Where Syria goes next after the fall of Assad

MENA Source

December 10, 2024

Where is Syria going after the fall of Assad

Per
Frederic C. Hof

The departure of Bashar al-Assad from Syria and the collapse of his regime is for me easily the most pleasant geopolitical surprise of the twenty-first century. Twenty million Syrians face continued hard times as the men with guns try to sort out what’s next in terms of governance. But there is only one absolute certainty: With Assad gone, Syrians now have the opportunity to live lives of decency, dignity and opportunity.

It seems like a long time ago when I was sitting with President Assad February 28, 2011in a palace high above Damascus, informing him of what specifically would be required of Syria to recover all the land—mainly the Golan Heights—that Israel had lost in 1967. That fifty-minute conversation and subsequent much longer talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others would be highlights. return of peace intermediation which gained momentum in the fall of 2010. A White House colleague and I were so encouraged by our progress that we planned to bring Syrian and Israeli officials together in the capital of Eastern Europe in April 2011. But it never happened.

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Prospects for peace between Syria and Israel died in mid-March 2011 when Assad ordered his security apparatus to use lethal force against Syrians peacefully protesting against police violence and massive, illegal detention pro-democracy advocates. By shooting protesters and filling prisons, Assad did much more than effectively cede the Golan Heights to Israel. He destroyed what remained of Syria in the hope that a well educated the young president could reform the brutally authoritarian system he inherited from his father Hafez. And as Assad doubled and tripled the violence throughout most of 2011, he set the stage for an internal war that will all but destroy the country and, December 8send him packing.

So how did it happen?

Syrian rebels, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), appear to have decided last month to seize advantage recent defeats suffered by Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah in trying to extend their rule in northwestern Syria to Aleppo. They did it almost effortlessly. Indeed, as they entered Aleppo and pushed on, they found the regime’s military forces crumbling in front of them. Syrian army degraded inactivity and hollowed out by crime, corruption and the production of amphetamines—captagon– he was simply unable to fight. The gates of Hama, Homs and Damascus were wide open, and HTS led by Abu Mohammed al-Jolani did not hesitate to enter.

The Assad regime’s biggest backers – Iran and Russia – were initially strongly inclined to support their client, as they have done for a decade. For Iran, it is Syria land bridge to what was left of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hezbollah – at least until recently – was the jewel in the crown of foreign policy achievements of the Iranian clerics. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syria was much more but a country that offers maritime and air facilities. Saving Assad has in the past been Putin’s main domestic political talking point about Russia’s supposed return to great power status. Tehran and Moscow were desperate to prop up the regime. But they couldn’t find anything to back it up. All they found, in the words of Percy Bysshe Shelley Ozymandiashe was “boundless and naked. The lonely and flat sand stretches far away.”

No one, except perhaps Assad himself, knew that the regime he had presided over for nearly a quarter of a century, built by his father, was actually “a colossal wreck,” as Shelley put it. On which the regime fell apart criminal cliqueswith Assad’s family and entourage looting what they could from the country they had destroyed, he was widely known. Yet many, myself included, largely assumed that the regime’s appetites for mass murder, torture, rape, starvation, terror, and theft remained strong, and the means to turn those appetites into action remained intact. In the end, however, the sour evil of the criminal family and its instigators dissolved everything.

So what’s next? Jolani, head of HTS, it seems a big winneralthough it is far from clear in the working hours of the post-Assad era exactly what he is commanding. While Jolani claims he has cut off its link with al-Qaeda in 2016, HTS remains a Turkish– i Designated by the US terrorist organization.

The Joe Biden administration appears to be satisfied that the mass murder client Iran and Russia escaped. Still, Washington’s ambivalence toward HTS is understandable. On the one hand, HTS is deeply committed to liquidating the presence and influence in Syria of the Iran-Hezbollah combination, and perhaps Russia. On the other hand, however, its Islamist orientation represents a potential danger for Syria minorities—especially Alawites and Christians—as well as the possibility of Syrian rule falling into the hands of a fundamentalist group that contains foreign fighters and may even still harbor global terrorist sentiments.

These well-founded reservations about HTS mandate close coordination and cooperation between Washington and Ankara, regardless of difficult bilateral differences over the US military’s relationship with the Syrian Defense Forces in Kurdish-dominated northeastern Syria.

Indeed, Turkey sees no advantage in having Syria “ruled” by anyone whose overt sectarianism could send refugees rushing in its direction. Turkey already had this experience thanks to Assad’s campaign mass murder targeting Syrian Sunni Muslims in rebel-held areas. Indeed, Ankara’s support for the current rebel offensive likely has its roots in Assad’s failure to provide guarantees for safe and secure return Syrian refugees from Turkey, the main domestic political priority of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. We hope that Ankara can influence what comes next.

Jolani is public saying about his commitment to minority rights, governing through institutions, and rebuilding Syria after thirteen years of internal war. This is all well and good if it indicates that his conversion from al-Qaeda is complete and that he is truly interested in promoting the Syria he is talking about. However, HTS’s human rights record in northwestern Syria is disastrous. Perhaps Turkey, with Washington’s help, can convince Jolani to take the following steps now that Assad is finished:

1. Offer to form a transitional government of national unity with the current Baathist government of the Syrian Arab Republic, headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi al-Jalali. The priorities of such a government would include the establishment of law and order with justice for all, the release of all political prisoners, ensuring the departure of foreign forces from Syrian territory, ensuring the safe return of Syrian refugees, ensuring the lifting of sanctions and the initiation of reconstruction, and setting the conditions for eventual parliamentary elections and even constitutional reform.
2. Promise that HTS armed forces will not enter Latakia province or any other places where Alawite Syrians live. The Syrian authorities could, if necessary, ask for Turkish help if help is needed, defending civilians against anyone motivated by feelings of revenge.
3. Identify, along with other Syrian opposition elements, senior Syrian military officers who have defected over the years and place them in charge of what remains of the Syrian armed forces. To the maximum extent possible, use the existing units of the Syrian Army under new, decent and professional leadership to ensure security in populated areas. Allow HTS personnel to join the Syrian army and set a deadline of six months to do so or disarm.
4. Make it clear to the people of Syria that the rule of law in the post-Assad era will neither advantage nor disadvantage any sectarian Syrian. Begin work on a new, inclusive Syrian constitution.

The United States should quickly, as soon as security conditions permit, send a special envoy to Syria and reopen the American embassy in Damascus. Direct contact with Jolani is necessary; if suspicion is assigned to him in advance, the possibility of influencing him will be preserved. Sanctions against Assad’s family and entourage should be maintained, and Assad’s transport to The Hague to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity should be pressured by whoever ends up hosting him. All other economic sanctions against Syria should be suspended. The US should provide humanitarian aid and organize a structure to promote the reconstruction of Syria in cooperation with allies and partners. There are reports that regime kings emptied The Central Bank of Syria on its way to the airport in Damascus. If true, the US should help the new Syrian government recover the stolen assets.

Although Turkey could be the most important American interlocutor in the coming days and weeks, Washington should spare no effort to create a united front towards Syria among allies and partners. France will be important in this sense, as will the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to the press reportsAbu Dhabi, before the rebel offensive, tried to trap Washington in a foolhardy scheme to lift US sanctions in exchange for Assad’s promise to stop the flow of arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Now it is the UAE squeezing handles Assad’s departure, warning — perhaps because of Abu Dhabi’s antipathy to Turkey — that something akin to Libya or Afghanistan is very much in Syria’s future — as if the Libyans and Afghans have suffered something similar to what Syrians have suffered for decades under Assad.

Without a doubt, twenty million Syrians now face a future with many challenges and more than a few mistakes. Yet the “devil they knew” was surely the devil. With the disappearance of Assad’s family and entourage, Syria finally has a chance to make that kind of political transition imagined The Geneva Final Communiqué of 2012 and Resolution 2254 of the United Nations Security Council. Now they will have the opportunity, where none existed before, to live, work and prosper in their country of birth instead of seeking refuge and opportunity abroad. After years of persecution by a brutal regime, imperial abuse by Iran and Russia, and betrayal by regional and international actors, Syrians have taken their liberation into their own hands. They deserve the help of the United States and its willingness to listen to them. But the Syrian revolution, regardless of what happens next, has a place there: in the hands of the Syrian people.

Frederic C. Hof is a senior fellow at Bard College’s Center for Civic Engagement. He is the author Reaching for Heights: The Inside Story of the Secret Attempt to Achieve Syrian-Israeli Peace.

Additional reading

Image: A view of personal souvenirs for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in one of the rooms in the presidential palace known as Qasr al-Shaab “People’s Palace”, after rebels captured the capital and ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria December 10, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh