SYRIA.
SO WHAT?
COMMENTARY // DECEMBER 2024
BY: Major General Dr Andrew R D Sharpe, Director CHACR
ON the morning of Sunday the 8th of December we woke up to learn that the turn of the tide in the Syrian civil war had become a tsunami that had swept President Assad from power. He had fled the country, leaving Damascus in the hands of ‘the rebels’. This turn of events has occurred at a time of considerable global uncertainty, change, instability and turmoil. The context is almost as important as the events themselves if we are to glean any meaningful understanding of what the ‘so whats’ from this event may mean for us.
Bashar al-Assad has been in power in Syria since the turn of the Millennium, when he, unwillingly, assumed the mantle from his father, who, in turn, had ruled since 1971. More than 50 years of brutal dominance by one party, indeed, by one family, inevitably means that the structure of the country will have become entirely dependent upon loyalties to that regime/family. It’s removal, for good or ill, will equally inevitably produce a vacuum that
the surrounding elements will all rush to fill, colliding with each other as they do so.
Thus, the newly-liberated Syria is far from cohesive, but is instead a patchwork of armed agents, all with very different agendas, all of whom have long investment in this armed struggle (and are therefore not likely to go quietly at the behest of a new regime, no matter what its origins or complexion). Most prominent, and leading the charge on Damascus, are the combined rebel forces, with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to the fore. Hayat Tahir al-Sham, a Jihadist organisation affiliated to Al Qaeda, but now claiming a degree of moderation, remains categorised as a ‘Terrorist Group’ in the UK, the US and much of the West, and is sanctioned accordingly (which suggests that those sanctioning governments will struggle to conduct meaningful business with the new power-holders).
Regardless of what is going on in Damascus, however, huge swathes of the country, especially in its north-east quarter, are held, and have long been held, by Kurdish
forces (themselves not unified under a single command). Next (and decidedly anti-Kurdish), are the areas in the north of the country, along the border with Turkey, that are held by the so-called Syrian National Army, which is an organisation backed by Turkey. Inevitably there also remains a considerable swathe of the population (concentrated for now in the west of the country) who are either the tattered rump
invested in loyalty to Assad (for either personal, Alawite or wider Shia reasons) that they are highly unlikely to accept (or be accepted by) any new, Sunni, regime without further turmoil and bloodshed. So, to be clear, this turn of events in Syria may well be the end of a long period of Alawite/Assad rule, but it is only the very beginning of the next phase of difficult, disruptive, violent and unpredictable Syrian
CHACR
Picture: Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0
history. But what about the wider ripples caused by this weekend’s splash?
Assad has fled to Russia. Russia, and Putin, were his guarantors. Russian troops (both Wagner and officially uniformed) have propped up the regime robustly for over a decade. Russian airpower has dominated the Syrian skies and Russian personnel have cut their military teeth in operations in and above Syria. Their hasty removal has been something of a humiliation, to say the least. But that humiliation has much wider implications for Russia. The sudden and unexpected removal of the Russian guarantee will be seen as an indicator of relative impotence. It suggests that Russia has not been able to continue to offer Assad unlimited support – yet Russia, surely, after all of its investment in Syria would not have allowed this to happen unless it had to? This suggests to many analysts that this can only be explained by a background of over-commitment to Ukraine. It suggests that the Ukraine priority (requirement?) means that Putin does not have the strength to support his friends and fight the war in Ukraine unconstrained. One wonders how welcome the Assad family have been made to feel in Moscow this week. How might that be read, then, not just in Moscow, but in China or Iran, or in North Korea; or in Ukraine itself, or Georgia, or Moldova. And how might it be read in the still uncommitted of this rapidly polarising strategic context (like India, or Brazil)?
China has only very recently re-affirmed its support for the Assad regime. There is no doubt that the weekend’s events mean that China’s cautious approach to Russia’s foreign policy adventures is likely to become more guarded still. China will have felt stung by Russia’s failure to prop up a regime that China had just so publicly endorsed (presumably with their confidence that Russia would not let this occur as a significant factor in their decision so to do). Beyond relations between Russia
“THIS LATEST STONE TO LAND IN THE GLOBAL POND HAS, WITHOUT ANY QUESTION, BROUGHT ABOUT THE VERY WELCOME REMOVAL OF A WICKED REGIME FROM A DESPERATELY TROUBLE-TORN COUNTRY. BUT THAT AWFUL REGIME, AT LEAST, DELIVERED A DEGREE OF PREDICTABILITY IN A VERY UNPREDICTABLE MIDDLE EASTERN EQUATION.”
and China, China will also, no doubt, be drawing lessons about over-extension and untenable ‘guarantees’ abroad, which may well have an influence on her own foreign policy decisions – both near to home and more widely along the belt and road.
Iran will be feeling twice stung. First, Syria has been governed by a regime with Shia affiliation despite its Sunni majority. A combination of this Shia loyalty and geography have allowed Iran to use Syria, with the regime’s blessing, as a conduit for people, arms and supplies into Lebanon (and Hezbollah in particular). The fall of Assad will make Iran’s interference in the region, and especially in terms of supplying anti-Israeli actors, much harder. Second, the demands of the Ukrainian war have forced Putin’s Russia to forge a much closer relationship with Iran (with the steady supply of drones as a concrete example). Russia’s humiliation over Syria is likely to have knock on effects in the ongoing Iranian-Russian strategic relationship.
Regionally, Syria’s neighbours will all be pausing for thought and recalibration. The fall of Assad will be seen as good news in a beleaguered Israel, who will be unlikely to see any replacement regime as being friendly but, for now at least, will see a weakening
of Iranian influence as a good thing. It will be interesting, to say the least, to see what reactions Israel’s airstrikes into Syria and excursions from the Golan Heights generate over the coming days and weeks. The very mixed population of Lebanon will have an equally mixed reaction – but all will be nervous of the inevitable instability which is bound to slop over their borders. Hezbollah and (to a lesser, but still significant degree) Hamas will see the fall of a pro-Iranian regime as a setback. And one must not forget Turkey – a NATO member state – who can expect continued instability on its borders, with increased unpredictability and a very unwelcome rise in the influence of Syria’s significant Kurdish power-brokers.
And so the ripples widen. It is not insignificant that the Ukrainian President took time out to discuss the events of the weekend with the Georgian President as they gathered with others in Paris to celebrate the re-birth of Notre Dame Cathedral. Russia’s inability to prevent Assad’s sudden collapse will be seen by all of Russia’s troubled neighbours (Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova in particular, but others too) as a now visible and meaningful chink in Russia’s rusty armour. In NATO HQ in Brussels analysts will be troubling themselves over every issue discussed above – and
engaging closely with Turkey to get ahead of any issues that may develop on NATO’s borders. And, not least, surely, the incoming President of the US will be surrounded by advisors, some welcome and some not, with a portfolio of counsel for his first few weeks in power, ranging from the implications for Israel/Hamas/ Hezbollah (which he has promised to solve) to those for Russia/ Ukraine (which he has promised to solve within 24 hours).
So what for us? In short, even the most optimistic of strategic commentators are beginning to catch on to the view that we have moved beyond ‘interesting times’ into ‘dangerous times’. This latest stone to land in the global pond has, without any question, brought about the very welcome removal of a wicked regime from a desperately trouble-torn country. But that awful regime, at least, delivered a degree of predictability in a very unpredictable Middle Eastern equation. The inevitable uncertainty that comes with the turbulence of regime change has made the strategic runes, not just in the Middle East, nor in its near neighbours, but across the globe that bit more difficult to read. As the fog of not-yet-war thickens, the clear vision that is required to avoid strategic miscalculations becomes more and more elusive. Dangerous times indeed.