Winners and losers: Who will benefit from the fall of the Assad regime?

By Jonathan Spyer

Few in Syria, among those close to the former regime, take seriously the moderate and considerate image currently presented by HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani.

One week after Hayat Tahrir al Sham’s (HTS) astonishing 10-day march from Idlib to Damascus, many factors impacting the emerging situation in Syria remain unclear. The sudden overthrow of the Assad regime is a historic event, the ramifications of which will be studied for years. The old distribution of power is gone. But what will replace it is still emerging.

In Damascus, a curfew has been declared from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m. The airport is closed and all flights have been cancelled. Detainees leaving Sednaya prison, the most notorious of the Assad regime’s jails, are describing horror stories that rival the excesses of some of the worst regimes known to history. Freed prisoners speak of group executions, the crushing of corpses to facilitate mass burials, and indefinite imprisonment on the flimsiest of charges. Or no charges at all.

In western Syria, among the Alawite population, which once formed the core of support for the regime, armed militia elements still exist. The younger brother of the ousted president, Maher Assad, whose exact whereabouts are unknown, has the money, the lines of communication and the motivation to manage these groups.

Few in Syria among those close to the former regime take seriously the moderate and considerate image currently presented by HTS leader Abu Mohammed al Julani. Instead, they assume that without the support of former regime allies, they are likely to face sectarian reprisals, especially when the facts about Sednaya and other centres of regime brutality begin to filter out to the population.

It remains to be seen how far they will be able to maintain some sort of protectorate in the West. Their former Iranian allies, with their proxies Military [proxies] still mobilized in Lebanon and Iraq will only be able to offer limited assistance.

Lebanese Hezbollah is, of course, a central loser in the fall of Bashar Assad. It now finds itself isolated in the Mediterranean region with an emerging, angry and possibly vengeful Sunni Islamist government taking control of Syria.

The fighting has not ended with the fall of Damascus. In this regard, it is important to note that HTS was not the only military force incubated by the Turkish government in northwestern Syria over the past half-decade. HTS and its Syrian Salvation Government controlled Idlib province, from where it launched its momentous offensive towards Aleppo in late November.

But further north, Ankara assembled another military force from the remnants of the Sunni Arab insurgency with its own self-styled administration. Known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), its administration, now overtaken by events, was called the Syrian Interim Government.

Simultaneously with the HTS advance towards Aleppo, the SNA began an offensive towards the east, seeking to undermine the western holdings of the Kurdish-led authority. The SNA is inferior in organisation and capabilities to both the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the HTS. But in their advance along the border, they have been actively assisted by the Turkish armed forces.

This appears to have given them the upper hand over the SDF, which lost Tal Rifaat to the SNA and has now abandoned the city of Manbij, west of the Euphrates River. Fighting for control of the city has been ongoing in recent days. So far, the SDF seems resigned to the inevitability of losing any area it controls west of the Euphrates.

In the coming period, they will try to retain about 30% of Syria's territory. The recently captured areas of Deir el Zur province southwest of the Euphrates will be returned to the newly emerging authority in Damascus in the coming period. The river is intended to form the de facto border between the Kurdish-ruled area and the rest of the country.

From the Syrian Kurdish perspective, much will depend on whether the 900 US service members currently stationed in their area remain. The collapse of the regime and the likelihood of a dispute over the remnants of Syria in the period ahead would seem to strengthen the case for their permanence, as the Kurdish-led authority seems destined to be the West's main ally in Syria in the emerging period.

The HTS government, which emerged from the Salafi jihadist circles that produced al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS), could take a disastrous turn. Syrian Kurdish leaders appear to be arguing for the preservation of their authority as an island of pro-Western stability in the period ahead.

There is a real possibility of clashes between the SNA and HTS. Julani has appointed a close associate, Mohammed al Bashir, as Syria’s new prime minister. This has led to some concerns among the SNA and circles close to the Turks that the HTS leader is trying to bypass and marginalise them. There are many former opposition factions, political and military, who believe they deserve a share of the victory. If they are frustrated, internal divisions are likely to occur among the victorious Sunni Islamists.

Israel’s current determined destruction of the former regime’s military infrastructure – and the expansion of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) presence in the “buffer zone” as outlined in the 1974 separation of forces agreement – ​​appear to stem from a perception that the “new” Syria, given its likely inclinations, needs to be kept as weak as possible and firmly distanced from Israeli civilian populations.

Winners and losers

The remaining regime loyalists and the Iran-led regional axis of which they are a part are therefore the obvious losers. But the pro-Western elements are not the winners. HTS’s conquest of Damascus was made possible by Turkey’s historic decision not to abandon Syria’s Sunni Islamist insurgents, even at a time when most of the world thought they were finished.

By holding on to a small corner of northwestern Syria, Erdogan allowed HTS to build up and strengthen itself before exploding outwards. Qatar also has a close and long-standing relationship with the organisation, based on financial support.

The HTS march on Damascus represents the return of Sunni political Islam to power and its consequences in the Middle East. Sunni Islamists enjoyed a moment of sunshine a decade ago, when the Arab Spring brought their kind of governments to power in Egypt and Tunisia.

The rise of ISIS also seemed to indicate that this prospect might be the wave of the future. That moment was short-lived. In 2020, it looked as though the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance and its fight against Israel and other pro-Western states would form the central strategic contest in the Middle East. But the wheel has turned again. Iran is deeply weakened. Sunni Islamists have returned to fill the void. The precise form that their new primacy in Syria will take will become clear in the period ahead. These are historic days. 

Source: The Jerusalem Post