2024 - a year to forget?*

As we approach the end of another rollercoaster year of 'natural' and manmade disasters, I'm taking a moment to look back - and forward.

Janus, the two-faced Roman god, gave his name to the month of January, a time for both reflection and anticipation. But as I find myself unexpectedly housebound with a bout of 'flu - or it could be Covid but who has a lateral flow test kit lying around these days? - I'm self-isolating for the remainder of December.

Fortuitously, this gives me some time to ponder the existential 'quo vadis?' questions now rather than waiting until the New Year. I can always have another bite of the glacé cherry then, of course, so these are just some preliminary musings, though with so much hanging in the balance - Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, a second Trump presidency - my observations at this stage can't really be anything more than prefatory.

Let's start with the unfolding situation in Syria, the outcome of which could prove to be pivotal to all the issues outlined above. At the moment, mere days since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and his toxic regime, it's tempting to say 'so far, so good'. But in a scenario as complex and volatile as this almost anything could happen, for good or ill. 

Unfortunately, the lessons of history - from the Iranian Revolution, the Arab Spring, the toppling of Saddam and Gadafi, to the fall of Kabul and the return of the Taliban - show it is more likely to be the latter. We can only hope that this regime collapse will reverse the baleful trend and end better than those previous ones.

Much seems to hinge on whether Ahmed Sharaa (nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani), leader of the Syrian Sunni Islamist insurgency group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is now securely the de facto ruler in Damascus. He has already appointed a Prime Minister, Mohammed al-Bashir, taken control of the army and civil society, released political prisoners and safeguarded Shi'a shrines against backlash attacks. 

What happens now to the minority Alawite community, Assad's power-base, and those who occupied positions of authority within its structures, will be crucial to the establishment of a stable state. If an orgy of arbitrary, extra-judicial reprisals and revenge killings ensues the omens for the future of a new Syria will not be good.

Is it possible that, between them, Sharaa and Bashir will preside over a national 'truth and reconciliation' process rather than the murderous vengeance that usually follows such upheavals? After the appalling brutality of the Assad regime, and with so many simmering ethnoreligious tensions, it is hard to see how a functioning state, founded on the rule of law, could realistically emerge out of the chaos.
 
We must hope the new Syria breaks the mould, although the rule of Sharaa and Bashir while running the rebel Idlib Governorate of northwest Syria, supported by Turkish president, Recep Tayepp Erdoğan, was only relatively moderate and still quite harshly repressive. Whether the pair will embrace greater moderation and tolerance given their newfound international status as Syrian leaders and statesmen remains to be seen.

Events in Syria have already had a profound effect on other geopolitical situations and will obviously continue to do so. While we are seeing the regional balance of power tipping, with Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, severely and possibly terminally destabilised, there is also likely to be a significant influence beyond the region. The Iranian regime in Tehran and Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, are coming under increasing pressure, but so too is Vladimir Putin's influence.

The position of the Russian naval facility at Tartus on Syria's Mediterranean coast, enabled by Assad, now hangs in the balance. Tartus is Russia's only Mediterranean port and therefore of immense strategic importance to it, not just for access to the Mediterranean but in support of its wider activities in Africa. However, given Putin's role in allowing his airforce to bombard Syria's anti-Assad populace, and now offering asylum to the Assad family in Moscow, Sharaa might not be inclined to cut him any slack, at least without an onerous quid pro quo. 

The Russian fleet has already left port to moor out at sea pending an outcome and Russian ground troops are making a strategic withdrawal, with transport planes airlifting men and materiel out of the country.  But, while cynical realpolitik might yet win the day, the permanent expulsion of the Russian fleet would severely impede Putin's military aspirations in the region, and in the Sahel, potentially transforming his ability to conduct the war against Ukraine.

And then there's the impending Trump presidency... In the midst of this rapidly-evolving and highly-volatile situation comes an unpredictable American presidency which, even before its official inauguration on 20th January, is influencing matters as parties try to second-guess what Trump might do. 

We do know that Trump is the arch-pragmatist so we can expect him to do whatever he assesses as being in America's best interests - as, in reality, every other American president has always done. It is precisely where he decides those interests lie that gives rise to uncertainty.

Trump has appeared to be supportive of Netanyahu, friendly towards Putin, ambivalent about Zelensky, but the sudden and unexpected seismic shift in Syria, with its unfolding impact on the whole region and beyond, must surely lead Trump and his administration to reappraise their stance. 

It is clear Trump will throw anyone under the bus to advance his own, and as they coincide, America's standing in the world so all the aforementioned leaders will be rightly nervous about what comes next. It will keep them on their toes, which may be no bad thing.

Perhaps, in these circumstances, a modicum of constructive ambiguity will not go amiss.

*Try as we might, I suspect the ramifications of a year which saw the re-election of Donald Trump in the US, a new Labour government in the UK and intimations of an emergent new world order, will constantly remind us of its epochal significance.

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