Reordering of the Middle East chessboard: why Assad fell, and what happens now

Just over a year and a half ago, Assad was viewed globally as the predominant power in his fractured country. True, the HTS-led opposition lunged at the window of opportunity that opened as Assad’s allies Russia and Iran found themselves under pressure — still, how did the regime that had survived for five decades collapse in less than two weeks?

What went wrong for Assad?

On December 5, as Hama fell after Aleppo, Assad announced a 50% salary hike for serving soldiers to counter the HTS’ call for them (including Assad’s own Alawite ethnoreligious group) to defect. It was symbolic of the desperation that Assad felt, and revealed the structural and financial weaknesses of his Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

The SAA has been infamous both for its brutality — images and videos are emerging from the now-liberated Sednaya Prison in which the regime kept political dissidents, including children — and for extracting informal taxes from Syrians to compensate for their low official pay. The financial dire straits of the army reflected the state of the Syrian economy itself — before the fall of the Assad regime, 1 United States dollar was equivalent to about 13,000 Syrian pounds.

The stagnation of the conflict over the last five years, with a Russia-Turkey détente towards the end of the earlier phase of the war preventing the SAA from attacking Idlib, was perceived and celebrated as a victory by Damascus — which left the army underprepared for any eventual counteroffensive.

More importantly, the SAA in 2024 continued to rely as much on Russia and Iran as it did in 2015 — even though Assad’s relationship with these countries has been under strain, and Moscow has been stretched in Europe and Iran put under pressure in Lebanon.

Where was Iran as the regime collapsed?

There have long existed significant divisions in Iran over Assad, which contributed to stymieing potentially useful Iranian assistance. Presumptions of victory in the Syrian war gave Assad the confidence to resist overbearing Iranian influence over decision-making in Damascus (as it happened in Iraq).

In 2020, as Iran railed against the US-brokered Abraham Accords, Assad said in TV interviews that he would not be opposed to conditional normalisation of ties with Israel. Over the last year, he has remained indifferent to Israel’s campaign in Gaza and Lebanon, content to prevent the disputed Golan Heights from developing into a fresh theatre of war. The indifference continued as Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza — took debilitating hits from Israel.

Differences on the ground between Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the SAA, and the schisms in Iran between the pro-Assad IRGC hardliners and the more pragmatic camp of President Masoud Pezeshkian, delayed any significant action long enough for the rebels to cut off the link city of Homs from Damascus — which in any case made the movement of Iranian aid greatly more difficult.

Perhaps the best reflection of Assad’s modified position in the Iranian axis was seen in his last hours of desperation, when he reached out to Washington to secure a deal — President-elect Donald Trump gruffly shot down the idea on X.

What about Russia — and Turkey?

The Russian air action on Aleppo and the highway to Homs ceased by December 3, with Moscow focusing on mitigating any immediate threats to its bases in Latakia and Tartus.

While Russian constraints in Ukraine are obvious, note that Russia’s earlier détente with Turkey now has the context of the dangling Damocles sword over the Bosphorus Strait, which is essential for Russian warships to link up with the Black Sea fleet.

Turkey, on the other hand, has little to lose by cooperating with both Russia and other Arab/ Gulf states to promote stability in Syria now that Assad has fallen and the Syrian National Army (SNA), the Turkish-backed armed group, can attack the Kurds in northern and western Syria more freely in the future.

On December 7, Turkey joined its Arab and Iranian partners from the Astana Process, the formal Syrian peace process hosted by Kazakhstan, in calling for a political solution in Syria that ends military operations, an increase in humanitarian aid, and the implementation of UNSC Resolution 2254 (which laid out the process of democratic transition in Syria in 2015). The statement neither condemned the rebels nor expressed concern over Assad’s precarious position. Tehran and Moscow too, signed the statement.

Turkey’s rivalry with Syria is old and deep, going back to Syrian nationalist opposition to the Ottoman Empire. The large presence of Kurdish groups in Syria are an additional irritant. In 2004, Assad became the first Syrian leader to visit Ankara — but it was merely a brief geopolitical alignment due to shared anxieties over the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

When the Syrian civil war began, Ankara rushed to bolster the armed opposition to Assad, established its own military presence in Northern Syria, negotiated a freeze in the conflict with Russia, and eventually propelled the HTS/ SNA to the new reality unfolding in Damascus today — all over the span of a decade.

Following Assad’s fall, Turkey has been quick to switch to the language of “inclusive governance” in Syria — positioning itself as an enabler of stability, and projecting the rebel takeover of Damascus as a natural and inevitable outcome after a years-long struggle.

What could the rule of the HTS look like?

HTS emir Abu Mohammad al-Jolani has worked for long, with more than just the blessings of Turkey and the US, to unify the Syrian opposition just enough to coordinate their offensives and unseat Assad.

Jolani’s actions since then reflect a broader trend in Islamist Sunni political jihad. By appointing Mohammad al-Bashir to the head of the “transitional” government, the HTS has sought to follow the example of Abdul Hakim bil Hajj’s Libya Islamic Fighting Group, rebranding itself as a regional, pragmatist, almost nationalist force that presents itself as an ally of the West.

In behaviour mimicking the Taliban’s promises in Doha in 2020, Jolani has personally reached out to neighbouring governments in Baghdad and Beirut, calling for good relations, even offering Syria’s services to the international community in identifying Assad’s chemical weapons remnants. (The Taliban were quick to congratulate Syrians after Assad’s fall.)

As thousands of Syrians return to their country, rejoicing in the demise of Assad’s tyranny, the jihadist shadow on HTS’ character lingers, notwithstanding Jolani’s personal overtures to the country’s minority groups, including Assad’s Alawite base.

And what of the myriad jihadist and separatist militias that united tactically to oppose a common opponent who is now gone? Many of them have enduring intra-group differences — the HTS, in its earlier avatar of the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, fought some of the groups that are operating currently under the umbrella of the SNA. The principal question for the “transitional” administration is this: will it be able to force the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) of the armed groups in Syria today?

In the wider region, it is now evident that all actors in the Iranian “axis of resistance”, including Iran itself, are now prioritising their own security and stability. While the Houthis continue their attacks on Red Sea shipping, Tehran’s muscle in the Middle East has been weakened. However, with Turkey now emerging as a stronger pole, triggering both Arab and Persian anxieties, and Israel moving swiftly to re-militarise and occupy the Golan Heights after Assad’s fall, the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East has changed even more decisively than it did on October 7, 2023.

(The author is a Research Associate at the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, New Delhi)