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V On December 8 the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad fell from power. I was on Israel’s Golan border with Syria as the momentous events unfolded. The border was quiet, except for distant bursts of gunfire – apparently people shooting in the air in celebration at Assad’s fall.
The Assad regime was a mainstay of the Middle East for 50 years. It wasn’t as brash and outspoken at the Gaddafi regime in Libya, and it wasn’t as powerful as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq once was. Saddam fought a ten year war with Iran and then invaded Kuwait, setting in motion events that transformed the region for decades.
The Assad regime, by contrast, was more pragmatic on the surface. It had occupied Lebanon for decades and enabled Iran to support Hezbollah, but it was internally frayed and atrophied over time. It had fought Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. From where I was standing on the border watching Syria on December 8, Syrian tanks had once mauled Israeli forces in days of pitched battles. Israel won but the cost was high. Now Syria’s army no longer exists.
The fall of Assad provides a unique opportunity for Syria – and for the region. The Syrian regime facilitated weapons smuggling and transfers to Hezbollah and it gave Iran a role in Syria. With the change in rulers in Damascus, Iran may lose out on some of its ability to use Syria as a base to threaten the region. Similarly, the Syrian regime once facilitated the movement of Jihadists down the Euphrates river valley and into Iraq to fight the US after its invasion of Iraq in 2003. This insurgency fuelled extremists and gave birth to ISIS a decade later. The Syrian regime is in many ways is responsible for the rise of ISIS, which fed off the Syrian civil war. So its fall could mean Syria stops being a threat to its neighbours.
However, looking out over Syria my sense was that there may, rather, be a quiet before another storm. Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, said on December 10 that “anyone who follows Assad’s path will end up like Assad. Israel will not allow an extremist Islamic terrorist entity to threaten its borders and citizens.” He was visiting a naval base where Israeli forces had just returned from missions to destroy what remained of Assad’s navy. Israel has acted with a decisive frenzy to destroy the elements of the Syrian regime’s military assets that remained after December 8. That involved dozens of airstrikes on various installations across Syria and what Israel’s Defence Ministry has described as the “destruction of the Syrian fleet by the Navy’s missile ships.” Katz, who took over after Yoav Gallant was removed by Benjamin Netanyahu in November, said that “the IDF has been operating in Syria in recent days to harm and destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel.”
Israel is clear: Syria must not be a threat in the future. However, flattening what remains of Syria’s military means that the new state now being born in Damascus will have to start from scratch. That may not be too difficult for some of the forces emerging there. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the rapid advance on Damascus, has been ruling a miniature state in Idlib. It knows how to govern, even though its form of government is more in line with an Islamic polity than a secular or democratic state. Similarly the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have tens of thousands of armed fighters who defeated ISIS in 2019 in Syria. They are a formidable force but they face challenges because Turkey views them as terrorists and has backed militias that attack the SDF. Turkish-backed militias have attacked the SDF in Manbij, Tal Rifaat and Kobani in the last fortnight, displacing tens of thousands of Kurds.
Other groups in Syria also have experience in military matters. The US-backed Maghawir al-Thawra is a small organisation that was trained at Tanf desert base in Syria, near the Jordanian and Iraqi border. This base was established by the US in 2016 to support Syrian rebels who were fighting ISIS. US forces in Syria have a mandate to fight ISIS and not the regime or the other rebel groups. Maghawir al-Thawra played a role on December 8, helping to take Damascus from the regime. It could play a positive role now.
In addition there are southern rebel groups with close ties to Jordan. These groups were backed by the West, primarily with input from the US and UK, during 2013-2018. In 2018 the southern Syria rebels collapsed under regime attacks and many laid down their arms – or even ended up working for the regime as “reconciled” forces. They turned on the regime on December 7 and marched on Damascus. They may also pave the way forward to positive outcomes in Syria.
But there are many challenges. Syria is divided and its economy is in ruins. Turkey is bombing Kurds in the north. Israel is working to eliminate any possible threats remaining from former Iranian bases in Syria, or from old Syrian defence systems such as missiles, MiG jets and chemical weapons factories. Israel has advanced into the buffer zone on the Syrian border of the Golan, called the Alpha and Bravo lines, 120 square miles of land that separated Syrian forces from Israeli forces after 1974. Now IDF troops are in the buffer and Israel is calling this a “sterile defence zone from weapons and terrorist threats in southern Syria.”
The path forward in Syria will require Syrians to create a state that takes into account the various groups that fought the regime, as well as former regime elements who have now accepted the new power structure. Syria is a diverse country, a crossroads of empire throughout history. It has Druze, Kurds, Christians, Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, as well as Alawites. The new rulers appear to have staffed their rebel legions primarily with Sunni Arab Muslims. There are frictions and factions. If the new rulers are smart they will work on some kind of federalism for the regions and this will enable the SDF to play a positive role.
However, Damascus will need to stop Turkey’s bombing and attacks on Kurds. It will need to show Israel, Iraq and other countries that it is no longer a threat and will not export extremism. Nature abhors a vacuum and Syria is now a power vacuum. Let us hope it is filled with something positive this time.
Seth J. Frantzman is the senior Middle East analyst for the Jerusalem Post, an adjunct Fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies and author of The October 7 War: Israel’s Battle for Security in Gaza (2024)
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