Assad Has Fallen, But Stability In Syria Remains A Long Way Off

Bashar al-Assad, and the brutal Baʼathist regime started by his father Hafez in 1971, is gone. He has fled Syria for Moscow, leaving behind a country which, for the first time in a long time, has some hope for the future. It happened quickly, far quicker than most analysts ever thought possible, but, in less than two weeks, a rebellion led by the Islamist militant group, Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), did what 13 previous years of civil war had failed to: it deposed the tyrant.

There is hard-earned elation among Syrians at the fall of Assad, as political prisoners are released and exiles return home, but stability rarely follows violent regime change. What form the next government will take, and whether it can endure, is an open question. Syria is an extremely diverse country, its population a mosaic of different ethnicities and religions, while the state itself has, as a result of the civil war, been carved into different zones of control, each with their own foreign backers pursuing their own interests. It is a profoundly complicated situation, and how the new HTS-led government manages to deal with it remains to be seen.

As Jen Kirby detailed for Splinter last week, there are obvious fears about HTS, an Islamist organization formed initially as an offshoot of al-Qaeda. Its actions in the northwestern city of Idlib, where it has ruled over approximately two million people for the last number of years, suggest limits to its “tolerance.” So-called “morality patrols” have been noted to enforce strict religious dress codes there, Sharia regulations have been imposed on schools, and there have even been reports of people being executed for “practicing witchcraft.”

But it’s not just HTS that people in Syria need to be mindful of. Turkey appears to have strong links to HTS too, though the precise nature of the relationship is unclear. There have been multiple reports suggesting Turkey has backed the group, while Turkish proxies actually fought alongside them during the rebellion, but the Turkish government still technically considers HTS to be a terrorist group, as do the United States, Russia, and many European states. In any case, regardless of how closely aligned Turkey and HTS actually are, it’s undeniable that Turkey is taking advantage of the group’s actions.

Hours after the rebels overthrew Assad, Turkish militias began to attack the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, a self-governing Kurdish region otherwise known as Rojava. Turkey, which borders the region, wants to destroy the prospect of an autonomous Kurdish zone near its territory, while also creating a buffer zone into which it can push back the Kurds and also deport Syrian refugees, nearly three million of whom reside in Turkey today. Turkish forces are known to have committed appalling human rights abuses against Kurds in Syria, and, bleakly, there is evidence already to suggest more are occurring as their assault grinds on. The Kurds have already surrendered control of the city of Manbij, one of their strongholds, and the wider prospect of their ability to withstand Turkish aggression looks grim.

Where the United States comes into all of this is, for now, unclear. The U.S. has backed the Kurds for years, using them as a proxy in the fight against the Islamic State, but it is obviously also allied with Turkey, a fellow NATO member. Joe Biden has claimed U.S. support for the Kurds will remain, which, given their essential role in keeping the Islamic State at bay, makes sense. The possibility of ISIS reactivating cannot be ruled out, especially in light of recent upticks in the group’s activities in Syria. But Biden’s word counts for very little now, as Trump will soon take office once again.

During his first administration, Trump betrayed the Kurds by announcing the U.S. would pull out of northern Syria, before changing his mind only a couple of weeks later, ordering American troops to stay and “secure the oil” in oil- and gas-rich areas under Kurdish control. He implied the U.S. was entitled to these energy resources as compensation for going to war in Syria in the first place, even though such pillaging is widely considered to be illegal. Trump is again indicating he will pull the U.S. out of Syria when he takes office for a second time, which, should this occur, will leave the Kurds extremely vulnerable to Turkish incursions and, potentially, to a resurgence of ISIS.

Israel, all the while, has been doing what Israel does best: military aggression justified by the vague and obviously bullshit refrain of “self-defense.” Sensing an opportunity amid the chaos of Assad’s fall to expand its illegal occupation of the Golan Heights, Israel has seized control of a demilitarized buffer zone separating the Golan from the rest of Syria. It is an opportunistic land grab, an attempt to shore up control of the Golan, which, in addition to being of strategic military importance, is also fertile and a vital source of water in an increasingly dry region. But Israel seems to be grabbing more land than just the Golan, with reports suggesting its forces have moved deeper into Syria. It has launched hundreds of airstrikes, too, destroying Syrian military assets, weapons stores, and the country’s small naval fleet.

Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking on the week he finally returned to the stand in his corruption trial, has been boasting about his role in Syria’s regime change, having severely weakened Assad’s allies Hezbollah and Iran over the last year. But the fall of Assad isn’t quite a straightforward victory for Israel. While it is expanding its occupation into Syria, and Iran, its prime enemy, will suffer the loss of Assad’s Syria as a corridor through which to arm and support Hezbollah, a newly Islamist state in Syria does represent a potential threat. That, perhaps even more than a desire to grab land, may explain why Israel has been so aggressively destroying Syrian military infrastructure. It wants to ensure the new regime is as weak as possible.

Russia’s role in this new Syria is also difficult to pin down at the moment. Syria was essential to Russia’s ability to project power across the Middle East and Africa, as it operated two important bases there, which, presumably, it would like to keep. It has reportedly entered into negotiations with HTS to that end, but, maybe, these bases could become bargaining chips in any future negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has repeatedly claimed he will do a deal to end the war when he takes office, so, assuming negotiations really do take place soon, Russia could potentially surrender its Syrian bases in exchange for keeping territory it has seized from Ukraine.

The Syrian civil war is such a complicated story, with so many different forces pulling the country in different directions. It feels obscene to focus so much on the interests of outsiders, though it is, sadly, unavoidable. Syria has, for so long, been a battleground for foreign powers, which have together fueled a civil war which, since it started in 2011, has seen more than 300,000 civilians killed, representing about 1.5% of the country’s pre-war population. More than half that population of 23 million has been displaced, with more seven million people displaced in Syria itself and another five million scattered abroad. About 90% of the population is considered impoverished, as infrastructure has been devastated and the economy, previously reliant on oil and agriculture, has contracted by about 85 per cent since the war began. It now operates at about the level of the Palestinian territories.

The situation in Syria remains tenuous, and a recovery is a long way away, but, for the first time in so long, ordinary Syrians have hope. Some are returning home from exile, though this fact does not justify the U.K., Germany, and other European countries “pausing” the processing of Syrian refugees, as they have done. To suddenly consider Syria a safe country overnight, because Assad has fallen, is absurd, but therein lies the racist self-interest of European leaders.

Many questions remain for Syria and its people. Can the rebels, once bound by the common aim of overthrowing Assad, maintain unity now the tyrant is gone? Are they fit to rule, and will they respect the human rights of the population? Will foreign powers allow Syrians to rebuild their country, or will they spark more chaos? Will Turkey and Israel end their respective invasions? Can the Kurds emerge with their autonomy intact? Will ISIS remain subdued? Time will tell, but, for now, Syrians can rejoice in one thing. Assad, and the reign of terror he and his father upheld, has been overthrown at last.