Despite formal acceptance and clear political pledges of joining the Syrian Peace Process negotiations, the Syrian regime and its regional and international allies seem determined to fight in the ongoing Battle of Aleppo. Bashar al-Assad seeks to wipe out any presence of the armed opposition in Aleppo, as well as restoring the Northern and Eastern countryside of Aleppo to regime control is of strategic importance.
Motives behind military intervention in Aleppo
There are three central motives behind the Syrian regime’s insistence on military intervention in the Battle of Aleppo, regardless of the price paid for this open-ended battle:
1. Since its establishment, the Syrian regime embraces a traditional political belief that controlling Damascus and Aleppo means maintaining control of Syria. If any of these cities fall outside regime control, even partially, then control over the country as a whole is lost. Over the years, this conviction has become deeply rooted in the Syrian regime. Both cities are relatively large, with a sociopolitical stance opposing the Syrian regime and its sectarian social formula. Both cities have always posed a challenge that the regime continues to confront regardless of the costs.
2. The Syrian regime is aware of opposing regional powers that can only play military and political roles on Aleppo’s frontlines. Other border areas are either surrounded by regime allies, like Lebanon and Iraq; or are secured in such a way that regional powers cannot support opposition forces, such as the northern areas controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units; or are aware of the strategic conflict bases, such as the southern front controlled by Jordan. Hence, the regime thinks that controlling Aleppo will defeat the Turkish and regional party strategy, which militarily supports the Syrian opposition groups. In this sense; the regime will influence the core of the Syrian negotiation bases. The regional forces will not the space to exert military pressure on the Assad regime.
3. The Syrian regime knows that international community’s continued silence is guaranteed. On the one hand, it looks forward to real Russian pressure that could lead to some Syrian settlement. On the other hand, it expects more American passivity towards its practices, playing the “lame duck” politically, being occupied during summer and autumn with the presidential elections. The Syrian regime sees a favorable opportunity to direct a strategic military and psychological attack against the Syrian opposition forces by diminishing the opposition’s power in Aleppo. If the regime controls Aleppo, Syrian negotiations will totally shift from political partnership between the regime and opposition to a liquidation of the Syrian revolution’s legacy and the country’s reconstruction outside of any real political concessions by the regime.
Syrian regime’s strategy in opposition held areas
The Syrian regime wants to abolish any opposition presence or control over Aleppo and its Northern and Southern countryside, which manifests as the regime’s centralized military strategy to deal with the areas it does not control. The same will apply in other areas outside of regime control, even in those that are seemingly abandoned by the regime according to non-written agreements, such as the Kurdish areas in the North.
In a way, the battle of Aleppo reveals the regime strategy towards the current peace process negotiations. They are just tools and actions to withhold international pressure and show relative acceptance of a political solution. The regime, however, intends to replicate the “Aleppo solution” in other areas outside of the regime’s control. This strategy depends on the following four steps, taken by the regime against any such areas:
1. Besieging this area using different forms and tools, until normal life is rendered extremely difficult and, hence, any suitable ruling model will fail. Accordingly, the Syrians and the international community will not be able to argue for the presence of a possible alternative to the regime. This firm siege leads to displacement of the majority of the population, especially the more educated, productive social classes capable of providing a reasonable civil life. Accordingly, any potential to proceed with ‘normalcy’ is weakened.
2. Constant pressure on moderate military and political groups in besieged areas, to become easily overpowered when confronting more radical military and religious groups. The latter will thus dominate, and their behavior creates popular resentment against opposition forces’ control over the area. As a result, any alternative will be acceptable, even the regime itself. On the other hand, such control allows the regime to show that it confronts the “terrorist groups” controlling Syrian areas. The military atrocities perpetrated by the regime against these areas will gain legitimacy.
3. When these areas become totally exhausted due to siege and radical group control, Assad’s regime starts the military battle against it through quieting other fronts. The regime directs airstrikes in densely populated areas and institutions. The regime knows that the airstrikes directed towards civilians, and civil infrastructure achieves three aims at the same time:
a. Large numbers of individuals are displaced, creating pressures on neighboring countries and the international community (the displacement of half a million of Eastern Aleppo residents is estimated due to the battle). Thus, the armed opposition will lose its supply of fighters.
b. These attacks destroy infrastructure in areas not controlled by the regime. Accordingly, it is impossible for displaced persons to return to the areas they fled.
c. This pressure on civilians urges the fighters to leave civilian areas to protect the residents’ families; the regime enters these areas as if it attained a military victory.
4. Rehabilitation in areas not under regime control, such that military, political, and administrative institutions are loyal to the Assad regime. Such rehabilitation strategies are imposed on residents; the families of fighters and political activists are punished, and only a few opposition members are granted pardon upon re-aligning with the regime. Thus, the regime ensures restoring pre-revolution conditions.
Challenges facing the Syrian Regime in Aleppo
The Syrian regime applied this strategy in the Homs city and countryside, as well as in the Western countryside of Damascus, Hama, and Latakia. The regime is currently applying the same strategy in Aleppo and will apply it directly to other areas including, Daraa, Southern region, Idlib, Latakia Northern Countryside, Ghouta of Damascus, and opposition-controlled areas in Southern Qalamoun area. The regime will then be fully dedicated to Raqqa and Deir El-Zour battle, and will end with Kurdish areas. Thus, the whole of Syria will be restored to Assad’s control.
The Battle of Aleppo is critical, as its success will ensure regime replication of this strategy in other areas. Its partial failure will ensure the regime’s – and its regional allies – inability to apply the same approach in other areas. Various obstacles could lead to Syrian regime failure in the battle that it seeks to resolve the soonest. Marks of failure have begun through the inability to control Aleppo’s southern municipalities. Three months ago, with extraordinary support from Iran and Hezbollah, the Assad regime could not control these strategic municipalities from which it aimed to face opposition forces in the east. Moreover, the regime surrendered to Russian pressures to accept temporary truces in the city.
Two strategic obstacles may lead to regime failure in the battle for Aleppo; they are also the same strategic factors encouraging the regime to launch the battle. First, the Syrian regime’s persistence on waging this battle will be taken advantage of by the Syrian opposition allies, especially Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as a pretext to relinquish any pledges they made to the US, including not to provide oppositions forces with anti-aircraft weaponry. Such a move strips the regime’s military of any advantage over opposition forces. Second, the core strategic level in the battle of Aleppo will encourage military forces and Syrian opposition fighters to deal with it as their existential battle. Hence, they will fight decisively. The battle will not only be between the regime and fighters in Eastern Aleppo, but it will also be between the regime and all opposition forces in various fronts.
