Syria after Assad
The swift collapse of Syria's regime opens the door for greater Turkish influence in the region, not to mention, the Islamist movement that seized power has yet to show its full intentions in determining the way forward

After fending off rebels for 13 years, defying then-President Barack Obama’s “red line” against using chemical weapons, and continuing a half-century of iron-fisted rule of Syria with help from allies in Moscow and Tehran, Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed amid a lightning offensive by anti-government forces.
Assad, now refuged in Russia, leaves a dilemma regarding the fate of Syria and the Middle East. More than 507,000 Syrians perished during the civil war; in a rare agreement, President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump attributed Assad’s defeat to his debilitated allies’ inability to help him any longer. Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, “chose to launch a multifront war against Israel,” Biden was quoted as saying, which was “a historic mistake on Iran’s part”.
In just two weeks, Syrian rebels have swept from their enclave in the north-west to capture a string of major cities, before reaching the capital Damascus and toppling Assad.
In convoys of small vehicles and motorbikes, fighters led by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rushed along the north-south highway which forms the country’s main spine to take Damascus without resistance.
But while many in the country are celebrating the downfall of a family dynasty that ruled Syria with an iron fist, the future is uncertain and the situation on the ground remains in flux with a number of different rebel groups controlling different parts of the country.
The fall of the Assad regime was brought about by the sudden and unexpected advance by HTS rebels but, although the group controls Syria’s main cities, it does not govern the whole country.
Syria has for years been controlled by a patchwork of rebel groups, including HTS in Idlib and Kurdish-led groups in the country’s northeast, some of which have also taken territory in recent days and weeks.
None of the rebel groups will mourn the fall of the Assad regime, but finding a consensus over how to run the country could still prove difficult and in the north of the country there have been clashes between competing factions already.
Syria, with a population of about 22 million people, is located on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Turkey to the north, Lebanon and Israel to the west and south-west, Iraq to the east and Jordan to the south.
Turkey, Western powers and several Gulf Arab states have backed varying elements of the Syrian opposition to varying degrees during the conflict.
The Lebanon-based Hezbollah movement, backed by Iran, has fought alongside the Syrian regime army but has been severely weakened by its conflict with Israel. This has been seen as a key reason why the rebel advance was so successful.
Israel, concerned by what it calls Iran’s “military entrenchment” in Syria, has launched air strikes against Syria’s military.
In 2015, Russia sent thousands of troops to Syria to help keep President Assad in power. In return for this military assistance, Russia was given 49-year leases on two key military bases.
The port at Tartus is Russia’s only major overseas naval base and also its only naval base in the Mediterranean.
Along with the air base at Hmeimim, which is often used to fly Russia’s military contractors in and out of Africa, the two bases play an important role in Russia's ability to operate as a global power.
The Kremlin has said it will hold discussions with Syria’s new administration on the future of both sites.
In the meantime, Russian ships have left the port and are anchored just off the coast.
Of course, questions abound about what kind of successor regime will emerge in Damascus. Not only was Assad’s fall a blow to Moscow and Tehran but also to the major Arab states who look warily on both HTS and the demonstration of the Syrian people's power. The main rebel group is an offshoot of al-Qaeda and although its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has made much of his break from jihadist extremism, it remains to be seen whether the liberation he engineered was for all Syrians as he has declared or a tactic to deflect criticism and opposition. It is worth noting that there are reports that the SNA are attacking Kurds even as Jolani makes the case for a more inclusive Syria under HTS.
Jolani’s record from Syria’s Idlib Governorate, which was under HTS (with Turkish patronage) control, is mixed. He seems to have learned the lessons of the Islamic State and eschewed the most severe forms of political control, but HTS still ruled with an iron fist. Even as HTS fighters liberated Assad’s prisons, Jolani’s opponents were bearing witness to the abuses of his own jails.
It is hard to compare Syria’s liberation at the hands of Syrians with Iraq’s experience, but there are similar dynamics at play. As the rebels entered Damascus, Assad’s Prime Minister Mohamed Ghazi al-Jalali offered them a hand, but it remains unclear what other supporters of the regime might do. The speed with which the regime collapsed was impressive, but that does not mean that HTS will remain unopposed. Syria is awash in weaponry and suddenly there are people who no longer have a lot to lose. The country is not fated to a violent future, but it would be remiss not to consider the possibility and plausibility of an insurgency against the new order.
Beyond Syria’s borders, but connected to the issue of Syria’s internal stability, is the reaction of leaders in the region, most of whom had welcomed Assad back into the fold in recent years. The Emiratis, Saudis, Jordanians, and Egyptians are deeply opposed to the accumulation of Islamist political power. To expect these governments to sit idly by while HTS organizes its rule in Damascus is to ignore much of the recent history of the Middle East.
Of all people, Iraqis understand the jubilation of Syrians now at the toppling of the brutal and decades-long Assad dictatorship. Similar scenes, though with the backdrop of occupation, played out across Iraq over two decades ago when another brutal Baathist dictator, Saddam Hussein, was deposed. At the same time, Iraqis are cautious of what may happen next, as the face of the armed Syrian opposition today is a man who had engaged in terrorism in Iraq as a member of al-Qaida and, later, the Islamic State. Iraq’s Shia armed groups who had once helped prop up Bashar al-Assad, at the behest of Iran, have now abandoned him, and the Iraqi government has withdrawn its diplomats from their embassy in Damascus and turned its focus inwards, seeking to preserve internal stability.
While many analysts have used Iraq as only a cautionary tale for Syria’s future, that argument both infantilizes Syrians and ignores the positive lessons that Iraq can impart. Both countries were under the thumb of Baathism for decades, suffered external interventions, and have diverse populations. For one, Syria can learn from Iraq’s successful Kurdistan region model, which has granted Iraqi Kurds a large degree of autonomy and recognised their language and culture and their integral role in the federal government. Iraq, too, has warnings: to not ignore transitional justice, to not rush the writing of the new constitution, and to not employ extreme and punitive de-Baathification.
The unexpected collapse of one of the most brutal dictatorships in the Middle East has been celebrated by millions of Syrians inside and outside the country. The Baathist regime which ruled Syria continuously since 1963, with the last five decades under the particular brand of Assad family despotism, has not only exhausted Syria but also turned it into a Russian garrison and launchpad for Iran’s regional ambitions.
Bashar al-Assad’s defeat is also the strategic defeat of Russia and Iran in the Levant.
It is also a setback for Gulf Arab monarchies that had been trying to normalise the Assad regime. They stand to lose political influence, as Turkey, a longtime backer of the Syrian rebels, stands to gain.
But for Syrians, the hard work starts now. The opposition forces inside and outside the country have some experience in governance, but they do not know how to govern in harmony with one another.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the leading force in the lightning offensive, has been ruling over the northern border province of Idlib, where more than 3 million Syrians live under a conservative regime. It is an effective fighting force but with jihadist roots and al-Qaida baggage. HTS cannot dominate the diverse political and sociological tapestry of Syrian society — and luckily its leader, Jolani, seems to understand that.
The US-allied Kurds and Turkey-backed Sunni Arabs are the other militia groups that have helped Assad’s downfall and have also been running their separate enclaves in northern Syria, but they now need to show political and ideological flexibility to be part of an inclusive interim governance project in Damascus. Curbing the influence of Islamists will not be easy, but their inclusion in the political process and the spectre of elections within a year, as well as Ankara’s influence, could have a moderating impact.
In the end, Syria will not be worse than what it was. Millions of Syrians now have a chance to return home and provide a balance against armed militia groups and radicalism. The West will continue to have an interest in Syria, not only in fighting an Islamic State resurgence but also in staying engaged to guarantee Israel’s security, ward off extremism, and help the country’s evolution.
Views expressed are personal