THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT HAS FALLEN. NOW WHAT? / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

The Syrian Government Has Fallen. Now What?

The toppling of the Assad regime has left a power vacuum that many seek to exploit.

By: Kamran Bokhari

The Assad regime, which had ruled Syria for nearly half a century, fell over the weekend after rebels took control the capitol of Damascus. 

Former President Bashar Assad fled the country and was granted asylum in Moscow. 

He leaves in his place a strategic vacuum that, when filled, will have major repercussions for Syria and the wider Middle East.

Crucially, the conflict in the Levant is far from over. Iran’s regional empire has been dealt a massive blow, and Russia has lost a 70-year-old outpost in the Mediterranean, but the contest for Syria continues. 

Turkey, which supported the rebel factions that just usurped Assad, will now have to manage its own growing sphere of influence, while Israel will simply switch one foe – Shiite radicals – with another – Sunni jihadists.

The collapse of the Syrian regime should come as no surprise. 

It is the direct outcome of the Israel-Iran confrontation that intensified following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. 

The devastation to Iran and its premier proxy, Hezbollah, created an opportunity for Turkey and its rebel proxies to make gains against the Syrian regime. 

Thus a rebel coalition led by Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham did in nine days what no one could during the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war.

The problem is that HTS is only one of many groups vying for power. 

It may be the biggest and most organized group, backed as it is by Turkey and Qatar, but it isn’t strong enough to dominate the battlespace. 

And it’s unclear how it plans to do so. 

The group has said publicly it intends to be tolerant, but for now these are just words, and Syria has a variety of religious and ethnic minority groups – Alawites, Christians, Shiites, Ismailis, Druze and Kurds – that constitute some 40 percent of the population. 

This means that all of Syria’s disparate rebel groups will have to reach some kind of power-sharing arrangement for a new political dispensation, which will take a long time. 

First, they will have to navigate the Sunni landscape, where there are ideological, regional and political differences that need to be attended to before reaching a settlement with the minorities, most of whom are worried about the possible emergence of a Sunni or Islamist government. 

Then, they must reach an understanding with the Kurds, who occupy the east and northeast and have enjoyed self-rule for more than a decade.

This is where Turkey has significant interests. 

Ankara wants the rebels to weaken Syrian Kurdish separatists under the banner of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. 

For Ankara, ties between the SDF and the Turkish separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Ankara designates as a terrorist group, are an intolerable national security threat. 

However, the extent to which Turkey can call the shots in Syria remains to be seen.

Related to this is the incoming Trump administration, which will have to define its position on the Kurds, especially if it believes the Islamic State could return to form in the Syrian power vacuum. 

Complicating matters further is that Iran, having lost the Levant, will want to make sure there is no spillover effect in Iraq, in which it will protect its influence at any cost. 

The cross-border Sunni majorities on the Syrian-Iraqi frontier are a key concern of Iran because its allied Shiite militias established control over Iraq’s Sunni regions only after the defeat of the Islamic State some five years ago. 

Its control is both new and precarious.

Elsewhere, Israel is already in the process of creating a buffer zone northeast of the Golan Heights, in the regions southwest of Damascus. 

For Israel, Sunni Islamists may not represent the same kind of threat as did Iran and its proxies, but they are a threat nonetheless. 

Israel Defense Forces are already conducting airstrikes against weapons facilities they want to keep out of the hands of HTS and its allies. 

Israel will continue to engage in military operations in Syria for the foreseeable future and, in doing so, will come face to face with Turkey, which will become the region’s influential player in Syria.

Other than Assad himself, Russia was the biggest loser this weekend. 

Moscow can no longer hope to maintain its airbase in Hmeimim or the naval port in Tartus. 

It will, of course, try to maintain what influence it can in Syria, but it will notably have to do so via Turkey, with which it has a broader strategic relationship.

The bottom line is that Assad’s ouster has brought about a massive shift in the region’s geosectarian balance of power that will reverberate throughout the world.