Algeria on the Syrian path

A fall that puts an end to the Arab Spring in Syria 13 years later, thus closing one bloody chapter and opening another, that of the reconciliation of this great country, because of its history and culture, towards normality.

For 50 years now, the Al-Assad family has always relied on Russia on principle, and later on Iran after the Shiite revolution through connivance; a path that Algeria is following, albeit with worse starting parameters.

Indeed, Bashar's fall was predictable, as the political and military health of his partners foreshadowed it. Russia and Iran have not withstood the attrition of their struggles in Ukraine and those of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Gaza, respectively. Aware of this, Benjamin Netanyahu has unilaterally broken the disengagement agreement with Syria, invading its territory and threatening its transition. 

On the other hand, al-Assad's downfall is rooted in his partners, Russia and Iran. Putin has had serious difficulties in recruiting military personnel, in addition to the lack of ammunition and the difficulty in finding it due to the embargo that had diminished his war production capabilities. Beyond the nuclear threats, Russia is aware of such limitations in the face of so many open and costly fronts that its very survival is at risk. 


For its part, Iran has been unable to provide its partner Russia with the drones and rockets it needed for itself and for Hezbollah's fight against its enemy Israel. In fact, the more than 10,000 that have been launched into Israel's skies have been intercepted in the air by the Iron Dome, with few exceptions that have not caused significant material or personal damage compared to the more than 60,000 casualties and missing persons in Gaza and Lebanon.

Russia and Iran supported al-Assad as far as they could, without sacrificing more than is sustainable in the face of Bashar's refusal to negotiate peace and reconciliation, to restore order by bringing together the various factions under a constituent junta in order to build confidence, to create a climate conducive to presidential elections, on equal terms, under UN auspices.

Thus, the first losers in the Syrian war are Russia and Iran; they let al-Assad fall out of impotence, forced to retreat into their own struggles. At the same time, they showed their manifest weaknesses in their international relations to maintain their influence in the region.

The fall of the Al-Assad regime, just with Trump's arrival in the White House, will mark a historic milestone that will transform the Middle East; it will undoubtedly change the geopolitics of the region and beyond. Indeed, Iran is already on domestic alert. It also puts Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, where President Plenipotentiary Kais Saeid has brought Ben Ali's dictatorship back to the country, and Algeria for its militaristic drift and its alignment with Iran and Hezbollah, in check. 

Two dictatorships in North Africa and Southern Europe, Algeria and Tunisia, two blustering dictatorships whose leaders look like fearful Bengal tigers, but who in reality are cowards when it comes to facing their political responsibilities, and would undoubtedly choose to run away, like Bashar Al-Assad, with their tails between their legs to Moscow.

Algeria shares with Syria the militaristic spirit, the lack of freedoms, the repression of the press, of opponents, social injustice and the lack of a state project; although the worst thing about the Algerian military junta is the underdevelopment of the economy and institutions of a hydrocarbon exporting country, its political and social instability that poses a permanent threat to the regime and the worldwide discredit the country enjoys, which makes it an easy prey; all this constitutes a perfect breeding ground for an implosion.

The Algerian military junta and its puppet president Abdelmadjid Tebboune are on the Syrian track. It is good to remember that the Algerian problem is much more serious; a country still trapped by the revolutionary principles of an outdated and illusory communism, whose cradles, Russia and China, do not even practise it. Now, all that remains of communism is authoritarianism and its conspiracies, which Algeria practices with mastery.

And, just as Iran sponsors armed groups, Algeria plays at destabilising the region by harbouring, nurturing and arming factions in the Sahel and launching Polisario militias against Morocco for expansionist purposes, spending a huge war budget that has impoverished and destroyed an already unproductive country.

Algeria's allies, like Syria, are Russia, an arms supplier, and Iran, a demagogic and, lately, also a religious supporter due to the proliferation of Shiism in the country. Putin could try to regain some hegemony in North Africa, as in Soviet times, and Iran could do the same by regaining its jihadism, with both retreating into Algeria and their particular conflict with Morocco as well as the Sahel.

The overthrow of al-Assad has shown the long process of struggle for democracy and human rights within dictatorial regimes that today's societies, in the age of 21st century artificial intelligence, are willing to undertake.

Consequently, the similarities between Algeria and Syria are undeniable; and the fall of Al-Assad should be a lesson in political dialogue, cooperation, economic and social progress of peoples and between peoples; in other words, just what Algeria needs to get out of the quagmire in which it is mired, thereby avoiding a similar end.