Following the abrupt fall of Bashar Assad’s government in Syria, much remains uncertain about the country’s future – including whether it can survive as a unitary state, or will splinter into smaller chunks in the manner of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. For the time being at least though, members of ultra-extremist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) appear highly likely to take key positions in whatever administrative structure sprouts from Bashar Assad’s ouster, after a decade-and-a-half of grinding Western-sponsored regime change efforts.
As Reuters reported December 12th, HTS is already “stamping its authority on Syria’s state with the same lightning speed that it seized the country, deploying police, installing an interim government and meeting foreign envoys.” Meanwhile, its bureaucrats – “who until last week were running an Islamist administration in a remote corner of Syria’s northwest” – have moved en masse “into government headquarters in Damascus.” Mohammed Bashir, head of HTS’ “regional government” in extremist-occupied Idlib, has been appointed the country’s “caretaker prime minister”.
However, despite the chaos and precariousness of post-Assad Syria, one thing seems assured – the country will be broken open to Western economic exploitation, at long last. This is clear from multiple mainstream reports, which state HTS has informed local and international business leaders it will “adopt a free-market model and integrate the country into the global economy, in a major shift from decades of corrupt state control” when in office.
Hellbound and Down 