Syria After Assad
By Robin Wright - December 15, 2024
The
Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, was ashen-faced in Doha, on
December 7th, as he met with envoys from Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia,
Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Qatar to confer about Syria. Rebels were on the
doorstep of Damascus just ten days after they had launched a sweeping
offensive. By midnight, the representatives of the nations—with
disparate political systems and conflicting regional goals—had concurred
that the government of President Bashar al-Assad could not survive.
They called for an urgent political transition. By dawn, Assad had
departed Damascus for Russia, without a word to the people his family
had ruled—and gassed, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered—for a half
century. “No one believed it could happen,” Araghchi later told Iranian
television. “What was surprising was, first, the Syrian Army’s inability
to confront the situation, and, second, the rapid pace of
developments.” Syria, a geostrategic centerpiece in the Middle East, was
abruptly upended. So, too, was the region.
Now the scramble is on to define the future of Syria, quickly, to prevent ethnic, political, and sectarian rivalries from triggering a war even more divisive than the conflict that has riven the nation for thirteen years. Syria’s twenty-three million people include multiple Muslim sects, Christians, Druze, and Kurds. Both Ramadan and Easter are legally celebrated. Its history after declaring independence from a French mandate in 1946 was volatile. There were twenty coups before 1970, when Hafez al-Assad, the defense minister and the father of Bashar, ousted members of his own Baath Party. The next year, he became President.
“The conflict is not over,” Geir O. Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, warned. Regional and global players want to be “positive and supportive, but many are nervous” about a government created by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a Sunni militia that led the uprising and whose leaders previously had ties with Al Qaeda and ISIS. “They see an Islamist group come to power and wonder if they’ll really deliver on what they promise.”
The danger, Pedersen noted, is the Libya scenario. After the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi, in 2011, rival governments fought from Tripoli and Benghazi. Other transitions after the Arab Spring uprisings have not gone well, either. Tunisia’s democracy has eroded since 2011, as democratically elected leaders have been imprisoned or silenced. Egypt’s democratically elected government was removed in a military coup in 2013. Yemen was split after the Houthis seized power, in 2014, during a civil war that now targets international shipping. The question is whether Syria’s uprising—which also started in 2011—is the Arab Spring, Part Two. Six diverse political and ethnic groups now claim territory. Pedersen reflected, “It will require a new miracle in the days and weeks ahead to insure that things don’t go wrong in Syria.”
The charismatic H.T.S. leader, who is known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has vowed not to repeat the mistakes that led to civil war in Iraq, where the U.S. occupation, in 2003, dismantled the military and banned the Baath Party from government. Those moves spawned anti-American militias, including groups that Jolani joined. He fought with Al Qaeda of Iraq, and in 2005 he was detained by U.S. forces at the notorious Camp Bucca, where he met Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS. Baghdadi later dispatched him to establish a Syrian branch of ISIS. In the ever-evolving world of jihadism, Jolani has since distanced H.T.S. from both Al Qaeda and ISIS. In a symbolic gesture, he has returned to his given name, Ahmed al-Sharaa. Yet he heralded Assad’s fall as “a victory for the Islamic nation.” The U.S. still has a ten-million-dollar bounty on his head, and H.T.S. is on the list of foreign terrorist organizations.
In Doha, the envoys called the Syrian crisis a “dangerous development” for international security. They pleaded for an end to military operations that could slip into chaos. Hakan Fidan, the Turkish foreign minister, said that the new government should treat all faiths and ethnicities equally. It should tolerate “no revenge.” As the main supporter of H.T.S., Turkey is the winner among regional rivals, just as Iran and Russia, who backed Assad, are the losers. The Biden Administration said that it is prepared to recognize a new government if it is “credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian.” Syrian forces toppled Assad, however, so it’s unclear how much influence any foreign government will wield in Damascus, except economically. The U.S. has crippling sanctions on Syria for terrorism and repression.
As a first step, H.T.S. appointed Mohammed al-Bashir, an engineer who had run the provincial H.T.S. government in northern Idlib, to be Prime Minister for about three months. For the rest of the world, U.N. Resolution 2254 remains the legal premise for a transition. It calls for a new constitution and free elections stretched over eighteen months. But it was written nine years ago. Time is moving much faster now in a country where the economy is collapsing and millions have been displaced or forced into exile. “We should accept instability, because it is part of the process,” Sawsan Abou Zainedin, who leads Madaniya, an umbrella organization for two hundred Syrian civil-society groups, said. “We’re all standing on good will, but we can’t stand on good will for long.”
That sense of uncertainty has spread across the region. ISIS has a growing underground presence again in Syria; the U.S. launched more than seventy-five air strikes to prevent it from exploiting the turmoil. Tensions are escalating between Turkey, a NATO member, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which are backed by a U.S.-led coalition. The S.D.F. now controls a third of Syria. As Assad fell, Israeli tanks and troops crossed into Syria and seized a hundred and fifty square miles of the Golan Heights, a demilitarized zone patrolled by the U.N. since 1974, as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire after the last war between Israel and Syria. Israel also launched nearly five hundred air strikes on the Syrian Navy, Army, and Air Force. “We have no intention to meddle in Syria’s internal affairs, but we certainly intend to do whatever is needed to guarantee our security,” the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said. “As I promised, we are changing the face of the Middle East.” The tectonic shift in the balance of power was apparent when Iran pulled its last diplomats out of Syria as the meeting in Doha wrapped up. The rebels, in one of their first acts, stormed the mausoleum of Hafez al-Assad and set his coffin ablaze.
Now the scramble is on to define the future of Syria, quickly, to prevent ethnic, political, and sectarian rivalries from triggering a war even more divisive than the conflict that has riven the nation for thirteen years. Syria’s twenty-three million people include multiple Muslim sects, Christians, Druze, and Kurds. Both Ramadan and Easter are legally celebrated. Its history after declaring independence from a French mandate in 1946 was volatile. There were twenty coups before 1970, when Hafez al-Assad, the defense minister and the father of Bashar, ousted members of his own Baath Party. The next year, he became President.
“The conflict is not over,” Geir O. Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, warned. Regional and global players want to be “positive and supportive, but many are nervous” about a government created by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a Sunni militia that led the uprising and whose leaders previously had ties with Al Qaeda and ISIS. “They see an Islamist group come to power and wonder if they’ll really deliver on what they promise.”
The danger, Pedersen noted, is the Libya scenario. After the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi, in 2011, rival governments fought from Tripoli and Benghazi. Other transitions after the Arab Spring uprisings have not gone well, either. Tunisia’s democracy has eroded since 2011, as democratically elected leaders have been imprisoned or silenced. Egypt’s democratically elected government was removed in a military coup in 2013. Yemen was split after the Houthis seized power, in 2014, during a civil war that now targets international shipping. The question is whether Syria’s uprising—which also started in 2011—is the Arab Spring, Part Two. Six diverse political and ethnic groups now claim territory. Pedersen reflected, “It will require a new miracle in the days and weeks ahead to insure that things don’t go wrong in Syria.”
The charismatic H.T.S. leader, who is known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has vowed not to repeat the mistakes that led to civil war in Iraq, where the U.S. occupation, in 2003, dismantled the military and banned the Baath Party from government. Those moves spawned anti-American militias, including groups that Jolani joined. He fought with Al Qaeda of Iraq, and in 2005 he was detained by U.S. forces at the notorious Camp Bucca, where he met Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS. Baghdadi later dispatched him to establish a Syrian branch of ISIS. In the ever-evolving world of jihadism, Jolani has since distanced H.T.S. from both Al Qaeda and ISIS. In a symbolic gesture, he has returned to his given name, Ahmed al-Sharaa. Yet he heralded Assad’s fall as “a victory for the Islamic nation.” The U.S. still has a ten-million-dollar bounty on his head, and H.T.S. is on the list of foreign terrorist organizations.
In Doha, the envoys called the Syrian crisis a “dangerous development” for international security. They pleaded for an end to military operations that could slip into chaos. Hakan Fidan, the Turkish foreign minister, said that the new government should treat all faiths and ethnicities equally. It should tolerate “no revenge.” As the main supporter of H.T.S., Turkey is the winner among regional rivals, just as Iran and Russia, who backed Assad, are the losers. The Biden Administration said that it is prepared to recognize a new government if it is “credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian.” Syrian forces toppled Assad, however, so it’s unclear how much influence any foreign government will wield in Damascus, except economically. The U.S. has crippling sanctions on Syria for terrorism and repression.
As a first step, H.T.S. appointed Mohammed al-Bashir, an engineer who had run the provincial H.T.S. government in northern Idlib, to be Prime Minister for about three months. For the rest of the world, U.N. Resolution 2254 remains the legal premise for a transition. It calls for a new constitution and free elections stretched over eighteen months. But it was written nine years ago. Time is moving much faster now in a country where the economy is collapsing and millions have been displaced or forced into exile. “We should accept instability, because it is part of the process,” Sawsan Abou Zainedin, who leads Madaniya, an umbrella organization for two hundred Syrian civil-society groups, said. “We’re all standing on good will, but we can’t stand on good will for long.”
That sense of uncertainty has spread across the region. ISIS has a growing underground presence again in Syria; the U.S. launched more than seventy-five air strikes to prevent it from exploiting the turmoil. Tensions are escalating between Turkey, a NATO member, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which are backed by a U.S.-led coalition. The S.D.F. now controls a third of Syria. As Assad fell, Israeli tanks and troops crossed into Syria and seized a hundred and fifty square miles of the Golan Heights, a demilitarized zone patrolled by the U.N. since 1974, as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire after the last war between Israel and Syria. Israel also launched nearly five hundred air strikes on the Syrian Navy, Army, and Air Force. “We have no intention to meddle in Syria’s internal affairs, but we certainly intend to do whatever is needed to guarantee our security,” the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said. “As I promised, we are changing the face of the Middle East.” The tectonic shift in the balance of power was apparent when Iran pulled its last diplomats out of Syria as the meeting in Doha wrapped up. The rebels, in one of their first acts, stormed the mausoleum of Hafez al-Assad and set his coffin ablaze.