel Siddiqui

OPINION | Jan 30, 2025

How Assad’s fall has dealt a tough blow to Palestinian cause 

From benevolent leader to tyrant: Assad’s fall is a case-study on how not to fight an insurgency

TIME is an ever-present force that changes and heals everything. Wounds of the past heal with time, while circumstances and people change. But, some things never change. This is precisely the case with the US and the Middle East. The United States has made the Middle East its playground, jumping continuously from conflict to conflict; as a result, the region’s innocent people are never given enough time to heal. 

Their wounds keep festering as one conflict replaces another in a trend that has persisted ever since the end of the Second World War. During the entire period the US has insisted upon installing pro-US leaders in this important region of the world. 

The recent removal from power of Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad by rebels, who were apparently being backed by the US, has joined the long list of American interventions in the key region. Events in Syria and the wider Middle East have shown the US is restructuring the region once more, apparently at the behest of Israel and its long-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to renowned American economist and political analyst Jeffery D. Sachs.  

Sachs claims all the US interventions in the Middle East since 1996 have been carried out at the behest of the far-right Israeli prime minister. This resulted in many US-sponsored wars and conflicts in the region, including the invasion of Iraq and the ouster and subsequent hanging of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein over accusations of possessing weapons of mass destruction. Ditto for the overthrowing and killing of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the hands of US-backed rebels. 

None of these interventions have had positive outcomes. In both Iraq and Libya, the ousting of their powerful leaders created a power vacuum which could not be filled by any government installed by the US or its allies. This resulted in the rise of terrorist groups like the ISIS and Al Qaeda in these countries. 

Meanwhile, the case with Iran is quite different as the America-backed regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became unpopular there and was overthrown by the Iranian people in what is called the ‘Islamic Revolution’. The government that emerged in the aftermath of the revolution is ultra-Islamist, and has always been against the US in the region and beyond. In the case of Iran, therefore, the US created its worst enemy by its own hands.

The toppling of the Assad regime was carried out possibly with American backing, as the French news agency AFP quoted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as telling a conference in Jordan, which was attended by top diplomats from European and Arab states: “We (the US) have been in contact with HTS and with other parties.” He was speaking about the Syrian president’s ouster at the hands of the rebels headed by Abu Muhammad al-Golani of the Hayat Tahrir al-sham (HTS). 

When the American top diplomat was asked whether the US had reached out to HTS directly, Mr Blinken said: “Direct contact — yes.” This exchange at the conference shows the US is once again doing Israel’s bidding in the region by supporting rebels in ousting a key ally of Iran. Israel may well believe that Assad’s removal from the scene will render Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ toothless, thus ending the decades-long Palestinian armed resistance movement that has been sustained by Tehran through its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas; the latter has been engaged in a conflict with the Israeli forces for over a year now in occupied Gaza Strip.  

Assad’s fall allowed the Israeli military to storm past the Syrian border and UN buffer zone, intruding into the Syrian-held sections of the disputed Golan Heights region mere hours after the news of his defeat was broadcast to the world. During this intrusion the Israeli military captured Mt. Hermon, Syria’s highest peak, and the single-most strategically important site in the region. Controlling the mountain gives Israel surveillance capabilities over southern Syria, including Syria’s capital Damascus, and Hezbollah’s heartland in southern Lebanon.

The ouster of Assad has come as a great relief to the US and Israel, as it has resulted in the removal from the scene of the Iranian government’s staunch ally that was instrumental in ferrying support to both Hamas and Hezbollah. Because of Syria’s location on the map, the Iranians until recently could use proxies in Iraq and Syria to support its ‘Axis of Resistance’ against Israel in Lebanon and Gaza.

Assad’s fall has put Iran completely on the back foot in the Middle East as their main supply line to Hezbollah has been cut off; the new (potentially pro-US) government in Syria, is unlikely to allow their territory to be used as a supply route to Iran’s proxies.

The killing of basically Hezbollah’s entire top brass, including Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Saifeddin, and Hamas chiefs Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar at the hands of the Israeli and the US forces had come as a great setback to Iran, but the fall of the Assad regime may have dealt an even tougher blow to it, one from which it might never recover.

So the rebels’ victory in Syria isn’t just a victory for anti-Iran Syrians, the HTS, and Golani, but it is also a triumph for Israel, the US, and the well-wishers of the two. On the other hand, it is a loss not only for Assad, Iran, and Russia, but for all the people across the world who wish to see a free Palestinian state and people. The rebels’ victory in Syria may, therefore, have effectively buried the idea of a free Palestine for the time being. 

The nexus of Netanyahu, the US, and Golani’s HTS has altered the map of the Middle East completely. The US supported Golani to depose Assad’s regime at the behest of Israel and proof of this can be found in the Israeli invasion of Syria. Netanyahu has played the same cards before to get Saddam Hussein removed from the scene, according to Jeffery Sachs. 

The US is doing Israel’s bidding once again to remove hostile elements from the Middle East to ensure a safe future for Israelis, at the expense of vast Arab and Palestinian populations. As a result, the future of the Palestinian resistance movement now hangs by a thin thread.  

The writer is a student of international relations and can be reached at ahmednofel443@gmail.com