Since the Civil War began in 2011, Syria has become a geopolitical free-for-all. Today, Russia, America, and Turkey all have forces in the region, and fighting between Assad's forces and various opposition groups is ongoing. Nonetheless, things could get even more chaotic because, in the last few weeks, Turkish President Erdogan has begun preparing for a ground invasion into the northeastern part of Syria, which is currently occupied by a Kurdish-led militia.
So let's start with a bit of context: Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000 after his father's death. His father, Hafez al-Assad, was previously the Minister of Defense, who took advantage of Syria's reoccurring political instability to seize power in 1970. Like his son, he was an autocrat who ran the country via executive fear. Initially, he intended for his oldest son Basel to be his successor, but Basel was killed in a car crash in 1994, leaving Bashar to take power six years later. Initially, Bashar promised reforms, including the continuation of his father's privatization of industry and a transition from a centralized system to a western-style free market economy. However, these reforms failed to have the intended effect and ended up mostly benefiting well-connected elites who supported Bashar's regime.
Public sentiment in Syria was not helped by the fact that from 2006 to 2010, the country suffered through a record-breaking drought, pushing up food prices and putting pressure on Syrian living standards. On top of this, Bashar al-Assad refused to authorize new political parties, and when the Arab Spring kicked off in 2011, prompting calls for further reform and democracy, he cracked down violently. This crackdown eventually plunged the country into a full-blown civil war, which has been raging ever since. The complexity of this conflict is due in part to the different groups fighting within the country and their varying motives. In order to understand the current state of the civil war, it is necessary to understand these groups and their motivations.
Obviously, one of the main groups involved in the Syrian civil war is Bashar al-Assad and his Baathist government, who are fighting to maintain their grip on power. Assad is backed by Russia, which supports him for both strategic and political reasons. Strategically, Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to remain relevant in the region and maintain control over his air base and port, which he uses as the base for his Black Sea Fleet. Politically, maintaining a presence in the Middle East allows Russia to posture as a superpower and gives it an opportunity to flex its newfound military strength, although this may have been diminished by Russia's poor performance in the conflict in Ukraine. Assad is also supported by Iran, which sees his success as crucial to its regional interests. Iran and Syria have been strong allies since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, when the ayatollahs were supported by Assad's father, and both countries are anti-Israel, so Iran wants to ensure that they maintain a key ally by ensuring that Assad remains in power.
While Iran and Russia are the main backers of Assad, the Lebanese group Hezbollah and, briefly, Iraq have also supported him. The main domestic group opposing Assad is the Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes a number of different groups but is led by the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish military force. These groups aim to overthrow Bashar al-Assad and create a more democratic Syria. This presents a conundrum for Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was friendly with Assad in the 2000s but is sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria's preeminent political opposition, which was exiled by the Assad regime.
When Bashar al-Assad cracked down hard on protesters against Erdogan's advice, Erdogan switched sides and threw his weight behind the rebels and, essentially, the Islamist groups. However, as the Kurds have established themselves as the primary opposition against Assad, Erdogan is faced with a dilemma. While he wants Assad gone, he doesn't want the Kurds to establish themselves in northern Syria, which could eventually lead to a Kurdish state in the region. For context, since the 1980s, the Kurdish government has waged a series of wars against Kurdish nationalist groups, most notably the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which in eastern Turkey is demanding Kurdish autonomy or even full-blown Kurdish independence. Erdogan will be worried, then, that if Kurds in northern Syria establish a Kurdish state, they will fuel Kurdish nationalist sentiments in Turkey itself.
This is why, over the past decade or so, Turkey has staged at least four interventions against the Kurds in Syria. Currently, the country is split into two main regions: the western, Assad-controlled region, and the eastern, Syrian Democratic Forces-controlled region. However, it is often overlooked that Turkey actually controls a small region of Syria in the north. In this area, controlled by Turkey, children in schools learn Turkish as a second language, the Turkish lira is the dominant currency, and Turkey's postal service is used to pay the salaries of local workers. Turkey is clearly trying to establish itself in Syria, primarily to weaken the Kurds. However, in late November, Erdogan suggested that he may soon step up his actions in Syria, proposing a land invasion in retaliation against a bomb attack in Istanbul that Erdogan claims was orchestrated by the PKK and the YPG. Both groups have denied involvement.
Until now, Turkey's main involvement in the Syrian conflict has been through the use of its air force. Therefore, a land-based invasion would amount to a major escalation. Most major international players have urged Turkey not to escalate, including, perhaps most notably, their usual allies Russia and Iran. However, Erdogan has refused to rule out the possibility of an invasion. So why is Erdogan threatening escalation now? There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the Kurdish groups are establishing themselves in northern Syria, and Erdogan is genuinely worried about the prospect of Kurdish nationalism in the future. However, the second reason is political. Erdogan is struggling in the polls at the moment, and while polling suggests that his AKP party is still on track to be the largest party, they will probably lose their parliamentary majority in the next election. Their coalition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party, is polling at less than 10 percent and could fall below the 7 percent electoral threshold.
Similarly, polling for the presidential election suggests that the most popular opposition candidates are now neck and neck with Erdogan, and a couple of recent polls have even given one of his contenders a tentative lead over him. This politician is the leader of Turkey's main opposition party, the Republican People's Party, who leads an opposition alliance comprising six parties with a shared platform focused on abolishing the presidential system of government in Turkey that granted vast executive powers to Erdogan in 2018. In any case, the point is that the polls for the 2023 election are neck-and-neck, and with an ongoing economic crisis, the opposition could plausibly pull ahead. An aligned offensive against the Kurds would distract the electorate from the economic issues facing the country and allow Erdogan to campaign on foreign policy, an area where he is far more comfortable. Therefore, Erdogan's potential invasion of Syria is perhaps best explained by reference to his domestic political woes rather than his actual objectives in Syria.