The fate of the Middle East is likely to be written over the next few months in the battles for control of two historic cities, Aleppo and Mosul. Only 600 kilometres apart, they are the second cities of Syria and Iraq, and their names ring down the centuries. Shakespeare’s Othello boasted of his exploits in Aleppo, while Mosul gave its name to muslin, the fine cloth that European merchants first discovered there.
They are both great centres of Arabic culture and Sunni Islam, but also highly diverse – home to Christians and other religions, as well as Kurds and Turkmen.
When the colonial powers were dividing up the lands of the old Ottoman Empire 100 years ago, their plan was for Mosul to become part of the French-aligned state of Syria, which would have rekindled its ancient links with Aleppo. But Britain, with its eye on the oilfields, bolted Mosul onto Iraq. The newly formed state of Turkey was determined to include Mosul inside its borders but Britain resisted.
Both cities are now united in a deadly embrace of besieging armies. Aleppo has seen its historic centre already destroyed by years of civil war.
The rebel-held part of the city now faces being flattened by Syrian forces and their Iranian-supplied allies and the Russian air force as they try to kill or drive out the rebels. With some 250,000 civilians in the rebel-held areas, a bloodbath is unfolding.
In Mosul, the stakes are even higher. Two years after a few hundred ISIL fighters conquered the city, forcing thousands of Iraqi army soldiers to drop their weapons and flee, an Iraqi strike forces rebuilt with American help is moving to retake the city. There are still an estimated one million residents living there, posing a huge problem for the attacking forces.
As it was from Mosul that the ISIL leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi proclaimed his “caliphate”, it is thought likely that the ISIL forces will stand and fight, rather than withdrawing as they have been doing in recent months when under pressure. The campaign could last more months.
When ISIL burst on to the scene in 2014 and announced it had erased the colonial-era border between Syria and Iraq, the collapse of the century-old state system in the Middle East was widely predicted.
It has seemed evident that governments in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya are unlikely ever to be able to enforce their rule over all their territories.
So the sieges of Aleppo and Mosul could be seen as the fightback of the central authorities. That is certainly how the Russians portray the battle for Aleppo.
The Russian embassy in Washington has compared Aleppo to the Chechen capital of Grozny, which was bombed flat by the Russian army to destroy a Chechen separatist movement, and has now been rebuilt with gleaming tower blocks. “Ain’t that a solution we’re all looking for?” the embassy tweeted. Not really. A state killing its own people is never a model to follow.
Aside from the historical differences between the two cities – Grozny was founded as a Russian fortress in the 19th century to suppress the Chechens (its name means “terrifying”) – this line of argument ignores the abiding weakness of the Syrian regime.
Far from being able to restore regime rule over the country, the Syrian army is a fatally reduced force, relying on Iranian-supplied militias, Russian air power, and thuggish loyalist bands bent on loot and vengeance.
The situation is even more complex in Iraq. The Iraqi army is assisted not just by the Americans, but also by the Peshmerga, the military forces of the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq, the mainly Shia Popular Mobilisation militias, and some Turkish forces whose presence is bitterly resisted by the Baghdad government.
So, far from the Iraqi government extending its control over the country, its weakness is still apparent in its need for – or inability to restrain – these non-state and external forces.
Haider Al Abadi, the Iraqi prime minister, has promised that the Kurdish and Shia forces will stay outside the city, so as not to alienate a population who would feel they are exchanging one occupation – by ISIL – for an equally oppressive one, by the Iranian-inspired Shia militias.
This is a fine promise but it is unclear how the Iraqi forces could stop them in the heat of battle. Meanwhile, there is one element that is common to both battles – the role of Iran, which is deeply embedded in military structures in both Syria and Iraq. Iran could turn out to be the winner from both these battles.
A further complication is the global stand-off between Russia and the United States. There is no cold war in the military sense yet, but there is a hot propaganda war which is driving the timing. The Russians are keen to crush the rebels in Aleppo before the next US president takes over in January, which allows for plenty of time to grandstand.
It is no secret that Barack Obama would like to end his presidency with a knock-out blow to ISIL, to show that 4,400 US soldiers did not die in Iraq just to advance the cause of terrorists, which seems to be a fair judgement at the moment.
To look into the future is dangerous, but it is clear that the fates of the two cities could be about to diverge. The prospects for Syria look bleak. Even if the regime secures a hold on Aleppo, the rebels will not disappear, nor is the regime likely to pursue statesmanlike policies. And the regional powers will still follow their interests.
Iraq could be different: if the Abadi government is serious about a new deal for the alienated Sunni minority, and if he can control the trend towards a Shia ascendancy under Iranian tutelage, then there is a chance, a slim one, for Iraq to prosper. So the real test will be what happens in Mosul after ISIL is expelled.
Alan Philps is a commentator on global affairs
On Twitter @aphilps
